I’ve been lying fallow this summer. This is vastly uncomfortable for me. I feel I should be more productive, more engaged, happier, more joyful, more embodied. It’s my favorite season (I’m a quadruple Leo) — it’s summer! But something strange happens every July when we land here in the Catskills. Sometimes it’s immediate, sometimes it happens after a week or two, but inevitably it happens. Perhaps it’s the dense, heavy, wetness of this place. Perhaps it’s the fact I don’t have much time to myself and my husband works full time until August. Perhaps it’s because I let everything go and struggle to find myself when I don’t have a creative compass.

For weeks I’ve been oscillating between “be grateful for what you have” and “this isn’t what I want.” One part of me says “just be here now” and the other says “take charge and change something.”1 I’m lonely; the community here doesn’t feel like mine and everything is 38 minutes drive away. It’s raining — a lot. My creative energy is almost zero. This feels like an existential panic attack.

If astrocartography is a thing, then it makes sense that I feel this. New York City and upstate are directly on my Saturn line.2 Every time we come for the summer, I collapse into this dark fold of seriousness and listlessness and despair. I try to knock some sense into myself every morning and rise to greet the day as best I can, but it usually feels like I’m wading through molasses. Lately I’ve been longing for the sea, for the sun, for lighthouses and boats and oysters and the wind off the ocean. I’m shifting my sails.

As my mother said on one of my many walks to the cattail rimmed pond, “You can’t change what you love. It’s like the person you marry — you love who you love. You love what you love.”

How to navigate my way out of this? Well, I’m going to make a long list of all the things I’m savoring, even in this muddy, cloudy quagmire.

And — plan a road trip to Maine.

It’s midsummer, and these are the things I am savoring —

• sleeping late while the rain falls quietly

• sourdough with goat cheese and cherry jam

• waterfall swims

• bringing karaoke mics in the car

• cuddles on the couch

• stormy summer afternoons

• petrichor

• the new Kantha quilt3

• duvets with a movie

• letting everything fall away

• iced matcha with whole milk

• beeswax candles in the morning

• the tiny red efts in my daughters hands

• watching Little Women for the 100th time

• reading Like Water For Chocolate for the first time

• farmers market peaches

• fresh apple danishes

• this incense

• planning our road trip to Maine next week (!)

• piles of white cotton pillows on the bed

• packages in the mail

• walks to the pond

• hot chocolate with collagen

• family potlucks

• mushroom truffle pizza

• calling my 75 year old Dad on his birthday

• the lighthouse museum of Maine

• cooking a sirloin for lunch

• smoked trout paté

• cracked pepper

• reading til midnight

• quilts on the lawn

• time to myself

• heirloom yellow tomatoes

• voice notes from a best friend

• the cool breeze

• the green light through the leaves

• unexpected help

• reassuring myself

• remembering it will all be ok

• knowing that the world goes on regardless

• knowing a friend is holding my memoir in her hands

• blackberry cider

• wood fired hot tub soaks

• hours of silence

• warm socks

• fresh paint

• building forts with my kids

• the smell of fresh pine

• trusting myself

POST SCRIPTS

• It’s our first time to Maine next week and I am so excited. There’s something about the energy and lifestyle there that draws me towards it. I grew up in Western Australia and spent a lot of time by the sea: eating butterflied sardines and lobster, gutting ocean-caught fish in the caravan park and watching my Dad shell oysters every Christmas. I learned rudimentary sailing in a tiny boat during high school, while my mum went on week long sailing trips when my sister and I were barely out of diapers. My grandparents and ancestors on my Mum’s side are from Maldon, Essex in England, where the famous sea salt comes from. My grandfather sailed; and arguably all my ancestors came from England by sea to our wild ocean outpost in Australia. The salt is in my bones. I can’t wait to gaze at all a lighthouse and inhale the sea air.

• If you have any tips or places I must visit between Boston and Camden, Maine, let me know! I’m all ears.

We had just completed all twelve weeks of The Artist’s Way when a client stopped me in my tracks with this statement. For months she had been on pilgrimages to Manhattan art stores, writing (and resisting) three stream of consciousness pages every morning, and taking herself on artist dates to sushi lunches and ice skating in Central Park. I know she had been in thousands of healing circles before, hundreds of ceremonies, countless healing rooms.

I haven’t stopped thinking about what she said.

Her words revealed something I think we have all been feeling; there’s only so much wellness we can do, before we start to wonder…. what next?

