soft resets

this is not a story about pickleball//work in process 60.

The other evening I met my friend Kate to play pickleball. I like pickleball because people play in Levis and bring boomboxes to the court. It seems a little goofy and is easy not to take seriously. I don’t want to take it seriously.

Is this my pickle ball era? Only ironically.

Kate wanted to play on the lower courts where there was more action. The challenge courts. No one wore blue jeans there, and everyone knew every rule.

Kate wore a tennis skirt that swished. I had on an old cotton t-shirt and baggy river shorts.

We made a good team, but we still lost all our games. I didn’t mind. I liked the feeling of my feet on the court, how when I stretched for a forehand my left foot leapt off the ground, like Coco Gauff in the US Open. It reminded me of being a girl, half my childhood spent on tennis courts, and the familiar good ache in my hips and joints afterwards—not pain, but honest effort. It felt good to move like that again, and I had no illusions of grandeur. What a relief.

Kate embraced the challenge courts’ competitive zeal, but I missed the upper courts, where opera singers came after rehearsals and blasted Katy Perry and sang out loud, ironically, while they hit. Our opponents took matters very seriously and looked personally offended when we didn’t know where to stand. “We tap paddles after a game,” one of them informed Kate and me in a bossy, know-it-all tone, after they’d obliterated us.

He was from out of town, “just passing through.” Keep on going, buddy, I thought.

In our last matchup, a woman who was very good and genuinely kind kept saying, “thanks so much” in such a deferential tone when we praised her shots that I jokingly shot Kate the middle finger behind my back.

When we left, Kate said, “I could tell you weren’t having fun,” and I laughed and said truthfully “90 percent of me thought it was funny, and 10 percent was annoyed. And I was 100 percent sure it was going to make a good story.”

Afterwards we went out for a beer and a margarita. Kate and I have been friends for decades, before we had kids, when we rode mountain bikes and raced them all night through the desert. We’ve seen each other through four pregnancies, dozens of wilderness trips, working life, injuries, grief, motherhood, and now midlife. We’ve been there for each other’s highs and lows. That’s what a true friend is: a witness, a mirror, a ballast in rough seas, a truth teller, a cheerleader, and a champion. She knows your best qualities and will generously remind you of them when you’ve forgotten.

We got to talking about life transitions: our kids getting older, our careers shifting, expanding, our partnerships evolving. No longer did the changes feel like seismic shifts, but more like unfoldings or openings. Kate called them “soft resets.” Growing naturally into new versions of ourselves and peeling back layers to see what’s been there, hidden, all along.

It reminded me of one of my favorites sayings: be willing to be surprised. Were I ever to tattoo my life motto on my arm, it would be this. If you get stuck on one story, one way of being, one identity—yours or another’s—you miss out on so many fruitful, curious possibilities and opportunities.

Life is full of seasons, and we’re on the verge of a new one. The other night before dinner, Steve and I took the dogs for a walk. The sun was lower in the sky, the evening light golden; you could see and smell fall in the air. It tasted so fresh, I wanted to bottle it.

After Kate and I said our goodbyes, I couldn’t stop thinking about our conversation. Maybe that’s the beauty of gaining years and wisdom: You finally realize it’s not about blowing up your life but growing into it. I’ve been circling a soft reset for a while now, inching ever closer, and I’m almost ready to say it out loud. When I do, you’ll be the first to know.

Til then, I’ll just be over here in my pickleball era— ironically, of course.

xo katie

ps. love you Kate!

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I’m heading up to Telluride for Mountain Flow Camp as I type this, and I have no doubt that time off the grid at High Camp will give us all exactly what we need. If you missed out on this one, registration for 2026 Flow Camps will be announced next week. Stay tuned!