I’m so excited to welcome you to Towwn. If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that I love being outside and have always found comfort in nature. But, perhaps naively, I always assumed nature would be there for me—and my children. My eyes were opened in fall 2019, when I took my two boys on the trip of a lifetime to Nimmo Bay Resort in Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest. We were expecting to have an adventure in a place ripe with wildlife and were excited to see grizzly bears, salmon runs, and orca whales. But what we found was that two of the three salmon runs were extinct due to deforestation, and bears were on the decline too. We only saw six or seven bears when seeing 50 is the norm.

Our escape into nature put me in a jarring, all-too-real confrontation with my direct impact on the environment and the true cost of our modern habits. It was a huge wake-up call. If these animals aren’t there to show my kids, what will it be like in twenty or thirty years when they are parents? 

There’s so much “go” time in our lives. It’s easy to get caught up in the grind and lose sight of what’s important. Out there in the middle of the rainforest, it all felt so clear. Nature never fails to remind me what matters: to live simply, to stay true to myself, and to pursue a life that’s more sustainable—for me, my community, and the planet.

Something clicked inside me in Nimmo Bay, and I haven’t wanted to go back to life as “normal” ever since. And, thanks to the pandemic, normal hasn’t really even been an option. The last year of lockdown forced all of us to reevaluate where we put our energy. Now, more than ever, I want to shift my consciousness to focus more on the things that truly sustain us. To take only what we need. 

To be honest, I’m still figuring out what that looks like. I can be a walking contradiction, and I know it. I care deeply for the environment, and I fly in planes a lot. I love animals, and I wear leather and eat meat. I prefer experiences over things, and I still love fashion. Life isn’t black and white. It’s full of gray, and that’s something I’m still trying to make peace with. No one can be 100 percent green 100 percent of the time. Nor can one person’s lifestyle habits solve the climate crisis. However, I know I can do better. I can ask more questions and live with more intention. 

The path we’re on is unsustainable, for many reasons. We all need something different—which is why I’m so excited to welcome you to Towwn, a community for people looking to rethink the way we live and grow together. We’ll be talking to and learning from experts who are studying sustainability and working to conserve all aspects of people + planet. I truly hope we can use this space to learn from each other and find ways to take only what we need, together. Please join us by following @towwn on Instagram to get all the updates.