22-24 *never again*

dream catcher,
body snatcher,
a girl you once called heaven

once at her chest or on her breast,
now above her bed, in part serious, part in jest
you might want to go find another conquest

body snatcher
dream catcher
a girl you once called heaven

lain to rest
22-24
closing the door
on being a vessel: it was such a bore
not really sure what I did that for
above my bed now… a reminder, 
all mine and all yours

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We went to the Charleston Brandy Melville and had a ball. I got outfits of camo and pink and hers red with a graphic tee that read “US Hardcore Punk.” The College of Charleston girls are shopping for rush. A girl in a tiara comes up to me and says “oh my god I love your bag… omg wait its?? DIOR??” I say “Yeah it’s Galliano era, my friend got it for me, you can find them online.” She says “Oh my god, I love your necklace you are so cool" and walks off. I’m obsessed with her, I tell Aliya it was nice to connect with the youth. I hope tiara girl knows that I am 6 years her senior and that swag is earned like a badge of honor. She will get there.

Our flight was delayed so we pushed it out a day. We are back at the beach at sunset again. I’m wearing lace biker shorts with camo waffle knit booty shorts over them, a pink bralette and a pink tee with a hood. I feel like my 6 year old self again at the place I grew up and love so dearly. Aliya wears red booty shorts and her hardcore US punk shirt. We walk past the women in Lilly dresses and men in polos and golf clubs and float onto the beach. The clouds are pink and the sky is a soft cotton candy color. The moon is out and half full and the sun is sinking beneath a large cloud that has grown up from the horizon line. Unlike other days there is no red sphere that is the setting sun, the cloud blocks the harsh rays and everything is soft and we are smiling.

We march past a golf caddy on our way out to the grassy path between the driving range and the green where 2 blonde kids are putting aggressively towards the sidewalk. The caddy says “good evening ladies” and we say something back I can’t remember, we giggle as we walk by because we know he’s checking out our asses in our brand new Brandy Melville shorts. On our way to the beach path, one of the blonde kids sets up a ball on a tee and aims his putter at us, we say “woah buddy” as we walk on by. He hits a ball after we pass.

Out on the muddy sand, the low tide’s peak is at 9:32pm tonight according to tide-forecast.com. Giving us plenty of time after the sunset to make our way back before the tidepools get too deep. It’s time for shell hunting and picture taking and feeling the sand sink beneath our feet.

We walk along the tide pools. Collecting fossilized shells, oyster shells, and picking up the trash from the beach. I find a zyn cap, of the flavor black cherry, thinking we’ve gone too far. The birds don’t zyn and they hang out on the same platform of sand that the waves lightly wash over when the tide is lower. I find a bit of twisted blue rope and some shells with perfectly sized holes for a necklace. I show them to her - we discuss their proposed weight in silver, excited about the findings.

The sun behind the clouds makes for perfect picture taking. Who would we be if we didn’t commemorate the experience with a photo in our new Brandy Melville on my old beach. I stick my leg up and flap around like a bird for the camera. Thinking to myself, if I wasn’t a cat then I would be a bird. Picture time for Aliya, she spins around with her Vivienne Westwood tote. Wild and free. Wild and free. Wild and free.

The sun is set now and we head back along the ocean’s edge. The birds are annoyed that we have been there 3 nights in a row. The golfers and country club goers never come out far enough on the beach to bother them. They fly by cawing at us, but they keep landing in front of our path, so they get annoyed at us again and again. The birds with orange beaks like us the least, the brown seagulls don’t seem to mind.

Along the ocean’s edge we find a sand dollar. The walk along the beach couldn’t finish without finding at least one. In August, the waves are harsher, the dollars I’ve found have uneven edges that have softened due to the tumbling waves. They look like a toddler drew them. Aliya saw it first but she lets me have it, I snatch it up and we walk back towards the dunes. Back through the tidepools, trudging through the mud, dogging the crabs that are coming out for dinner, and back through the dunes, and up the grassy path, back onto the sidewalk in between the putting green and the driving range.

We march up all sandy and walk onto the patio towards the car. We see all of the golf clubs and behind them, a bunch of men. Out here on a “golf trip.” We pause, deer in headlights. And say, “Oh okay,” they look up at us. Them and their golf clubs are blocking our exit. We scurry down the patio in front of the main entrance and run down past a family to the parking lot. Cackling, “We’re the Lucia and Mia of the Ocean Course Country Club.” At the car, we pour bottled water on our feet as the country clubbers walk to their cars. I pull off my pink Brandy Melville top and camo shorts to change into pink Brandy Melville shorts and a camo top over a thrifted slip dress. Aliya throws on a grey Brandy Dress. I throw on my kitten heels and she, her Frye boots and we march back into the Country club for our classic order: a burger and a dirty vodka martini. Seated behind us is a group of golfers on a “golf trip,” there are 10 of them all at one table. We talk about them. Deciding it’s a kind of scary vibe, but that Southern men are ultimately less scary than Northern men. One of them is really hot, the rest all blend together in a sea of skinny stripe polos and beige shorts. Seated next to them, we can feel the tension, but thank God they get up and leave before our food comes. The men stare here, but they never say all that much.

We couldn’t finish our martinis they have a heavy hand here. We head on back home listening to A$AP Forever, Fashion Killa, and finally, White Mustang.

Thank you guys for reading! This one was a bit silly. See images below:

This year I took a breather. The anniversary never felt much heavier to me than any other day until year 4, and then especially on year 5, and on year 6 I had a hand to hold, a burger to eat, and a clear mind about it for the first time since it happened. This year was different, maybe it’s because I knew myself well enough to schedule in a break, maybe it’s because it hit me harder in July, and in June at the Jetty where I left a piece of us there.

I don’t talk about him, because I used to want to but there’s not much else to say and no one will ever understand who he was to me. This year, I sat at the dinner table on the anniversary listening to my family squabble about stupid things and I had to quell the rage bubbling up inside. No one knows how it breaks me. And it’s not fair. My feelings aren’t fair. It’s not fair to look at someone you know and wish they were dead instead of your favorite person in the world. It’s not fair. It’s not kind. It’s not nice. But, it’s how I feel. It’s how I feel a lot of the time. It’s been a 7 year journey to learn about my rage and to learn to calm it down. It’s not a fair thing to wish, but it’s also not a fair thing to have happened.

There would be no point in talking about him. And maybe it hurts too much still. Maybe I’m put in a really weird spot, because I’ve grown up. I’ve loved since him, but all that loving, it was done in a way where I had to fight against my grief. To hold the unfair feelings inside of myself because I can’t talk about it too much because they don’t understand because I don’t even understand and I can’t think when they’re next to me because it makes me feel bad. All I can do is cry on his chest and hope that the rest could maybe be enough. Hope that the rest could maybe be enough to help me understand what has happened and who I am now. I haven’t met that person yet, and I don’t long for a savior. I’m looking for a true friend.

I will talk about him soon enough though. Not on here in the messy way I expose myself. Or the searching way wherein I reveal all of my secrets. But in the way I was trained. The reason I set out on the 7 year journey a week after it happened. I thought it was a 4 year journey, but that was just school, in the last 3, I have learned all of the things about life that I missed during my schooling because I was too depressed or too hardworking or too distracted.

I’m writing this and I’m not in the city. It’s rare that I’m out of town but I’ve started to accept the fact that me and New York City have a sort of… toxic relationship. I felt guilty leaving. Because sometimes I think coming here is what took him away. Like I unknowingly made a trade that I would never have wanted to make. So as punishment and escape from memory, I bound myself to the city. I learned everything about it, I lived it, and I never left. Last summer was the first time I allowed myself to leave more, to get away more. And back then I was going away with people, but now I can leave by myself.

