once i landed back home after montana there was a lot to do and sift through. i furiously prepped garden beds and planted seeds, feeling behind and chasing time. with the heavy sweat hours behind me, the vision of the garden was bright. what could be. what we planned for. then of course came the wait (& the watering).

at some point, rains began to come everyday and time was spent more focused on the family. my brother and i walked our dogs together every night. we made plans and many many lists. i tracked that we grow 100+ medicinals on the property - a mix our doing and natives growing naturally. (insane). pat’s garage was finished. he got kittens. mom’s bathroom renovation started. there was as much sun as there was rain and things were happy growing slow slow.

then came the stage where the bunnies and elk started to munch many of my sweet plans away. the plums never came. the pears all fell or were taken by critters. no cherries this year. the flower seeds seemingly weren’t coming up at all. there was grass, and more grass but i wasn’t sure if any of my dreamt plants would really turn out. i was bummed - but also what can you do? whip dad’s polaris (“the buggy”) around the property. watch the birds. smell the butterfly milk weed flowers again. pick raspberries. play with the kittens. wait.

the sun kept sunning and the rain kept raining and it was humid and hot. gunnar and i longed for montana’s dry climate. at some point everything started bursting faster than we could keep up with. as it always eventually does. summer summer summer. the seedlings started to peek out. volunteer plants popped up in sweet places unplanned surprising joy. weeds grew fast and kept growing back fast. reminding what works well, and what needs more tending. what thrives without us trying - and what thrives without us wanting it to. reminding that you can’t ever really know what is coming.

august was arriving fast. i left on sunday and drove back to upstate new york to have a break, to scratch at a few corners in my job searching, and to spend my birthday with dear friends. writing to you with rain out the window. leaving things for 3 weeks at their height feels absurd, but sometimes it’s right to put it on a shelf for a bit when it seems the most loud. let it do its thing for a min.

of course it all is a metaphor for everything else.

a previous partner had told me about a book that i ended up giving to my dad: one straw revolution. he described it as “zen and the art of farming” & it is absolutely that. it is a study of a japanese man who cultivated deep relationship with nature and growing over many many years. it outlines how to become in sync with life, as opposed to forcing it to be what you want it to be. you plant seeds, you hope, and then you celebrate what comes up. sometimes the soil isn’t strong enough to grow what you want it to yet. sometimes seeds already exist there that need to bloom first before seeds planted this year will. sometimes the squash wants to grow right there instead of the plot you planned. but magic always happens regardless. there is a way to listen deeper to grow with it instead of against it. a way to flow and co-create together.

dad loves the book. we talk about it a lot.

being in the garden is a beautiful remembering / teaching of how life lifes. the planning. the letting go. the struggle. the discovery. the humility. the pride. the joy. the surprise. when i’m weeding i always feel like i’m pulling up undesirable thoughts and encroaching vines in my brain with my hands. each year something grows stronger than any year before - seemingly to say something to me like repeating signs i haven’t figured out yet. & then of course sometimes what you want doesn’t come until next season. keep going, keep trying, keep being open.

i have many things i would like to talk about and write about here.

i am still figuring out what i want this little newsletter to be.

but the garden seemed a right place to start.

as a friend once said, “everything is a scam, except for gardening”

sending love ☀️

mom and i got back in the midst of sweet rain that made everything feel all the more lush. the contrast of climate has been wild in a way that i appreciate both more than before.

leaving montana was a crazy ride. it’s funny how poignant things get at beginnings and ends. as i wrapped up the year and processed being in movement some interesting things were going on.

from day one in montana i dreaded the moment that i would leave. once i made the choice though it all softened and seemed to open to me again - when i allowed everything to be whatever it was going to be.

like:

the most beautiful sunset i’d seen there - when a friend visited and we were caught by surprise

finally finding a hunk of petrified wood on the banks of the river - a prize i sought after for months - riight when i stopped looking

sweet times with friends & relationships folding into their place

sage and juniper blooming with the best whiffs around

one last baby snow

the final moments of wild expansion and solitude really stark and nostalgic

something about change initiating brings a clearer lens.

