I left a better version of myself in a cabin in the forest of Valle de Bravo, mashed with the mushrooms, soaking in lime juice. She moves like a cloud of monarchs through the kitchen, stirring pots of orzo and dull-knifed veggies simmering with lemon slices. Earlier, in a tiny roadside grocer, a new friend helped her pick out a soft white cheese. Now, she crumbles it by the fistful over the largest bowl of pasta she’s ever prepared, an offering. She leans over the bowl, just for the smell. Just for the steam on her cheeks.

Mexico was a ceremony of comfort. Meaning and allowance stitched into the high pitches of laughter fits at a long dinner table. The butterflies we went looking for, just a breath—a pause—in the middle of it all. Mezcal and Mr. Brightside, mortar and pestle, group photos full of arms, cackling and birthday spells, honoring and letting go. A fever to burn out the residue. I’ve been ridding it from my body, cough by cough, ever since.

Car full of eight, we ride through green farmland over bumps and potholes, warm sun on our forearms. Passing shops and smells and working faces. Everyone is so sexy here, I think as I watch a very average looking man kick his head back to blow smoke. Maybe they’re just embodied. Is there a difference?

Each new place reminds me of the other. The way they live, the way they sell, the way they interweave. The one place I never think of when I’m out in the world, is home. Turns out, if you lay them all out next to each other, the United States is the foreign one. Weirdo outcast loser.

To live here is to know people are surviving—and not surviving—literal hell while I breathe, while I whine about a couple days of allergies stacking on top of a lingering cough. The ground that shakes beneath their feet is the same ground I walk to the park, nothing but an ocean in between us. Just water. A glitching, endless expanse of water.

Twice last month, I veered toward the cemetery instead. There, a girl sits in front of a headstone, incense or maybe a cigarette burning a trail in front of her, and I want to cry. It’s all endings now. I need someone to lay with. A soft beginning. We’re all too tired to navigate, but I really don’t know what I’ll do if a few of us can’t resist calcifying.

I take the bus and watch a man hold a woman’s head on his shoulder, fingering her greasy hair while she quietly cries. For a few weeks, I find myself curious about what it might feel like, a specific pair of hands on my ribs, like soft earth. I think of the the playground in Idaho, and the river. The living room in your brother’s house, and wonder if I’ll ever want anyone so urgently, so immediately, again.

I have a strange desire to put all the moments of my life together in a neat montage before I die, you know, like the movies. I feel like sometimes that’s all I’m ever doing, scrapbooking a play-by-play I can’t take with me. I have only ever wanted to live inside an indie film with someone. I remember this every time I hear a Shins song. But some memories rot the longer you keep them. Sticky and brown at the edges, the way I recall myself gets grosser and grosser over time.

I am not ready to start aging, except for when my sister plays with my hair while we watch TV, pointing out my first silver strands as she gently pulls a brush along my scalp. Or when my brother defines the term baddie using my name. Or when I walk into a garden section and my mother is there, in the smell of petunias and dirt, even though she’s not. Or when I remember how my father, nineteen, wished time away, just so his relationship with mom would feel more stable, more real, more permanent.

I’ve been considering taking yoga classes from my old self. Just to see what she knows. Just to move like her again. I go for long walks and feel the heartbreak of trees cut around power lines, and the relief of still being able to stand under them. I watch how even as the evening fades, the sky still peeks baby blue from behind a wall of grey that I would have otherwise assumed was the sky, and I think maybe Portland is actually pretty great. The thought immediately makes me wonder if a change might be coming soon.

I buy a hat that says Cruisn’ for a Bruisn’ in old English text from someone braver than me.1 She writes, too—but she sings the words at full volume in front of gathered crowds. The next week, I pull The Tower card and barely flinch.

I keep forgetting to write about that tree full of birds in the bitter cold at Christmas time. So many tiny bodies gathered like leaves on the bare branches. Shivering featherbulbs, their wings and beaks tucked tight and unmoving, even as we all stopped in the dark to look at them in awe, bobbing in the windchill.

They would have burst into a cloud of flight if it were summertime.

Hi, friend. I have been far away—in every sense of the phrase. But it’s Mother’s Day and I know not much would make mine happier than if I finally hit publish on a post again. My momma just wants to see me create. I’m lucky for it.

I did finish the Artist’s Way at the end of March. Kind of left you hanging, didn’t I? I did, also, get a bit off track before finishing, down with something like the flu for nearly two weeks after my trip to Mexico City. I suppose it was nice to see a major ebb and know I could recover at least a little of the flow. It has felt like I have been passing through some kind of portal for a while now. I’m ebbing again. Aren’t we all? The world is more than rough to witness these days. More than rough to be a part of, to figure our way through. I’m impressed we just keep going. As always, I’m here in it with you.

Thank you for your patience.
Thank you for reading my rambles.
Thank you for being here.

love you.
miss you.

🩵 Chelsea

P.S. Made you a playlist. (duh)

Listen

Even on a day like today. I woke up sad. My brain whisper-shouting at me that I’m back pedaling. I fell asleep to Love Island All-Stars last night and woke up to 30 minutes hunched over my phone in the corner of my kitchen instead of just getting my notebook to write first thing like I’m supposed to. Yesterday I did the same thing except for some reason I also brought all the devices back with me, arm’s length from my morning pages. It was awful. I ended the day emotional and wondered if I’d sabotaged myself.

I was sick last week. My nose was sniffly and my head was a complete fog and my body had had it. In that exhaustion my interest in my morning pages practice faltered but never failed. I felt the sick days coming and I did something I wouldn’t normally do. I made sure I had what I needed. I cooked soup with chicken and lemon and orzo. Stocked up on orange juice. Even bought some little lavender bath bombs. I told my clients I needed time to rest and no one minded. I drank tea and soaked in the tub and tried to sleep long. I was dancing again by Saturday.

The week prior my doctor told me before an acupuncture session how good my bloodwork was. There are years of autoimmune antibody counting and naturopathic obsessing in my past. Not much of it lives in my body anymore, but news like that during a time of relearning how to care for the rest of my being struck a really lovely chord. Later that evening I sat looking out my sweet apartment window and told myself out loud a few times; you’re taking good care of yourself as appreciation tears streamed down my face.

I feel like I’m walking an ever narrowing sidewalk. Back on the uneven cobblestone ledges that line the tiny streets in Florence. Room for just a single person when a car putters by. Alone on the curb, I keep my balance so as not to trip off the side into a deep dark spiral about still being here alone.

My equilibrium has been great lately.

But one kind-faced free drink or flash memory of using a wide-smiled kiss to shut you up and I’m wobbly again. Hand on the wall, fingers crossed the world doesn’t tip. But it does every morning like a carnival ride. Evil cliches and conspiracies-come-true, spewing. I escape into warm water and blue light so my brain might quiet down enough to fall asleep even though I’ve already dosed it with magnesium and Ashwagandha. I close my eyes and hope it feels worth making something in the morning. Or at least worth taking care. Anything but giving in to the pull of screenglow and the oozing black webs rising from the sludge, dripping down our wrists with each ticktickticktick scroll. The interconnectedness is offensive and misplaced.

But as above, so below and all that. Evil mirrors peace. It has nothing else to learn from.

For every software update that throws strange suspicion in my gut, there’s a white haired man in the park wearing a camel colored corduroy newsboy cap. There are flowers pushing through dirt and blooming in the cold February rain. There’s a small girl dressed in pastels sitting on the back of the couch in her picture window, paper hearts taped all along the frame. There is sun winking at me through the trees matched so perfectly to the song in my headphones that I wonder why I would ever need to write again, after living a moment so small and beautiful.

Nothing feels safe and all I can see is our tenderness.

Seven weeks down the sidewalk and it’s as tight as it’s ever been. One foot in front of the other, my eyes blur tired watching my steps without another hand to check me every now and then.

I can’t sleep and suddenly my forehead puzzles soft into your sternum. Lips graze skin and follicle. Your hand, clumsy and rhythmic, brushes my long hair away from my face and down my back. Away from my face and down my back. Away from my face and down my back. As if to say I love you. But it doesn’t matter. I love you. But it doesn’t matter. I love you but it doesn’t matter.

Nothing is really real if you can’t tell what is.
This is going to end up nothing and exactly like you imagined it.

P.S. I have another playlist for you! It runs the gamut, touches dark and light and in-between. Most importantly, it builds to a nice five song dance party at the end. So, skip forward to that if you need to.

dance in the dark with me

I’m doing alright, really. Sticking with the pages. Realizing that artist’s dates are something I pretty naturally give myself without thinking. Working on feeling okay with the lower ebb of the past few weeks and looking forward to flow when it arrives.

