Kurt Vonnegut wrote a novel called “Cat’s Cradle,” and in it there’s a prayer about mud.

It starts, “God made mud. God got lonesome. So God said to some of the mud, ‘Sit up!’ And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around. Lucky me, lucky mud.”

Perched in the lounge next to the office Jennie Knoebel and I share, I’m thinking I’m some very lucky mud. And it’s not the first time the passage has thumped around in my chest along with an overfull heart — it’s come to mind many times since I was welcomed aboard the AACA almost two years ago.

The moment Vonnegut’s words hit me hardest, though, was at Marcusen Park on Aug. 23, 2014. I was laying in the grass, leaning into another sort of cat’s cradle: the gossamer web that is Cloud Cult, live and 30 yards away on a clear night. The ArtWorks Festival was in full swing, I had recently signed a contract to become the AACA’s full-time marketing and education coordinator, and I was surrounded by my best friends and hundreds of passionate, kind, and hopeful members of the community. Lucky, lucky mud.

My time with the AACA has come to an end, but I will carry this moment and all those like it in my thumping heart and on to the next adventure–I’ve accepted a position with a company called Trek Travel, and will be guiding folks around the world by bicycle. Maybe you’re wondering why. Cue Vonnegut’s prayer, a few lines later: “What memories for mud to have! What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!” As grateful as I am for my colleagues here at the AACA, and for all of you, it’s time for me to meet other kinds of sitting-up mud.

You may have figured out by now that I like stories. Plenty of the lucky mud moments I’ve had have hit me while seeing, hearing, and reading the stories embedded within the art that passes over our threshold each day. But beyond the stories you see and hear and read, the best and most satisfying story is the one you’re in. And the only way to make it a story you yourself would want to see, or hear, or read, is to live it widely and fully and deeply. For me, that means travel, and bicycles, and the whole wide world.

I hope I’ve done okay here. More than that, I hope you all continue to support the remarkable organization that is the AACA.

Please travel well and safely, even if you’re only crossing the street for a coffee. Look both ways. Look around. Sit up, lucky mud. And thank you for everything.