I’m seeing examples of this here, and here, and here.

Is creativity the next frontier of human potential?

I think we’ve already arrived. We’re intuitively returning to something that has always nourished the human spirit, and I’m delighted to be both out in the field working creatively (I just finished writing a memoir), coaching people through their own creative juggernauts (I coach writers creating large bodies of work), and supporting those who feel they’ve lost their spark with The Artist’s Way (I know you didn’t finish all twelve weeks…!)

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Is this you? —>

You’ve done the cleanses, the plant journeys, the IFS and constellation therapy. You’ve got your Human Design and Gene Keys and astrology memorized. You’ve been on retreat(s) and quit caffeine, gluten, alcohol and pasteurized A1 dairy. You buy the courses online, read the books, do the breathwork and the transformational work. You’ve had all the tests: gut tests, hair tests, blood tests, hormone tests, stool tests, tests from the universe.

And still you don’t feel like yourself.

I’ll tell you why.

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Since arriving last week, I’ve taken naps, cried a lot, walked in the rain along the gravel road, gasped at the beauty of the sunset and my three year old daughter in a patchwork dress, picked wild daisies and raw milk that I drive an hour for, still creamy and alive as I remember it. My family love it here. I don’t know why I struggle.

In California, my world is bright and busy and connected. Here I feel isolated and unmoored. The cold, damp rain seems to seep into my bones and I wonder if summer will ever actually come. I light candles and sit by the wood fire to warm my weary bones, the heat drawing my spirit back to its usual resting place. I grumble over small things and look forward mostly to sleep.

After the push of spring, emerging from winter and building towards this pinnacle moment, I expect to feel like I’m bursting into bloom in all my glory, with tanned shoulders and gleaming white teeth. Instead, I turn deeply inward. I slow down, because my schedule slows down. I freeze, because I don’t know where to turn. I stall, because my wheels are parked.

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Perhaps this is the unraveling that happens naturally after so much building towards July, the come-down after work sprints and graduations, completions and full calendars. Is my body simply adjusting to a pace I’m not familiar with? Am I just deeply tired? Am I allowed to be this much of a mess?

It’s not the summer reset I imagined. It’s not the Pinterest or Instagram illusion we’re all accustomed to. It’s messy and ungraceful and profoundly confronting. There’s a lot of pressure that comes with summer. Maybe some of you feel this odd melancholy, too? Are you in (or in need of) a messy summer reset?

Here are some of the ways I’m inching my toes into this new summer pace, slowly titrating my nervous system and telling my inner child she’s safe to play. We have nowhere to go, nothing to do. It’s okay to let go, try less — and make a mess.

You can find my writing mentorship here. Join The Artist’s Way this fall here. My Airbnbs are here and here. Follow me on Instagram here.

Body in the Sun

As soon as I can get outside in the morning, I put my body in the path of the sun. Eyes in the light, no sunglasses, skin uncovered if it’s not too cold. Ironically, we’re in the mountains of the Catskills so it feels more Heidi in Switzerland than sweltering Italian summer, which means I crave the warmth of the sun on my limbs even more.

Let yourself soak up the vitamin D (= hormonal balance and mood) and that early morning infrared light. Natural daylight entering your eyes is one of the strongest signals to set your circadian clock, triggering your body to release melatonin for sleep approximately 14 hours later. Better sleep, better mood.

Best to do this within 30-60 minutes of waking. Take your favorite drink, your unbrushed hair, and keep your nightdress on (or whip it off, even better.)

• Aim: Within 30 minutes of waking if possible.

• Duration:

  • Bright sunny morning: 5–10 minutes may be enough.

  • Partly cloudy: 10–20 minutes.

  • Overcast: 20–30 minutes, sometimes longer.

• Don’t stare at the sun—just be outside in natural light. You can stack this with a walk or other movement, if that feels good too.

Permission to Postpone

You don’t have to keep creating. Summer can be a pause, just like winter is a pause, and how lucky are we to have these natural annual resets, even if the modern mind retaliates. If you’ve been working on something big (a book, a launch, a brand) and are changing locations a lot, let yourself stretch the timeline. Let the container be more elastic than you think. Inhale your new environment, the new signals, the calling of this place and this time.

Writing doesn’t just happen on the page, it also occurs in the margins of your life. Keep your senses alert and attentive: that’s your work this summer. It will feed your on-the-page writing more than you realize.