How are you doing?

love you. miss you.
🩵 Chelsea

In the last decade or so, I’ve taken to a small mantra of sorts:

feeling over shape

It started in my yoga teaching. It was important to me that no one felt they needed to make a specific or “right” shape with their body in my class. There was no physical expectation of them, only that we were together in trying to find a feeling… alignment, a stretch, openness, effort, ease… or maybe, we were just trying to feel… anything at all. We were there to notice and pay attention.

It’s in the noticing where we gain the knowledge we need to be able to adjust. Find our own shape. The shape that works in that particular moment of your unique experience. In order to get there—to do that—we need to shed expectations, no matter who originally imposed them. If you come in to class with an idea of the shape you “should” end up in, it’s probably going to be harder to find the one that actually works for you that day.

I trust you can probably see how this expanded into a general life philosophy. The molds weren’t made with our individual bodies, hearts, and minds… in mind. It took a long time to realize I don’t want to squeeze myself into one. I’d rather expanse over pre-made boxes. Intuition over anxieties. Love over fear. Feeling over shape. I work really hard to prioritize how I feel living my own life over worrying what my life might look like to anyone else.

It’s an easy thing to forget, though. One of those things you have to re-remember and find your way back to over and over again—so it made me happy to have the reminder in my reading. I hadn’t connected it to the work we were doing in The Artist’s Way when I underlined it, though. Only the resonance.

It feels both ridiculous and pertinent to be doing this work right now—and to be sharing it with you here—as ICE continues to terrorize our country, and journalists are being arrested, and friends are getting tear gassed at peaceful protests down the road.

But everything is starting to swirl. The interconnectedness of our efforts is beginning to show itself, and so hello, I’m still here working through it and checking in with you. I hope I’ll be able to articulate the smear of what I mean as we go.

Week 3 // recovering a sense of power

Morning Pages:

Every morning, first thing. I appreciate this practice even though it feels like a major hurdle sometimes. I made a note in my mind that it seemed I’d been writing a lot about stuff that is outside of my self, which is just that—something to note. Maybe it’s the stuff I need to get up and out of my brain in the morning. Maybe I’m ready for something new and exciting to happen to me directly. Why not both? But, could the new, exciting things be… um… good things? Very much appreciated, thanks.

Artist Date:

I took the bus to a yarn shop I wanted to check out. I miraculously convinced myself to bundle up and go out in the frigid, windy cold by telling myself I could read my book on the way. The fact that was enough motivation makes me proud.

The shop was lovely and all the people there were friendly. A lot of the yarn colors were named after crystals and astrological signs, so they won me over easily. I got a few yarns and some small circular needles I’ll need to learn to make socks. Why this is the thing my little heart desires to knit is beyond me, but I needed the supplies if it’s ever going to happen.

The waxing crescent moon followed me home. God, I love her. I gasp inside every time I notice her trailing me through the branches.

It was nice to realize that these dates don’t have to be extravagant, or even novel. I almost let the weather keep me from making this trip, but I was able to choose my curiosity and artist self and go. That felt really nice.

Tasks:

Oof, this is where I’m slacking, folks. The journal prompt block. The rolly eyes they give me sometimes. (Not to say I’m right. Not to say I don’t need an attitude adjustment. lol) I did some of these, but I’ll admit they were half-assed at best this week.

Observations and occurrences:

• I started working out! Dance Church must have made me feel good enough to motivate me to do two full hour long barre classes this week, along with another Dance Church class.

• I knitted my scarf as far as I could knit it with the yarn I had. Felt like I needed another project while I waited for more scarf yarn to arrive, hence the sock mission!

• I felt anger at the world, and also in protective ways for mistreated loved ones. But I didn’t feel anger or frustration within myself or my process this week. I say this because Julia Cameron thought we might.

• I felt pretty internal this week. I was happy to stay in on quite a few nights, which isn’t super unusual, but it all ebbs and flows.

• I made more frequent small trips to the grocery store, so I cooked for myself more!

• Without my knitting, I felt like I wanted to do something with my hands while watching tv, but I somehow had no desire for it to be scrolling my phone. I even found myself a little bored by the idea of watching something near the end of the week.

• As you already know, MY READING ATTENTION SPAN CAME BACK JUST IN TIME FOR MEDIA DEPRIVATION WEEK LOL. I read before bed often and even took a long bath with my book this week.

• I made a lot of plans for myself for the upcoming media deprivation in week 4. I wrote them out in a list: clean out my closet, organize my art cupboard, build a book shelf, and of course, learn to knit socks.

Week 4 // recovering a sense of integrity
* reading + media deprivation week

Morning Pages:

Every morning. First thing! It feels like an obligation sometimes for sure, but I’m not really letting it be a choice right now. I think the pages are some kind of magic and I want to keep spinning it.

Artist Date:

Two separate people told me about a gallery downtown that was showing an exhibition of works by Louise Bourgeois & Isabelle Albuquerque. I somehow got my sleepy self ready and out of the house on Saturday early enough to go check it out. It was a stunning space. I found out when I was there that it was actually the very last hour that the exhibition was going to be open, so I’m happy I caught it when I did.

After that, the full moon and the crows flying overhead to find their warmer roosts made me do something extra brave, for me anyway. I went to a trendy little place around the corner and enjoyed a solo cocktail and an order of dumplings at the bar without once looking at my phone, writing, or reading anything, because well, the media deprivation of it all (and I didn’t bring my notebook.)

It was actually kind of nice not to have to worry about talking to anyone while I sipped my drink and slowly drizzled chili oil over my dumplings. Being able to sit out in the world by myself in that way felt kind of powerful.

Tasks:

I waited until the tail end of the week, but I was more intentional about taking some time with these. I went to the coffee shop and ordered myself breakfast before our weekly Artist’s Way meeting and worked through many of them. I do still feel resistance to things like letter writing but again, we’re noting that and coming back to it! lol

Observations and occurrences:

• I did not clean a closet, I did not organize a cupboard, I did not successfully learn to knit socks.

• I did cry myself to sleep after a few frustrating hours of trying to learn to knit socks.

• The tears were, obviously, not just about socks. In the absence of distractions like TV, movies, and books, a lot of emotion surfaced. There were a couple of really low days near the beginning of the week.

• I was hard on myself and often felt like I was “cheating” the deprivation somehow, even though I wasn’t scrolling or watching anything or reading (much). Work being on the computer lent to that feeling, but also lead me to get lost in screens in other, personal, organizational ways. It felt like I was rebelling against the hard line authority of the complete media deprivation. I actually felt more balanced and healthy last week.

• I texted a friend I hadn’t talked to in a while and her response was “how did you read my mind?”, which felt like a lovely little synchronicity.

• My connections in general feel aligned lately, whether they are affirmed by some sweet synchronicity (like sharing a birthday with my sister, or seeing someone out in the world by chance for the first time in a long time, or finding out a couple newer friends know each other, too!), or just noticing my nervous system in their presence, it feels like I’m intentionally cultivating some good, wholesome stuff.

• I baked rosemary bread. Some for me, and some for a gathering of friends.

• I kept up my new workout habit for a second week in a row!

• I realized the Madeline Miller quote I underlined last week was exactly what I had to acknowledge and feel through this week.

I expected week 4’s deprivation to be productive. Useful. Kinda easy because I’d already kicked my scrolling habit from my media roster anyway. When it turned out the week was getting away from me and it was none of those things, I was disappointed in myself. I got mean inside my head.

I expected the week to take a very specific shape. The week before I was in it, I thought I already knew how it would feel to be in it. It took a check-in email from our facilitator to make me realize what the deprivation was actually about. Removing distraction does not demand productivity or improvement. It is just another tool to help us notice. We are only 1/3 of the way into this thing. There are still two months to go. We’re unraveling everything so it can come back together, which is funnily enough, the one thing I did manage to do in my quiet time. I put myself to sleep a couple of nights winding yarn balls from the skeins they came in so I can eventually knit with them. Unraveling and detangling so it can come back together… and eventually unravel and come back together yet again.

This process, as personal and pointed and unique as the work is, radiates outward so quickly. It is more about how to take care and tending to a life than I imagined it would be, and so the parallels are easily drawn, aren’t they?

This nation, this world—in all its hateful, capitalist, patriarchal, white supremacist shapes—was molded for most of us to fit into. Predetermined roles to fill. We don’t have to keep these shapes, but it will take some serious unraveling.

In the Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron talks quite a bit about manifesting and trusting the Universe and God will help you if you just believe (yes, the buzz words send cringey shivers down my spine, too). But I see it all in a much more grounded light. I do think there’s something to setting an intention, to speaking things out loud, to letting yourself be somehow known. But I don’t think the synchronicities that follow are as all-powerful, from-on-high as they’re made out to be. Or maybe everything is all-powerful and from-on-high? You decide. In the way that magic and science are the same, I think the synchronicities we begin to notice after we attune to the idea of them are natural, whether neurological or electromagnetic or something else.