At the end of the 7 year journey, I feel the pressure releasing. I made a decision last year, at year 6, that meant I couldn’t run anymore. I was facing my grief head on and alone, because I was finally strong enough to do so. I had cried enough and been held enough that I finally felt strong enough to do so. I finally understood that my life didn’t have to be a sacrifice because of this unbearable sadness, but that it could be my own. At the end of the 7 year journey, I understood that my life could be my own again.

And there’s a lot more I could say, and I will be writing about the rest of the roadtrip on here at the end of this month, but for now I will leave you with a story:

Seven years minus one day since I lost you,

I was walking on the beach collecting sand dollars
when I saw a baby sea turtle tucked under the fresh wrack of the ebb tide
Small, and covered in sand, with one white feather beside him,
I decided to call him Spot.

I'm never here in August and its sea turtle season,
at first, thinking 
the wrack had washed him back up after an unsuccessful attempt at living,
I gently picked him up, and after setting him flat in the bed of my left palm,
I tapped his head with my right, nervous there would be no movement.
When his head tilted upwards, I relaxed, thankful he wasn't gone.
Then I set off on my mission:

Swimming school.
I washed the sand off of his back and set him in the water.
He moved with a bit of excitement, and for a second I thought he might have just been turned around, patiently waiting for him to take off  into the ocean as is his natural born instinct. 

Nothing. 
Little Spot, just floating in the tide pool 
allowing the washing waves to wipe him backwards. 
Frustrated, I tried harder. 
Speaking to him, 
whispering into him the breath of life, 
hoping he would understand that the next step on the journey, while difficult, 
is the whole point. 

I shoved him deeper into the waves to see if his survival instinct would kick in, and nothing. Watching him in the waves was like watching a tumbleweed in the wind. Tossed back and forth and in any which direction. 

I grabbed the little thing, 

already so tired from what life had thrown at him in the first few hours of living, and I held him in my palms at the top of the water so he could acclimate, sometimes dipping him under the waves and holding each side of his shell so he could tread water.
 
Still, these exercises only seemed to deter him from taking off towards the great unknown. Always turning back in my direction.

She got off of the phone with them and they told us to take him past the waves' break.

I took off my clothing and swam out there with him in my palms. Treading water, I set him on the top of the calm unknown. He swam around a bit, blowing bubbles here and there, but after 20 seconds or so would get tired, and he refused to dive under, always floating back towards my direction. 

Nervous that a bird would snatch him up, I took him back to shore. 

It had been about an hour of swimming school, and the tide was starting to rise.
We took him to the edge of a calmer tide pool, watched him muster up the strength to swim around a bit and at the end of it all, we couldn't stay until he departed towards 

The great unknown. The ocean. His mother. The rest of his life.

All things I can't say for sure that Spot got to witness. But I left him there in the calmest of waters, pointed in the right direction and I like to think he heard me when I told him "life is really hard, and it's not fair that your first day on earth is like this, but it can get so much better, so you have to lock in."

i walk outside and the sun is brighter than usual as if it knows it will be shut out for a moment at it’s brightest hour

down the steps i open the gate

i catch a glimpse of you on the ground

one of the last pieces left behind

i pay it no mind, a fleck of orange on gray pavement

i walk on by

they told me not to worry because there was no action left to take

in my body, not my head now- i trust myself

on the train and it comes to a halt

everything moves in slow motion until it doesn’t

i float across the platform and into another one as if nothing happened, but everything is changing

slow motion moving until afternoon when the lightness is covered we only have ourselves to face, our own hearts tell us the answer

i listen to mine, and you yours?

i listen to mine, and you yours?

i listen to mine, and you yours?

I usually feel alive but for some reason today my mind went a bit blank and maybe I’m tired or in a transitional point, but for the first time in a long time my mind quieted and I thought… maybe, just maybe, I’d like to fall in love again. Because now that I’ve gotten it all out, been fully myself publicly, not a mystery, but also not yet finished. Now that I’ve gotten it all out, I’d like to fall in love again. Because I think this time it might just be for real, because I think this time I could really be myself. Because I’ve been so myself for the past few months that I don’t think I could ever go back.

So, I’d like to fall in love again. Because I’m bad at dating and everyone is boring me. And I miss looking up to someone. I don’t know if they knew how I looked up to them. It’s not their fault because well I never used to say the obvious because I just assumed it so. But, I’d like to fall in love again and this time I’d like it to be for real.

If you knew you could have anything - what would you choose?

I have a feeling a future version of me will look back at this and be tickled that this is the question I was ruminating on at this point in my life. It’s no secret that I work a very corporate job, and that I allegedly have come to a lot of conclusions surrounding life, culture, America, and my own position within all of that madness.

I’ve witnessed something that has deeply shaken me to my core. Something that well, a part of me knew, but never had experienced. And maybe I’m just the type of idiot that has to experience the wrong thing to fully understand why it’s wrong. I think I used to blame the individual, the person who made the choice. And I’ve now existed long enough within a huge system to begin to understand the evils that they breed.

I’m not sure where I got my conviction from. Maybe it’s from my power to overcome, maybe it’s from an inner compass that I was born with, we’ll never know. But the truth is, I’ve always been extremely determined. I’ve always known I could achieve whatever I wanted. And I have. I’ve achieved everything 8 year old me had dreamt of, so where am I left to go now?

I know I could have anything - and well what if I’m not even sure of the next step? I have a blurred image of it in my head and life is getting in the way and the system is bogging me down and other people have dreamt of this. I dreamt of this. This is what I wanted. People want to be here, am I crazy for rejecting it? I wanted this and I got it, so I should just stick it out right? Maybe it will start to feel the way I expected it to.

Therein lies the trick of my question: If you knew you could have anything - what would you choose? It’s a question that can be only asked to a present you in the present moment. No consulting past dreams, hopes, wishes, illusions, appearances. Those are tethers to a potential that doesn’t exist.

I have been a victim of consulting my past in these moments, or outward expectations. That is a trap. It’s a form of gaslighting yourself. Of staying on the train just because it’s moving, even if its headed in the completely wrong direction. Get off the train.

I hope this was helpful. And there will probably be a lot more coming from me before the end of the year… just a heads up :)

Much love to you all. And if any of you are reading that are waiting for an order from me, just know I’m knitting tonight.

Best,

Grace <3

i’m mad at you i’m angry i’m dizzy i can’t breathe i love you i miss you you’re all i need

Navigating dating at the age of 24 is strange enough. Navigating dating at the age of 24 when your first love died at 17 makes things a bit more complicated.

I initiated a breakup last year. I never thought that I would be the one to do that. I had been in a pattern of being left behind. And honestly, there’s a lot more on the line for me in the wake of a breakup. A lot more of myself that needs holding than I imagine the normal person my age would need, unfortunately I’ll never know the weight a breakup holds for most people given my first experience. And unfortunately, most of the people I’ve been through breakups with will never understand the weight it holds for me. It took a lot for me to be the one to leave. I didn’t want to. I fought it for a while. It’s hard to know if parting is self sabotage or not. It was my first adult relationship and at the beginning of it I was only 5 years out from the death of my first love, at it’s end, 6. I couldn’t tell if my urge to leave was because of a deep guilt I felt, or because of the “normal” reasons: “I was just with the wrong person”, “I needed more time to myself”, “I had more life to live”, “I’m not done yet, there’s something else out there for me”.