“Slow down and enjoy life. It’s not only the scenery you miss by going too fast – you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.” — Eddie Cantor

Growth doesn’t happen by pushing, but by creating the conditions of spaciousness to rise into. Allow yourself this spaciousness, and then trust your intuition about when to take action. Creating from this place is more sustainable than creating from the hustle anyway, and far more satisfying too.

It feels messy, but it’s more you. What’s meant for your boat won’t miss your harbor. Read the book. Lay on a blanket. Pack the picnic.

Novel Adventures

I’m used to running a tight ship at home, keeping everything in line and getting everyone where they need to go, so when I’m on holiday I often have this uncomfortable sense that I’ve forgotten something, or that something is going to fall through the cracks. When I’m ruminating too much, ruffled by something I can’t put my finger on, I know I need to get back into my body, asap.

If you’ve been working a busy job where you have a lot of responsibilities, or are a mother suddenly on vacation and everyone is all together in a small space and you can’t think straight, I find novel adventures to be the quickest ticket towards messy, embodied pleasure and aliveness, the kind we’re all hankering for in summer.

• Swim in a natural body of water

• Explore a new antique store

• Bake something you’ve never made before and then eat it straight from the pan

• Dance/ shake/ move your body in a way that feels a bit unhinged

• Go to a new library and choose a book you haven’t read

• Wear something your inner child loves, just for fun

• Try a new class nearby (yoga, dance, pottery)

• Take a few hours to lay in bed, doing whatever you want

• Visit the garden store and buy a tomato plant (see below)

• Go kayaking

• Hike a new trail and pack a picnic or a thermos for the top

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Three Small Pleasures

Summer is a cacophony of pleasures — but for many, there can be melancholy. Sadness about the end of a chapter; a graduation; a new beginning; the decompression that occurs after what we built in the spring. Summer has always felt a little bittersweet to me. Perhaps it is the transience, the fleeting joys, the sense that it’s achingly brief, the peaches and the salt spray and the fireworks at dusk.

There’s a smorgasbord of things to enjoy, but you might not be ready yet. You’re inching into this season slowly, imperfectly. Can you find three things you find joy in? Can you choose three anchors to carry you through these warm days and poetic nights?

Some ideas:

• Coffee-matcha-tea on the deck/ porch/stoop made just how you like it (on repeat)

• A beloved, worn in t-shirt, dress, or outfit that makes you feel unencumbered and yet cute

• A soundtrack that feels like your kind of summer. Is it New Orleans Jazz? Is it Italian summer cafe? Is it opera?

• A book you’d like to read by the end of summer2 that can accompany you like a friend

• One favorite walk you take solo in nature

• A favorite vase you fill with flowers regularly

• A journal in which you write one precious thing you noticed at the end of every day

• A weekly comfort movie. My favorites include On Golden Pond, Father of the Bride (1 and 2), Little Women (2019) and with the kids, Milo and Otis.

  

Rest:
as beautiful and necessary a task as any.
How else can we remember to breathe?
to think?
to shut out the world?
to not think?
to regain the strength
to take on the world?
to take in the world
with all our senses?
to dream?
― Shellen Lubin

Let me know in the comments what summer feels like to you, and if you’re gently lowering yourself into this body of water (or diving right in!)

However this summer unfolds for you, I hope you find your simple joys and the deep rest you deserve.

x S

Every year at this time I turn inward. This feels counter-intuitive in summer, but I’ve come to learn it’s an important reset, and part of summers’ deep relaxation. They say winter is when we really rest, but summer has always been for me about exhaling, laying in the sun, barefoot lunches with family and swimming in wild waters.

I spend most of my time here lying in bed, walking to the pond, or looking for vintage nightdresses and old VHS classics in the thriftstores. The car doors have barely closed and the suitcases are still on the threshold, but I’ve already taken a catnap upstairs where it’s warm and the windows only close when it rains.

Here’s what I’m looking forward to this month:

The Food:

• drinking raw milk from the nearby farm

• making apricot and peach crumb pie for July 4th

• morning iced matcha on the porch

• s’mores by the fire

• whole family long table dinners

The Rest:

• wearing my new cotton nightdress

• watching On Golden Pond (my annual movie for this season)

• reading new books on the deck

• laying with my husband in the mornings

The Time in Nature

• picking wildflowers on my walks to put in vases

• swimming in the waterfall

• looking for fairies in the forest

• the moss

The Ancient Beauty Practices

• continuing my Renaissance hair care practices (thanks Lacy!)

