Christine Sperber

The deepening. Trust begat over time is one of my unexpected pleasures of aging. As we travel away from any starting point, the widening perspective allows us to view factors once invisible.

When I allow myself to settle into feeling how I experience Sabbatical Sessions, or “SabSesh,” as we call it, the word is joy. All the normal Baja delights and distractions are here — the clarity of the light, the sunsets, the sun and shade, ocean breezes, the whales, the workaday magic, and gathering with like-minded community.

I used to get paid to ride a snowboard. Specifically to ride a snowboard in a halfpipe. This was my job. You can imagine the cocktail party small talk. A halfpipe is a sum of its snowy parts, and exactly as advertised, the shape of half a pipe- a giant U.

At the center of our logo is a heart. A year into MEA we realized that empathy is the core of all our work. Empathy emerges when we recognize ourselves in others. When others are no longer others, when they become us, and become ours.

I was deep in the desert this morning riding bikes with friends; I have been mountain biking poorly for about 30 years now. My head was filled with lessons learned while balanced over two wheels, above rocks and cactus, at the edge of cliffs, out in nature.