Bound Lines and Book Spines

By Kristi Cruise October has been quiet. Not the kind of quiet that feels empty—just the kind that doesn’t buzz on the surface. All the humming has been inside, beneath the hood, in closed circles and private spaces. I find myself—and my swirling head of endless ideas—in a state of incubation. I feel deep healing. I sleep hard, dream hard, and have started keeping a journal of every dream, each one more revealing than the last. It’s quite possible I’ve cracked a code for sleep self-therapy. I used to go to bed to reset; now most nights feel like an eight-hour existential therapy session… in the best way. Since my birthday, I haven’t gone silent so much as inward. I’ve been polishing, refining, tending to the ideas already in flight. It’s a different kind of motion—slower, steadier—like the mind sanding down the edges of something that’s finally starting to shine. And I’m tired. But it’s a good tired. The kind that follows deep work. The extrovert in me feels guilty that the labor is i...

  It Just Was (A Birthday Reflection)  A birthday reflection on peace, presence, and the quiet miracle of enoughness By Kristi Cruise Usually, my birthday feels fragile — the kind of day where any tiny thing can send me into tears, and considering how clunky life is, that means tears on my birthday most years.  There’s always been this quiet pressure underneath it all: to feel celebrated, to feel seen, to make the day special without having to plan too much myself and without crying . But this year was different. It wasn’t perfect, obviously. There was a 4-hour stretch of morning chaos where nothing went right, and I was definitely NOT sleeping in. There were last-minute cancellations to my birthday happy hour, mix-ups, and all the usual things that could’ve thrown me. But I didn’t flinch. I felt calm, grounded, and steady — as if all of my healing work from the last 30 years had finally integrated. And best of all, I felt all the birthday love. All day long. I felt al...

 By Kristi Cruise I’ve just returned from three beautiful days in Charlottesville, and I can’t quite explain why, but it feels like something important shifted in me. It wasn’t just the stunning fall weather or the familiar Downtown Mall. It was the people. Friends I hadn’t seen in 5+ years — faces that felt like home the moment I was with them. We picked up as if no time had passed. I felt so loved, so seen, and so deeply grateful. Being back in the place where I spent four formative years as a news anchor reminded me of something: true friendships don’t disappear. They wait. They hold. And they welcome us back in. This trip was more than a reunion. It felt like a rite of passage. I stepped into the past for a moment, carried my present self with me, and left with a new sense of the future. The younger me who once walked those roads would hardly believe the risks I’ve taken, the obstacles I’ve overcome, and the dreams I’ve followed. And yet, surrounded by old friends (and familiar...