Locked and loaded to the brim with Vermont’s hottest happenings, I bid my boss farewell as I begin my hour long journey south to make my first of many deliveries.

9:40 AM: I desperately have to shit. That’s not exactly a detail that would be printed in the press, but it was certainly the most pressing thing. Thankfully, the first drop-off location of my route is a gas station with epic bathrooms. Before relieving myself, I snag the first of many bundles and strut my stuff towards the entrance.

A man holds the door for me, and I feel like royalty before beelining it for my porcelain throne. A mother is braiding her young one’s hair at the sink as I shyly shoot them a sincere look of regret for what’s about to go down behind this door. You fill in the rest.

As I leave, I take notice of a woman with space buns wearing an emergency medical services shirt. I energetically beam gratitude her way for doing the job she does while looking fabulous doing it. A real life superhero!

10:00 AM: “New delivery person?” asks an old man in a marketplace center.

Before I can respond: “What happened to the other guy?”

I explain he is working farmers markets on Wednesdays for the summer, so I’ve taken over his route.

“Like it or not, get used to seeing my face around here.” He doesn’t say anything back, so I ask him if he’s a regular at this place.

“I come down here to keep busy. If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it.”

I ask him his name.

“Bob,” he says with a furrowed brow like he’s emulating his disgruntled wife.

“Bob,” I echo back to him in the same way.

I hand him a fresh copy, hot off the press.

10:20 AM: A short conversation between coworkers I overhear at the hospital:

“How is it going?”

“Living the dream, one nightmare at a time.”

10:30 AM: The woman wearing the EMS shirt and space buns makes another appearance in my route. This time, she’s exiting an ambulance with her entourage of equally badass girls as they approach the rehabilitation center I’m about to deliver at. They don’t seem in a rush, so it must not be dire, but I still pray for the best outcome for whoever they are there for.

This job makes me confront the tower of dualities we humans move through. My job is to simply drop stacks of papers off and drive away, but then it’s moments like this where I’m reminded that someone inside one of those buildings is experiencing the worst, best, or most mundane Wednesday of their life.

10:45 AM: I run into a man from a rival newspaper also on a delivery route. Despite us being competitors, I extend my warmest of greetings. You know what they say: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. He slices the plastic ties around one of my newspaper bundles with a box cutter without any warning.

“You should really get yourself one of these.”

I decide not to mention the identical box cutter in my pocket.

Walking to my car, I spot a tiny robot lawn mower aimlessly wandering — a Roomba, but for grass. There is no rhyme or reason to its indiscernible cutting pattern. Left. Right. Tiny circle. Reverse. Left. Tiny circle. I’m not even sure it’s cutting anything. Only the robot can predict its next move.

10:48 AM: Spotted an elderly woman CRUISING by me rocking some Pit Vipers. I pictured her listening to Mo Bamba.

11:00 AM: Epic vanity plates that I’ve passed by:

BEAV1S

RIBEYES

SL1MY

DR EVIL

NEWBEEE

12:45 PM: Almost halfway through my route. I’m hungry (hangry). Music on the lawn of a church calls out to me like a siren’s song, so I text my roommate, who happens to be working just down the street, to meet me for lunch and a show. He arrives in merely three minutes. We share a #2 from Wilaiwan's Kitchen as we watch this craaaazy talented high school band, MINC, perform all sorts of powerhouse tunes.

A woman wearing wedges and a walking cane goes by. One might judge the impractical nature of this sight, but I was quite charmed by her choice. I love that she woke up and was like, fuck it! I’m wearing wedges today because I want to feel fabulous! And boy did she look fabulous! It’s all about being willing to assume a risk because it’s what you want. Color me inspired!

2:17 PM: I’ve settled into a rhythm: drive, park, grab bundle, walk, hoot & holler, drop stack, cut plastic ties, grab trash, repeat.

The repetition allows me to pay closer attention to my surroundings: a construction worker with a magnificent bearded braid, a grown man eating his boogers, a child yapping with their imaginary friend. Every stop is a snapshot into somebody’s life.

3:07 PM: A gas station clerk calls me “paper lady,” which makes me feel like a superhero. A superhero with very underwhelming powers, but a superhero no less. Me, my inked-up hands, and my secret box cutter against the world!

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

3:52 PM: I’ve decided I deserve a lil sweet treat after making my last delivery. Considering the heat and my doomed drive home, I opt for the fattest, milkiest, most plain Jane vanilla creemee I can get my hands on. Because I’m the luckiest girl in the world, the Universe delivers. I ask the lactose goddess manning the farmstand if she could give me half the size of a small with me still paying full price. I don’t need to gorge myself on some cream; I need a taste. A flavor. A hint of luxury. The lactose goddess hears my cry and hands over the best thing $4 can buy. And, because I love myself, I bought a honkin’ cucumber and a bulbus bulb of garlic. Bless up.

I step outside and pop a squat on a picnic table. Not bothering to wash my hands after who-knows-what-I’ve-been-touching-all-day, I dig in. A cute pup starts trotting towards me (the ice cream).

Her owner, Norm, finds her by my side, and we strike up a conversation because, well, yes. I love people who can just yap without a care in the world. They don’t need feedback or validation. Hell, they don’t even need an active listening ear! Norm is that type of person. He has an eyebrow piercing and a pointy necklace. He starts telling me his life story, and I throw in a word or two here and there, but I know he’s not really listening. I don’t even care, though. Talk to me! Tell me what makes your heart stir and what it’s like to be you!

He tells me how jaded he’s become in his older years. He wants a more peaceful, loving world, but he doesn’t believe it’ll ever become a reality. I tell him I wrestle with the same thought. I’ve been making a concerted effort not to be paralyzed by the cynicism and move through affirmations of love instead. He probably thinks that’s really naive of me, or maybe he wasn’t even listening, whatever!

We shake hands and silently acknowledge each other’s humanness. Life is sweeter when you pull back the curtains of what you’re hiding behind and bare your soul to a random person on a Wednesday afternoon.

4:48 PM: I call 911 because a woman is walking on the interstate without a care in the world. The dispatcher tells me they’ve been getting a lot of calls about this, which I’m grateful for. I used to fall victim to the bystander effect, but now I spring into action without a second thought.