Of course if you’re doing the Artist’s Way, you meet people who are also doing it. You wouldn’t have mentioned it to them while you were out if you weren’t. Once you’re aware of or engrossed in a thing, the more you see it out in the world. It’s a well known phenomenon. If you decide you want a job in film, you’re more likely to receive some well-timed help because if you’ve made a decision, you’re also probably talking about it. Now people know what you want. When they realize they have a friend of a friend, or a piece of advice pops back into their head, they reach out. They send it on. I would be remiss not to mention that for any of this to work, privilege needs to be heavily folded in. (RIP Catherine O’Hara.) You’d need to live a life in which you have the time to go out in the world, funds enough to pay for a beverage, and the social ability to strike up a conversation with a stranger. You’d have to have the community who thinks of you when they hear about an opportunity. I think Julia Cameron leaves a lot of people behind in much of this process. It is an immense privilege that I have the time and space to be doing this work and writing to you about it now.

So, of course when it seems the world has crumbled even further into chaos, we see more of the chaos. But also, when we want to help, we see more ways to do that, too. I’ve been noticing small packages laying around lately. In my apartment lobby. At the coffee shop. Sealed plastic pockets that contain a whistle and an instruction booklet on how to organize against ICE, in the moment. I picked one up, but I’m not one to wear a whistle around my neck, so I cut it off the lanyard and hooked the whistle to my keychain—something I will always have with me when I’m out. Now I know to blow in short bursts if I see ICE nearby. I know to blow in long blasts when they’re actively detaining someone and they need a crowd to form. And now, you know, too. Get yourself a whistle. Look for ways to help, but also take care. It starts with you and radiates outward. It always has. Take on the shapes you want to see. We do not have to harden in the ones they poured us into.

I’ll leave you with my most favorite internet thing from the past two weeks. The cast and crew of Hamnet shaking off the grief to Rhianna’s We Found Love is a joy, and also a masterclass in feeling it all fully and then letting it move through. 🩵

I’d love to hear from you if you have thoughts or questions or just want to chat a bit about any of this. Love you. Miss you. All of you. Lots. Thanks so much for being here.

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Week 1 // recovering a sense of safety

Morning Pages:

I was able to do my morning pages fully every day. I found that getting them in as soon as I woke up helped me stay accountable. Sometimes I sat at my desk and sometimes I grabbed my journal and brought it back to bed—however I could make it happen. I had one unexpectedly early meeting, and I still managed to get up to do my pages ahead of it. I did admittedly have to double space my last page that day to make it to my meeting in time, but hey!

I remember writing “I don’t want to talk anymore” as I finished an entry near the end of the week. Ha! Apparently I’d had enough of words for the moment.

Artist Date:

I am blessed to live a 15 minute walk away from a wonderful, independent art supply store, so I took myself there and bought some iridescent watercolors that drew me in, and a brand new paint brush that felt nice in my hand. I went home and used them to decorate my morning pages journal, without any pressure for it to end up looking cool… or “good” in any way. It felt really therapeutic to paint just to paint. It also felt appropriate to mark my journal this way. After the painting session, I afforded myself some guilty pleasures, i.e. a bowl of Annie’s mac and cheese and as many episodes of Girls as I wanted.

Tasks:

I felt resistance here. I don’t love a journal prompt. I just never have. The tasks feel very much like that to me.

This week’s tasks involved “time traveling” to pick out some of our biggest creative “monsters” and “champions”—those who have hindered our creative self worth and those who have fostered it. I had a hard time coming up with monsters that weren’t just, general life monsters. I couldn’t think of anyone that felt specific to just my creative self. I realized through that though, that I don’t think I can separate my creative self from the rest of me. I doubt any of us can, actually. My whole being is creative, and so anyone—or anything—that affects my self worth affects my creativity. An important takeaway, to be sure.

Observations and occurrences:

• A day and a half in, while I was doing the dishes, I wondered if I should already be feeling different. Then I remembered to giggle at myself for thinking it.

• Even so, I did feel… brighter… already at the beginning of the week.

• During the first couple days, I noticed the thoughts pooling into my brain as soon as I woke up, anticipating the pour of Morning Pages, maybe.

• I felt kinder and more open when I was out in the world, and had really warm interactions with artists I really admire at a show in the neighborhood.

• I moved my couch so I had more room to move my body in my apartment. I stretched a tiny bit, but I wish I’d been inspired to do more. Soon, hopefully.

• I felt annoyed and irritated on day 5. (It’s been happening lately, I wonder why? Couldn’t be the general state of our country or anything like that…) I went to acupuncture and I swear I could feel everything more than I usually do. It made me wonder if maybe this process has me feeling more sensitive, more attuned to myself. Peeling off the tape from my blood draw later that evening confirmed it. The raw sting of the world burning a little more clearly on my skin.

• Even though I usually don’t splurge on dessert, I found a mind-blowing slice of cheesecake while out to dinner with a friend.

• I added more of my writing pieces to the google doc called MANUSCRIPT. (eek!) I have over 40 pieces in there, and counting!

• I considered seeing what it would feel like to not drink at all for a while, just out of curiosity and what it might feel like in my body and mind.

• I got frustrated with trying to balance my life with this new practice, though I think that’s actually the whole point. Sometimes it just felt like it would be nice if I could focus more of my time on just… this.

• I ended up offering up a few suggestions and recommendations to a friend that I thought could help with her work offerings and processes… and she offered to hire me to help her with it instead! That moment felt reassuring and reminded me of my value, even though work has also felt like a distraction to this process in other moments.

Week 2 // recovering a sense of identity

Morning Pages:

All 7 days, all three pages each day, babyyyy. I’m remembering more of my dreams as I continue to write down what I remember from them each day. I wrote a page and a half’s worth of dreams down one day! It’s truly been wild to notice the people popping up in my psyche, and I’ve even been able to recall specific phrases from my dreams, and write in response to the phrase and my waking life. I kind of love that.

Artist Date:

I took Friday afternoon to walk around my neighborhood, listen to Angie McMahon in my airpods, and stop in the shops I felt like stopping in—without time constraint. I browsed around a vintage store I usually walk right by, and even tried some things on. I dropped into one of my favorite book store / art gallery combos (yessss we have one of those) and flipped through beautiful books, added some to my to-read list, and stood in front of art by Charlie Salas-Humara, Amy Bay, Anya Roberts-Toney, and Francesca Capone… among others on show in the back room. I met the shop owner’s puppy, Coco, who has a very old, scruffy soul. Then, I dropped into another local, super well curated knick-knack boutique and realized after chatting with the person there that they’re getting the space ready to host regular yoga classes! Movement classes blocks away from my place feels like such a gift. I made plans in my head to stop in and check them out soon.

The following morning could count as a date, too, I think. I went to Dance Church for the first time in months, and I was so glad I did. Moving my body in that space feels so joyful and life giving. On my way home, I let myself grocery shop at the fancy grocery store, and bought things so I could make a couple different homemade meals that I know I love, instead of ordering in. I crafted a *chef’s kiss* beautiful breakfast plate when I got home, if I do say so myself.

Tasks:

I did more of these this week, and also I procrastinated. I thought and wrote through most of them at the end of the week, which I hope to change as I move into next week.

I realized in responding to one of the tasks that a lot of the unlearning we were focused on this week was about autonomy of time, which (who knows why), I actually don’t think I have a problem with. Maybe I should have more of a problem with it, LOL. I believe whole-heartedly that I (we) deserve to spend my (our) time the way I (we) want to.

I think my issue, the one I hope to address in this process, is one of motivation. I’ve done a lot of work around intention and my own “career” so that I do have the freedom I want. Now, I’d like not to squander it, which feels really difficult for me a lot of the time.

Observations and occurrences:

• I definitely drank, ha! Which is okay—it’s such a social norm for me. I went out to a few different shows this week, and I do love to support a local business. I also know I won’t try this not drinking experiment unless I make a definitive decision for myself. Still pondering. Maybe the observation and wondering is enough for now.

• I felt very loving and forgiving this week. (toward those who deserve it, anyway 🦂)

• My parents sent me a box of things I couldn’t fit in my suitcase from my time home over the holidays. They surprised me by including a pack of hard-to-find batteries they knew I was looking for and a grater for my kitchen because I’d mentioned I need to get myself one. I felt very touched by the small gestures, probably more-so than I would have in the past.

• I braided my hair out of my face one day before I went out. I hadn’t done that in years.

• I cried watching two close friends sing a song I know by heart up on stage, but I suppose that’s nothing new.