i realized that at some point in my journey of “figuring things out” and “finding myself” i had ended up in an experiment of letting life just take me and see where it wanted me to go. many things were stable for me in such a way that i could. but in waiting for life to show me, i lost a part of my own will and direction.

i’m not sure i’ve ever been the person to completely be the flowy free spirit. the years of all the new places and attempts, nothing really clicking in enough to be like YES IT’S THIS had actually been really hard on my system. my control freak parts always wanted a plan, a career, a clear path, more security. i have ambition. i love knowing what i’m working towards. it was hard to let that all go, or even to try to. in the end it didn’t feel completely right for me. i was trying too hard. fighting my own nature.

i started wondering: when do we decide i am determined to have/do this thing and fight like hell for it versus when we let what we have be right and enough? it’s a balance we have to keep finding i guess. i think. following the feel. figuring the right relationship with our dreams & with reality - with what could be & with what is.

sometimes you need to jump / sometimes you need to sit down and find joy where you already are

something with the end of the chapter showed me that it’s not about letting go of what you want, nor resisting what is going on right now - but letting it all be in a soup together. everything is valid. and the sweet spot may be keeping yourself directed towards what you aim for - while letting yourself be surprised of how or if it comes.

amor fati stuff

/

flow state stuff

i keep thinking about jigsaw puzzling. once you have spent some time with the image and the pieces, and are able to let your eyes glaze over a little.. to stop trying - it all just comes together. your eyes are drawn to the exact piece you need. you get into this trance. maybe once we let ourselves see all the pieces, or are able to see them - we can let it all go and find the right way through.

my brother also told me once that in order to enjoy the ride you have to ease up on the handle bars a little bit. loosen your grip. if you are holding tight your whole body is constricted and it restricts everything. like - you can’t enjoy things when you are in stress. there is something there too.

so much was coming up about holding on too tight. how demanding things doesn’t seem to work & the mess that can happen when we wrap hopes in things we want - when we are attached to if it happens or doesn’t. instead of just saying, you know what would be great? and letting it go.

most times easier said than done, certainly. there is often a lot of mess in the way. but that neutrality seems to be the pocket.

acting towards a desired possibility, allowing it the space to come if it’s right, and welcoming whatever turns out - whenever it may.

i am still landing after the wormhole - am i even making sense?

well, then mom came. we shipped the massive and stunning tumbleweed i had collected & held onto. we binocular viewed many a bird and horse. we got matching rings. we crammed as much as we could in the truck. i rolled through panic and stress of moving and letting go. we did yellowstone and tetons. saw baby bison. laughed at each other. bought tourist merch. did the whole insane cross country vortex.

and now i am back in my tree nest of green feeling completely different.

everything is growing.

all the work i’ve done has caught up to me

& i’m right where is right

..for now

what i have been haunted by:

1. the beatles anthology - hulu/disney doc series made by the living beatles in the 90s. something about actualized dreams - & remaining in awe / play thru out the absurdity. something about how we go through phases overtime..sometimes we put on weight, sometimes we lose it, sometimes we get lost in love or in dreams - yet we are still always ourselves.

2. dear friend juliana’s wearable art releases

3. this conversation among seemingly lovely men about their craft, about some sense of destiny - knowing what is for them, and what isn’t.

4. my love for my vacuum and gf chicken nuggets in all times, especially the weird ones

+ a song for you +

❤️

yes, i have started one of these. friends have urged me to do so for some time, and so here i am doing it. 2026 is the year of why not.

welcome to my brain and process.

as many of you know, i have been in MONTANA for the last year.

the big sky big land big big big

the ruggedness in everyone and everything

the riverrrrr

the mountains

the big birds

the cowboys blue collars trains trucks and gentlemanlyness

the hot springs

the bison and pronghorns

the drives

the windshield waves

the rainbows

the wind

the parks for dogs

the tumbling weeds

the creative sweet lil town of livingston

the great grocery stores and costco

the lovely new friends and community

— have all done me a lot of good.