5:02 PM: Home. I spent my day delivering newspapers, but more than that, I was collecting fragments of other people’s lives — stories you wouldn’t read anywhere because they don’t fit neatly into boxes or they’re not ‘noteworthy’ to some. These anecdotes deserve to live somewhere outside of my own experience.

This job showers me in vignettes of humanity. I feel so jazzed by the end of the day! Running into a rival, eavesdropping on hospital humor, autobiographic license plates, superhero women, philosophical talks over ice cream; squeeze the juice out of every day you get and drink up, bitch!

Paper Lady, out!

After gorging myself on a bowl of what I’ve so creatively named “special pasta,” I laced up my brand spankin’ new sneakers that have ~reflective accents~. Any other day and I’d have reached for my sandals or some shit, but it was nighttime, and the devil’s lettuce had gently tenderized my brain. So, I opted for the reflective baddies to signal to any passerby that I was considerate of my own safety, which made me feel responsible for the first time in a long time.

Looking down at my nerd shoes, I started thinking about how I hardly ever carry any protective gadget with me. I used to carry pepper spray, but when TSA confiscated it from me over three years ago, I hadn’t bothered to buy another. Since I’d already made one responsible decision, I figured another couldn’t hurt. By “responsible decision,” I mean I put a steak knife with some heft to it in my back pocket and took off to pass some gas.

Almost immediately, I smelled linden trees. The scent pulled a memory out of me: a poem I recited as a teenager, one I can only remember fragments of now. The line that came rushing back was:

“The lindens smell good in the good June evenings.”

And boy did they smell good in the good July evenings, too.

Then I started thinking about how one can visualize something, replay a song, imagine a texture, but you can’t just conjure up a scent. How unfair! Feels a lil ableist of Google, honestly. A high thought, sure, but a thought nonetheless!

My mind returned to the poem. It’s called “Novel” by Arthur Rimbaud. I learned it when I was 17 years old, when life didn’t feel so serious.

I challenged myself to recite as much as I could remember. I repeated the lines over and over, changing the inflection and cadence each time. I started performing it in my head for a panel of pretend judges, trying different emotions. Even when I don’t have an audience, I’m performing.

Somewhere inside my brain there lives the version of me who memorized Rimbaud for a poetry competition. She now only seems to come out in the summer when the linden trees bloom, but it felt like running into an old friend. There’s an instant recognition between you two, even though life has shaped you into different people. Remember me?

Then and there, I made a promise to myself to relearn the whole poem and recite it somewhere, for someone, even if it was to a tree. It felt like a true shame to bury such tender words. Speaking of trees, I turned a corner and visited my favorite tree in my neighborhood.

I placed my hands against its trunk and noticed it split right where my palm rested, like two trees that had been propagated into one living thing, vowing to become a unit. There was something powerful about the whole thing. Under my palms, a sensation of strength and reassurance radiated through the bark as I glanced up at the branches stretching above me. I really felt just how fucking majestic and ancient this tree was. Don’t worry, baby, mama’s gotchu. I gave it a big hug. “Good night, tree,” I said. And kept walking.

As I strolled along, a toot escaping here and there, a car pulled up onto the side of the sidewalk I was on. A million intrusive thoughts of this person in the car putting me in danger in some capacity ambushed my brain. Being a woman, walking alone at night, coupled with the fact that I was high, put my little animal brain on high alert. Suddenly I remembered the steak knife in my back pocket. For the first time, I’d considered how it might look from the outside. Maybe someone walked by me, noticed my knife sticking out, and felt afraid. In someone else’s story, I was actually the perpetrator, a monster to fear. That really sobered me the fuck up!

Then, just as I accepted the side to someone else’s story, a man appeared from a driveway hidden between two houses. I can’t explain it, but there was something about his walk that unsettled me greatly. I walked slowly behind him and came across this swing that’s attached to a lil baby tree right outside of the house where my favorite neighborhood cat, Boo, lives. He is notorious for being a bully, but he’s my bully. Anyways, the point is that this swing is delightful, and after seeing that man’s unsettling walk, I would be remiss if I passed up the opportunity to swing, even if it meant someone seeing me and thinking I was cuckoo bananas (which I am). If I was going to die, I was going to go out riding that thang.

Someone did in fact see me – my roommate Abby and her puppy, Poppy. I had spent the whole evening with Poppy before this walk, just the two of us. I’m sure in Poppy’s mind I only exist in our home, so running into her in the wild was a great joy. She sprinted towards me as if I had just returned from a great and dangerous expedition, which, in a way, I had. Suddenly, the evening didn’t feel so serious.

After (nearly) two years of silence on Substack, I’m thrilled (and a lil nervy) to share what I’ve been scheming up: A Mail Club called Loon Lake!

Every month, members receive:

• 1-3 original 35mm film print(s)

• A letter reflection

• A hand-selected playlist with personal commentary on each tune (think of it as my radio hour if I were a DJ)

• All orbiting around a different theme each month :-)

Join the Mail Club! <3

Loon Lake is for…

anyone who delights in the rituals and ceremonies of snail mail, film photography, and music, shared with heart and integrity.

Members are encouraged to mute the din of the frantic, urgent world surrounding us, stand together at the edge of the metaphorical lake, and help inspire us to all feel more connected to the quiet stillness within, no matter where we live. Loon Lake is a resting spot where you can just be, and that is enough.

Why a Mail Club?

Last summer, I came across this video from an artist named , someone who HEAVILY inspired this project, where she discussed her resistance to shilling her art on digital platforms. To resist this, she launched a tangible, real-life paper project. Talk about inspiring!

Her thoughts resonated with me deeply and are a significant reason why I stopped sharing my art online nearly two years ago. Posting in the hopes my work would stand out amongst the noise, catering to the algorithms, and relying on brands to support me financially has not, and will never be, something I value.

I want my art to be of service to people, but must I bend to the whims of an attention economy that exhausts me? Brittany proved to me that there is, in fact, another way.