• scalp massage (I use this tool)

• 2x daily brushing with Mason Pearson brush

• herbal hair rinses (rosemary, rose, tiny bit of ACV and honey)

The Self-Expression:

• karaoke with my nieces and daughter (our summer karaoke playlist here)

• sharing my memoir with a few more trusted readers. One dear friend texted to say she “can’t put it down” and wished she could time-travel back to the ‘90s to watch rom-coms with me and be awkward together. I told her that’s one of the gifts of writing — it lets us travel to places we could never visit alone.

Co-Creating:

• anything at all with my husband, my best co-pilot

• I’m also beginning work with a new mentoring client who’s finally writing the book she’s been carrying around for years. There’s something deeply magical about being invited into that part of someone’s life. I have room for one more writer this season if you’ve been quietly wondering whether it’s time to begin. You can reach me here.

What are you looking forward to this summer?

See you in the soft sun,

x Sophie

I just finished writing a memoir. This is the second draft of a body of work I’ve been cultivating for seven years. I’ve never felt more delighted than when I made these secret rendezvous with the manuscript and dove right in. There was something incredibly private and counter-cultural about building something I couldn’t immediately show anyone, and which took painstaking time to create (and a lot of iced matcha.)

Of course, humans have been making things on long time scales forever. Gaudi began work on the Basílica de la Sagrada Família when he was 33, quickly realizing that the scope of his vision would take much more than his lifetime would allow. “My client is not in a hurry,” he said. He passed away at 73, and today, more than 140 years after the project began, the Sagrada Familia is still being built.

As I worked on my own small chapel, I loved knowing that I was laying down paragraph by paragraph in joyful, focused bursts; that I was building something I could one day enter, and that could also be enjoyed by others. It wasn’t a quick fix by any means, but the cool, sweet river that flowed through my veins when I sat down to do the job was more than enough return for my efforts.

Every hour I stole to work creatively was an hour in which my soul grew new petals. I didn’t need to share it, but of course there came a time when the bud broke open.

The first person I allowed to read it was my husband, who features heavily in the middle part of the book. Admittedly, he had a hard time getting through my early twenties love triangles, but eventually made it to the heroic middle, followed by my dramatic descent.

He came to the section where I’m all but drawn and quartered on the bathroom floor, desperately wrangling with my innermost demons during the darkest days of my infertility journey, and said something that surprised me: “You know, you might want to work on this part.”

“You want people to like you.”

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We’re getting ready to leave for the summer. Every year we head east for several weeks to spend time with my husband’s sister (who lives between the East Village and upstate New York) with the intention of getting all the cousins together and eating a lot of peaches. My brother-in-law and his wife also join the migration from California with their two kids. We’re still surprised when we book at a table at a restaurant and it’s a party of eleven (soon to be twelve if we’re giving the newest 14 month old her own seat.)

It still feels odd to call where we live our home town. I’m not sure why that is. Being a transplant from Australia, whose ancestors emigrated from England only two generations prior, lends to a feeling of being not quite from anywhere. I don’t feel at home in Australia, but I don’t quite feel at home in California. This is one of the things I (and my poor husband) have to battle with every year on rotation: the constant cycle through where are we moving? As if the next place might lend itself to a feeling I’m searching for, but can’t even put words to.

Here’s a taste of the places I’ve had on my list in the last, say, eighteen months:

• British Columbia, Canada — specifically Vancouver island, mainly because of this cookbook, Seven Seasons on Stowel Lake Farm and how my soul aches for a land-tending community in co-habitation, and a Yule log like this.

• Dorset, England — this one I have to give credit to Julius Roberts, because a) his smile makes you want to pull up a chair, any chair and b) the photos of his family English farm covered with frost, along with imagery of the dramatic, breathtaking white cliff coastline (where he catches all manner of wild fish, scallops, mussels, crab) have continually inspired me to lose my mind buy property there. I cried when I read his cookbook. I’m not joking.

• Maine, USA — when I realized my British passport wouldn’t guarantee an easy transition for my husband and children in the UK, I returned my sights back to the US, and realized there is a place where people keep chickens, snow falls in the winter and the coastline is not far… Hey, it might not be England, but it’s NEW ENGLAND! The shingle-covered shacks! The lobster! The old timey feeling! I decided this was the spot, even though my best friend here (from Maine) keeps telling me “you really should visit first,” because I’ve never been.