Ultimately, it was both. All of the normal reasons to break up with someone compounded with an overwhelming heartache and guilt building up inside. I’m a raincloud and I’m bringing this person down. It’s too much for him — I can tell and I need help figuring myself out but it seems like he’s uninterested in what I’ve been through. I have to be quieter about it so that he doesn’t get upset but I have a lot I need to say about it and I’m afraid he will take it the wrong way and I’m afraid he wont confront me about the things he will inevitably take the wrong way and a big resentment will build up inside of him and he will stay with me out of pity, and that’s my biggest fear in all of this. I want love again, I don’t want pity. I monitor his emotions constantly and I’m tired. I try really hard to be happy. He knows this and he’s even told me that he wants to be there for me and to stop apologizing for crying on him. I know I make up for my sadness with my overwhelming passion and joy but I can sense the pit in my stomach growing. The urge to say something. The urge to figure something out. I’m afraid. I’m afraid. I’m afraid.

And when I broke up with him, I started to cry. I couldn’t even say it without my voice cracking and so I did what I’ve always done which is turn everything into a joke. I tried to make him hate me. Please go and you’re going to love dating here and you will have so much fun and don’t even worry about me because I’m clearly a mess and this is all my fault so please go have fun and don’t even give me a second thought. I didn’t realize that when I was doing this — I was trying to calm myself down. It seems strange to tell someone that “they’re going to love dating” but I realize now that it was me trying to convince myself nothing bad was going to happen to him.

After the breakup I was quite proud of myself and quite scared. But I did something I never thought I could do because well I was always so afraid of them dying, so I never thought I would be able to leave first because loving someone means you’re with them until they die because that’s what my first experience was or they leave you because all my experiences after that had been the case. But I did it and he was still alive and he seemed more than okay and he told me he was fine with being in touch and maybe we were going to see each other soon so it was all okay. The thing is I really needed to be in touch and I wish I had expressed that more, because maybe he would have been a bit more caring when he chose to move on so quickly. It’s unfortunate, because I didn’t know how much I needed the communication.

When that inevitably didn’t happen, it not only broke my heart, but it broke my brain. One day he called me up to tell me he moved on and I was a bitch and hung up the phone. I thought he would talk to me the next day because I texted him that night after I cooled down a bit. But nothing. It made it so much worse for me. I didn’t want to bother him because I knew he dealt with messier situations in the past, but it left me in a scenario where once again, communication with someone I loved was cut off in an instant. I had no warning and it felt like he died, the new girl he was with killed him for me. She killed him. I was trying my best to handle it myself and be respectful of their relationship by not continuing to contact him even though it hurt me. I thought he knew I needed slower endings to things. I thought I was clear. I know he didn’t know everything but I thought from all the time I spent with him and how there he was for me that he knew I needed more time. I know what its like when someone’s gone and so I guess a part of me mourns them in the way I know how. I imagine them dead over and over and over just to get comfortable with that reality so I don’t get shocked again. I get intrusive thoughts that they just died or maybe are currently dying. They’re visceral and I feel like if I don’t take action that I’m the responsible party. And I forgot this about myself because when I went through it at a younger age I was playing games of distraction and avoidance, and I had yet to confront my grief in the way this relationship allowed me to.

*************, I’ll always love you.

i’m mad at you i’m angry i’m dizzy i can’t breathe i love you i miss you you’re all i needed

In all the anger and frustration I have towards my ex. I would have never been able to get to here without him. He couldn’t have known how I would feel during the breakup and I’m sure he will never know the extent of the repercussions of his actions.

My ex betrayed me the worst out of anyone I had been with. And it’s funny how betrayal works — it’s the contrast of the place someone held in your head vs their disrespectful action. He was only able to betray me the worst, because of how much respect I had for him. I held him to a different standard. In all his faults and everything he couldn’t approach with me emotionally. He was there for me. On the anniversary of my first love’s death I was able to take space for myself, I had never been able to be vocal about that with a partner before (to the end that I got accidentally dumped on the anniversary 2 years prior), and not only did he give me space but he checked in on me at the end of the day and made me a burger. We sat on his roof and he just let me say as much or as little as I needed to. I had never known such kindness. It’s a confusing thing what I’ve been through for men my age. I’ve learned how jealous men are and how they are so conflicted when it comes to the space I need to have. I’ve been fighting it so much in my youth because I wanted to find someone that knew me - I didn’t want my dream of young love to be lost. But I think now that maybe I just have to be a bit older so I don’t run into these issues. Because the problem wasn’t just that my ex didn’t want to know about my experience, but that I felt guilty telling him about it. I felt guilty being in a relationship at all. I couldn’t even express everything I needed to because I couldn’t think. I felt trapped in a box, so I just shut down.

*************, I’ll always love you. And I get sad about it. Because we lost each other due to an insurmountable miscommunication, one that neither of us could have prevented because how could we have known?

if only he could have talked to me a little longer

if only i could have expressed that i needed that in a way that was both respectful and not full of sadness

if only he had waited a bit or let me know or been more honest

if only i had communicated properly during the breakup

if only he hadn’t been through what he had been through before me, i could have tried a bit harder to talk to him

if only i hadn’t been through what i had been through before him and we would have been perfectly normal and happy

I should have known myself better and he should have known himself better and it never would have happened.

*************, I’ll always love you. And I have respect for you up to a point, because I’m human and I’m upset at you. But you taught me a lot of things about love that I’m very grateful for. I’m very grateful to have been with you because I was very tired and I needed someone who cared for me, someone to cry on, someone to bring the color back. Being with you, it brought the color back a bit, I understood reasons for living other than the ones I knew of. But sometimes I wish we’d never met because I’m not sure all that pain is worth it. Everyday, I have to kill you in my head just to get comfortable with the thought that I may never see you again. I don’t like having to kill you in my head. It hurts and I wish it would stop, but my brain does it to protect me.

You know that searching feeling? That I want to grow up feeling? The dreams you may have had as a child sitting in your closet atop a pile of clothes you had to put away. All the ways in which you discovered yourself as a girl by way of fabric. The ways the garments in your closet taught you about your body and the ways learning about your body taught you about yourself.

Styling is Salvation.

Or at least it is for me. I remember the first time I realized I had a body. In 3rd grade I was wearing skinny jeans and they were tight and I looked down and realized my skin was rolling over the top of them. I looked at the other girls and that didn’t seem to be the case. I began to panic. The rest of that year was full of terror - I remember I wrote that I had a goal to workout more on some homework assignment and then I guess my teacher told my mother and my mother confronted me about it… I didn’t open up all too much. My life was never the same after I noticed my belly poking out over my jeans that day. The end of girlhood —- both a curse and a gift. Because maybe I started playing dress-up more intensely after that and maybe just maybe every day since I was 8 I have been playing dress up so intensely that I accidentally became an amazing stylist.

Going into fashion is an interesting choice. I always wonder what drew me there. Was it my love of beauty, my want to be beautiful, or need to be recognized? Seen as I knew I was, not as the world had seen me yet. All the dress-up I had played, and something about my radical honesty. My knowledge of my body, made me an amazing designer and stylist quickly. I’ve spent more hours staring at myself in the mirror than most girls would like to admit. In design school, I learned I could clock a girl’s waist and hip measurements just from looking at her… and I still have this gift (definitely a symptom of what some may call body dysmorphia … but I’m no fan of labels).

And what about grief? What about sadness? When you go through something unmovable — what else is there left to do but figure out how to dress?

I used to tell people that I didn’t know how to meditate - that even in yoga class when I was on the mat, that my mind was constant. That I couldn’t shut it off. And now I think — well, maybe that’s not true. Because on the days when I get ready. The kind of ready where a pile of clothing ends up on my bed or my floor. I feel at peace. I feel calmer. I feel… more myself. In dressing, I am the girl sitting in her closet longing to be the woman and I am creating myself. We look at each other and we decide who we want to be for the day.

I used to beat myself up about the pile of clothes that I would come home to, but the days when there is no mess prove to be harder.