In the early stages of dreaming up this project, I found myself pulling my hair out for a creatively limiting job in corporate America that felt like I was moving closer and closer towards a dead end. My partner lovingly nudged me to listen to Maggie Rogers speak at this year's NYU commencement. In her speech, she said:

“A lifetime making art is in some ways about your tolerance for risk, whether it’s money or lifestyle or your own heart. But it’s equally about your ability to dream.”

OH! OKAY! UNDO ME, MAGGIE! That line felt like getting SMACKED right in the face. Comfortable yet terribly aggravated at my fruitless, creativeless, day-to-day, what was I prepared to do about it? When was the last time I let myself DREAM??? Forget the money, strategy, fame, etc., what would I dare to try if I knew I couldn’t fail? And so, the dreaming began.

Why the name Loon Lake?

This project was born from my upbringing in a rural lakeside town in Maine, nestled among forests, mountains, and lakes. Life “out there” moves at its own tempo. You find yourself entwined with nature’s rhythms, leaving you no choice but to surrender and be enamored with life’s simplicities. The urgency of “the outside” world fades away.

And loons? Why, they are a prominent emblem in my hometown. From “Loony Bin” to “Loon Lodge,” they are found on countless logos, candles, and pillows for people from “from away” to remember their stay. Or, you can catch them at any of the six lakes in the Rangeley Lakes Region, diving and swimming with the grace and fierce fragility of a ballerina.

Loons are a fascinating bird. They glide effortlessly through the water, but move awkwardly on land. Their calls are hauntingly magical. Besides reminding me of home, they are a testament to the fact that there’s a place where each of us can move like we’re meant to. A symbol of tranquility, intuition, and the wildness within us, loons embody the heart of this project.

I didn’t realize how rare this cadence of life was — or how deeply it had soaked into me — or how many moons later, I’d want to package up that feeling of peace and send it miles away to friends and strangers. A mail club feels representative of the rhythm of life that has shaped me, and this is my way of passing it along.

Why Film?

I asked my dad for a film camera for my 13th birthday. The giddiness that vibrated through my body when I held it for the first time was unlike any other. Not bothering to sit down to learn the mechanics or technicalities of operating it, I excitedly ran outside into the snowy, freezing December evening and felt the warm glow of the Christmas lights on the porch. That magic was what I wanted to memorialize forever as the first photo I took with that camera. I took a breath, focused, and clicked.

Not knowing how the photo turned out let me follow my heart. That blind faith — or as my dad calls it, artist intuition — has been the method to my madness ever since. I love film because there’s no tiny screen giving you false certainty, no quick preview to soothe the ego. It requires faith and trust. You compose, you shoot, you wait, you refine. The ritual teaches you to trust your eye over and over.

When I say ritual, I mean the mindfulness that surfaces with the process of the slight inconvenience or delayed gratification of something. Think of loading a roll of film, preparing a cup of loose-leaf tea, rolling a joint, or peeling garlic. All require you to be present in your body, engaging your senses. Your mind, concerned only with the current step you’re absorbed in, finds solace in the simple action and settles into the present moment.

Humans have invented all sorts of methods and techniques to bypass the presence that is demanded of a ritual. Why do the two-hand twist, the smash-and-peel, the jar-shake, just to get your hands all stinky when there are options to buy garlic unpeeled and even pre-minced? Because of ritual, goddamnit!

While convenience is simpler and faster, it dilutes the quality and strips away the pause that rituals craft. That’s why I chose film photography for this project: it’s not instant. You compose, click, wait, and hope. And then, when the roll is finally developed, it offers you a lil taste of magic. Sometimes the photos are blurry, out of focus, and overexposed; other times they’re unexpectedly beautiful and charming. But you have to wait to find out.

I still remember the long, drawn-out process of getting my first roll developed: researching which photo lab I should develop with, requesting an intake envelope online, waiting for the form to arrive in the mail, filling it out and sending it off along with the film canister, and then more waiting for the physical prints and CD containing the JPEGS to arrive.

The process was slow. Paaaaainfully slow. It felt like getting a bike for Christmas and having to wait until spring to ride it. But then the next thing you know, there’s bare pavement and the loons return to the open water, and you’re riding your new bike and forget all about the waiting.

I was struck with disappointment seeing the results of my first roll. Most of them were blurry, out of focus, imperfect, a waste of time and money. It was discouraging, but it also lit a fire inside of me to dive deeper into the craft.

I decided to take a basic film photography class in high school, but was overwhelmed with the math, physics, and technical literature it required: f-stop, shutter speed, ISO, depth of field, and so on. I prefer my method (fuck around and find out) for most things, but that goes against the very ethics of intention and care when approaching film. Digital cameras cannot replicate the texture, honesty, and magic of film, and that’s the main reason why I’m drawn to it.

The process of developing and scanning film is both a complex and beautiful one. I can still smell the chemicals from the hours and hours I spent in the darkroom: first, the developer, followed by stop bath, then fixer, and finally, a water wash. In the moment, the ritual frustrated me, but then my print would slowly emerge, and my heart would skip a beat.

I look at those photos from my first roll with a sort of fondness now. I see a child who didn’t allow perfectionism, lack of technical skill, or language to be an inhibitor of their artistic expression. I see a child unafraid of being a beginner and who had the humility to try. That audacity fades as we grow older, when the fear of failure stops us from ever beginning. Loon Lake is my ode to that child who dared to dream.

Eventually, I stopped reaching for my film camera altogether and leaned towards convenience over ritual. It collected dust, and its shutter coughed like Wheezy the penguin from Toy Story, but I am taking photos again for the first time in three years. I feel like that 13-year-old child again: a beginner. I cannot remember the mechanics or technicalities of operating my camera, but my method remains the same: capture magic! Refine, refine, refine!

Let’s be Pen Pals <3

This project is my first step towards letting my dreams be bigger than my fears, but boy oh boy am I scared SHITLESS!

I’m afraid that if I don’t put this out into the world quickly, I’ll lose steam. That I’ll lose momentum before I even start. That if I don’t launch perfectly, I’ll fail. That no one will sign up. That too many will sign up, and I’ll plateau. I’m afraid of valuing my art. I’m afraid to ask for support.