Alas, I retired all of these ideas, mostly because the idea of starting over again sounds exhausting. This is primarily due to the fact that my husbands’ work relies on proximity to his brother, who is his business partner. If we move, I have to enroll the entire extended family (and grandma) to move too, and pull up the children from the soil with their tender roots.

At the end of the day, I’m still practicing calling Southern California home (I really do like the sea lions) and plotting trips to visit these places for brief IV doses of the magic I seem to be enamored of.

What else am I obsessing over? Here’s a list of what’s been open in my computer tabs, what I’m saving up for in my wish list, what I’m turning my sunflower head towards on these early summer days:

Italian Summer Potluck Party

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Eighteen months ago, I thought I was going to open a Victorian nightgown company. I became obsessed with the idea that women need rest above all else and therefore a nightdress to wear around the clock. What I wanted in my closet was something I could wear to bed, to school drop off, a walk on the beach, the coffee shop, my desk, and then back to bed.

I started sewing prototypes in a little room off my garden at night, listening to audio books on quadruple speed and putting together pdfs of design ideas to send to India.

I dropped the idea because I realized no matter how robust the business became, I would always be wondering when I could get back to the page — to writing — which has always been my resting place. I had a vision of myself on Zooms shoveling lunch from a bowl and problem solving fit issues and I thought no, this is not what I’m meant to be doing. I’m supposed to be telling my story. The dress didn’t fit.

When I was cooking for postpartum, I was similarly driven by the desire to see women supported and therefore rested. I wanted to make sure the people doing arguably the most important job on earth weren’t burning out or snapping at their children, making dinner one handed while they bled through the seams.

It was a noble cause, one I received a lot of admiration and acknowledgement for, which to be honest, made it really hard to stop. (I equated “it’s so important!” to “you’re so important,” but that’s for another Substack.) Then one day while moving frozen soup containers to a storage freezer in my garage, I asked myself: “what the heck am I doing here?”

I quit that business too, because it didn’t fit the uniquely pointed shape of my soul. When would I find something that fit? When would the glove slip on without friction? I went back to writing, dutifully adding thousand upon thousands of words to my manuscript. Speaking what was unspoken, remembering how it was, resting on the page.

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I dropped these public facing offerings but the through line remained and last week I finally discovered what it is.

A week ago on an early morning walk, six words dropped into my mind like a mail delivery and I’ve been enamored by them ever since:

Permission to rest, permission to speak.

I kept rolling these words over in my mouth, storing them in my heart, amazed at the glow they gave off.

How is it possible that six words could encapsulate everything I’ve devoted my life to? How is it possible that six words could embody to everything I want women to feel in the years to come?

During the spaciousness of a camping trip last year (the same January I quit the nightdresses) I decided to begin mentoring women on their innermost voices, the voices that tell them their story isn’t valid, isn’t worthy, isn’t enough. I’ve struggled with this voice like the best of them (my younger sister has been on the cover of Vogue 38 times — try not comparing yourself to that at nineteen!) but I’ve since found a resting place where my power can glow like the moon no matter what the weather.

Since then I’ve coached women who have laid down memoirs, written children’s books and downloaded entire missions to devote their lives to. It’s been deeply fulfilling and exhilarating to watch these brilliant lights pour themselves into the world.

From the rest, came not just my voice — but the voices of others.

The Subconscious of Women

When I think about the subconscious of women, I know we’ve come a long way.1 We have freedoms we weren’t allowed as early as a few decades ago. Thanks to feminism we have shattered glass ceilings and left the mop where it belongs. We know that we’re permitted to do far more than our grandmothers could, but still we second guess ourselves:

Am I allowed to rest without guilt?
Am I allowed to speak without shame?  

It’s no secret that over the ages women have been denied two things — the dignity of rest, and the full power of their voice. From the persecution of witches between the 15th and 18th centuries to the denial of the vote2 it hasn’t felt safe to use our voices. There is a shadow that has been cast from the ages, a caution we may still feel in our DNA.

Am I allowed to share myself fully? 
Am I allowed to slow down? 
Have I earned it? 

These two permissions — to rest and to speak — are not only the epitome of what we’ve been fighting for for centuries, but they are inextricably linked.