• Synchronicities seem to be trickling in already. I met someone who is also doing the Artist’s Way while I was out, but they’re 9 weeks in! I also met someone who went to school with my cousin (who may as well be my brother). It felt like a hug from the universe. I love small world magic.

• I added even more of my pieces to the MANUSCRIPT google doc! I now have nearly 80 pieces in there (waiting for me to edit the shit out of and probably nix at least half of them). But still!

• I had this cute exchange with a friend that had enough metaphor in it for me to write it down when I got home:
  
  M: your light’s back on.

  me: yeah, I think they fixed it! The light is back and I’m gonna grow my hair out and feel more romantic. I’m gonna fall in love this year!

  M: under the neon lights…

  me: exactly. ✨

At the end of two weeks, I don’t feel like I have found the direction I’m seeking yet, which I suppose is kind of a requirement for any specific motivation. But I do feel more like a real person in my day to day. I live alone, which has meant that I live with my phone in my hand, addicted to the faux connection and nervous system numbing that Instagram and the like bring to us all. I’ve never been able to kick the habit, not living all by myself anyway, and I’ve been living by myself for a while now. It’s always been a little easier if I have people around… but somehow I’ve done it. It feels like a spell has suddenly broken. I don’t know if it’s the daily pour of words in the morning or what, but I’ve kept Instagram off all of my mobile devices. I check it occasionally on my laptop if I need a piece of information or to check a dm. I barely feel the need to watch a story, and so it hasn’t sucked me back in.

Instead, I’m just a girl now, flitting around her apartment with her whims instead of the glow of her iPhone. I found myself shifting between spaces and activities a little more. Working a while with a glass of water. Taking a TV break with my knitting in hand. Laying on the bed to read a little. Heading back to my desk to finish up tasks. Y’all, I feel like a real person. I feel like I’m tuning back into my human inklings. They’re quiet, and still tainted by the blue light of screens, because of course they are. But I can hear them, and I’m choosing them over the scream of scrolling, and if that’s the only thing I manage to keep from these 12 weeks, I’ll actually be quite happy. For some reason though, I do feel like there’s plenty more where that came from. 🩵

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This ended up longer than I expected! And to think I initially thought I could do this every four weeks. If you read this far, wow, thank you for the interest.

I’d love to hear from you in the comments. How does this compare to your experience? Do you have questions? What came up for you? Is this all just terribly annoying? Julia Cameron says I’m not supposed to care if it is.

Thank you endlessly for being here with me. ‘Til next time.

Love you. Miss you.

My friend picked me up from the airport the other day, at the tail end of the liminal space that is Christmas-to-New-Year’s-and-the-partial-week-after. I didn’t expect to sink into reluctant tears when she asked me how I was. That’s the mark of a safe relationship, though, I suppose.

I have so many expectations for myself and I just want to feel better and I’m really afraid I’m going to get back to my apartment, alone, and decide to numb out to HBO Max instead of doing the things I know I want to do for myself, I cried… something along those lines, anyway.

I feel like I’ve been losing my way in slow motion for years. Solidly on “the other side” of a pandemic that never ended, watching an entire nation feel the benefits of democratic socialism and promptly run in the direction of fascism… I’ve felt my own creative practices and personal ventures slipping from my grasp, slowly fading into a recent past life. Shifted into the timeline just next door, sometimes I can still see it through the glassy veil.

They stitched girl-bossdom and entrepreneurial spirit into our little Millennial hearts, and failed to mention the thread was an alloy of lead and late stage capitalism. Sutures weighing heavier with each step, beating muscle no match for the pull of gravity on dense metal. I imagine you feel it too.

The shredded and pink in me recognizes the shredded and pink in you.

Some of you may know, I have dabbled. I designed and hand-made a small jewelry line, and was a familiar face in the Seattle art market scene for a minute. I taught yoga for over a decade, and even co-founded a retreat business. Always led by the intrigue of a place, be it a city or a country or someone else’s small creative business—I wouldn’t call my career a career—it’s felt more like cutting a path toward freedom with whatever tools I had available or could learn, buying up as much of my own time as possible. But running things on your own is exhausting, and marketing yourself eats away at a soul. They fed us apps and algorithms instead of financial security and ownership. Enshittification slowly bringing into focus a perfect reflection of the American “dream,” now in 3 new Silicon-Valley colorways!

Toss in the unmasking of social media as surveillance and data mining (at best), AI bots sucking up all our work without asking permission, and a new subscription for every single thing that brings us an ounce of joy or distraction that somehow still doesn’t pay the people who created said joy or distraction… and yeah, you could call me disillusioned. I lost any motivation to make a living from my own pursuits and inspirations, mainly because I was having trouble finding any inspiration at all. I couldn’t find the point anymore. And still to this day, on bad days, I blame myself for feeling this way, for being lazy, for not being able to make this work in the way I once imagined it might.

I will say though, that I have recently managed to find a good amount of the freedom and fulfillment I’ve been building toward. All my dabbling and traveling has amounted to some special connections and quite a few skillsets that I put to use in supporting other entrepreneurs in their creative pursuits and dreams. My clients build communities, empower through movement, teach Jungian psychology and myth, and help people find healing in new beginnings. I believe deeply in their visions, and it is a real honor to play a part in lifting them up. I think it has also been healthy for me to have a break from trying to make something all on my own, especially within the confines of surviving in a capitalist world. It feels good to lend my skills, to help, to celebrate the successes of others—and it feels strange to not have anything of my own cooking on the back burner. I’ve had a couple years to reset, and I want to tap back in, make things with my hands, dare to put my words further out there—and I don’t want to worry about how any of it will make money. And I think I’m actually in particularly good spot for it.

But the motivation. The inspiration seeking. I’m out of practice and to be honest, I’ve often needed the pressure of a deadline or paying rent to get me going. Call it a Millennial curse, sure. Tell me I’m not actually a real artist then, and I don’t know, some days I’ll believe you and some days I won’t. But whether or not I know what I want to do next, it does feel like time to do it.

As luck would have it, I stumbled on what’s next a couple months ago, on one of those godforsaken apps. A 12 week Artist’s Way creative cohort that meets (in person!) once a week above one of my favorite bars—and it didn’t even cost a million dollars to participate. I signed up almost immediately, and went to the first meeting this past Sunday. I wrote my first official morning pages this morning. I started the stream of consciousness by writing down what I remembered about my dream…

I was walking with a man I felt like I knew and maybe even loved, his arm playfully around my neck. I remember telling him, Oh, hope, that’s what I don’t have anymore. If you told me right now you wanted to be with me, I wouldn’t believe you.

I wrote on, through observation and feeling and a lot I already can’t recall. (We’re not supposed to go back and read the pages.) But by the time I arrived near the bottom of my last page, I laughed at myself. I’d been writing sentence after sentence for about half the page about what I hope to get out of this process. I just had to move through the vulnerability of having the hope, the fear that comes from caring very deeply about how this life goes.

So it turns out, I never stopped hoping at all.

Day 1 done, friends! I’ll check back in with you soon. Are you interested in hearing more about the experience? I’d love to hear from you, too! Have you ever started The Artist’s Way? Have you ever finished it? I have a feeling I’d struggle to complete it without the group accountability.

Anyway, here goes somethin’.
love you. miss you. 🩵

It was always this time of day, she says from behind the wheel, when we used to pick your dad up from work.

The 4pm sun is bright and low, striping the salty asphalt in front of us, yellow and deep slate through winter trees. Your sister always fell asleep in the back seat then, too, she glances over her shoulder, my sister’s 34-year-old head drifting and bobbing with the road. How it must feel to be a mother, all this time later. Both of us in tow again, en route to meet Dad at home. The film flicker of branch shadows on the road kicking up the dust of simpler memories, before we all learned to be so anxious about everything.

I am afraid to say that maybe I’m not as pretty as I once was. That maybe, looking at old photos, I never really was. That maybe I was just young. I am afraid to say how hurt this year left me. How rejected. I am afraid to even let myself feel it when I’m alone. I choke on the thought that no one will stay unless I keep dancing the way they secretly asked me to. I am afraid to admit there are many days I believe the thought. I never seem to be the vessel people think that I am. A vase that’s shaped different on the inside. Thick walls and wobbly caverns. So, I am afraid to need anyone, even though I do. It often feels dumb to reach out at all. I’m definitely afraid to say that.

We writers tend toward certain words and metaphors over and over again, don’t we? The lot of us love the moon, and fruit, hearts and bellies. Orbs that float through our work like stardust in ether. And then we all have the ones that feel more like “ours,” though they overlap just the same.

I will probably always write of water. Of light and the sky, colors and faces: cheeks, teeth, lips. There’s been a new image this year, too. I’ve found, from time to time, a volume dial gets my point across. Something to tune my life with. Something I have some semblance of control over. Something to crank when life feels good, or important, or fascinating. Something to keep things quiet and low when they’re sliding left, or the external has made it impossible to hear the internal.