To move forward with our projects, we must be free of resentments and resistances. I put these fears here to release myself from them, not pray they manifest. I’m choosing to try, even if I fail publicly. Even if I change my mind. Even if it’s imperfect. Because making things from a place of joy, curiosity, and aliveness feeds my inner child, and in turn, I hope it feeds yours.

After months & months & months, Loon Lake is finally yours. This project has taken many shapes and forms. Each step of the way, I was never fully sure which direction it was going in, but the intention and heart behind it have stayed consistent: to create real things for real people with love and integrity. That is my mantra and guiding light for this project, and I hope you feel that love in every envelope that lands in your mailbox.

Join the Mail Club!

The act of loving is one I hope to be a professional at by the end of my life. To do that, I have to be comfortable with the parts of myself that become illuminated when entangled with another – the lesser-known, shadowy bits. I don’t shy away from my faults (for which there are many) when it comes to friendships, but when romantic love is at stake, I wish to be unseen. You cannot be detached if you are to love – something I have only begun to recognize more and more with each attempt at love. 

My best friend Jenny is someone I love fervently – not for the simple fact that she loves me, but because there is a certain level of peace and understanding when someone just gets you and you get them. In moments of romantic love where I feel misunderstood or incapable of loving, I am reminded of Jenny and how it is possible for me to love because of the way I love her. She hasn’t known me my entire life, yet at the same time, there is a silent understanding between us that this isn’t our first rodeo together. I like to imagine the many different lifetimes we’ve shared, the different roles we may have played, and the confidence of being with her in the next one. 

In the beginning of November, we were in Verona, Italy together. Among the cobblestone streets, there lives a courtyard that is swarmed by tourists day in and day out due to the nature of it being the place of inspiration for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (which is arguably one of the most famous “love” stories of all time). A statue of Juliet resides in the courtyard – legend has it that if you rub Juliet’s right breast, you’ll be granted good fortune in your love life. I don’t know who or what came up with the notion that molesting a 13-year-old fictional child will bring you the love of your life, but I am superstitious to my core. However, Jenny and I opted for a different approach. 

We sit and watch the steady flow of person after person grabbing Juliet, posing for their picture, and going on their merry way. Sadness sits in our stomachs as we write letters to Juliet and express our devotion and wishes for love — our hopes our dreams. The contents of that letter are for her and her alone and found a home nestled between the bricks. We greet Juliet clumsily, wrap our arms around her waist to hug her, and turn to the crowd of people to smile for a camera that isn’t there. Posing for a photo felt to be the only “appropriate” way to spend time with Juliet without making her feel like a spectacle – something all women know all too well. I know it’s just a statue and Juliet wasn’t real, but it’s what she represents that feels very real to me. I saw this video on TikTok shortly after returning home from our travels and sent it to Jenny. To be a woman is to perform. I read it over and over. To be a woman is to perform. Suddenly my hindrances when it comes to love make sense to me.  

There has indeed been a certain aspect of performance when it comes to my romantic rendezvous. A significant portion of womanhood revolves around curating your image to be perceived as beautiful through the gaze of others. We are taught to perform desirability and femininity until it becomes second nature. Even in our most authentic and vulnerable moments, an unconscious impulse drives us to perform due to the surveillance we hold of ourselves. Escaping the grip of our hyper-awareness is challenging because of the ingrained mentality we have to care about how others view us. It is for that very reason I have found the truest form of love in the friendships I have with women instead of the romantic relationships I’ve had with men. In my friendships, there is no need to perform, no obligation to succumb to society’s expectations. There is understanding, there is safety, and there is love. Love, love, love.

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Locations

• Florence, Italy

• Venice, Italy

• Verona, Italy

• Reston, Virginia

• Rangeley, Maine

Casual Magic

• Seeing Michelangelo’s David in person 

• Walking the streets of Florence at night

• Aperitivo with Bri and Jenny 

• Getting caught in the rain

• Getting free shots after dinner 

• Morning cappuccinos by the canals of Venice 

• Writing a letter to Juliet

• Giggling endlessly with Jenny while watching a movie

• Talking through the night with a stranger at the airport 

• Reuniting with my dad after being gone for seven weeks 

• Trader Joe’s grocery run

• Sleeping in my bed again 

• Making my first pie

• The slowness of the mornings at home

• Watching Survivor with my dad

Quotations

“I feel like there’s this aliveness you’re missing out on because you’re observing life from outside of yourself instead of feeling” – Madison 

“Trust your identity. Be in touch with your reality.” – my yogi tea tag 

“Our fears can be a habit rather than a reflection of reality.” – also my yogi tea tag

“Is that what art is? To be touched thinking what we feel is ours when, in the end, it was someone else, in longing, who finds us?” – Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous 

Songs On Repeat

• Witches – Alice Phoebe Lou

• Interstate Vision – Lomelda

• Lucky – Atta Boy

• Better Man – Leon Bridges 

• Convention – Julia Jacklin 

SCRAPBOOK

thank you, November.

big love,

isobel

An inexplicable trust and faith convince me that I am perpetually guided and protected – even when the chaos of stress and turmoil reaches its peak. This unwavering conviction has been nurtured by years of gratitude and the plain truth that I am, in many ways, a lucky duck.

The depth of my trust was tested one fateful day in Amsterdam – the day of the Hunter’s Moon. Picture this: a pair of well-meaning travelers sharing a pre-flight joint, thinking they're on the express train to serenity by listening to 1989 (Taylor’s Version). Upon exiting the metro, the jarring realization hits me – I've accidentally sent my passport and wallet on a journey of their own. In my high state, I had decided it was perfectly sensible to toss my essentials into the pocket of my jacket all willy-nilly which was now departing from my sight. There I was in a foreign country without any form of ID or money.

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As the panic settled and the hours of search at each metro station met their natural end, that trust and faith that everything would work itself out were all I could cling to. What made this experience more uplifting and digestible was the presence of my best friend Jenny. Since graduating college last spring, the times we can now see each other are few and far between. Upon realizing we had only spent less than a week together this entire year, we decided to embark on a two-week adventure in Europe as a post-graduation celebration. Before leaving, I told her I didn’t care where we were or what we were doing, as long as we were together, and that statement remained true even in a time like this. 

