During my last week in Cape Town I woke up on a sunny morning and drove to the southern most tip of South Africa. The winds were wild and intense. The landscape became more barren and beautiful. As we neared Cape of Good Hope, we drove along a turquoise coastline and stumbled upon a group of windswept ostriches by the sea. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in a long time… I can’t quite explain it, except that the moment expanded the boundaries of how I understand natural beauty. There was a raw elegance to it that was strikingly beautiful and immensely energizing.

In reflecting back to the weeks leading up to my trip, I was pretty exhausted. A year of living in uncertainty had taught me a tremendous amount, but I was ready to change modalities. I arrived in South Africa with a long backlog of ideas waiting to explode, but instead of attempting to churn through them, I rested. I did nothing. I explored. I wandered aimlessly through markets, met new people, read fiction in cafes, went on walks, painted flowers in Kirstenbosch Gardens, took naps, visited cheetahs, drank tea, watched the ocean and had long conversations with an old friend. I allowed myself to slip into a cycle of restoration and positive flow.

On my last day there, I woke up early and boarded a ferry to visit Robben Island. I felt refreshed and had absolutely no regrets of having come to South Africa. In fact, I now understood why it had felt so important that I go – I needed to remember how to fall in love with life. And I did. I showed up without expectations. I engaged with life and saw the world from a fresh perspective. I woke up each day with an openness, curiosity and appreciation. And in that moment, as I sat on the ferry daydreaming about windswept ostriches by the sea, I understood that creativity and falling in love with life are often one and the same.

I do believe that we’re inherently born creative and therefore already know how to fall in love with life. In fact, I think it’s something that can come quite naturally – if we allow ourselves to slip into that state of being. It’s an exploratory mode that requires a less forceful and more active presence and awareness of the world around us. It’s seeing possibility in life’s potential. It’s acknowledging others as noble beings capable of great things. It’s allowing our world to be both large and small. It’s a necessary part of my being. It’s a simple matter of reconnecting with the immense gratitude I have for this amazing, incredible life and the precious time that we have to live it.