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I’m currently enjoying a maelstrom of creative energy as we enter the mid-point of the year. So many plates, so many meals. It must be my favorite thing, because I seem to tilt my…

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― Pamela Slim, Body of Work: Finding the Thread That Ties Your Story Together

Spring is in full glory as we tilt towards summer. The edge of it all. It’s warm enough to wear skirts and shed layers. We planted more strawberries, this time at the feet of the lemon tree and the tomatoes are coming along. Life is full and the children are growing, their shoes now too small, their small hands cradling starfish on the misty shores.

I put the final sentence on my memoir last Sunday. Later that night, I emailed it to the business center to print, and last week, cried in my car on the way to the grocery store realizing I had done it. I had finally let go of the story I’ve been holding for so long.

When a tall man with a blue shirt brought it to the counter from the printer, I was astounded by the thud of the pages, all 246 of them. It’s a lot of pages. I’ve never written a book this long. It’s been seven years since I decided I would write a book; eighteen months since I began the second draft, and three days, several hours at the print shop. And now it’s here.

It’s a strange feeling, really. An uncomfortable fullness. Like a wave before crashing, or the sun before it rises. To hold the story without sharing it is a unique kind of discomfort. And so we begin the next phase of this process — handing my heart to the world (or at least to some trusted first readers!)

I haven’t known what to say this week, or how to frame it. So I’ve been tending to my inner landscape with gentleness and care. It feels like a birth, with a genuinely disorienting sense of both joy and grief — the loss that comes with movement, the satisfaction that comes with completion. Both of them real, both of them important.

Here are a few ways I’ve been celebrating and integrating this big step in the creative birthing process. You can use these tools whenever a big shift or change happens in your field, and whenever you give birth to anything — a child, a book, a home, a new direction.

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You can find my Airbnbs here and here. Follow me on Instagram here. Learn about working with me here.

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There are two unlikely forces that drive my creativity — death, and motherhood. Most people would say these two things are antagonistic to crea…

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When I was in my early twenties I kept collage journals. Spiral bound, hard cover, they housed my visions fo…

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I’m heading out on a two day trip with my bookclub1 this weekend. We couldn’t be more excited. It has been a…

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One of the greatest levers I’ve found on my path to a more creative life is the permission …

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This time last year I was planning on starting a nightgown company. I had been telling myself that writing would never pay the bills and that I needed a scaleable online business in order to be “successful.” I was about to send my final designs to a manufacturer in India when a small voice inside said —

“You know when you’re sitting in front of a spreadsheet, all you’re going be asking is when can I get back to the page?”

Dammit. That voice was never wrong.

I knew that if I took this fork in the road I’d be on zoom calls during my precious few work hours, problem solving distribution chains and profit margins, swing tags and fit issues. Wait, why was I doing this?

Why was I moving towards something I thought I should do, when the one ton magnet inside of me would always pull me elsewhere? All I longed to do was sit before a blank page and take adventures that left me breathless. Sure, it might require pushing into some new comfort zones, but this was what I’d always wanted to be doing.

Why fight myself every single day?

Some other things I’d been telling myself about capital W Work:

"I like writing too much. It’s too enjoyable, too satisfying for me. Surely that isn’t Work.”

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I just spent four evenings cooking for a women’s retreat. I chopped herbs and grated lemon, drizzled garlic confit and drove home from the farmers markets every morning with my baskets full and the lilacs overflowing.

I built a triple layer Victoria sponge, filled it with whipped cream, creme patisserie and macerated strawberries. I washed dishes and slipped quietly out the back door while guests cooed over the plates of food I had set before them on the table.

While I’m a writer at heart — I certainly prefer tucking myself away in a dimly lit room with blankets and a blank page — there’s something about cooking and food styling that gets me where I live. I love the menu planning, the markets, the colors and the smells.

It reminds me of this concept from Emma Gannon, that we can be multi-hyphenate (especially my manifesting generator friends, raise your hand, hi) and do many different things. Often they overlap in really interesting ways.

For example, there’s a lot that writing and food styling have in common: attention to detail; a focus on sense memories; a love of color, texture, and form; along with a sense of storytelling and feeding people (one with words and one with meals.)

Since wrapping on Tuesday I’ve been going to bed early and taking it slow, integrating from all the Taurean sumptuousness and the buzzing of spring. I’m craving rest, regulation, and writing, because I notice in my body how much snappier I become when I don’t write.

I’m also craving the noticeably different pace and structure of a world that isn’t run by AI and robots. My commute to and from the retreat was thirty minutes each way so I got to listen to a lot of podcasts about the world that is coming, and it made me center more wholeheartedly on the world I know is never leaving.