a friend back home had warned me that montana has a way of turning up the dials on whatever it is that you are working on (or are avoiding working on). that it can be desolate, lonely. i can say for me that is TRUE. it also has been an interesting loop of some sort of karmic endings. a groundhog day situation of old patterns i had thought i had already shaken, showing up in nuance and trickery. each time i found that i had grown more strength to hold my nerve, and yet each time i still kinda chose the old pattern, even just a little bit. this resulted in a slew of “NEVER AGAIN”s.

never again will i chase like that

never again will i not listen to myself in that way

never again will i discount myself as i did that time

never again will i do that contorting / shrinking / bending thing efforting to please or be liked

never again will i let confusion or the feeling of “being stuck” create that fugue funk hole

...you get it.

i ended up here on a whim and stayed because it was so dang beautiful. i stayed longer because i was ecstatic to experience a heavy duty winter full of challenge and mega hibernation. the winter never came, and instead montana was in the 60s and 70s for months on end. i told the woman at the post office that i had wanted an epic winter and was devastated about it - she pointed out that it had been epic just not in the way i had hoped.

well sure.

there were some flurries that brought me joy, plenty of times i could build a fire or take a bath and feel gooey about it. but no big snows. no deep resting of all the things. no white white mountains. no cross country skiing. no reasons to wear all my glorious bulky winter bits.

i wonder if the bears got enough sleep. i wonder what this means for the summer.

my lease for the dreamiest view is up may 1 and i am actually excited to go back to north carolina for the garden. momma is flying out to drive back with me and we will be doing another cross country drive in the ranger through yellowstone, tetons, and zooming across to get back for the cherry blossoms, the cleavers, the dogwoods - all the pretty blooming things.

i have not yet “locked in” many of the external bits we are taught to be “anchors” in life / culture / society. and yet, i feel strong as ever - clear in myself and who i am becoming. last week marked the 10 year anniversary of me leaving new york - which is gosh darn friggin wild. it feels like this year is a new chapter of something else entirely. i’m ready to put down my goldilocks tour. the many efforts of trying on a new place, new people and seeing how it fits. i’m quite excited about it. updates to come. and well, who knows what else.

may it be good.

may you be good.

in the meantime:

WHAT I AM OBSESSED WITH:

1. horses (duh)

2. this protein powder that is yummy even just whipped in milk and is really more of a supplement than anything else. the company seems wholesome, i like their emails.

3. costco has fishwife now. wow guys. also honey mama protein bars. my grocery shopping will truly never be the same.

WHAT MY FRIENDS R OBSESSED WITH:

1. this little mini brush that i keep in the truck to brush off my screen and buttons and air vent thingys. also is great for laptops and the hinge-y bit. this company’s brushes are all gorgeous i plan to own all of them at some point even the absurd niche ones. on amazon if you’re feeling naughty.

2. best chapstick ever (thank you gabs for the reference). at whole foods and other sweet stores near you. shewwww is it good.

3. meditation cushion set. turns out it makes the best combo for floor seating of long talks and general fireside lounging. also good to sit on and breathe and center yourself and act like it’s all ok and everything is already figured out. also on amazon.

WHAT I HAVE BEEN WATCHING:

1. ADULTS on fx / hulu. real funny goodie 20 somethings in nyc kinda thing

2. WILLOW (the show) you gotta watch it sneakily since disney deleted it. it’s corny it’s nostalgic it’s bad it’s real good etc. something about letting yourself be a mess and have desires and upsets and all of it is part of your power.

3. THE MADISON taylor sheridan has done it again - captured the magic of the west / the nuance of life in it and in so doing potentially ruined it. apparently he botched a lot of the fishing realm. apparently people are buying up property out here without even seeing listings. may there be no condos anywhere, ever. in other news: michelle’s hair clip is a phenomenon and pfeiffer is an absurd word to type.

LOVE U ALL

i.

she tried to write it all down

every time she rounded the bend and the mountains arrived with the tears

the clenchings of the jaw

the wrenchings of the dreams and desires

the funny date stories

instead she kept knitting

one day it would pour all out

as if by mistake

as if by disastrous mess in the kitchen

-

ii.

clothes and sheets falling apart

giving out

aging into a woman

weathered by the desert

by the time that passes

the mistakes

i choose joy

moments of simple humanity

precious moments with birds

each day ends

build a fire

take a bath

& sleep

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