Jenny is the person you’d want by your side when shit hits the fan. She too subscribes to the gospel of trust and humor in the face of turmoil and disaster – we’d sing between searching and giggle at the absurdity of it all. After accepting our fate of staying in Amsterdam far longer than anticipated, we decided to book a cheap hotel and hit the town for some food and drinks. In Jenny’s words: “You can sleep when you’re dead we’re in Amsterdam, bitch.”

In a drunken state, chicken nuggets in hand, I obsessively checked my Instagram DM’s for what felt like the hundredth time that day for any messages about someone finding my belongings. And there it was, my snowglobe moment: a message from a metro officer who had custody of my stuff from a rabbi who stumbled upon my belongings an hour outside the city. Jenny and I erupted into a celebratory jig, nuggets still in tow, and booked an Uber to meet our newfound saviors at three in the morning. As my jacket returned to my arms, tears streamed down my face, overwhelmed by the feelings of relief and gratitude for the goodness of people in this world. Doubt never eased its way into our thoughts for one second. Faith, trust, and rabbi dust!

Locations

Victoria, British Columbia

Seattle, Washington

Portland, Oregon

Bend, Oregon

Reston, Virginia

Amsterdam, Netherlands 

Florence, Italy

Casual Magic

pumpkin spice lattes and sea glass hunting on a warm, sunny morning with B

chickadees flying onto my hand and crying at the beauty of it

taking a three-hour ferry ride as the sun was setting 

smoking a joint on my mom’s porch with Bella

meeting my internet friend JT in person for the first time

singing with strangers around a campfire and embracing in a group hug

a week of learning and living with artists 

driving to the coast with my mom

making a video again

reuniting with Jenny

seeing THE Fault in our Stars bench in person

running in the rain

landing in Italy thinking how nine-year-old me would be so happy knowing her dreams were fulfilled

Quotations

“I yearn for the second chance in life to fall in love again. the person who can lay down beside you at night, not have to say anything, and you feel it. that’s love. that’s what I want.” — Gerry from The Golden Bachelor

“shoutout wombs!” — Mènte 

“we’re human beings not human doings” — Catherine

“a seed doesn’t know it’s a seed when it’s planted, as it grows it gets a different vantage.” — my dad

“trust the pattern, not the person” — me lol

“my two greatest enemies in life: assumptions and expectations.” — some guy I met at a bar in Amsterdam

Songs On Repeat

I, Carrion (Icarian) — Hozier 

My Love Mine All Mine — Mitski

Calico Skies — Paul McCartney 

Officer of Love — Caamp

Columbia River  — Lomelda

OCTOBER SCRAPBOOK

Rose, Bud, Thorn

Rose: just like last month, my rose is the privilege of travel. I say privilege because not everyone is afforded the same flexibility in their jobs as I am, and for that, it is a privilege. I recognize the fears in my younger years that held me back from living my life: fear of my health, fear of my safety, and fear of security. My therapist tells me bravery is still feeling that fear, but moving forward regardless. I have worked too hard and too long to not live the life younger me wished she could have. From where I’m from, people are lucky to make it out of my town, let alone the state, and if you make it out of the country you’re considered a rare bird. Travel has expanded my scope of the world with each new place I touch foot in and each new person I meet, and for that, I’m eternally grateful. 

Bud: sleeping in my own bed again. Though travel is expansive and wonderful, there is something to be said about returning to the comfort of your own bed. From sleeping on couches, airport benches, plane seats, and hostel dorm beds, my bed at home calls out to me. As the weather shifts I am ready to be enveloped by my childhood blanket and hibernate the winter woes away. 

Thorn: lack of alone time. I am extroverted by nature, but it has been over a month since I’ve had quality alone time which has left me depleted of all energy. A quick walk to the cemetery brings me back to life for a brief moment before tending to the presence of others again. Now I understand why my dad took 20-minute-long bathroom breaks when I was a kid.

big love,

isobel <3

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I think that’s the thing that stirs me up the most – how two people could be sharing the same moment experiencing the same thing, yet walk away with entirely different perceptions of it. It’s like art. The way we make sense of the world is through filtering our observations and personal experiences through our lens. My intentions with this piece may not be what you take away from it, but I think there is beauty in that. Take truth and honesty for instance. My dad says truth and honesty are starkly different from one another. Truth is fact, honesty is what the truth looks and feels like to you. But what do you call it when you don’t trust your honest truth? What do you do when you can’t decipher your honesty from that of someone else’s? What if they clash? Where does truth stand in between all of that? I think we all hold truths we’re afraid to admit to ourselves, but these will always find a way to show up in our dreams where there is no escape, no room for denial. Our subconscious forces us to confront the truth our inner selves hold. And what do you do with that truth? 

The thing about dreams is they’re elusive, like trying to hold water in your hands. slipping through your fingers, leaving you only with a faint feeling of an image or emotion. Some dreams cling onto your heart like a stubborn stain, refusing to fade. they haunt you, carrying a weight that lingers long after they’re gone. those dreams have a way of leaving you questioning your own reality, your own truth, blurring the lines between what is and what isn’t. They become uninvited guests of our innermost thoughts, slipping in unannounced, most times when you least expect it. They twirl and dance in our minds, casting shadows of your deepest fears, desires, and memories onto your consciousness. Lately, I've found myself having the same type of dreams over and over, replaying the hauntings of their hidden meanings in my mind, trying to decipher what is so desperately calling for my attention. While driving to the coast one day, I tell my friend Bryanna about some of these dreams. 

I tell her about the one where I’m left behind at a party and a kidnapper takes me away. The one where once I escape and reunite with my friends where nobody even noticed I vanished in the first place. The one where I just wanted someone, anyone, to notice me, or should I say, notice the absence of me. Left without a trace, I hadn’t the time to leave a mess, to prove I was alive there. Maybe I wasn’t. 

After sitting in silence for a second or two (I can’t remember) Bryanna asked me if I have a fear of abandonment. 

