You Do Travel Light, Don’t You?

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On Salmon, Firelight, and the Gifts We Don’t Earn

We didn’t set out to be minimalist prophets.
We just wanted to make it to the island before dark.

It was one of those ambitious college camping trips that required a map, a ferry schedule, and just enough recklessness to make it a memory. We biked 35 miles to the end of the peninsula. Hauled our gear onto a boat. Hiked across one island. Boarded another boat. Hiked again. By the time we reached the final island, we were sore, sun-punched, and a little amazed we made it.

Two pup tents. One tiny fire. Endless sky overhead.

We swam in Lake Michigan until our limbs ached. The water was cold enough to snatch your breath—but it felt like a kind of baptism. A salmon swam between my legs. Reflex took over—I tossed it up onto the shore. Tom ended it with a rock. Quick. Clean. Quiet.

We roasted it over coals on a crinkled sheet of foil.

And then something beautiful happened.

He was camping alone—an older man, quiet and watchful. When the scent of roasted salmon drifted across the clearing, he wandered over, cup in hand.

“Got some rice if you want it,” he said.

We did.
It was a holy barter—fish for rice, hunger for kindness.

The wild greens we’d foraged earlier steamed beside the fish, and suddenly—miraculously—our humble campsite felt like a feast.

No recipes. No matching plates. Just fish, rice, greens, and a gratitude we didn’t know how to name yet.

“The feast you didn’t prepare is sometimes the one that changes you.”

As I look back on my life and reflect on what’s worth remembering,
that moment returns—not loudly, but faithfully.
Like something still trying to teach me.

We didn’t plan it.
We didn’t earn it.
We didn’t even say much.

But we received it.

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The next morning, as we packed up to leave, two young women arrived to take our site. They looked around, eyeing our tiny tents and mismatched gear. One of them smiled and said:

“You two do travel light, don’t you?”

We laughed. Shrugged.
But later, we held onto her words like a benediction.

These days, gratitude doesn’t always show up in journal entries or thank-you cards.
(Though those matter.)

Sometimes it’s in the way I hold a moment instead of rushing past it.
In the way I stay instead of escape.
In the way I remember that provision isn’t always packed ahead—
it’s given along the way.

I express gratitude by telling stories like this one.
By lighting candles in the kitchen and doing dishes like a monk.
By handing a student the keys and trusting what I hope is true.
By holding my children close even when the day has frayed my nerves.
By saying, “Thank you,” in ways that don’t need words.

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I wonder—what are you carrying right now that’s weighing you down?

A memory that still stings?
A pressure to do more, be more, prove more?
An old definition of success that no longer fits the shape of your soul?

What would it look like to travel light this week?

To receive something small—grace, joy, rest—as a gift instead of a reward?

What if gratitude wasn’t about what you say,
but how freely you walk,
how gently you hold things,
and how often you stop to notice
the feast you didn’t prepare?

I’ve read others who hold small moments up to the light and find something eternal in the glint.
Writers like JAM, who sketches the strange and whimsical with a tenderness that lingers,
and Sarah Dodd, who wanders with wisdom, naming what aches and what heals.

Their words remind me:

You don’t have to be loud to carry light.

Sometimes you just show up.
And stay.

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