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Hey! Happy new decade to you! If you’re reading this letter, you managed to survive all the way into the 2020s and that is a sweet thing! I mean, try and fathom the lives that have come and past, or have yet to begin across relatively infinite time... And here you and I are, alive on the crest of the wave! I constantly forget, but sometimes deeply remember what an immeasurable gift it is to simply be here. So, congratulations on your continued survival! It’s a very important pillar of living, and you’re doing it very well. I’ve had a wild December. And I want to tell you about it because I suspect I’m onto something. It started with an epic thrust beyond my comfort zone: shooting aerial drone footage for a Hulu documentary episode with no previous experience with drones. Through a most random series of events (and perhaps slight stretches of truth), my friend and real estate photography partner, Cole, convinced a production company that he was the drone videographer they needed. He rented this magnificent, movie quality mega-drone through the mail and upon opening the box the day before the shoot was surprised to find not one, but two controllers (one to fly the drone and one to operate the camera). He’s the certified drone pilot, and the only way forward was for me to shoot the footage. We flew the drone for about twenty minutes that evening. Twelve hours later, with sweat dripping from my armpits and a producer and cameraman overlooking each shoulder, I pretended to be an experienced, professional drone videographer, shooting all this aerial footage of a famous somebody who I’m not allowed to name and an Apache Tribe elder forging in the eastern Arizona desert. To my disbelief, it went incredibly well. They loved the footage, and apparently, will be inviting us out for another gig in the spring. Another wild thing this month: I led one of my favorite bands, Motel Radio, on a 2,800ft scramble up to the top of the “Flatiron” in the Superstition Mountains to watch the sunset over Phoenix. Hands down, it was one of the most random, coolest “How Did I Get Here Moments” I’ve ever experienced. This happened through a chain of unforeseeable, chance events that trace back to WONDER WANDER 2018. A participant in that first gathering by the name of Brooks grew up with a member of the band. A month after WONDER WANDER 2018, I was passing through Austin, TX on my way to a ten-day meditation retreat in Houston and Brooks so kindly let me crash at his place. This “great band that his friend was in” was playing in town that night, but the retreat was to begin the next day. Instead of going to their concert, I wrote a late night letter that night. On the way to the meditation retreat, I looked up “Motel Radio” and was instantly disappointed that I missed the concert. They have this oddly atmospheric, feeling folk-rock sound that struck something in me and they’ve basically been my go-to driving music ever since. Naturally, when they played in Phoenix two weeks ago, I went to the concert. And afterward, approached Ian, Brooks’s friend in the band. They had the next day off and Ian said they were thinking of going on a hike… That’s Ian and I in the photo atop this letter. What I’m trying to illustrate here are eleven words Bill Murray once so simply and brilliantly stated: “I try to be available for life to happen to me.” I suspect that by putting ourselves in the areas of the world we most want to be, life has a greater chance of happening to us in the ways we most want it to happen to us. That by creating connections to, and being around those places, when wonderful, unforeseeable things happen there, we might get to take part in them. That’s the magic of writing about things that matter to me on the web, of these late night letters, of hosting WONDER WANDER 2018, and of starting a photography business — all are ties to things that tremendously move me — and incredible things, things I would never even know to seek, come through those connections. So, my new year’s resolution is to spend more time in the worlds of which I want to be a part, and to move more with the things and people that move me. Because what I find simply seems more curious, fascinating, and all-around better than what I could even know to seek. To act on that resolution, I’d like to invite you to WONDER WANDER 2020! The second edition of that communal gathering two years ago that led to the discovery of one of my favorite bands, going on a hike with them, and dozens of other profound connections, adventures, and moments of life. A five-day gathering of a dozen creative and adventurous souls, WONDER WANDER 2020 will be based out of a big ole’ cabin among the surreal red rock country of southern Utah this time around. It’s on April 24th-28th, 2020 and costs $300 to attend. You can get the full spiel here. I earnestly encourage you to apply, to the gathering of course, but also to apply yourself to all the places in life you’d like to find yourself. Thanks for reading! With love & stoke, Ethan
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