I wanted to tell her the thing I learned recently about how baby animals learn their most vital skill for survival first. Infant giraffes, just hours old, run, newly hatched snakes bite, and humans? We cry for help. Our most vital skill for survival is that heart-wrenching cry. We cry to be held, we cry to be seen, we cry to be noticed. Humans are inherently social beings. Any notion that seeks to isolate us towards “total independence” or shame us for seeking help or social connection directly conflicts with our most successful survival adaptation. Yes, I fear abandonment. It’s my instinct to. I remember my ex-boyfriend telling me one time I shouldn’t have needs. I shouldn’t ask for reassurance. I shouldn’t cry for help. Maybe he thinks that way because nobody heard his cries. Or they did and nobody listened. I think we’d all benefit if when we’d cry we’d be met with love, not shame. 

I’ve worn the nickname “cry baby” like a badge of honor for the majority of my life, right there on my chest, right above the metaphorical sticker reading "handle with care." My therapist refers to people like me as Highly Sensitive People, or HSP for short. HSPs are acutely attuned to the world around them. Their senses are like finely tuned instruments, picking up on the nuances that may escape others. They experience not only emotions with an intensity that can be both beautiful and overwhelming but just about everything is in black or white. Gray doesn’t exist. Some believe these sensitives are a curse, others believe it to be a superpower, but I’ve come to feel more neutral about the kaleidoscope of intense hues that are my emotions and feelings. I did not choose to be sensitive, I was merely born this way. It’s something I can’t turn off or tone down like a light switch. I have about as much control over my emotions as I do over the color of my eyes. I simply am. 

The little things would make me cry the most – like how the sun peeked through the leaves, or laughing with my friends, or the ending of a movie (whether it was happy or sad). Life, in all its sacredness and sorrows, would move to tears again and again. I say would because I don’t cry as easily anymore. My therapist pointed out to me that instead of feeling, I’ve begun to intellectualize my emotions recently. Therapy is like this magical little lifeline I keep in the back of my pocket to help provide language for thoughts I experience and to keep me grounded and not dissolve into the fog of disassociation.

Just as the depth of emotions I experience can lead to moments of big joy and love, they can equally lead to profound shame and despair. Everything stings with the intensity of a thousand paper cuts and fills me up and swallows me whole. Those dark moments are when I turn to metaphorical and abstract words or concepts that help me regain a sense of control which is one of the main things I’m working through in therapy.

The dangers of being a highly sensitive individual, my therapist once warned, involve a vulnerability to the predations of energy vampires. No amount of garlic could deter these creatures from being drawn to sensitive souls like moths to a flame. It is our empathetic nature and our innate impulse to mend, uplift, and restore balance in those we are around. It’s like an ingrained instinct we can’t shut off. Our desire to extend our nurturing hands makes us particularly susceptible to those who feign vulnerability or who need constant emotional support. We cannot bleed ourselves dry to save others who don’t want to be saved. 

The thing about energy vampires is they are emotionally hurting in some way and I think what they ultimately want is for someone to bear witness to their pain. To validate their sufferings through the reactions of others. To know it’s real and not just a figment of their imagination. Perhaps it’s not real, but who I am to question someone’s honesty? That’s why we tell stories, right? To be witnessed? To be understood? Is this not what we’re all after in some way? 

But what distinguishes energy vampires is their insatiable hunger; no number of witnesses, validations, or accolades can ever satisfy their longing. I must remind myself that it is not my burden to mend those who are unwilling to see themselves in the light if they are more comfortable in the dark. Setting a boundary with them feels a lot like viciously puncturing their heart with a wooden stake. Everything about it goes against my desire to please and avoid conflict, but I cannot give if I am depleted. It is not a selfish act to say my time, energy, and well-being are precious and deserve to be protected. I have to remember that. I have to. Without distance, they would inevitably suck the energy right out of me. And I’d start to dissolve. If you loved me you wouldn’t let me vanish I want to say.

When it gets to that point, you can only watch the world from outside of yourself. Disconnected from it all. It’s days like today I have a hard time staying in my body and I wonder if people notice me as I walk by or if I’m completely see-through. I suppose I could spend time wondering why I think this way and why I feel that way, but that is not the point. The point is not in the doing or thinking but in the being and feeling. My teacher from middle school, now friend, reminds me to stick to my practice when it all gets to be a little too much. That I have no choice other than to do, because choice incites burden, and doing is being, and being is in the doing. So I listen, and I do, and I breathe it all in, and then let it go. But you can’t stop the rain from coming.

I’m afraid I’m in danger of vanishing again like when I was 13 and laid outside in the dead of winter after I couldn’t fall asleep, wearing nothing but the clothes I’d dress myself to bed in. I closed my eyes out there but don’t remember opening them. I vanished.  

When I start to dissolve I turn back to the trees. I am reminded of Mary Oliver’s poem:

When I am among the trees,

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness.

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,

in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves

and call out, “Stay awhile.”

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It's simple,” they say,

“and you too have come

into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled

with light, and to shine.”

The universe got a few things right when it comes to trees. Surrounding myself with the goodness that is comprised of the same starry stuff I am remind me I too am alive, that I too am good, and there is nothing that is needed of me except to exist simply as I am. Sometimes I am the sand on the shore – gone without a trace, erased by the tide, manipulated by the hands of another. Other times I am the trees that shade you from the sun and provide shelter and nutrients. sometimes I am both, other times I am nothing at all. And sometimes, it’s all just a dream. 

I’d first heard this phrase from my dearest friend, Jenny. She describes it as a moment so wondrous, so full of beauty and presence, you wish to capture it, to hold it in your memory forever. A moment that seeps its way into the chambers of your heart, leaving an overwhelming feeling of peace, love, and gratitude in your soul. A moment that makes you believe in magic. A moment where time seemingly stands still, where the feelings linger long after they drift away, as if they never really left in the first place. 