No, I don’t want my own personal robot. I want to make things with my hands and give children hugs, I want the satisfaction that comes from meaningful work, the work we have done for hundreds of thousands of years.

In an ode to a world that is emerging from spring here in the northern hemisphere, these are the things I am currently coveting:

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My son was not yet one. We lived in a house with pale wood floors and fruit trees not far from an electric plant in Los Angeles. I wasn’t sure who I was any more. We’d moved from the east coast to the west coast, from a house on a wide river where I’d watch ice float slowly in winter and green leaves take their first steps in spring.

I thought I knew myself then. I’d been a prolific writer published in all my favorite magazines and had a job I was good at. Now I was confused and disoriented. I washed things, cooked things, mopped things, and slept.

Occasionally, my artist self would leap up from the embroidered bag I’d shut her in and shout loudly. She would demand my attention, my time, my acknowledgement. I’d pretend she didn’t matter anymore, because I had important things to do: washing and cooking and mopping and sleeping.

I didn’t trust her, and she knew that, so we wilted.

My mother-self clucked that she was too unwieldy, too flighty, she had no regard for schedules or routines; if I gave her a minute she would take all my hours. I couldn’t do that, no. There was a clock and we should follow it.

My artist self was indignant, turned up her nose and her chin and wouldn’t look me in the eye. She was incensed that I would leave her outside on the doorstep where the recycling went. She thought mother-self was boring and uninteresting so she vanished on exotic trips I would never be invited to.

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“The very feel of her hand, even through its glove, was reassuring; it was the sort of hand, he thought, that children would like to hold in the dark.” ― Elizabeth von Arnim, The Enchanted April

I feel like I’m …

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The year before we conceived her, Freya she came to me in a dream and told me what her name was. In Norse mythology, Freya (or Freyja in Old Norse) is one of the most beloved and complex goddesses in the canon. She embodies love, beauty, fertility, magic, desire, and war 2— a striking combination of softness and power.

For those who are new here, we had an epic journey to conceive Freya, and almost gave up. That she is here at all is a miracle, and one I will never stop celebrating.

Freya embodies the full spectrum of womanhood — love, sensuality, grief, magic, courage, and sovereignty.

Not a gentle goddess alone, but a wild, luminous one.

Her name also directly translates to Lady or Noble Woman, so tomorrow we will celebrate with a Victorian tea party serving a very classic English high-tea to her nearest and dearest, including scones with strawberry jam and cream, fairy cakes, possibly a Victoria sponge, cucumber, ham and cheese finger sandwiches and spiced tea.

All very ladylike (but of course there will be karaoke.)

The Illusion of Balance

Someone asked me recently how I make time for it all, and I realized it’s less about balance, and more about everything feeding everything else.

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Full disclosure: I am writing this from the kitchen table, the one with the pen carvings and stab marks and burn scars. I have lunch going cold beside me and a huge pile of unfolded dishtowels and rags at the head, ready to be put away. Am I going to fold them? No. I am going to sit here and write for the 40 minutes I have before I pick up my three year old, after which I will be swallowed into a vortex of playing taxi, playground chaperone, homeschool teacher (for my eleven year old), home organizer and private chef. Claim. Your. Time.

I picked up my son from school on Monday along with two of his friends from the neighborhood. Jules sat in the front seat with his corduroy pants and signature bucket hat, wearing rings he had made and the finger knitting he works on in the field with friends.

He lit up saying he’d shared an idea with his mentor about moving an old piano from the design room to the art room. “We could paint it,” he said, “and then I can play piano in the art room, because that’s where I want to be.”

From the backseat his friend mumbled “so you can be a show-off.”

“What?” said Jules, to which his friend added, "I’m joking.” Jules turned to the back seat, “No, what did you say?” His friend was brave enough to say it again: “I said so you can be a show-off, but I’m just kidding.”

I said to this boy, be careful.

I told him just because someone is good at something and wants to share it with the world, it doesn’t mean they are a show off.

If someone has a gift you don’t have, it’s critical — life saving even — to encourage and support that person, even if it makes you feel uncomfortable about yourself.

I focused on the road ahead of me and reassured Jules in my passenger seat. This exchange made me feel like I was defending my son from a swarm of bees.

Later that night, I kept checking in with my son and I told him —

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We just returned from five days at our house in the mountains. It never ceases to amaze me how we decide on a whim to leave, to pack the house and the kids (and the contents of …

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