I remember about a summer ago, I was about to leave the house with my boyfriend at the time. I stopped as we were about to leave. I told him - I’m sorry but this just isn’t right - I have to change my outfit. I spent about 20 more minutes changing, and I can’t tell you if the outfit was better or worse than before, most likely a little wilder, but I felt much better. I was very grateful that he waited for me - I felt ridiculous, but I knew that if I had left in the outfit I was in before that I might have burst into tears…

Some style themselves as a form of escapism - they play someone they’re not. That’s the direct opposite of my approach, I discover who I am. Even if it is a ridiculous outfit, it’s all done with an intention to know myself - to uncover the woman the girl wanted to be. It’s not about external-perception, but the deliverance of self-concept.

on picking out an outfit for the road:

Who are we? But anything anyone else could want us to be? We’re women on the road. We’re free. We weren’t always able to do this you know? But now we can. We run into the savers in Vegas with our eyes wide open and try on ball gowns. It only makes sense to wear a gown on the road over beat up denim. We’re running from something? No, no we’re running towards something. 2 women on a mission and the bright sun rises each morning and we get up and ride.

Who would I be if I didn’t wear a royal blue push up bra in the desert and a knit bolero that used to be pants from my years in design school with skinny jeans and hiking boots. I am a kid in a woman’s body I want to feel beautiful and play dress up all the time. The dust kicks into my eyes and I spin around I do a backbend while she scales the Sun Tunnels. I miss Nancy because I feel we may be kindred spirits, kind of like how I miss Karen Green. Only they know what I know. What the rest of the world, specifically women my age do not know. But I grabbed a piece from the salt flat of the spiral so I have Robert with me where I left him. Just like I have the oyster shell from Maine on land I can only assume my love once touched. I carry these things with me and I dress up beautifully while I do it. Beautifully how I want to dress, not how you or anyone else expects me too but in my royal blue bra and my bolero with a hidden love letter knit in I dress up beautifully.

with all that being said — please come to my showroom:

and I have been working really hard on it! xx We would love to see you and show you our jewelry and talk about beauty and fashion and dicking around in the wild west <3

rsvp here <3

Also I will be talking about the rest of the roadtrip - I needed a mental pause on that. So plan to read about that on 8/15 or later <3 xx!

Thanks to Aliya for being my road dog #loveyou

Remember back in February when I dyed a strip of my hair pink? Well I then turned it to blue, which is my resting color. Pink is an aura color needed in the hardest of times. And also I regularly use blue shampoo so its hard to keep one strip of my hair pink. The physical and spiritual realm always seem to work together in some strange way.

Well today o…

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Taking a break from trying to catalogue my roadtrip for you all (it was meant to be each day but i am winded and we did so much - more on the jetty coming soon). And I’m typing this on my phone :p

If you knew you could have anything - what would you choose?

I guess I’ve been thinking about this idea in terms of relationships and sex and insecurity. i think a lot of people search for sex to save them from something. To prove to themselves they’re good enough somehow.

And maybe people enter into relationships because they have the same level of insecurity. I think insecurity can be a magnet that draws people together. So I guess what I’m trying to get across is — what if you knew that you could have anyone you wanted? That anyone you sexually desired wouldn’t reject you. Where would that leave you and what would you choose for yourself?

And if you knew that - would you even choose to entertain a lot of the people that you have been? Or would your intentions change? Knowing you could have anything is a form of freedom. There’s no striving anymore. Everyone is stripped of the push and pull and well they’re just who they are.

Some people think you have to try everything to know what you want. That’s fine for them I guess but I’ve never operated that way. I find there’s a lot to learn from talking to people but no real reason to have sex without intention. At 24 it feels like I’ve done my time - like I’ve conquered whatever validation or self discovery I needed to and now I choose to exit. I choose no one. I choose nothing. Until an indescribable something comes my way. Because I could have anything I want, and I know this. But the issue is that maybe I don’t know what I want because it’s very specific and hasn’t been presented to me yet. There would be no reason to recklessly run through people like many are wont to do. Or to jump into something for no better reason than lonliness like many are wont to do.

There’s no fun in a cheap thrill. Sex can be just like nicotine you know. Relationships too. And I’ve always been of the opinion that confidence is the ultimate arbiter. The ultimate leveler of disputes.

I had an old friend once ask me “what’s so wrong with being insecure?” I said its unfortunate that my verbage makes me seem like I’m beating up on insecure people because it makes it seem like thats not a normal human experience, however, insecurity is the root of most evil, most wrongdoing, most betrayal.

And well… consider the dating pool in New York if everyone was self confident and not wearing some perverse mask. So maybe it takes some people to try everything imaginable to come to a decision about who they are. And maybe for some, it takes a hard line in the sand - rules about what you will never accept because well, you could have anything you wanted.

Anyways - this is typed on my phone but lmk if anyone has any thoughts on this. I guess I’m always wishing people loved themselves more but it seems there is no resolve for that either. Just a waiting game. Long days in the darkness until the sun rises again.

Best,

Grace 🌸

a swap meet

Waking up foggy after a late night of dancing, we were on the hunt for something. Mormon undergarments, funny t shirts, denim, lingerie… feather hat gave Aliya a list of recommendations for vintage shopping. It’s father’s day Sunday, all of them are closed. We go to a swap meet in West Valley City - excited about what we might stumble upon there.

We open the door to an entirely different world. It’s as if all the center kiosks in the mall were put together in one building. At the front there is a small foodcourt - its filled with families for father’s day. We do a lap around the entire building. There are stands selling pots, wigs, ice cream, piñatas, clothes, phones, jewelry, and so much more. Anything you could need is at the swap meet. We find ourselves at a custom embroidery stand and print shop. Our eyes light up like heaven. All roads point to here in this moment. We scour the hat options looking for the perfect fit. At first nearly settling for a camo snapback, and then we find a navy child’s size baseball cap for my tiny head and a tan adult sized one for Aliya. We pick a script embroidery and ask if the turnaround time could be same day. He sets up the file and tells us to come back in 30 minutes.

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We do a few more laps around then pick up our hats and hit the road, stopping quickly at the goodwill bins before departing the crystal city that’s always on fire.

On the road again - we listen to Girlfriend by Lil Cease. We spot a baddie in a red mustang convertible as we exit Salt Lake.

the pilgrimage

It’s 3 hours to our destination - the spot that drove me out here. The place that I’ve been dreaming of for nearly 2 years. It’s my own holy land, my church, my altar. I’m behind the wheel, nervously excited. I know what I am soon to see will change me forever.

On the road I play Beyonce’s Lemonade album for Aliya, she’s never listened to it in order. We’re both able to be a bit quieter on the road. She and I both have overrun minds - always jumping from one place to the next. Trying to problem solve, trying to get somewhere. We’ve found when our bodies are trying to get somewhere our minds can quiet. Our minds can wander and process without anticipation. Without a determined result. I often try to make myself feel something, make myself think something. I miss someone, I put myself back there with them. I catch myself doing this. I put myself in all of the worst moments with them. I ping pong back and forth between wonderful memory and awful time. On the road it’s not like this for me. The thoughts flow in and out like a river and I’m looking forward, moving forward. My body is moving; my brain can relax. My body is moving; my tongue sits softly in the bed of my mouth. I’m rarely this quiet.