The task of choosing which snow globe moment to share feels daunting. I want to share the right one (seeing as how some magic should be kept for ourselves) but there’s one calling to me, a moment that brought me to a place of awe. The best sunset I have ever seen in my life — a hearty statement, I know, but I feel confident in that declaration. It occurs on the last day of September, 7:00 pm in Victoria, British Columbia, and the sun has just dipped below the horizon. The silhouette of the Olympic Mountains greets us – the place where my parents got married and welcomed their first child together into the world. To my left, the softest palette of cotton candy pinks and purples seamlessly bleed into the fiery hues of orange and yellow that fall to my right. The urge to take a panorama rarely calls to me, but something about the stretch of the sky and the way it smiled at me asked me to capture as much magic as I could. I take a photo to make sure what I’m seeing is real — knowing this collection of pixels could never come close to replicating the actual thing, but the magic radiates off the screen regardless. On the pebbled shore, Bryanna and her boyfriend Fabián unfurl a blanket and we sit, and we stare, and we smell, and we feel, and we live in this scene of a snow globe together. Just for a moment, and then forever. 

“Because the sunset, like survival, exists only on the verge of its own disappearing. To be gorgeous, you must first be seen, but to be seen allows you to be hunted.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

Books

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed (a reread) 

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (current read) 

Locations 

Rangeley, Maine

La Romana, Dominican Republic

Portland, Oregon 

Seattle, Washington

Port Townsend, Washington 

Victoria, British Columbia 

Little Joys

Going out to lunch with my Pa

Eating the juiciest blackberry of my life

Dancing at the club

Swimming in the ocean

Watching the sunrise alone 

Writing a poem with Bella on the plane

Summer smooch sesh 

Seeing a couple reunite at the airport (brought to tears) 

Reuniting with my own loved ones 

Laughing alongside a missed connection from college

Smoke sesh with my ma

Sharing meals with friends

Wandering around Pike’s Market Place in Seattle

Riding the train in the rain

Drinking a glass of red wine on the ferry

Seeing a rainbow in the misty morning

Treasure hunting with B

Quotations

“When love is on your side, things will always be okay.” – a phone conversation I had eavesdropped on in a Goodwill in Augusta, Maine. 

“If you pretend you don’t care about anything, you’ll wake up one day and have nothing to actually care about.” – my friend Bella in La Romana, Dominican Republic 

“Every person I meet is a shard in my stained glass life. How lucky I am to be saturated in the shades of you.” – my friend Brad in Victoria, British Colombia 

Songs

Hours Were the Birds –  Adrianne Lenker 

CRY – Julia Jacklin 

Never Be Another You – Lee Fields and The Expressions 

Home Again – Menahan Street Band

September Scrapbook

Rose, Bud, Thorn

Rose: the privilege of travel — three ferries, four trains, six flights, and many car rides later to meet new friends and hold old ones. If me one year ago could see me today, she would be in utter disbelief. I’m lucky to know people coast to coast who housed and fed me and on top of it all, exchanged their time and energy to be with me. I remind myself I am someone worth getting to know. I remind myself I am worthy of this love. I remind myself I worked so hard to have the freedom to expand myself. I remind myself that magic attracts magic. Gratitude and nothing but.

Bud: working on a video again. There’s this quotation I remember reading as an 11-year-old that has stuck with me: “sometimes we need to get away to remember why we stay.” After dedicating the past couple of months to writing, I’m eager to edit my next YouTube video. I miss the craft of putting pieces of the puzzle together. I miss setting up shots and cringing at myself later. I miss being “in the zone” where time seems to pass without me noticing it leaving. I miss my community in the YouTube space. Two videos to come!

Thorn: social exhaustion. Though I am terribly grateful for it all, I have been isolated for the majority of summer. Most days were spent conversing with just my dad, someone who knows me inside and out, someone who always laughs at my jokes, someone who I’m not afraid I’m taking up too much space with. I forget how much energy it is to listen, to be engaged, and to give. A lot of my friendships are new (most I made just this past year alone) so I don’t feel like I have a strong footing in my energy yet. Emphasis on yet.

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It started with the seemingly insignificant act of selecting a minuscule, pink, plastic representation of a wife, as my chosen companion in the winding journey in The Game of Life. I suppose, in the eyes of my mother, this simple act provided a signal that perhaps I did not conform to the anticipated longings of a young girl. My mother gingerly broached the matter of my husbandless vehicle, "Who will kill the spiders for you?" she asked, burdened with an ancient, unspoken worry. Nearly everything she said held this weight. Mothers possess an innate talent for worrying about their children, but to me, it felt as though she was terrified about everything I was not, including an act as minor as who would do the bidding of expelling the spiders. 

I wonder if she envisioned me as a helpless princess, awaiting rescue from the menacing arachnids that dared to intrude upon my tower. Did my mother believe I needed a man to do my own killings? I responded adamantly, "I will! With my high heels!" My dogged determination was not only the boldness of a nine-year-old child, but a rejection of the conventions foisted upon me, which, perhaps, felt like, to my mother, I was rejecting her as a person. It marked, what I believe to be, the foundation of a life-long tug-of-war between my mother and me. She pushes, I pull. Both holding on as tight as we can, until our fingers bleed. 

The relationship between mothers and daughters proves to be, time and time again, an inherently intricate and delicate web, forever doomed to repair the threads that bond the two of you each time it is destroyed (and it is destroyed more often than not), an everlasting saga of repair and connection. You are, at all times, aware of the tether tying you together – woven with equal parts love and grief. I think daughters are born holding this grief – it's somehow embedded in our DNA, a heavy burden that we inherit along with our mother's eyes and her smile. I say daughters, but what do we call the vessels burdened with the weight not only of her mother's anguish but also that of her mother's and her mother's mother's? And why is it so heavy? Why can't we put it down somewhere, anywhere? Why must it bleed into everything we touch, every person we try to love? Why are we responsible for it? Sometimes all I want is to break the vessel and watch the shards fly everywhere, but that would break my mother (more than it breaks me) so I carry the load. Therein lies the grief. 

My mother was never fully there, either emotionally distant and unavailable or physically absent thousands of miles away, living a life detached from the children she spawned. In doing so, she denied my siblings and me not only the opportunity to offer her our love but also the chance to build an intimate relationship with her. During my pre-teen years, she expressed her worries for the day I would become a teenager. She feared I would grow to despise her, that our lives would be composed of senseless arguments and tension – such was the nature of things; it was our fate. I never pushed my mom’s hand away as I aged into the discomfort that comes with being a teenage girl as she had envisioned. In fact, it felt like maybe she had pushed mine aside. 