Riding shotgun next to Mom, remembering the white blonde of my baby sister’s bangs swaying with sleep… I’d like to turn everything up full blast. My eyes still fixed on the ladder of shadows flashing on the street in front of me. Water rises with the hills, stings the bottom curve of each eye. Memories shudder. Light. Dark. The blurry fade between the two.

One morning in the darkening of October, I moved my old couch to the window. The cotton velvet is the same color as the moss growing on the concrete window sill outside. Perched there, where the crows caw, I wondered why I hadn’t made myself a seat here before now. Looking around, it was admittedly crowded. There is really only one place it makes sense for the bed to be in this old studio apartment, and the new couch placement leaves a very narrow pathway to my dresser. But it feels so good to put on a record and stare into the tree that towers in the courtyard. Sipping coffee, I watch calmly as a spider spindles down like a spy on the wrong side of the glass. Without thought, I take her invisible line between my thumb and forefinger, open the window, and put her outside. She on the moss. Me on my velvet. Planet sisters, if you zoom out, breathing together before I pick up my phone and the sadness and anger and micro aggressions and screams rush in. A few moments to feel into my human-ness, at least for side A.

At the end of the month, lightning cracked purple over a pool full of friends, turquoise rainglow and heart thuds in slow motion. Another friend faded into the dark. The atmospheric river suspended us all in time and white noise, my windows open as winter waited, crouched in the wings. One night, I parted the water curtains of my rain drop hideaway to watch tender men who’d given themselves even more tender stage names, make music and sway together in the red velvet of 11pm. There, old versions of my father wandered in front of the stage while we drank, just one beer too many. I held it all, the way a leaf holds drops of rain, hovering grey sky glinting silver in the beads. The way a ginkgo tree seems to glow brighter after it’s let go of some of its leaves—as if spotlit by its own parts, reflecting itself in the grass.

Just the other evening, I found myself driving (rare) through the snow (even rarer these days) and remembered a story my Dad likes to tell.

A wild winter storm had settled in after a day at the ski (ahem, snowboard) hill, and I was a freshly licensed driver. Months, maybe. We each had a vehicle to get home, so I followed Dad the whole way. There was no way to know we were even on the highway, save for the hometown muscle memory. We might as well have been inside that old screensaver. You know the one. Did you think it was snow falling or space travel? Anyway. Nothing but the streak of snowflakes all around us—except I had the red glow of Dad’s break lights. He always makes me the hero of this tale. I know that’s how he sees it. She wasn’t even phased! So brave, so cool and calm in a stressful situation. But I realized the other day, driving through a much more manageable storm watch, that I had something that day he didn’t. I had him. He did all the worrying for me. All I had to do was trust.

Gathered in a warm home on the second to last day of the year, we ate pizza and sipped bubbly red before singing happy birthday to my Grandma for the ninety-seventh time. As my uncle harmonized in the back, I watched her face as we all stood, her children, fanned out in front of her. Her eyes bright and happiness-crinkled, intentionally taking in each of our individual faces, smiling in acknowledgement of each set of eyes. We told her to make a wish and she paused long enough for everyone to wonder if she was making 97 of them. I figured maybe she was filing away the faces, keeping the moments safe. Once she blew all the candles out, Dad grabbed a couple fistfuls of smoke to throw over his shoulder—you know,

for luck.

[ dial volume up 3 notches ]

I have been avoiding the processing of my keyboard yet again, friends. But I couldn’t imagine not leaving this mess of draft-y words and run-on feelings firmly in 2025. Let’s let the last few months be, and let’s also set them free. I am still here, (we are still here), waiting for a fuller season. Energy clear and without yearning. Softness, a choice—a priority—that is always available.

… and I made you a playlist, of course. This one has felt like a boon of protection and grounding and reassurance. A reminder to be alive, damnit. A reminder that we’re allowed to say never again, even if you never say never. There are so many truths. I hope this helps you tune into yours.

Listen here 🩵

Wishing you and yours a very sparkly new year with room for all your multitudes and contradictions and insecurities and confidences—whether you’re tucked in at home, or dancing warmth and sweat into this long winter night.

love you/miss you. Meet me in 2026.
🩵 Chelsea

I keep coming back to the same moment. It was this time of year in 2016 and I was in Seattle, at my favorite yoga studio, sitting with my favorite teacher after class. I had been preparing all year for a two month trip to India to first, complete my 500-hour yoga teacher training in Goa, and then to take in the country by train and cheap hotel with my then live-in boyfriend. The retail job I relied on knew about (and even supported) the break. I was planning to come back to full-time employment after the journey. But said favorite teacher had recently accepted my application to be a mentor in her teacher training upon my return, and I couldn’t have been more honored, or more excited to learn from her. It would require, however, that I not work retail weekends for a few months. I had voluntarily worked double-weekend days for quite some time, though—and I didn't anticipate that this short-term request would be any kind of last straw. For some corporate reason or another though, it was. Spoiler alert—I didn’t choose the job.

Anyway, I was sitting there with my teacher, filling her in on this new development, and probably a few other things that felt like they were falling away that I can’t even recall anymore. After taking it all in, she looked at me and said,

the universe is making a lot of space for you right now.

I don’t know why it still rings so clear in my mind. The words echo sometimes in dimly lit corners of my life. The idea that even if I hadn't actively chosen the space I needed to grow, that there may be other forces within or around me conspiring to make that space—whether or not I’d realized I needed it just yet.

Maybe that’s when I started sitting still enough to listen when I could feel a decision coming. Throwing tarot and giving my gut room to speak. I am still learning to decipher intuition from outside influence, from expectations, or my own worry… and every once in a while, when I feel things slipping out from under me, I hear her again.

The universe is making a lot of space for you right now.

This eclipse season still managed to surprise me though, with the sheer speed and clarity of the way things we believe to be solid and rooted, can fall away without much warning—quite often in groups and clumps. Dead skin. Sloughed leaves. The creaking of outgrowing.

But I have been here before, when I knew myself less, and I know now that the letting go is necessary for expansion.

I spent all of August waiting for something good to happen. A friend and his Icelandic runes told me that my Lughnasa (or the time between August 1 and September 22) would feel like daybreak, like a sigh of relief, like a new beginning. I cried at the thought, imagining what daybreak might feel like in my own steady, internal world. For god’s sake, the wine bottles I lug into the bathtub are full of refrigerated water. Too cautious or good to feed the numbness alone. Sometimes hope hurts more than it helps, and we all know it.

Waiting, I woke too early to dark that faded slowly pale blue. The unforgiving golden rays that snuck in the sides of my curtains all summer suddenly blameless and lost to another season creeping in. What is it about the sun? All we want is to bathe in it, but then we get there and the light’s in our eyes and we can’t see anything and our skin starts to sting warm and the sweat is overwhelming and sticks shirt to back and all we end up wanting is the green shade of those shadows we all talk about—longcast and low. Baked a little too long in the heat, my ceramic heart doesn’t settle comfortably in anyone’s grip. I held it myself because no one else would, my own mold. And then the world started burning around me. And people started yelling louder for money. And I didn’t want to rush. And I hate speaking over the noise. And everyone else’s anxiety started matching the volume of my whole life,

and I finally looked down to find the dial was in my hand the whole time.

You know that feeling? When you’re young and there are visitors coming to stay with you and they’re getting in late? It’s the color of old fluorescent kitchen light hum and red alarm clock numbers. Pillowhug anticipation. It sounds like night voices after driving all day so as not to wake the house. Faraway murmurs and sighs and laughs you might remember. It’s a realm apart from routine or regular bedtimes, it lives on novelty and spirographs and single lamps, soft in the living room, lighting the shuffle toward beds made of air and the smell of someone else’s laundry.

And you wake up to long mornings and kitchen clinks and patio coffees. You walk out of your apartment into two sets of arms on your way to do something big for yourself. Your sister naps peacefully in your bed while you work. New friends check in at exactly the right time. Your nephew trusts you enough to hold him while you, held by four generations, listen to live white piano music in the family room. You look up, spot a star in the sky, and just happen to witness its strange fade to black. The tail end of its light. You watch your father hold your mother with all the love you’ve ever hoped for as they watch the guests pull away out the window. You spend a moment watching clear water lap on a driftwood stump, imagine it as a majestic prehistoric bird rising up from the depths, caped and wet-feathered. You watch her, moon gliding in the background, silently wipe tears away in the dark on the last night, at least for now. Divine timing in its smallest form, you make it home just as the rain picks up, petrichor wafting through the window screen.

And hey, if you hadn’t noticed, the universe is making a lot of space for you right now.

