This is (Trav) Us
Meet our new staff person, Travis Helms.
From whence have you come?
I was born in 1983 in Houston, Texas, in the forepangs of Hurricane Alicia—to a mom who taught me the wisdom of a smile and the transcendence of The Beatles, and a father who gifted me with a tenacious delight in open spaces and long runs. After moves to Atlanta and California in adolescence, to Madagascar with the Peace Corps, and one old England and two New England towns for college and grad school, I come most recently from Austin, Texas — and ultimately, like all of us, from stardust.
What's saving you these days?
As a lover of language, I've always delighted in considering how if you trace the word salvation to its root, you get the Latin word salvus, which means "health," as in "salve." What's saving and salving me these days is invigorating dips in spring-fed pools, walks beneath the full-foliage Pecan and Oak trees with my wife, Gracie, the smile that blossoms on our daughter Helen's face when light leaks into her nursery each morning, the new Red Hot Chili Peppers album, and easily above all, the thought of living at altitude as Jacksonites.
What are you longing for?
One of the poets I love most, Natalie Diaz, describes how indigenous wisdom always involves a storied awareness of our connection to the land. I long for a deeper sense of this connection, and for more space for all of us collectively to attend to one another's stories. I long for deeper passion and compassion, good work and good play, a book of poems, a few trout from the Snake, to see my daughter Helen learn to ski, and to live more fully into our family mantra, "let's go see."