I’m thinking about the Jetty and what it will be like. I’m thinking about you. They’ll never know how much I miss you. And I knew a roadtrip would make me feel this way but it’s a good thing. We could have done this together, grown up together. I try not to hold on to that. It’s hard - I get flashbacks from 7 years ago. Meeting you at the motel in North Dakota, so happy to see me after a long day of biking. I dream of ice cream with blue raspberry dip and I think about how the sunlight hasn’t shone quite the same since you. I am so happy that I have found a best friend in Aliya, a “road dog” as she calls it. I try not to live in false realities but I can’t help it sometimes. It’s good to be free. It’s good to be able to think like this. I was trapped before. In a relationship I always feel like I’m letting someone down. There’s a piece of my heart that was carved out and I have to hide it for them. I have to pretend. I don’t like pretending and I’m not a good liar. Sometimes I miss my ex-boyfriend, but then I remember that I could only be a shell of myself when I was with him. There was no room for the insides. The dams were up. The walls were built. I guarded them, a fierce protector. No one was to know how broken I was. And to him I could be perfect. The right amount of broken, and perfectly beautiful. And just vulgar enough to offset any sadness surrounding my aura.

I’m a wild woman. And I’m free. The thing about a pilgrimage is that, like any part of life, journey and destination are of equal importance. I’ve always been a woman of urgency. Always searching, moving, observing. I rush and then pull back. I have a zest for life now. My breakup stripped away expectations of myself that I would never have been able to live up to. And finally I was able to hold you again. It’s wonderful to be able to feel whatever I want. To go wherever I want. I drive. I just drive. I ride. I just ride.

Driving at the base of beautiful mountains. Aliya says her friend calls them bones. They are the foothills before the real mountains. The skeletal structure for the mountain range. We pass an Amazon center at one of the foothills. It’s crazy how you can now count on finding an Amazon center in the most beautiful of places. I think about the Amazon in RedHook that sits behind a community garden and wonder if its a worthy trade off to get my blue hair gloss next day. I tell Aliya about my dreams for the future, about my business plans and how my dad told me the turnover rate at Amazon fulfillment centers are about 4 months: “No one wants those jobs, so they are working on building robots to do it.” I know in my heart that a big change is coming in this country and well: The solution isn’t money, it’s a sense of purpose.

We see a man drive by on his motorcycle. Enjoy this fan edit of him to the Ride monologue I made:

“Bro, he’s like on a redemption arc,” Aliya exclaims. We presume he’s getting his woman back because what else would be worthy of such determination.

The landscape starts to flatten and I am never not mesmerized by the beauty here.

The plains are vast. Growing up on the east coast, I’m not used to seeing this much land at once. A 360 degree horizon line. You feel strangely at the universe’s center here.

We stop at Brigham city for our last meal before we go remote. Jersey Mike’s it is. At the drive through I mishear “Mike’s Way” for “Microwave,” we say “no no, please don’t Microwave it.” Everyone in the Jersey Mike’s laughs at us and the girl that took our order comes up to the window to poke a bit of fun at us. We laugh with them, then proceed to eat the Sandwiches in the car. They’re super oily by the way - I’m not really sure what Mike was thinking when he concocted this.

Now we’re off. 1 hour to go. We drive through Corrine and then turn onto North Golden Spike road. We stop at the closed Visitor’s center to take in the air. I see the biggest tumbleweed I’ve ever seen:

The tumbleweed is proof that we’re now off grid. There’s nothing around us but the air and the adventure that lies ahead. Aliya get’s out her guitar. We sing “High by the beach,” at the Spiral Jetty sign. We shoot at the edge of the train tracks. We’re passing a bit of time just being in proximity to what we’ve come out here for, acclimating, taking it all in.

the long awaited arrival

We start the drive on the gravel road. The Jetty is 15.7 miles away. Aliya is behind the wheel going a bit faster than she should. We’re in a rambunctious mood. I stick my head out the window.

The dust from the gravel is kicking up behind our car. She opens the sunroof and I stand tall. You can see the moon out already. I know something is out here for me. Aliya, missing out on all the fun sticks her head out the window while driving and… her hat flies off.

She runs out and then gets back behind the wheel. Psychotic Girl by the Black Keys is playing. We’re enjoying the ride. Aliya reads her costar just before our cell service cuts out. At this time in her life, the universe seems to be talking to her in the most blatant of ways. We laugh. Our spirits are full of sunlight. Not pensive anymore, not thinking, just full of an overwhelming anticipation. The moment is here.

We arrive at the Jetty around 7pm. I’m completely mesmerized and for the first time in a while my heart feels full. I have so much more to say about our night here so I’m going to end day 4 part one here. Enjoy these pictures below:

as you may remember, we left off here (on June 21st, Lana del Rey’s bday):

Driving through the haze. The fire turned out to be near the Salt Lake City University Hospital, and I believe it has a name: The Bonneville fire.

We were excited to see what this place was all about. Wondering about the golden tablets and the salt and the drinking laws and why the city was ablaze.

This land seemed more foreign to us than some places outside of our country. The religion here being so mysterious to us. We only know of SLC vaguely through the housewives, the real lives of Mormon wives, and a man named Joseph Smith and his golden tablets that were returned to heaven. We knew nothing of this town. I said to Aliya that I wanted to thrift some mormon undergarments - it might be cool to style them.

For some reason, I was convinced they would think we were outlandish whores. I imagined a conservative town that knew nothing of the kinds of girls like we are. When we got to the hotel we laughed about how we had built this place up in our heads. We were exhausted. No dinner out tonight, but an order in of R+R BBQ, which we scarfed down quickly - I thought it was pretty decent and thats saying something since I’m from the land of BBQ, North Carolina.

We rested, showered, and then we were on a mission to go out. We didn’t eat here, so we must drink. Kiss a cowboy, meet a mormon, we needed to do something in this crystal city, the one that’s always on fire.

So we found ourselves at The Westerner Club. They have a bull you can ride, karaoke, a dance floor, and tons of tables. There was a $17 cover, but the drinks were cheap. I wore low rise skinny Abercrombie jeans, pink pumps, and a cropped denim jacket. When I got there I realized my pink pumps were incredibly out of place in a sea of cowboy boots. Aliya wore a vintage RL Blue Label American Flag cardigan, everyone at the Westerner kept telling her that it would be a great outfit for the 4th of July.

We walked in and took a lap. Deciding we needed tequila shots immediately. We stood by the dance floor mesmerized at the line dancing. We were gushing at the beauty of community here and also anxiously out of place. Culture shock is such an interesting feeling. “How do they all know the dance? Do they practice?” I asked, Aliya said she assumed they practice on Thursdays.

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Then we saw the swing dancing. I had never seen swing dancing let alone done it before. It was so cute - we noted how proper this was. How cute it is to see men approaching women to ask them to dance instead of the regular bullshit we come across in NYC. Men here know how to talk to women. They are forward yet respectful. The people here actually dance. No one is on their phones. They are just alive. We do another lap. Ducking into the karaoke room for a second and then back to the bar for another shot. And then back to the dance floor. We’re just standing on the sidelines. Vagabonds. Witnesses to a culture we know nothing about. The swing dancing starts again, we start to gush and a man comes up to me and pulls me for a dance… I’ve never done this before. It’s so fun to be the tourist. The girl who knows no one and accidentally sticks out on purpose. The only pink pumps on the dance floor. Swing dancing is crazy - he throws me around and I just follow. Spinning around and around like a child. I’ve been craving this - in the city I say I want to dance I want to dance, and then we go and there’s barely dancing or its the wrong dancing or the wrong people or the wrong music. This was a vacation wish come true. We talk as we dance and then I get a drink with him. He’s really good at swing dancing and I tell him that was my first time. I ask him if he likes line dancing and he says that it’s starting to overtake some of the swing dancing songs, so he’s not a huge fan of it. He’s from Minnesota and has lived in Salt Lake City for 7 years. He’s a battery designer. He takes pictures of eagles and hawks in his free time. I ask him how he likes Salt Lake, he tells me its a great place to live if you like the outdoors, but that the alcohol laws were stupid. I ask him what they were. He tells me that the blood alcohol level being 0.05% or under for drivers is crazy compared to the national 0.08% and that they just removed a law which used to prevent you from walking around with your drink. “It used to be that you had to be seated and they would serve it to you,” he said. I ask him if the reasoning for the laws is due to religion and he says yes. It seems crazy to not be able to walk with your drink, but most people weren’t anyways and I think it lends to more dancing. Me and Aliya decided we fucked with it after reflecting upon it later.

