001 Why this Journal Begins With a Postcard

This journal begins with a postcard because that is how this entire project began.

Not with a grand plan or a finished book, but with a small, physical object you could hold. Something that could sit on a desk, slip into a pocket, or be picked up in a quiet moment and read without a screen between you and the words.

A postcard is simple. It does not demand your attention. It waits.

That is what Running is a Gift has always been trying to create. A slower way of noticing. A way to mark moments without turning them into content or performance.

Living with Ataxia has changed the way I experience time and movement. Running is no longer about chasing something ahead of me. It is about being present with where I am. Writing became a way of holding that same presence. Not long essays or instructions, but small pieces of thought that could be returned to.

The postcards came before the book. They were the first place where words and images began to live together. They were never meant to be loud. They were meant to be touched.

This journal is an extension of that same idea.

It is not here to keep up with anything. It is not here to produce. It is here to collect small moments from the work behind Running is a Gift. Reflections, fragments, notes, and things that do not fit anywhere else.

Some of what appears here will end up in books. Some will never leave this space. That is the point.

A postcard does not need to become anything else to be enough.

Neither does a thought.