the fire deep within

The “tropical habitat” deep in my brain is to run far (in the forest and mountain trails, preferably). Humans are made to run. Scientists call it the “endurance pursuit (EP) hypothesis”. (See the Eugene Morin (anthropologist) and Bruce Winterhalder (anthropologist and ecologist) Nature Human Behavior article from May 2024.)

For the past decade, when given time away from work, I have consistently opted for outdoor activities (i.e., running, hiking, camping, backpacking, skiing, dog walking, roaming, etc.), regardless of the weather. (Essentially, REI loves me.) Such time well spent has also diminished my output for all things creative, original, and publishable. So, I’ve made a pact with myself to start a Creative Energy Map that summarizes and categorizes all of my starts, stops, and pivots from the last decade or so of content stored in my journals, field notebooks, and brain.

I consistently encounter the writerly advice: if you know what you’re going to write about, don’t do it; only write about what you don’t know is coming. So, that’s the plan: no plan on knowing what I’m going to write about. This ushers in organic flow and hot impulses to follow.

Let’s see where all of my sporadic randomness goes into a larger work. And as humans, we also look for patterns. So, here’s to pattern-looking, then, the OG AI - the human brain.

Photo from me while in backcountry Idaho near the Snake River. 2025

When Sunday Is Enough

A winter road in the PNW.

I run, no matter the weather. Snow crunches beneath me, and my breath rises in steady clouds that hover in my face. The cold doesn’t deter me; it sharpens. Each mile carves space in my mind, like footprints marking the path forward.

The afternoon arrives slowly, settling like snowfall or deep rain. A hot cup of tea in hand, I watch the world outside shift from day to dusk. Sunday, in all its simple rituals, feels like enough.

All copyright Tricia Louvar. No reproduction of contents without written consent from Tricia Louvar.