Aliya runs up to me, she threw me her bag when she got asked to dance. I tell him I’m going to go with my friend, we do another lap, ending up at the dance floor. Aliya gets pulled by a man and starts dancing with him. Another man walks up to me. We dance. He ups the anty - somehow picking me up by my leg. I’m dizzy and tired, but alive. He tries to trick me into kissing him, saying “Want to see a move my mother taught me when I was 4?” He tells me to bend backwards and then when I come up he kisses me. I laugh and tell him good one. We dance again. Meanwhile, the guy Aliya is dancing with tells her he likes her shirt and then he asks her if they can go to her car so they can switch shirts. She says, “I’m done dancing now,” and runs up to us. The guy I’m dancing with asks her, “Want to see a move my mother taught me when I was 4?” I roll my eyes and show her anyways, this time dodging the kiss. He tells me if I don’t kiss him that I’m racist. I laugh and tell him “good one.” Aliya calls him cheeky, then asks him his race, he’s Navajo. He asks her her race and then guesses wrong 3 times. She points to a guy in a hat and says, “I need to talk to the guy with the feather on his hat, bye!” We dance one more dance - he tries to kiss me at least 3 more times. When I say goodbye I let him have one peck. He was funny for sure. And he was also a great dancer.

I walk up to Aliya. She’s talking to the guy in the feather hat and his friend, they live nearby in Ogden. It’s feather hat’s birthday, he’s a photographer and his friend does music stuff and that’s pretty much all I gleaned in my drunken haze before I get asked to dance again. Damn this shit is tiring, and a really good workout. This guy is not as experienced at swing dancing as the other two. He’s really nice but we have a small language barrier. While we dance I ask if he’s from here and he says no. He’s from Mexico and he’s lived here for 4 years. I ask if he likes it here and he says he does. We dance for two songs. Then I grab some water with him. He tells me he wants to kiss me and I say no thanks. He gets my number, even though I tell him that we’re leaving in the morning. At 1am he texts me asking if I want to get some tacos with him.

For some reason everyone at the Westerner wanted us to have some anchor to SLC. We kept telling them it was our first day in SLC and that we were leaving tomorrow - no direct plans to be back. They couldn’t quite comprehend our nomadic spirit.

Outside we are waiting for our uber. Aliya gets another compliment on her sweater from a beyond drunk man, and then he asks her what he should wear for 4th of July. She tells him to wear Timberlands. He asks her if he should paint them. She tells him that wearing them as they are is American enough. A group of 4 guys across from us are acting like drunken idiots and making fun of British people as Americans are wont to do. They are so drunk they don’t really notice us until I say, “You guys are really funny.” Like cartoon characters their mouths all gape open and they look towards me. One asks, “Are you single?” I say “yeah.” He marches right up to me and introduces himself. Ah! The uber’s here. Just in time. “Goodbye!” I say. And back to our hotel we went. The end of a day that was 4 days in one.

a town called Virgin

I wanted to wear white to the Virgin river. I wanted to bathe in the Virgin river. Originally I had planned to wear a little white babydoll dress, but then I realized that I was a woman on the move, a woman in the desert, a woman that makes things of her own. I forge the path, I make the clothing, I’m the creator of my own destiny. I donned my birthday dress, not quite so sure how exactly I was going to make this work for daytime in a town called Virgin. I threw on my baggy jeans underneath. And well, we’re riding through the desert like outlaws so I layered my vintage Abercrombie tee that says “I belong behind bars thurs-sun.”

We had breakfast at River Rock Roasting co. A beautiful coffee shop on the edge of a cliff. I’m always so shocked about how gorgeous it is out here. I think if I lived a life this close to nature I might be the type of person who’s okay with doing less, achieving less, being less known. I think to myself god how nice it is to get off of the hamster wheel for a second. I’ve been moving so fast for the 7 years since you.

I also continue to be mesmerized by the number of beautiful young parents here. A woman with a baby at her hip and long dark hair complimented Aliya’s necklace at the roasting company. We didn’t tell her about the necklace project, just let the compliment linger in the air between us. I thought she was beautiful and I wished we had asked her to model for us.

On to the Virgin trading post. Aliya and I had been excited about this one because of the kitschy signage. It’s the town’s souvenir shop. You can see me standing in front of the Hotel Virgin above. At this trading post - we stumbled upon another Zoltarian figure, although in slightly altered form and by the name of “Pappy.”

We’ve both gotten 3 fortunes each now and Aliya’s 3 fortunes and my 3 fortunes appear to be repetitions of 2 distinct messages. The universe will tell you a version of an answer if you let it.

There’s more I could say and show about the Virgin trading post, but I’d just like to leave it at I recommend that no one spends any money there. We went out back to see the animals and they weren’t kept in the best condition. They had Alpacas that weren’t sheared and some miniature horses that seemed pretty unhappy. None of the animals had proper shade and well - that isn’t all that hard to do. I called the county sheriffs to report them and they told me that they’ve been dealing with it for 3 years. That the owners say a vet comes every week and that it’s all up to code but that a deputy would go check it out. The man on the phone told me he didn’t know much about animals and that they told him the animals are desert animals and fine in the heat. I told him that I work with fiber, so at the very minimum I know that Alpacas need to be sheared every Spring and that shade isn’t a difficult thing to provide. It’s strange how systems work. That’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about. We build these rules and codes and structures to protect us, but they always seem to create a barricade, always a wall to climb before any action.

ashes to ashes, dust to dust

We raced off to the desert. Driving to an outlook, we took the car off-road. We stumble upon an Altar in the middle of the red dust. Bones laid out in a line, bricks in a circle, and a pile of mussel shells.

Aliya lays out an ephemeral altar of her own. We walk around for a bit longer, she notes that “there are parts of the land here that want you to stay.” It’s true, the clay gives in to your foot, carving out a spot for you, it asks you to rest for a while. We shoot our jewelry and continue on. Leaving our mark behind, I paint a number. An imprint, a memory of our conversation with the land.

It’s so dusty here. I’ve never been so hot, my eyes have never been so dry that tears are running down my face to keep them wet, I’ve never been so thirsty. We drive to get shave ice.

My body isn’t red yet but I know the sun has kissed me hard. We eat up the ice and I get behind the wheel to head towards the crystal city. The one with the golden tablets forever lost.

a stop at a grocery in a town called La Verkin

We made a stop along the way to get some gas and some groceries at Davis Food & Drug. The first thing we noticed was that there was a kid who looked to be about 11 years old working. He was pushing the carts back to the front of the parking lot. When we got inside there were a few more tweens working. The other people working were much older - they seemed to be related somehow. They had a machine that sliced a pineapple for you, which we partook in. And when we checked out Aliya told the cashier that she loved their plastic bags (shown above), a patriotic commemoration to the 250th anniversary of the USA. “I can’t believe we’re only 250 years old, we’re such babies,” she said. The cashier was nice and told us to have a nice time as we were passing through. The sight of the kids working was still a bit unsettling to me - I looked up the labor laws after we left and apparently 14 year olds can work in Utah, but honestly the first kid we saw couldn’t have been more than 11. Other people in the store didn’t bat an eye. And maybe I’ve watched too many crime shows, but I left feeling a bit perturbed, thinking maybe they were foster children of some sort.

the beautiful storm on the way to the crystal city

The drive from La Verkin to Salt Lake was beautiful. We listened to the Neighborhood for most of it. Singing Daddy Issues at full volume. These are the great plains they speak of. The vast flatlands of America. The rolling hills with pastel grass and hazy skies. Cows grazing in the valleys of the mountains. Undeveloped land, a 360 degree panoramic view.