And doesn’t that feel like dawn?
I can see the light, breaking on the contours of your face.

P.S. Here’s a playlist that’s been getting me through lately. This one is a little unhinged, just in that it’s all over the place, but I think, thoroughly enjoyable nonetheless—and a lovely assist when your self worth is teetering, or the inevitable changespiral is moving too fast.

Full disclosure, and an encouragement to you: I FINALLY QUIT SPOTIFY and it wasn’t so bad, actually. My playlists mean everything to me, and the transfer was painless. I highly encourage diverting your steady streams of cash away from weird AI warlord billionaires and the like. As a single, carless woman, I haven’t touched Amazon in almost a year… and I just got off of Hulu and wish I had done so way sooner. It’s a relief to be free of them, actually—and money, unfortunately, seems to be the only way to send a successful message to the “powers” that be. Anyway, that was my long-winded way of telling you that you can find this playlist here on Tidal as well, and that I’ll likely just be building them over there from now on.

Thank you for being here, for reading, for your hearts, for your minds. I’d love to hear your thoughts or say hello in the comments. 🩵

love you/miss you.

Always,
Chelsea

Maybe that’s all art is. Filling any kind of need with any sort of substance. Turning experience into shared understanding. Solution or beauty, either way, an acknowledgement. Maybe that’s just me chasing meaning again.

The truth is, I am not sleeping well. My body hurts in so many tiny ways. I traipse nostalgia without the yearn this time, like watching reruns. I feel ache as something closer to acceptance. I swear I don’t need to be right, but I’d really like to be understood. I love you most in summer. I love most in summer. I wonder if that’s even true. Every dark beard on the street is yours. I’ve seen you 10 times in the past two days, one that released my stomach into a free fall, the velocity of it filled my eyes. This city hurts and I want to stay forever, a weekend in each neighborhood. Weeks and weeks before returning to the same cobbled streets again.

I’ve never been able to conjure you when I wanted to. These are the moments that make me practical, dismissive of a more divine frequency, or at least my ability to tap into it. Maybe (absolutely) I’m just channeling the wrong guy.

I find myself less interested than I think I have ever been in anything when I consider the direction that most of the world seems to be allowing itself to be pulled—at what also seems to be an exponentially growing pace. It is one of my least favorite feelings, but I say that from the feeling. Potent present. Late stage capitalism is a such a bloodcurdling bore. Asphyxiation by white supremacy is just so over done and it breaks me all the same. I want to turn it all good. Move slower and slower. Make everything by hand. Ice dye all the fabric I own. Do one chore a day. Go on rambling walks. Touch paint and canvas first thing. Smear it with my morning coffee. Never schedule a meeting or check my availability again. There’s just too much becoming to do.

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Some recent transmutations, both witnessed and experienced—from my life to yours, if you’ll have them:

• You can turn anxiety into true elation, however fleeting. All you have to do is run. A playlist helps. Start strong with COBRAH’s BRAND NEW BITCH / Skip ahead to Kill the Lights when you want to sprint/dance it in.

• You can turn a major heartbreak into an entire album of bangers. Madison McFerrin did it. I am only .01% biased because she named it SCORPIO, and only a little bit more because I used to sing her dad’s song, Don’t Worry Be Happy, as a one year old, flipping through magazines page by page, looking for photos of other babies.

• You can turn what feels like a posturing requirement in this capitalist hellscape, (like a website for your entrepreneurial (wow, what a word) pursuits ) into a true and authentic expression of what you have to offer the world. (Because unfortunately not everyone knows you and how wonderful you are yet.) I did it for (matlarimer.com) and (emmavivian.com) most recently. I’d love to work with you, too.

• And maybe my favorite: You can turn sunlight into the color blue. Get into cyanotypes. Make art anywhere. I brought my prepped paper to the river this month. It over-exposed and you can barely make out the shapes now, as it sits here on my desk. But I’m learning, slowly, that so much of this life isn’t about the finished product anyway. Just go where it feels magic, even if it doesn’t last.

  

On a slightly separate, and closing, note: I made this playlist for the oppressively hot, thick air of deep summer. for attracting and not chasing. for taking your time. for transmuting. for humid midnights and magnetism and warm breezes and sheer curtains. for you and me, in this together.

love you/miss you. I hope you’re hanging in there.

The world burns and bellows, creeks and curdles, but my inner atmosphere only pulses—gently—imperceptibly at times, in response. The gash of reality just a prick, a tiny pin stabbed straight into my navel. The ache from it is the same as when I let myself remember I miss you. It takes the shape of a light ring that sometimes forms around the sun, or moon—hovering there—around my center in a complete sphere. A magnetic field of protection, a lens flare of what’s gone on too long, light rays that hiccup and pick back up after a distance, twinkling omens. Escaping like the last of my expectations, a broken string of pearls, beautiful and iridescent as they roll in every direction. I sit quietly and watch. They warble into lost corners and black cracks.

It’s always momentum I want to talk about in stillness.

How every tick of time that washes calm over my body or pushes some small beauty in my face, strikes a chord of letting go in my middle. It doesn’t take much—hot bath water running from the faucet. Sun and shadow on a good wall of paint. Sugar-faced toddlers on scooters chasing a father, long-haired and free on his skateboard. I have been saying goodbye to every lovely moment as it occurs, memorizing the feeling of it. These endless days of being okay, weighted by a paper grocery bag, full in each hand, noticing the light in the trees, stretching the minutes I’m granted to be with it, saying goodbye, saying goodbye, saying goodbye.

On the train, reading a passage about the first draft of humanity,1 I notice the scar on my right-hand knuckle, where I sliced it on a shelf in the back room working a job that now seems never could have been mine. In trying to reach for details about that day, I realize what a haze has settled in. Only the last few years, crisp in their knowing, their authenticity. Clarity and sense of self grow like a fruit on a limb, bobbing and sagging until finally—finger tips graze skin.

I read something else, later, laying in bed, about the concept of weighing pleasurably on someone.2 I’ve learned to step so lightly. I am commended for it. I’d give anything to be dead weight for a while.

Spring passes on dream roads lined with trees that resurrect with blooms in place of leaves. Their shapes easily interchangeable—but the petals, they flutter, they color, they silk—nearly dissolve in the smooth between my thumb and forefinger, and that’s how you can tell.

The feel of it. You need both. The warm thaw of sinking, chilled from the AC, into a hot cloth seat in a sun-baked car. The life sponge of windows down, cool-girl-arm in the wind, Steely Dan Do It Again smirking on the radio. Whoever’s driving knows to spin the volume dial high.

Have you noticed the sky never looks real? It’s too much. I stand in the center of a midnight yard as a storm rolls in, letting thunder play with my hair, goosebump my arms. Lightning occasionally turns everything day, but more often it flash-lines the clouds: lavender, nimbus. Forever sometimes feels longer now than it used to. The idea of loving, more abstract and large, only feeding its length. My entire worldview hinges on the belief that you wouldn’t have said it if you didn’t mean it, somehow. Then again, does anyone ever mean what they say, really?

For now, I hope you ask for what you want
whenever I turn to go. I hope I am always so generous.

I hope to keep learning over and over again to let love
ripen and heavy in the face of it all, fall from our mouths
casual and easy as plums in summer.

(And so it is.)

Hi, hi. Happy Solstice, loves. I’ve been quite quiet around here lately. How are you?

Zoomed in, I’ve been swirling in a strange space of acceptance and presence. Of a work life up-swing. Dreaming about making more art. Tuning into how things feel in my body. Getting over wanting anything that doesn’t obviously want me, too. Trying slowly to adjust and take care without berating myself for not having this figured out by now. For not being more graceful about it all.

Zoomed out, I’m drowning in the witnessing of global atrocities with the rest of you. It’s made it hard to visit the page, to want to process, and especially hard to think about broadcasting any of it.

But words are a part of me, and sharing them with you is one of the things I’ve been meaning to return to. One of the things that still makes me feel like me. So, I’m here. Thank you so much for being here with me. Thank you so much for reading. I hope you’re taking care and giving of yourself the best you can.

love you/miss you,
Chelsea

P.S. I made you another playlist and it’s a good one. Tell me your favorite song after you listen? 🩵

Walking home in half dark twilight, sun sputtering an hour later this month, my boots clop-clock past houses and intersections, scanning shadows and headlights. I notice a round man on a porch, face half lit by golden inside light that shines out from the window next to him. He is wearing large, ear muff headphones and staring through the glass at a woman in an easy chair. She is blanketed, and smoking, nicotine trails swirling under the lamp toward the ceiling. It’s as if they traded places. As if one of them blinked and their nighttime perches switched and I just so happen to be catching the moment right after, when the round man sits, still and sweet, confused as to how he got there. I think of David Lynch. I think of all the animals in the wildfires. I think of entire nations, generations.