Growing up with an absent mother leaves a void that swallows you whole. As a child, you blame yourself for her detachment and begin to think of it as a reflection of your own inadequacy and worthlessness. You become a sleuth, searching for clues and evidence in the nuance of every action and interaction you have to support this narrative. When a story is repeated often enough, you begin to believe it. This notion that you are fundamentally flawed lays out the foundation for a lifelong search for external validation – that you are not a shitty person, that you are loved, that you are wanted. Trust, both within yourself and others, is a rare and fragile commodity to encounter. You are forever trying to complete a puzzle that has missing pieces, and the gaps haunt you in your sleep. The hunger for intimacy is a natural symptom of these gaps – it’s a yearning to connect and be connected to – yet this desire is rooted in a deep fear that this connection will be severed just like your mother's had been, so you leave them before they can leave you. 

The torrent of grief I feel is all-encompassing at times – a deep riverbed of loss and shame that flows throughout the entirety of my being and personhood. How do you grieve someone who is still alive? How does one mourn the loss of not only your stolen girlhood, but of your mother’s? At times I just want to scream. Rage. Weep until my tears consume me. Isn’t it sick and twisted that the person who poisoned you is also the one with the antidote? How do you grapple with the weight of it all? Teach me how to grapple with it, mama. 

In an effort to ease this burden, I decided to spend six weeks with my mother – the most amount of time we’d spent together in over a decade. We pretend we know each other well enough to soften our collective grief, but we continue to exist as strangers. The big moments she missed out on are what we talk about the most – all the first days of school, all the boyfriends and friends she never met, all the proms, dance recitals, birthdays, holidays, an endless list; but the more mundane moments – the sharing of meals, the Sunday flea markets, the exchanges of stories, the morning cups of coffee, the morning and nighttime routines, the trips to the grocery store – those are moments we mourn together. It is in those intimate moments where the essence and details of a person is revealed to you. This trip was our joint attempt at bridging the gaps that widened over time – the knowledge that six weeks couldn’t encapsulate years of missed moments, but it was undeniably better than nothing. 

Weaving myself into a web that was spun without the intention of housing or feeding me was strange at first. I couldn’t help but feel like a spiderling in her presence, wanting to be held and cared for. For five weeks we ran around the same comfortable topics: astrology, old memes and trashy TV shows, the well-being of my brothers, and the guilt she bears. I play off her absence in my life like it wasn’t that big of a deal each time she brings it up because I know the guilt she holds is larger than my grief. I feel guilty because she feels guilty, which makes her feel even more guilty. Instead of talking about it more, we smoke weed and play Nintendo 64 and she laughs at the little things. It is my favorite sound (my mother’s laugh).  

By the sixth and final week, something between us erupts; perhaps it was the culmination of a lifetime’s worth of resentment and love exploding all at once. My mother confesses her deepest fear: the possibility of rejection from her children. This shocks me, not because it is irrational, but because her actions and words throughout my life seemed to invite that very rejection. Up until a certain point, you think of your mom as an entity and fail to recognize the person she was before your arrival, with her own set of needs, wants, and desires, often in opposition to your own. This is a natural realization to arrive at, of course – some are shielded from this reality until the dying days of adolescence, at which time the tears in the web become apparent, but others are not granted this privilege of obliviousness. I say “privilege” because you tuck away your childlike innocence and take on a form of parentification once the illusion of maternal invincibility shatters before you even learn how to tie your own shoes. You become responsible for yourself, observing your mother having one episode after another, crumbling under the weight, and, seeing her like that, you crumble too. 

I recognize my mom’s inner child – a scared and shy little girl, one who had grown up in a turbulent and unstable environment. Sometimes, when we’re sitting in the car, she’ll tell me the most heart-wrenching story from her childhood and I am struck over and over by the painful realization of just how little I know her and how sorry I am for it all. I recognized this wounded child in her from a young age, and that recognition was the reason I didn't reject her – I couldn’t reject her – even though, at times, it would have been easier to do so. Easier, perhaps, in the sense that I could have placed the blame solely on her. But the hurt would still remain, as would the weight. 

My mom wrote me a handwritten note after I left, and in the first line she stated the insecurity she had about her handwriting – “messy and ugly” she called it. I wonder if she would say that if she knew my handwriting looks like hers – would she then call it beautiful? How can mothers hate the design of their webs, but claim they love their daughters? Mothers and daughters exist as grief-stricken mirrors to each other. The mothers hate themselves while loving their daughters. This is what I mean by that weight. It exists in everything I do. Like the feeling of a spider’s web on your skin, even if it’s gone, the phantom sensation lingers.

These words are my attempt at brushing off the web, to place the grief somewhere other than on my skin. The more I can channel grief into an essay, a video, a poem, the more I am able to move freely in the world without being burdened by it because I have given it a name, acknowledged it, voiced it, and released it into the void. I hope to turn my grief into something beautiful, but the more I write the uglier it becomes. I have to remind myself that, yes, there is grief, and sometimes it is ugly, but there is also love and sometimes it is beautiful. Grief is evidence that love exists between me and my mom, and where there is love, there is forgiveness – for her, for myself, and for us. 

My dad tells me I’ll be a good mother when the time comes, and, God, I hope so. I hope if I am to have a daughter that she loves her mind and body and knows she has ownership of both. I hope she radiates light and trusts herself. I hope she dances under the moon and embraces how full of love she is. I hope she sings and weaves tales. I hope she sees me as a safe haven. I hope by the time she is earthbound the weight placed on her floats in comparison to the women she will never know but who share her face. I hope she is a revolutionary girl who knows the power of pleasure. I hope she challenges me and holds my hand. I hope if there is anger and resentment she is able to untangle herself from their web. I hope she teaches me what true love is and extends that love to her grandmother. I hope she reconciles with me when it’s time. I hope she can forgive me. Sweet baby girl, please forgive your mama.

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