As we drove we noticed a beacon in the sky, a red glow where one of the clouds had broken open. And a thicker haze all around us. Whatever storm it was, we were heading towards it. Aliya asked, “they don’t get tornados here, right?” We kept going. Ascending towards the hazy light.

We pull off to the side of the road on the freeway at the peak of the haze. Both of us needed to pee and well, we’d never seen an atmospheric event quite like this. We decided to stay for a minute

Aliya played guitar and the truckers honked at us as they passed by. We were mesmerized by the beauty of the highway. I walked through the tall grass and pale grasshoppers were flying everywhere. We stayed for a moment and then got back on the road. Driving in the haze towards the crystal city.

UPDATED 6/21 @ 6:12pm // this day is still not finished but I may be going offline for the next 24 hours. #seeyousoon

I’d never seen mountains like this and i’d never seen the desert. I’d never driven in the wind before. I’d never driven on such open roads before. Plains so vast and expansive that the wind can shake your car while driving on the interstate. My hands had to grip the wheel a bit tighter - at first I wasn’t sure if it was me or the car that was moving weirdly and then I heard the wind. Shaky at first and then I had control, hands shifting the wheel slightly to combat the gusts of air.

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I was in four states today: California, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah. I got 2 fortunes from 2 different Zoltars, one in Nevada and one in Utah. I had Dutch bros for the first time and the world’s greatest date shake (they weren’t lying - it really is the world’s greatest).

We started at Aliya’s studio:

She had to baste a pair of pants and we had to drill some holes in some baby shells. A quick pitstop before the start of a western journey in the shape of a lasso. Our eyes are bright and we know there is much waiting for us on the road.

Then we were off. Aliya started the drive. I forget all the time how much I love being in a car. I miss it so dearly when I’m home (i like to uber over the bridge sometimes, but its not the same). We sang and talked about life and listened to some great and also really chopped Ween songs on the way.

On the road, one of the most interesting things we saw was this:

A stretch of trailers painted with the 7 deadly sins, ending in a cross and a star of David. It made me think a lot about influence and propaganda. Each time I see a road sign I remember that I forget all of the time that there are people with less agency than me, people with less knowledge than me, people who are lost and searching for an answer. Searching for a God. We all search for God in our own ways.

I tell Aliya that I often forget about propaganda because I assume that once I figure something out that most other people must assume the same as I do. That if something doesn’t work on me then it mustn’t be all that effective. I tell her about the new Department of War ad, “Peace through Strength” that I’ve been seeing pop up in between episodes of the bravo show Summer House and how terrifying and dystopian I find it. Trump narrates over what looks like a glamorized war movie - the music is particularly scary in this one. I tell her it makes me sad to remember that there are people more susceptible to these sorts of things than I am. I wish everyone was free.

This was also interesting - we weren’t sure if it was some sort of energy plant. I assume maybe some type of solar panel. But the tall parts with mirrors reminded me of that mockup for the mirrored city in Saudi Arabia. There is something so strange and beautiful about a beacon of light in the middle of nowhere. A center that calls you towards it. Looking at it I feel like a bug, my bug instincts come out and I feel an overwhelming urge to move towards the light. Curiosity always seems to get the best of me.

This part below was my favorite part of the drive: an 11 mile stretch of winding roads in between cliffs. I was driving here. It was so beautiful.

We got to Utah, had some burgers and walked around in a very cute town center that felt straight out of Sims freeplay. And the second Zoltar of the day was actually in front of a fake psychic office which turned out to be a speakeasy.

Aliya and I did not go to the speakeasy. We got fortunes from Zoltar, had burgers on the patio of George’s restaurant and headed to Virgin. All the girls were dressed in black tank tops, light wash wide leg jeans, and most of them appeared to own a Dyson air wrap because their hair looked beautifully blown out. We admired all of the young parents we saw here. It’s such a different life.

On the way to Virgin, we listened to LDR and finished out the last 6 minutes of the drive with some Bassvictim. We sang along to Heroin with the windows down. The stars are so much more visible here than back home. And I haven’t been able to sing Heroin like this with all the windows down and the sunroof open since I was seventeen.

goodnight :p

I haven’t taken a break in a while and today is the start of my journey out west. The last time I went there (the first time i had been to southern california), was the beginning of what felt like the start of a huge self discovery. And the beginning of my collaboration with my dear friend Aliya Hidirlar: “ifearimaybebeautiful.”

I’ve been longing to be on the road for a couple years now. Last year I took weekend trips in the summer - my heart was longing for a true adventure - but I was comfortable and in love. I’ve been longing to be on the road for a couple years now. The last time I saw america was 7 years ago, driving through the midwest (north dakota to michigan) at 17, accompanying my first love on his bike trip across the country. He wrote a blog post each day of his journey and I think I might just do that as well. I remember laying on motel beds while he typed on his phone or fixed his bike. I documented it through photography— nearly all of it is unpublished and unseen by the world and I think that is soon to change.

The grief hits heavier sometimes. My heart it open like a well, but I think- and everyone has different timelines when it comes to this thing- but I think that my body is very aware of the passage of time. The space in between the last time we touched. The space between the version of myself that existed when we knew eachother and the version that exists now.

I had to sedate myself to get through it - and the trip west last summer woke me up. And my project with Aliya, while coined a “necklace project” on our instagram for the sake of clarity is much much more. It’s a journey of friendship, creation, everlasting love, and self discovery. Our showroom is in late July and I am very excited for you all to see what we have been working on.

Above is me, my baby blue dior, my mini shorts, my thigh high socks, and my collection of shells that Aliya and I got from Newport Beach last august.

Anyways we are making a pilgrimage and we hit the road tomorrow. This is a very important trip and I’m excited for the journey. Aliya is the first person who saw me through my grief. Back in school she pierced a veil of sorts that I was existing under and I slowly started to wake up with the anchor of that friendship. I’m very very grateful for it and this project has been years in the making.

Xoxo my flight is boarding. Love you all! I typed this on my phone and i slept 3 hrs.

follow more of our journey on instagram @ifearimaybebeautiful

ifearimaybebeautiful.fans

I’ve been a bit confused about life lately. And I miss running in the rain. Running in the rain to take away my pain.

Last year there was a big summer storm. It lasted 2 hours. We got burgers after.

You didn’t understand…

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hello everyone,

i am very much trying to be more regimented in my writing since i very obviously have like 20 different voices in my head. and well, i’m still trying to find my purpose within writing other than just figuring myself out. so here goes - if you knew you could have anything - what would you choose? I have decided that this may just be my all encompassing thesis for life. On the first of each month - I will ruminate on this thesis in whatever way I choose. This month is the introduction.

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IF YOU KNEW YOU COULD HAVE ANYTHING - WHAT WOULD YOU CHOOSE?… and would you still choose what you have?

In this life we have to choose. Our time is limited. So we have to choose. We are lucky to live in a time where we can choose, where we have agency. It’s a strange thing I’ve noticed, that even though we can choose whatever we want, and we know we can do this, many people are still quite risk averse. People prefer the comfort of the cages they have built in their heads, to blame the outward world for all of their misgivings than to take a simple look in the mirror and say the very simple words: “my life is my responsibility.” We live in an information highway. We are shown all kinds of life paths nowadays because of the internet. Anything is possible. You can do anything. You can achieve anything.