I keep walking and see a flower vine I stopped to take a picture of about six months ago, when my hope felt very different. I wonder if that flower, curled and paper now, is the same one I captured fresh and blooming.

I remember you involuntarily these days. As in, I am never thinking about you, until the outside world nudges. It happens in greater frequency lately, but I know enough at this point that the nudges will wane again. You’re one of my moons. Too far away to touch, and likely not worth the trip. No landing pad to speak of.

I do long for my own personal sun, though.

On a return flight, I connect in your city—the one that could have been ours in some other universe. In the white echo, I think to myself that if we still talked, maybe I’d call you. Tell you I was delayed, and maybe we’d have a spontaneous movie night, change my flight to tomorrow. If we still talked maybe I’d tell you about my trip, reminisce on all the mezcals over mezcal. Then again, maybe I’d tell you how big a part you played in my forgetting myself—that I can make an indent, be wanted, be cool.

The 2 am Uber costs nearly as much as all the past week’s rides combined. I’m always glad when anyone but a white man pops up on my screen next to the little car and plate numbers that run circles in my head. My driver speaks another language so gently into his AirPods that his voice is almost imperceptible in the otherwise Tahitian Vanilla and old-beige-leather silence. His words sound like a lullaby, and I wonder who it is he’s reassuring. The coo is the sweetest sound I’ve heard all day. My tired eyes gleam in the reflection next to the city lights outside.

Portland still isn’t home. I watch out the window for a single landmark on the highway that gives me any sense of where I am or if we’re going the right way, but recognition doesn’t come until we’re at my exit. The driver holds in a cough as best he can and a momentary well of affection bulges in my lungs. The speed at which everyone is aging becomes so unavoidable in your thirties.

I deep breath myself up three flights of stairs, backpack and carry-on in tow, and arrive at my door to a missing welcome mat. It’s worth mentioning that said mat has an evil eye on it, so this feels like some kind of mind game, some kind of message, some kind of sign. But the thing about signs is that they’re just like Tarot cards—the meaning only sticks when you’re already feeling it. Divination, as I have used it, is just a way to force honest self reflection. Tarot throws have told me to leave places before.

I walk the halls because I’m sleep deprived and offended, and make it all the way down to Apartment #111. There my mat sits, just where it should if it belonged there, covered in grass. I stand to the right of the door, breathing shallow and slow brained for far too long. I think I hear their TV… you could knock. No, just TAKE it. It’s yours. But it’s from World Market, so what if it isn’t? I get so far as to pick up a corner of the mat, but then set it back down. Stair climb again, lock all my locks, and cry.

Things will feel better when the sun shows up. That’s what they say. My apartment is North-facing, though. The sun doesn’t shine directly in.

Geeeeez. Hi. I’ve been hibernating. Thank you for waiting. Are you okay? I know you’re not. Same, honestly.

As usual, I’m not sure what this is. I didn’t have anything new in my Notes app all January and we *are* supposed to hibernate in Winter, so I gave myself permission to take a minute. These are just recent moments of mine that felt like… something. I would love to hear about any of your recent moments—or what mine made you feel, or think of.

Anyway, love you. MISS you. Talk soon, I hope.

a day of longest night and I feel the same. dragged dark and mud black, face first and caked. look around, the only light is the darkness required to fight the darkness. may I never be so naive as to believe a man when he says — as to cling to my tv and the gospel of propaganda — nah, may I never be that young again, may I never be that old.

as open as you act, you didn’t bend like me. and I find it beautiful. the way I bend. and break. and mend. life is boring without the snap. cold like bell tower air, like your breath hiding in plain sight. how truly I loved you and somehow believed that you never could. that really I didn’t, that really I couldn’t. well none of it is true. well none of that anymore.

I’m not calling you in. sure I might call you, but I want something else to pull close. I want something I don’t have to pull. something with eyes the color of ground, made of calm. something afraid and fearless. dedicated and promised and efforted. something for me because that’s enough, damnit. sad sometimes yes, but if that’s all you see, please to the left, please you’re not looking, please don’t make me scream. because what it is, what I am, is a beauty collector. sifting for it even in the snap — so cold it’s warm.

a twig, please, is all I’m asking.

I’m off to make a meal and celebrate Yule with my witchy sister and some sweet friends. I’m wishing you all the candles and twinkle lights and fireside cuddles you can find on this darkest night.

Thank you for being here.
love you/miss you,
Chelsea

P.S. I made this one a couple years ago, but it still hits, I think:

I need to make something of this place, I say, one palm to sternum, one pressing clay belly. need to promise you something in return for the time I take up here, the space I occupy. but the thing is I keep falling in love with people who need to be in love with everything and everyone in order to survive. none of it is fair. not to them. not to me. I’m sick of knowing the way things will go. tired of gut feelings I wish were anxiety, ending up premonition. I can’t wait for the day I get it wrong. I see now, the parts of me that sting when they’re being mirrored back. leaning into whoever brushes our nerves with the grain. curling up when stretching just reminds us we fell out of the habit. and I don’t blame us, really. apple hearts dangling by ripe stems, gamble of grass or stone below. how we can try to aim. how the wind doesn’t care. and how rocks hurt, but at least you know the scream of it. muffle it in holes already bore into muscle. things must get quieter as ants tunnel deeper. how any part of home rips noise into the calloused walls. lets the ocean roar through them. the ocean — also a jewel, contained by facets made from each of the singular, shimmering, final exhales of every breathing thing that ever passed through this place. this place, where I, on a Friday evening, sit at the end of a bed and watch hands make soft packages from a clothing pile. my heart folded in thirds, smoothed perfect as the top of each stack. and I don’t know, I guess I think that’s enough, in this moment, having laid it all out. all of… this, and whatever past rumblings ushered me here, whatever beckons us forward. it’s enough. it makes enough of this place. let it all move through. again and again. the spiral builds. it’s all there is.

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It appears I’ve been in another season of healing, friends. Within it, I made this playlist for me, but I had you in mind the whole time, too. It has been a balm when things get too quiet, too rushing, too scarred, too much — but also as things calm, start to seem almost acceptable, feel a little closer to enough… a little more mine.

Anyway, how are your hearts out there? I’d love to know.

Until next time.
love you/miss you,

— Chelsea

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In the first one, I am still under the covers. In a sheer bralette, dotted with eggplant hearts. I’d been watching him pack his things into a heavy square backpack. Always moving. Maybe that’s why we were always going on walks. He’d handed me a glass of water refilled from my kitchen sink when he stopped. Walked across the room for the bag and brought it to the end of the bed. Unzipped a disposable camera from a pocket. In the under exposed image, I imagine my hair is a mess but the sun filtering in from the morning window is soft. Forehead wrinkles on full display because I’m looking up at him as I raise the flowered glass to take a sip. I wonder if the water caught the light. If I’m tucked somewhere in a desk drawer. If he should have turned the flash on so he could see my outlines better.

In the second, it is probably 2 am and about two months later. I’d hoisted myself up onto a wooden plank that was rope-tied to an old tree in the middle of an otherwise freshly varnished corporate park outside the renovated train station. In trying to get the swing going, I realize it’s so high off the ground because the ropes are too short. So is my skirt. It moves forward and back in premature, stuttered trips. But it’s also some kind of magic —a fairy trap maybe— and I laugh. Throw my head back into the night, let my feet reach toward the leaves. He takes out his phone. I hope he turned off night-mode. That there’s a little blur. That you can make out my wide smile, and maybe the moon, shining through the scrapes of black branches.

I wonder what temperature it is outside when it feels the same as your body. I know 98.6 is not it. Tonight was a cool neutral. Blue and asphalt and street lit. I feel the air move on my skin. Not a bead of sweat, not a passing shiver. A calm, cricket night. Dark at 8 again. Heaviness threatens. It’s been sitting on me all month actually.

Yesterday I thought I was having a bad day. Relegated to a bus ride, tears brimming in my eyes for no reason, and every reason. The man in front of me was ticking. Weird phrases coming through the faulty seal of my AirPods. He gets up suddenly, asks to be let off the bus here, in between stops. He thinks he’s having a stroke, he says. My stomach knots. Tears brim closer. A woman who knows that the hospital is on the route 12 minutes from here tells him he should stay on the bus. Tells him where to get off, and where to go, what emergency button to press when he gets through the children’s hospital doors. He sits down across from her and cries. Dull panic balloons in my chest. He’s freaking out he says. This has happened once before he says. He is so alone in this and I am so frozen and so grateful for that woman and her kind eyes. She has to get off at the next stop. She tells him she’ll put him in her prayers that night. A few tears break the surface tension. They’re all for him now, so alone in this. I think I should move, sit down next to him, hold his hand, stay on the bus, walk him to the hospital, but I do none of it. I get off at my stop.

