Sara Smithson / Cross Country Counseling

12/18/2025

This sunset was gorgeous, but also a sufferfest of bugs.

Hi, it's the time of year when I poke my head out of work and wilderness and remember that I have this page and should maybe make stuff and post it.

As 2025 winds down, I hope that whatever you're bearing this year is balanced by some beauty.

11/09/2024

"Revolution is not a one-time event. It is becoming always vigilant for the smallest opportunity to make a genuine change in established, outgrown responses..." -Audre Lorde (1982)

01/02/2024

Sometimes my brain likes to sit and over-ponder. But when I allow my body to keep moving, my head has to follow...quite literally.

This door is in an entirely unexpected spot along a little trail in Acadia National Park. Welcome to a new year!

12/07/2023

I have a backlog of pretty photos and a shortage of aphorisms. A foggy sequoia grove in snow is the sort of heavy quiet that swallows all sound anyhow. I hope this winter finds you well.

12/20/2022

10/26/2022

Hope is heavy, but things with mass maintain momentum. (And sometimes you find an inexplicably balanced boulder in an off-trail alpine basin.)

09/29/2021

Genuine confidence is:
49% trust in your capabilities
51% trust in your resilience

Learning without missteps is just luck.

03/17/2021

No two people can stand in the same place at the same time. Your point of view is not just important—it’s irreplaceable.

01/20/2021

I’m working from the desert this week, where the Joshua trees are relatively fast-growing plants at around 1.5 inches per year. It’s tempting to measure success by forward movement, but it’s our network of roots that let us face the directions we want to head.

01/02/2021

There’s still a lot of this decade left—happy new year’s day.

12/31/2020

Welcome to my online counseling business page! What do you wish you could find here?

1. Alternatives to losing your mind: grab bag of everything else below

2. Advice column for the problems of inanimate objects

3. Calming photos of nature stuff

4. Mental health haiku

5. Yet more memes

6. Weird ways to exercise perspective

7. Things I like that you should also

8. Profound quotes borrowed from other people

9. Other: list your brilliant suggestions in the comments