For some reason, I find that this realization has not been liberating to some of us. That image plagues people. That they often strive for the wrong reasons. And, well, I understand because its incredibly difficult to be honest with yourself - especially the longer you have been unhappy. Because honesty requires admission. It requires you to admit that the cage you have been trapped in has been a cage of your own making.

I used to fight this, It was only until my most recent breakup that I was able to finally pierce the veil. You see, for me, I have anger I wasn’t born with. Grief stricken rage. A frustration with the masochistic tendencies of those around me because well, according to me, I didn’t choose any of the pain I endured, while others put themselves in bad situations repeatedly and complain. And while this is partially true, I had to change my mindset in order to regain focus. What other people have been through is out of my control. What other people choose is out of my control. My understanding, my open-mindedness, and who I surround myself with are all within my control. And well, that’s when I realized I had been trying too hard to shake the wrong people awake.

I am a very motivational person. Sometimes, to the wrong people it comes off challenging, harsh, or even judgmental. Those people misunderstand me. The thing is, I had just had the realization that I can do anything, and I saw so many people close to me stuck within themselves and I wanted to set them free. This is why I am writing to you now instead of grabbing those people by the shoulders and shaking them awake still… that was my own personal version of sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill.

IF YOU KNEW YOU COULD HAVE ANYTHING - WHAT WOULD YOU CHOOSE?… and would you still choose what you have?

Think about it. The world is full of endless possibility. And don’t be an idiot and say 1 billion dollars, but actually be present with this thought - put it in the context of the now: Would you still be dating the person you are dating? Would you still be friends with your friends? Would you still be working where you are working? Would you even have the same career path? If the answer is no to any of these then think about it harder. What about these situations is within your control in the present? Start there and then zoom back out. Where are you now and where do you want to be? What about right now is helping you get to where you want to go? Focus on that last question and use it to plan. Shift your mindset and fixate on the positive of the present, and work towards your goal.

I think people can get too overwhelmed with frustration when trying to be honest with themselves. Looking in the mirror is hard because you have to acknowledge all the ways in which you let yourself down, separate from the confines of your circumstance. Everyone is plagued by circumstance, no one is spared, no one is special, no one is whole. Even the most seemingly privileged people are missing something, the simple transition from childhood to adulthood steals enough from us. No one is spared from time, choice, or honesty.

It is hard to know what you want. For me, I had to experience enough before I knew. Sometimes this is the key. Make any choice. Fuck up if you’d like. Do something just so you know what you don’t want. Now, don’t live your life by process of elimination, but if you haven’t lived enough to know what you want then I say get out there. If you’re scared to say one wrong thing, up the anty by saying 100 wrong things. If you’re scared to be seen, get on a stage. Don’t let fear control you, do the thing you thought you were too scared to do to know if you like it or not.

The more you know yourself, the closer you are at any given moment to happiness. The closer you are to the right choice. Don’t waste your life killing time. Kiss the moment.

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Thanks for tuning in — this one is certainly more motivational, tap into next month’s to see where I’m at with my life thesis. :)

Do you ever get this feeling? Like something is about to completely shift? I’m at the split of a fork in the road. I’m in a wide open field and I’m at the split of a fork in the road.

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welcome to the release of the outrun tee. the next stage in the evolution of the woman.

a progression beyond the vessel and worlds away from the sentimental girl. Moving towards whats new, biting the apple, we hold those younger versions of ourselves deep within our hearts, cherishing past experiences while rejecting them in the present.

(please watch the full poetry video linked above)

outrun

With every breath, every second of life lived, there is self discovery. Some people fight against knowing themselves by repeating the cycle. I, however cannot. I am always in search of myself, like a cat chasing its tail. The hardest thing to do is to break free, especially when you love as hard as I do, want as intensely as I do, care as much as I do. The hardest thing to do is to break free when you know what loss is. When you understand what goodbye means. I had to go. I had to run. Years ago I wouldn’t have been able to. I would have stuck by you forever, been your girl forever, kissed your forehead forever. I know what goodbye means, and I had to do it.

I wouldn’t have been able to before, and I want you to know that I was only strong enough to say goodbye to you because you were there for me in a way that no one else had been. I want you to know that it was only because I respected you so much that I was able to let you know that I had to say goodbye. If you were a worse man, you would have tried to entrap me. If you were a better man, you wouldn’t have betrayed me. If I were a better woman, I would have done it more honestly. I was always going to go and I’m sorry.

I have lived a life in the shadows and the girl I once knew, nearly 20 years ago, she is light within me again. And I had to greet her alone. I had to find her. Most people don’t know what its like to live in the darkness. They don’t understand how I saw the world in grey. I didn’t even understand that I saw the world like this, until all the color came back. And it wasn’t you that prevented the color, I believe that you helped it come back. I never want you to think that you were the thing holding me back. I had to greet the girl alone.

I had to meet her in the field after a spring rain. I had to tell her that it was okay to live, okay to run, okay that she wasn’t ready yet. These were things I had to tell her. I think you may have seen her in me from time to time, but it was time for me to greet her one on one. To let her exist within me. To make her proud. She has wild dreams and she’s chasing something beautiful and I have to help her on her mission. She lost something very dear to her and I have to help her on her mission. Because if she can’t have what she wanted, then she must have a life of purpose, of intention; a life worthy of the loss.

We give up a lot for you.

We give up a lot for you. And you expect it from us, so most of the time you don’t even notice what it takes. The things we do for you. The dreams we keep at bay for you. All the things that you conveniently don’t notice, because its a question you will never ask. A door you don’t want to open.

Don’t you know that we like to play too? That we want to run in a field and do handstands too? That we have hopes and dreams too? That we lost our childhoods long before you lost yours? And that we miss it all the time. That we long to be beautiful, but we resent the effort it takes to put on a show for you half of the time. The other half of the time we love it. We yearn for it. We get lost in our layers and we get tired of having to keep up appearances for you. We lay in bed more and you wonder why we are so tired. You want us to keep up with you. But our bodies break apart. You break our bodies apart. And all that energy you have? It comes from us. That’s why we are tired. That’s why we have to break free.

It’s your job. Not to know, but to be aware. To ask the question, to open the door. We try really hard for you, and the least you could do is lookout for us. Loving someone means there is no door you don’t want to open. Otherwise, what you have is not love, it is a cage. You cannot love someone from either side of the cage. Setting someone free is love in its purest form.

It’s what I did. For myself. And for you. I set you free because I loved you and I loved myself. And our time together could only take so much more of one person doing all the loving for two.

****

Thank you for reading! I made a video for OUTRUN - linked here.

And here is a curated playlist as well (its random):

for more on the history of my work and the latest of my self discovery - please read this post.

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its always felt like there’s an hourglass
i remember thinking, scrambling, searching for a way out
maybe i’m just in a 10 year time loop
and maybe the granules are running out

i don’t know if i’m supposed to fight anymore,
but each time
when given the option
										i do.

i never cut into anything
i make garments out of string
i never cut into anything,
										but they cut into me.

they ask me
and so i tell them the answer.
they tell me i speak too much.
born teary eyed, soft and from the brush,
they tell me not to cry.
so i laugh, i laugh
i laugh and so they beat me down.
they beat me down, but they told me not to cry,
so i fight. i play defense.
biting the apple...
doe-eyed girl turned to fierce protector.
biting the apple...
they tell me to be quiet. 
i wont, i wont be quiet,
										but i will run, far and fast and forever
										forever away from them.

doe eyed girl turned to fierce protector far and fast and forever.
biting the apple, far and fast and forever.

outrun.
outrun.
outrun.

shop the tee here <3

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A special thank you to Jasmine Garoosi, Maeve Evely, Chloe Gulsvig, Scyler Byrne, Izzy Brown, and Amina Bernardi <3 Forever grateful.