The truth is I would do anything for love if someone would just let me. But I can’t seem to work up the feelings for people who want that from me. I want the ones who want me to be free. The thing is, they want to be free, too. 

I don’t know why we can’t be free together. You’d have to ask them.

This is a smashing-together and an expansion-on a few recent notes app jottings. (the usual, as of late.) I wasn’t sure the abstraction, the ramble, the braid of it all worked — but I wrote it out and read it aloud to my Monday morning writing group anyway. (shout out to and her Sustenance community!) Their reactions made me want to hit publish without thinking too hard about it, which feels like exactly the support I need these days. So, published it is for now. Thanks for being here. Thanks for reading. 💙

I sleep anxious and hardly at all after a beautiful quiet man who has shown interest in kissing me before, shows almost none as I thank him for the evening, the ride home. The night passes in fits, until finally I dream of laying down in your arms. I feel my body melt into a rest so complete, I don’t recognize it. Deep in the pandemic, I remember being grateful that at least I was resting. I would lay in my bed scanning shadows and cyan streetglow on the wall, wondering how it was I arrived there, as alone as I felt. But at least I could sleep. Too much input lately. My mind glitches and fades — jagged, angular, white noise. So, I roll memories like a marble in my mouth. Soft click of tooth and glass — all round, smooth, tongue. The way your hand holds a martini glass. Chunk and silver, chipped black and gentle. The way you smell like a Grand Rapids thrift store and summer air through an old car window, and emo lyrics. Wilco always takes me back to white iPod click wheels and wandering around campus wondering about you. A small girl stops me, so excited she wonders straight through my headphones if I like her notebook. Belle stares back at me from the cover in her tiny hands. Oh yes, I loved her, yes, she was my favorite I tell the girl, one ear bud in my hand next to a perked cheek. For some reason I walk away with tears in my eyes and I think this is where the fever finally breaks. Finally time to spill my stewing — hot and steaming over the sidewalk and into the grass because none of it was mine, boiled by weather, doubt inflamed, shoved down and stuck to my fear of not coming off just so. We walked into warm. Into city. Into night, stopping to smell each kind of flower. You asking what they are. Me only answering when I’m sure. Those are hydrangeas I say — my mother, and her mother, and her mother to thank. Sometimes the soil turns them blue. I think the next bed look like hibiscus, but it can’t be the right climate, can it? I don’t know what this is either, but I do know it’s beautiful I say instead.

Another fleeting dream. Just a frame of my bathtub, like it’s on camera — empty and still. A porcelain colored mouse, fuzz and noseshiver, scampers into view and pauses next to the drain. The miniature jumpscare wakes me. I go to check my bathroom. I can’t sleep.

P.S. I made you a moody heavy overripe playlist for the end of a strange hot summer. It has a little attitude. And a little hope.

As some of you know, I decided to pull spring’s deep blue into my art prints this summer. I’m sending one cyanotype print for each summery month (May-August) to my patrons, and these are the first two. If you’re interested in the second set of two, (still in production!) you can subscribe to my monthly prints here, and you’ll receive them sometime in August.

Cyanotypes are a new process for me, but I’ve found myself wondering how I haven’t found my way to them before now — given my love of light and the color blue.

If you’re not familiar, you make a cyanotype by painting a photosensitive solution onto a surface. Then, you expose it to sunlight. Any of the solution that the UV hits turns blue once you run the exposed print under water. So, finding interesting ways to block the light has been a fun, ongoing experiment for me these days.

I created the first two prints using a transparency of my most recent poem, want, white pine needles from my parent’s lake house, and a few water splashes. I love the wash… the unpredictability of creating these images. And I love that the pine looks like neurons, connectivity — I think the imagery matches the electricity of the words in the poem.

get the second set of cyanotypes!

P.S. here are the two pieces of writing I referenced, if you’d like to go back and read them:

I don’t want to fall into a category. I’ve been fighting it for years, from deep under my hunger. Don’t put me neatly into place. I want you to hear me, to reach out and hold on. Worry about losing me. Let me change shape. I want to bring beauty into being together. I want to feel you so full my tears run. My breath pushes past my skin. Is yours. Is theirs. Is ours. I want to keep trying — the same old things and also things that make you double take. I want to be okay with you shaking your head at me. I also want you to beam. I want to live from my softness, let it shield from sharp. Turn it all mud and red. Squish it between our fingers, mold something new and kind. I want to always feel the wind on my face when it has something to tell me. Mist, soaking heart secrets into my pores. I want to roll on waves in the white sun. I don’t want to know the difference between our smiling teeth and the glitter on the water.

Now I’m curious. What do you want?

Spring was deep blue. I mean it in every way you might take the color. Electric and calm, awash and steeled. Profound and sparkling… murky and dark and swirled. I said yes mostly, floated on the surfaces where feeling and tread pulled me. Where you tread into me.

The sun came out. I learned to turn a patch of grey into a swath of sapphire with just its light and my hands. I washed it all out in the sink. The hue only sunk in deeper. Like teeth in a shoulder.

The sun stormed. I walked into heavy night and watched the sky with the whole world. Stood, chin up mouth open as pale white hints danced out from behind the dark. Barely there, I almost had to shake it off, blame my tired eyes for seeing things. Like a love you’re still holding in your chest. 

Nothing worth anything makes itself obvious. I don’t believe that at all, actually.

Come to think of it, I have been holding my palm to my chest a lot lately. The world is so beautiful it hurts, punches holes. It is so ugly and broken it stings, alcohol baths. Maybe I’m trying to lessen the blow. Block the initial impact. Hold it all together. Tamp it down gently with my hand.

The sun set, over and over. Blue hours in fast forward. Did you know certain bodies glow red hot as they drift closer? Torched metals resisting melting point. The navy of night makes it all the brighter. 

Obvious, even.

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I sent a text to a friend the other week that said “I feel like I’ve been living and I like that.” Spring sprung and I was never home, choosing experience over sleep, soaking it all up while it was there, because we all know things get quiet again. If it’s loud and you’re in the mood for loud… yell. You know?

But then of course, things catch up. The bane of our existence and seemingly forever companion (cough, C*vid) got me for the second time. The sun went behind the clouds again. I fell behind, which feels… like right on time these days. But, the seasons are close to turning again and I’m learning a new, magical art process, so here’s what I propose, for you - my lovely Patreon print subscribers…

A cyanotype summer. One for each of the (hopefully) sunny months, May through August. I’ll keep experimenting and send you a couple soon, of course — and by the time fall hits, you’ll have 4, original cyanotype prints. Sound good? I hope so.

Gonna stretch out the deep blue for as long as I can.

P.S. If you’re not already subscribed, sign up *this* month and you’ll get 4 prints for the price of 3, eventually. (I’ll throw in May’s print for free, is what I’m saying, since I’m behind and all.)

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Almost forgot to tell y’all about this one. Inspired by the way water moves around rocks in a river, deep pensive blue tones, and evil eyes. It went out to my Patreon subscribers last month. If you love meaningful snail mail, and you’d like a monthly art print from me… you can sign up here. If you’d just like *this* particular print for your home or altar, it’s up in my shop now. 🌊💙🧿

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More words coming soon! Thank you for being here for it all.

You slide a little closer. Creaky bar patio, lamp lit and sectioned off. Tucked away in a safe corner, he is making things clear. Drawing lines around where his heart has spilled recently. Dried in a sticky puddle in the sun, it gleams in the dark. Your instincts whisper instructions; spray it down, wipe the dust, scrub grime, run it clean. But, god, you’re tired, and you lean back instead.

In the space, he begins speaking flowers. Soft petals of past — unintentional hurts, misunderstandings and their explaining shadows. Blooms, unfolding how he wished they had then. Seeds drop with syllables, hints at the things he should have made known. A stem laid down for each of his overwrought thoughts, and they all match yours. Held, bunched, in his two hands— a bouquet of insecurities, rumination. Just under his heart. 

You feel the air around you tighten, a still wind at your back; lean in. Catch a blossom as it falls from his mouth. Use your lips.

Instead you smile, soft eyed, and let your head rest on the wall. You don’t know him. A few years ago, you might have thought you did.

Later, at home, you fill the tub — float your own flowers on the surface and slip in. Wrapped up in your own arms, you hold the rounds of your breathing shoulders in your palms like you might have held his face.

Romance is so much harder these days, and also oh so much easier. Don’t you think?

Thank you, Nayyirah Waheed, for the inspiration behind the words that came up and out of me in this reflection.

can we speak in flowers.
it will be easier for me to understand.

— other language

Nayyirah Waheed

And, just because I love you… a song that came to mind just before I hit post: