This is the last Eclipse in Pisces and I am, per usual with this transit, deeply overwhelmed. I hope ya’ll are ok and if you’re not I hope the playlist helps. Warning: It’s moody.

My love,

There is a dead butterfly on parent’s deck.

It is lying motionless on the cement floor and I am immediately distressed. This is the second dead animal I have seen in two days and I am starting to take it personally. My brain immediately dives into the symbolism of it all: “Butterflies are transformation right? So dead butterfly means dead transformation? So this is bad?? This is like really bad??”

I have the strong compulsion to scoop the butterfly up and take it to the backyard so that it might be laid to rest on grass instead of concrete, so that its body might merge with the soil instead of wilt against the unforgiving rock. I flutter around, searching for a magazine to scoop it up with and my father watches me with the type of resigned bemusement he always gets when I do something “earthy”.

I find a magazine and go to slide the butterfly onto it but then it starts to move. I am flabbergasted. IT’S ALIVE?!?! I’m back to the symbolism: “Revived transformation?! This is good right?! This must be good. I gotta save this butterfly.” I try even harder to get it on the magazine but it keeps wriggling away.

And then it starts to fly!

I am watching a real life Lazarus moment and I am unreasonably excited about it. My mother comes outside to find out what the commotion is about and informs me that she actually had saved that butterfly from the pool earlier. I revise my metaphor: Butterfly (transformation) almost killed by faux water (perfectionism????) and then saved by my mother (maternal ancestors??/emotional self??). As I do this configuring my father (paternal ancestors????/action-self??) manages to corral the reborn butterfly out of the pool area and into the sky.

It flies into the distance, right against the sun, until it disappears into the horizon. And I watch, this creature of transformation who has defied death and found its way back to the sky.

Solstice Skies post Bubble Adventures in Ireland

I have been thinking about butterflies and transformation a lot lately. There is a part of the metamorphosis of a caterpillar where it eats itself and the soon-to-be-butterfly is nothing but protein soup, imaginal discs and a rudimentary respiratory system. I’m sure there is a scientific name for this phase, but I like to think of it as the “goo” stage.

When I was a kid, I didn’t know about the goo stage. I thought caterpillars went into their comfy little chrysalises for a little nap and came out magnificent. As an adult, it made so much sense to learn that it is never that easy.

Since my beloved friend and collaborator died, I have been in a caterpillar stage. The Universe has repeatedly slowed me down to an unbearable pace, forcing me to decelerate through grief, through heartbreak, through surgery, through bogs and writing festivals, over and over, begging me to get still. It had been made clear to me that I could not continue the way I was anymore but in a season of loss, I found myself reluctant to concede anything else. I stubbornly clung to a self that could not hold me, just so I wouldn’t have to deal with any more grief.

I could not move forward in my transformation until I agreed to transform. It was not enough to be forced into the chrysalis. I had to decide to become goo.

One of my favorite Tarot cards in any of my decks.

It has been a long time coming, but I woke up recently and realized I was there. I was in the goo stage. I wasn’t just trying to survive/recover from this year of sorrow anymore.

I wanted to change.

This is was a big deal, obviously. I read recently that one of the ways we adapt to neglect is to want less and I have found this to be incredibly true in my life. When we believe that we are inherently a burden, we try to need as little as possible to reduce that burden. It becomes scary to want love, to desire care, when you fundamentally believe that no one is willing and/or capable of giving it to you. And in a world that often reduces desire to transactions, it is easy to restrict our desires to what we believe we are worth.

But desire is the nectar of imagination. It feeds it, nourishes it, allows it to bloom. We can dream of what we fear, we can dream of what we hate, but when we dream of what we want (and not just what we have been told to want) we inevitably dream of better. And so it makes sense that we can only become new version of ourselves when we allows ourselves to truly want to be different.

The first time I did this kind of transformation work, all I wanted was to be a version of me that I could want alive. I wanted to be impressive enough, attractive enough, special enough to feel like I deserved to live, instead of waking up every day convinced it would be better if I died. And I did it. I built a life that I was proud of, that others were impressed by, that I could assign a discernable value to. That transformation kept me alive and I am grateful.

But now, I am feeling into a version of myself that doesn’t need any special reason to want me alive. I am becoming a self that loves me just for me, that accepts every messy emotion, every imperfection, every mistake. I am becoming a self that doesn’t need to be constantly affirmed by outside validation to be worth care, but instead knows its inherent value and feels “deserving” of care under all conditions. I am becoming a self that doesn’t need to “earn” love before it is allowed to want it, but simply desires loves because wanting to be loved is the most human thing in the world and I am undeniably human.

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Obligatory Selfie.

I don’t know about others, but it is the goo stage where I am most horrendously aware of my devolving self. It takes everything I have not to fall into my most toxic of coping mechanisms to deal with the terror and loneliness of my unbecoming. I feel so deeply all of who I was before, all the defenses that I have used to keep me “safe” in the past and that now just make me miserable. Every time I do something that hinders the birthing of my new self, I have to eat it and add it to the soup. I am nothing but the most base elements of my being, raw imagination and breath. I sit with every bit of me, the good and the bad. I have to trust that my dreams of myself swirling around in the muck are already at work, shaping me steadily and surely. And I breathe.

Instead of numbing or judging myself every time a big feeling comes, I am trying to meet them and meet them with softness. Instead of crumbling under the weight of commitments I don’t feel like I have energy to honor, I am trying to set more boundaries and grant myself more grace when I fail. I am learning not to use my loved ones to escape the tangle of my overwhelm, but rather requesting they anchor me as I navigate the overwhelm myself. I am slowly but surely sloughing off old obsessions that do nothing but make me unhappy and I am learning to be kind to myself about why those obsessions exist in the first place. I am feeling more readily and with less and less reluctance every time. As I let myself want change, the versions of me that was satisfied with less are quickly devoured by the self that craves better.

I surrender to the goo. I let myself want my transformation enough to do the hard work of transforming. And I wait with baited breath to see what skies I’ll be able to fly across when that transformation is complete.

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Until next time,

Upcoming Events

38th Annual Festival of New Musicals - October 22-23rd, NYC

Black Girl in Paris is one of eight musical that will be feature in the Festival for New Musicals in October. We are overjoyed to be able to present a 45-minute excerpt of our piece to the theatre community and are already gearing up for festival as we speak. If you’re planning to attend, let me know! I would love to see you there.

P.S.

*For those who don’t know, my moonletters are always titled from lyrics from the playlist. Which means I usually have lots of alternate titles. I think I’m gonna start sharing them, cause i’m in love. Alternate Titles for this moonletter:

1. my head and my heart are breaking up

2. just tryna get the past right

3. i’m a fable

4. dance on glass with my shoes off

5. I am the dream, I am the dreamer

The moon is officially eclipsed and though Leo is a very Show-Off kind of sign, its giving inner strength rather than party animal. Obvi Willow and Olivia continue to be my micro-obsessions at the moment, but the flow is dig deep and be strong.

My love,

I am obsidian. Magma has oozed from a raging volcano with a desperate kind of ferocity and poured over the peak of a cliff, a jutted edge of rock standing its ground in the midst of an unrelenting sea. The magma has cooled rapidly, transforming the edge of the cliff into an impenetrable and beautiful sheet of reinforced-glass.

I am obsidian.

I can feel the volcano at my back. I can feel the sea spray at my front. But I am untouchable, smooth, and built to endure.

My therapist nods at this description, their face scrunching in that way it does when I have said something particularly concerning.

“So you can’t absorb anything?” they ask gently.

I blink at them, confused. It’s like they have completely missed the point.

This is an exercise we have done a few times now: We will ground, they will ask me what kind of [insert natural element] I am today. I will envision myself and then, on their cue, describe my experience.

This time the natural element is stone and I am particularly proud of my results. I have been feeling super fragile lately and to drop into the visioning exercise and be obsidian feels good. I feel protected. I feel strong. I feel impenetrable. I am obsidian!

And that, of course, is the problem.

“So you can’t absorb anything?”

Well shit.

Impressive stone statue at a park in Minneapolis.

Years ago I read a journal from my middle-school years and was surprised to discover an apt and vivid description of an anxiety attack. I was in my twenties at the time, and I had always thought my anxiety attacks had begun in high school as a result of advanced courses and one too many extracurriculars. But reading the desperate penning of my eleven-year-old self, I quickly discovered that anxiety attacks plagued me even then, temporarily terrifying me until they resided and I brushed them off, eventually forgetting about them completely.

Over twenty years later, and it’s no wonder that I have such a fraught relationship with my feelings. Overwhelm has been a constant companion since elementary school and I have spent a lot of time in deep fear of falling back into the cycle of anxiety and depression that dominated my early twenties. Even with an abundance of love and support to surround me, it has been hard to shake the feeling that I am fragile. It has been hard to understand years of survival as resilience when all I feel is tired. And it is only recently that I have found concrete skills to make me feel truly equipped enough to face my feelings on purpose. I have been steadfastly building my self-love for a very long time, but this year has been the year of building self-trust.

And that includes being honest about a long-denied truth:

I suck at feelings.

MYSELF: You feel better?

The PHONE: Me stops to consider this. They survey their self carefully.

ME: I don’t feel anything at all.

MYSELF:  That’s good!

ME: I never really feel anything anymore unless I’m crying.

MYSELF: I hate it when you cry.

ME: I know.

MYSELF:  I know you know.

                                                             Excerpt from Death Comes in Threes by AriDy Nox

I have always had a relatively high amount of emotional intelligence. Call it a natural gift, call it an adaptive response to being the eldest AFAB person in a southern black family, call it typical Aquarius Moon behavior, but when it comes to feelings, I am very good at holding, analyzing, and thoughtfully engaging them.

But feeling them? The feelings? Me?

Maaaaaaan.

It wasn’t until I fell in love for the first time that I started to suspect that being emotionally intelligent and being emotionally adept were two different skillsets. When the relationship was messy, stressful, and unclear, I managed fine. I frequently felt borderline overwhelmed but I was still able to navigate through some truly tv-level ridiculousness.

It wasn’t until my then love-interest proposed commitment that I shut-down completely. Months of suppressed feelings from our deeply misguided rom-drama burst to the surface. Completely overloaded, I stopped feeling altogether. I had graduated from anxiety attacks to full-blown disassociation.

We didn’t last three weeks.

I would love to say that that was the moment that I started working on my emotional capacity but thing is I have a bad habit of not being quick to change toxic traits that only negatively impact me. And my lack of internal emotional capacity rarely affects others until I am at a true crisis point. Meanwhile my abundance of external emotional capacity is so useful and *impressive*, most don’t even think to question whether its an accurate mirror of my wellness. And though I don’t actively hide the discrepancy, I certainly don’t advertise it. I’ve found that in many contexts, professional and social, the average person is rarely interested in my humanity. They are interested in my strengths. So I lead with emotional intelligence, letting my lack of emotional adeptness only seep out during particular bad break-ups and unexpected deaths of close friends. And luckily I have an abundance of above-average folx I am in active community with to support me when these outburst occur.

But it is hard, being obsidian. Outside of my very close friends and family, people rarely know I’m angry until I’m irate. People rarely understand I’m sad until I am laid out by depression. People register my anxiety, but they don’t register how difficult it makes my life on a regular basis, until I am so overwhelmed I begin to inconvenience them.

And when I am not obsidian? I am lava. I am the sea. I am unrelenting and unforgiving and distinctly unfun.

And let me tell you, the only thing average people hate more than an emotionally incompetent femme, is a femme they thought was emotionally competent suddenly becoming highly incompetent. Add Mammy tropes to the misogynoir stew, and the reaction to my inevitable bursts of emotional ineptitude have been unkind at best.

Thus a cycle of emotional suppression and emotional explosion, wherein I smush all of my feelings deep inside so I won’t inconvenience people with my humanity, only to erupt. This has not only been unfair to the support network that holds me through the outbursts, but to myself, who only gets to be fully human when I am in crisis.

You have to name a pattern to stop it so I am so grateful to finally have words for the cycle that has stolen so much of my peace.

But naming it is only part of the battle. It has been an annoyingly beautiful realization to understand that the key to regulating my emotions is to feel them. But it has been a harrowing challenge to act on that understanding, and I continue to struggle with it every day.

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Throwback to Ireland and the absolute joy of being in humanity-forward community with these cuties.

We live in a world and a time that is distinctly unsafe. That is not a delusion, that is not paranoia, that is a fact. For those who live in America, we are at the heart of empire in all the worst of ways, and it is impractical at best to pretend otherwise.

And one of the most insidious efforts of this empire is the systemic encouragement for us to stop listening to ourselves. To function within this world, we are told to work past when we are tired. We are told to engage in actions we find morally abhorrent (like paying taxes for a genocide). We are told adhere to laws that are unjust, and adhere to standards that are unfair. And we are told not to feel bad about it, or even if we do, not so bad that it keeps us from continue to participate.

To listen to ourselves is to be constantly aware of how much our world is built to keep us miserable and misaligned with the rest of the Earth. To listen to ourselves is to be constantly awake to what needs to change in our lives and in our society. To listen to ourselves is to be compelled to be accountable for what is untenable, even when lack of accountability is being actively encouraged. When we listen to ourselves, we give up our excuses for allowing what we know to be wrong to continue.

So it is no surprise that often we just stop listening. It is a survival tactic and a valid one. Agitating for change is life-threatening in empire. But survival is all it can facilitate. In order to thrive, in order to be our full selves, we have to listen. Even when we don’t like what we hear, even when it means confronting limiting beliefs or feeling overwhelming feelings. We have to listen. Only then can we honor what is true.

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Obligatory Selfie. While in Scotland, a bird came up to talk to me.

I am walking down by parent’s street and I am crying. I woke up heartbroken from a combination of old griefs and it has made every step of my morning routine miserable. The street is in a quiet, suburban neighborhood in the South and I don’t see the older white lady in her yard until it is too late. She is clearly concerned by my sobbing despite my bright “Good morning!” meant to distract her from it. But I keep walking. I want to be in the dark of the guest room, snuggled in covers and pajamas, letting my sorrow consume me. And in fact, when I return home I will change back into my pajamas, turn off all the lights, and work from bed. But before that, I force myself to walk down the street and to the lake. And though I burst into tears at every block, I keep moving. I know I look insane, decked in hiking boots, jean shorts, and a sports bra as I slide between sniffles and full-blown blubbering. But I don’t care. I have to let myself feel and I can’t let my feelings consume me. I have to cry and I have to move.

That tension, that duality, is the only way I can be my whole self. And I refuse to be anything else.

When I reach the lake, I breathe. Over and over, until the sobbing ebbs away, and I am a little more level. I am not obsidian by any means, but I’m not the sea or the lava either. For the moment I can feel the sorrow in my chest and the sun on my skin in equal measure.

And it is enough.

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Until next time, here is what I am currently obsessed with:

****OBSESSiON CORNER****

1. I just finished reading Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite. If you love historical saga rom-dramas as much as I do, you will adore this book. It is so compelling and just enough magic to satiate my constant craving for the mystical. But warning, it is a heart-wringer.

2. I am playing Willow’s new album The Thread on repeat. I am a longtime Willow fan and I can literally listen to them make music all day without tiring.

3. I am consistently inspired by substack. Their commentary on relationship being the best place to practice abolition is brilliant and reassuring.

Community Offerings

I am also so thrilled to announce that my colleague Omaria Pratt is offering developmental editing and creative coaching for writers! I know a lot of my subscribers are writers so I will list her offering below:

Over the past few years, I’ve been thinking about how I’d like to expand my writing practice. During this time, I’ve had the pleasure of working as a creative writing instructor, literary editor, and communications professional. One of the most meaningful parts of this work has always been helping other writers clarify and strengthen what they’re trying to say with their work.

I’m excited to share that I’m now offering developmental editing and creative coaching for writers.

Whether you’re revising a short story, working through a novel or memoir, weaving together an essay collection, preparing an application for a fellowship or residency, or simply feeling stuck on a project, I’d love to work with you.

Current services include:

• Developmental editing for fiction and creative nonfiction manuscripts

• One-on-one creative coaching and revision strategy sessions

• Narrative strategy for grants, artist statements, and other creative applications

• Sensitivity reading for projects engaging Black Southern communities, queer and trans experiences, working-class communities, and related themes

My approach is collaborative and writer-centered. I steer away from editing a manuscript into my voice and, instead, I work with writers to deepen the vision already present in the work, offering thoughtful, honest feedback that supports both the project and the writer’s long-term practice.

If you’ve been thinking about getting fresh eyes on a manuscript or know someone who has, I’d be grateful if you’d keep me in mind or share this with your networks.

Feel free to reach out (osanchezpratt@gmail.com) if you’d like to schedule a free consultation or learn more about my services. I’d love to hear what you’re working on.

Upcoming Events

38th Annual Festival of New Musicals - October 22-23rd, NYC

Black Girl in Paris is one of eight musical that will be feature in the Festival for New Musicals in October. We are overjoyed to be able to present a 45-minute excerpt of our piece to the theatre community and are already gearing up for festival as we speak. If you’re planning to attend, let me know! I would love to see you there.

With love,

AriDy Nox

The moon is not Eclipsed but it is acting real Eclipse like. So I gotta a lot of dark party music to shake the body through the shadows, along with some vibey shadow work tunes to sit and meditate with.

My love,

I am irate.

It is burning up my chest with a viciousness that only comes from having denied it for too long. My mood app informs me that this is the first time I have been irate since I started using it and I have no doubt it is right. I hate being angry and I typically avoid it with all my might. But today I am feeling it and it is a relief.

It is a beautiful thing to realize that I’ve actually been pissed for months. That actually I am not unreasonable, I was just mistreated, and I am not deserving of the ways people and institutions have been unfair to me. It is a joy to realize I am ALLOWED to be angry, to sit with every unkind and unsupportive thing that has happened in this year of struggle and not brush it aside or explain it way. To stop trying to justify why people I loved and trusted would mistreat me and just be honest about the mistreatment.

For a moment I let myself not forgive them.

For a moment I let myself be petty and ungenerous and bitchy.

For a moment I let myself be MAD.

The beauty of Minneapolis, Minnesota and their resistance to ICE’s invasion.

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There is a lot to be angry about lately. The genocides in Palenstine and the Congo. ICE invading our neighborhoods. Black femme leaders being forced out of institutions that seem to have only brought them in to scapegoat them. I sit with the death of my beautiful collaborator and friend, Brandon Webster, and I am mad at all the ways our society wasn’t built to hold him. All the ways this world made it impossible for him to live.

I am watching friend after friend struggle to navigate the latest heartbreak that was handled with unnecessary unkindness. I am witnessing our world get drained of water for AI and tariffed into unaffordable groceries. I am awash in all the reasons to be angry and I am overwhelmed by it.

And eventually, as is always the truth for me, it stops feeling good. And yet the anger continues, bursting through my chest, weighing down my shoulders, pouring out my ears.

It does not feel good to let myself be angry about the ways I have been scapegoated for various situations. It does not feel good to be honest with myself about how I have betrayed myself trying to protect people who, in the end, chose to discard me. It does not feel good to realize that there is no reward for staying where I am not valued. I remember, once again, that oftentimes love (the feeling) is not enough. Because always, always, Love (the practice) requires more than just a feeling. It requires a commitment to accountability, to care, to bravery and to intentionality. And the more I deny that, the more I overstay my welcome in situations that can’t do anything but make me mad.

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Obligatory Selfie.

So I choose to stay mad, even when it stops feeling good. I choose to be with myself in all my fullness, instead of running away for the sake of my comfort. Instead of letting anger overwhelm me or fear keep me away from my feelings entirely, I choose to be with myself as gently and wholeheartedly as possible.

Because we live in a world that wants our anger to be distracting, instead of liberatory. It wants us stay trapped in a cycle of unprocessed feeling rather than in a spiral of growth and evolution. But we upend that every time we choose to stay with our anger, rather than deny it.

So often, we are encouraged to confuse our inner voice with our inner critic. To assign the blame for why things went wrong to our own actions, our own selves so we can have some semblance of control over the situation. I could have been more understanding. I could have asked more questions. I could have extended more grace. I could have worked harder, I could have anticipated more, I should have known, I should have been. I am failure, I am unlovable, I am undeserving of the grace people refuse to give me and that’s why they refuse to give it.

It is so easy to believe that when someone I love hurts me it is because I deserved it. This belief is one of the hardest I have had to unravel and, friends, I have not yet been successful.

But I get closer. Every breakup, every job transition, every loss, I get closer and closer to understanding that my value is intrinsic. Every intimate friend moment, every purpose-aligned career accomplishment, every triumph, I get closer and closer to understanding that I am more than just those wins. I am learning that no person, no institution, no accomplishment makes me valuable. I am valuable within and of myself. And when that is disrespected? I have every right to get angry.

First Day of Rehearsal at Theater Latté Da

I am in middle of a talk-back for my new musical, Black Girl in Paris at Theater Latté Da in Minneapolis. This is the second presentation of the work and while the first presentation was beautifully done, it exposed a lot of problems with the book (the part of the musical that isn’t music). So I have spent all weekend distilling the multitude of feedback I have received from my team, from the folx at Latté Da, from the audience, and from the Ancestors, into a complete and total rewrite. When I came into rehearsal on Sunday morning, I had no idea if the rewrite made any sense. And even after the rehearsal, I had no idea if we would be able to pull it off in the presentation.

But we did. The presentation was brilliant (if I do say so myself) and deeply gratifying. It flowed and was compelling and still called for us to engage this story with the nuance it deserves. The show is NOT DONE but it has absolutely made a quantum leap forward.

And in the talk-back, a black woman raises her hand. She has been waiting a while because we hadn’t been able to see her behind the blinding stage lights. It is the last audience answer for the night and the question in the air is “what did you find pleasurable?”. In Act I, we end the act with a song called “What if?” that poses the question what would happen if Sally Hemings said no to Thomas Jefferson.

A very old draft of What If? from our Joe’s Pub concert. Note: it has changed.

And this beautiful black woman says, with a gravity that grips the room, that what she found pleasurable was that in this show Sally Hemings got a choice.

And I hold that. I hold the beauty of choosing, even under the most arduous of circumstances. I honor how hard it is and how pleasurable.

And for a long moment, all I feel is gratitude.

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Upcoming Events

38th Annual Festival of New Musicals - October 22-23rd, NYC

Black Girl in Paris is one of eight musical that will be feature in the Festival for New Musicals in October. We are overjoyed to be able to present a 45-minute excerpt of our piece to the theatre community and are already gearing up for festival as we speak. If you’re planning to attend, let me know! I would love to see you there.

The Mulberry Report - Black Girl in Paris Newsletter

If you’re hoping to keep up-to-date with Black Girl In Paris outside of my moonletters, join our Patreon (there’s a free option!) and The Mulberry Report, our monthly newsletter on all things BGIP.

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Are you interested in what it looks like to be a working artist on a weekly basis? You should scroll to the bottom of my website and subscribe to my new mini-letter!

not all speed

not all speed is currently acting as a non-linear archival process of my work and you get an intimate look into what I’m creating at the moment. It is definitely the rawest you will ever find my work, so if you’re into that, sign up!

The moon is in its favorite place (Cancer babies ftw) and its time to feeeeeeeel. As someone who finds that hard, this playlist is like someone poking at my heart to check if its working. If you need a poke, here ya go.

My love,

I am playing with bubbles on top of a burial ground.

It is early early and we are here to watch the sun rise. The mounds of dirt are uneven and I have to walk carefully up the inclines, finding just the right angle to lean into. I sit immediately, ready to let the sky do its thing.

And then the man arrives.

He sets up the bubbles with care. The buckets of soap water and the oversized wands. He draws bubbles through the sky with grace and gravity, and we watch with utter delight. Eventually a child stumbles by, transfixed, and he encourages them to join. And that’s all that’s needed: crowds of adults begin to grab a wand and paint the sky in the breaking dawn.

But not me. I want my sunrise. My ankle grows stronger each day, but still demands careful calibration of how long I can stand. So I wait for dawn to break completely, for the sky to be streaked orange and purple to my satisfaction. For the longest day to descend upon both the living and the dead with full fanfare.

And then, bubbles.

When the time comes, I am serious about my bubbles. There is a gentleness that is required to create them to my newly-made standards and it takes so much for me to be that light. It reminds me viscerally of when I was a child: I had always been very serious about my wonder. And I feel that wonder stir in me, feel it whirl lackadaisically through my chest.

Sun warm on my face, I let this morning be magic.

Me on top of the Hill of Tara for Solstice.

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Lately, I am sitting with how to be gentle with my joy. How to take seriously the fragile magics of my life. How to stand firm and careful on hills of death, and know the sun is soon to rise.

I am learning how to take my wonder seriously again. To be vigilant in my creation of a life whose foundations are expansiveness and curiosity.

This vigilance is paramount. We live in a world that infantilizes joy. That crafts wonder as childish rather than childlike. That paints children as immature rather than miraculous. That villainizes death, and says all the dark and unknowns of this world should be avoided and ignored. What cannot be known (and known immediately) is not the stuff of adulthood. To be a successful adult is to have answers.

And I don’t know about other people, but that constant expectation to know what I’m doing has made me terrified of uncertainty. To not know, to not have a plan, to not have an answer, is to be a failure. And the crippling fear of being a failure has made every new disruption to my life feel like an attack.

So it makes sense, in this year of near continuous disruption, I am finally facing that fear.

What if this person slipping away means there is space for someone else? What if this person returning to the ancestral plane opens up an avenue for new ways to relate to them? What if this job not being the right fit means finding one that does? What if this living arrangement not being the right move is an opportunity to imagine how I wish to live?

What if uncertainty is simply a starting place for imagination? What if, instead of a problem to solve, it is a state of being to revel in?

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Obligatory Selfie.

Can I tell you a secret? I never know what these moonletters are going to be about. I am very strict about it being as intuitive as possible. I wait until just a few days before the new/full moon, I craft my playlist and then I play it on loop. I let myself fall into whatever landscape the music creates and I type. It is my most deliberate micro-dose of uncertainty and I am often surprised by the wisdom that spills out.

And I find this methodology creeping into all of my work now, an insistence to stop writing as a way to know and start writing as a way to be with. Which inevitably means, I find this methodology creeping into all of my life, a whisper to stop pretending like I know what I’m doing and revel in the fact not knowing does not seem to stop this life from being wondrous.

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Upcoming Events

NEXT Festival 2026 at Theatre Latté Da

Black Girl in Paris has gotten the incredible opportunity to be part of the NEXT Festival at Theatre Latté Da in Minneapolis. We will have presentations

1. JUL 24 at 4:00PM

2. JUL 27 at 7:30PM.

If you’re in town, I’d love to see you!

The Mulberry Report - Black Girl in Paris Newsletter

If you’re hoping to keep up-to-date with Black Girl In Paris outside of my moonletters, join our Patreon (there’s a free option!) and The Mulberry Report, our monthly newsletter on all things BGIP.

Hire Me!

Are you starting a new project or organization? Need facilitation for a pivotal moment? Navigating conflict? I can help! I’m currently looking for work and I’m open to both contract and more permanent roles. I am trying to be well-rounded world-builder out here, so let me flex.

P.S.

Are you interested in what it looks like to be a working artist on a weekly basis? You should scroll to the bottom of my website and subscribe to my new mini-letter!

not all speed

not all speed is currently acting as a non-linear archival process of my work and you get an intimate look into what I’m creating at the moment. It is definitely the rawest you will ever find my work, so if you’re into that, sign up!

I am in a bog.

Take This Playlist if Nothing Else

It has been a long and strangely stressful journey getting here but I find myself unsurprised another wetland has claimed me for purification. I have been instructed by friends to walk down the trail and slip into the little pond, feel the squish of the mud on the bank and know the feeling of ecst…

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Gemini is the chattiest of the chatters and New Moons are places to seed new evolutions. This playlist is the seeding of a new(ish) conversation I’m hoping to have with myself around peace and my worth. Hopefully its a conversation that resonates with you as well (if you take it).

My love,

I am swimming in a tidal pool for the very first time and it is freezing. So as soon as I begin lowering myself into the water, I know I have no choice: I have to keep going.

If I get out, I won’t get back in and if I don’t get back in I will miss out on this stunning opportunity to swim in new, exciting waters.

So I commit. I grit my teeth. I steady my still healing ankle. And I descend into the depths of the water with a determinedness I am frequently (and thankfully) able to scrounge up when it comes to water adventures.

I’d never heard of tidal pools before this afternoon. I am informed by the friend who’s brought me that they were created in the nineteenth century in Britain, and were designed to fill up/flood during high tide and be perfect to swim in during low tide. The closer to low tide, the warmer the pool and in a place like Scotland, the timing becomes paramount.

Though I’ve been informed that the temperature is quite warm for the season, it still takes me a bit of time to adjust to the water. But once I do, I feel peaceful in the way only water ever evokes in me. The view is stunning and I am overcome by the beauty of this man-made thing that has no desire to be separate from the wild. It’s barriers and boundaries created to foster even more wildness, to harness the tide and be shaped by the sea.

Me and a friend staring out to the sea in fife, Scotland.

Long-time readers and friends will know it’s been a difficult year for me and that has prompted me to think about how to be in relationship with difficulty in a different way. I have always been a subscriber to the grit my teeth and endure model when it comes to suffering, but I’ve been learning that that tactic works best when the suffering is relatively short-lived. Or maybe it’s the burn-out. Maybe I no longer have the energy to endure anymore. Either way, I have found it necessary to partner with challenge differently. I find myself grappling with new questions: How can I create ease within hardship? How can I rest within struggle? How can I move towards peace when peace is definitely not what is being offered to me?

It is a different orientation, one that asks me to be a bit more wild than society has ever allowed me to be. It asks me to accept myself, even when I’m tired or angry or grieving. It asks me to make space for myself in the world even when I’m not perfect. It asks me to partner with my own tides, to harness them and allow myself to be changed by the highs and lows. I have always taken deep pride in my ability to succeed at my own expense, to meet other people’s expectations even if those expectations are unreasonable, even if I’m not sleeping, even if I am having anxiety attacks. It is an ability for which I have been rewarded for on a consistent basis. But this year, this pattern has been interrupted by heartbreak, by grief, by physical injury and so on. And it has made me understand that its a pattern that cannot continue.

In a ideal world, just that realization would be enough to end it.

But we don’t live in an ideal world.

Obligatory Selfie.

So this is just the beginning of my evolution and that’s alright. We live in a world that promises us instant evolution, instant growth, instant happiness. We live in a world that tells us nothing has to take time, not if you have enough money or WILLPOWER. But we (me and you beloved) know that change is a constant, not a moment. It is no small thing to commit to our evolution, be devoted to our growth, and cultivate longevity in our joy. It is no easy thing to accept change as a forever companion, rather than a momentary intruder. But as I struggle to choose peace in a world that has groomed me for war, I accept that the process is the process.

Again.

Again.

Again.

And as I swim joyously in the tidal pool, I allow myself to be overcome with a longing: a world built like this pool, where every man-made constructs is shaped and crafted to be in harmony with the rest of the world. To be working in harmony, rather than in isolation or against the natural flow. To have the constant reminder of what it is to be a wild thing and a human thing both, and to embrace that duality as fully as possible.

Upcoming Events

Story of the Night is MTF’s new gathering for live performance, celebration, and creative cross-pollination. It’s a space where indie musicians and musical theatre artists meet and build worlds through sound. This time around Be Steadwell is sharing work from their new musical Dear Ex. As I am in Europe, I am depending on all of you to go for me!

and for making it to the end, a happy!

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Taurus is the sign of home and comfort. Ironically, what came to me this moon cycle was how to get grounded through disruption. Hope it does something for you as well.

My love,

I think I am writing a book.

It has been increasingly taking up more and more of my non-fictional mind space, getting in the way of my attempts to write many a blog, much less a moonletter.

I have been sitting with akwaeke emezi’s daily schedule and bayo akomalafe’s we will dance with mountains and Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ Archive. I have been re-reading/re-listening as I try to grasp the idea of not trying to grasp.

I had been sitting with Sondheim’s Look, I Made a Hat and re-learned that Sondheim and I share a love of Blackwing pencils. I was awash with grief when I remembered that my beloved co-conspirator Brandon Webster got me a set of Blackwing pencils BECAUSE Sondheim loved them and he thought I would too.

And so I am writing with my Blackwing pencils in my bullet journal as I re-read and re-listen and struggle not to grasp.

And all the while there is something itching at the back of brain about what it means to be creating right now, as the world is falling apart or as a new world is coming together or both. Something about being in process that I am both resisting and being called towards.

I want to go into a forest and write for a few years and come back when the Things Are Ready. And I also feel like its important to let things be Not Ready. Right now we need things to just Be.

So, the book I think I’m writing, I think I’ll start writing here. It will be very messy and not in any kind of order and it will be very not done. And in the midst of it all I will try to also write my moonletters.

and for making it to the end, a happy!

There is a frickin stellium happening in Aries right now so its a lot of GO GO GO energy. This playlist is aimed at keeping that energy positive and love-filled, hoping it’ll keep the War God in your life fighting for peace.

My love,

1. Drink water. Drink so much water right now.

2. Do not let the stars push you around. Rest if that’s what you need to do.

3. Remember that the truth is freeing. Overwhelming, yes? Occasionally distressing, yes? But ultimately freeing.

We live in a world that wants us burned out. Resist.

In that vein, this is a short one. Adore you all, see you at the full moon.

and for making it to the end, a happy!

Libra is a scene of balance and justice, but also beauty. Even in the worst of circumstances, Libra asks us to balance the scales with all that is gorgeous in this world. This playlist is a beautiful pick-me-up for troubling times.

My love,

There is a world and in that world Bryon Noem is not worthy of a news circuit.

Gender is still a social construct, but it is much more fun for everyone involved. Bryon at a young age became attuned to the ways femininity appealed to him and he has spent a lot of time delving into the nuances of this appeal, like every other responsible adult he has ever met.

The men of this world are not afraid of the ways womanhood call to them. The men in this world are not afraid to stop being men when it no longer serves them, or to return to manhood when it calls in turn. The men of this world can choose to swim in a pool of gender possibility whenever they please, to become and unbecome in all the ways that help them be their full self.

There is no such thing as anti-trans legislation because there is no such concept as “trans”. You are born into the world, you discover your gender and you explore it for the entirety of your existence. There is no expectation for it to be fixed, no demand for it to look any kind of way. There is no Department of Homeland Security for your wife to be former Secretary of, but even if there was, this still would not be a story worth exploring.

And most importantly, in this world, gender exploration is not something to be ashamed of. Whether it be for sex or for self-realization, finding oneself is only beautiful. The hatred and the vitriol that is born of constant self-denial, dies on the vine. Bryon is never asked to deny himself himself. Because in this world, everyone gets to be their full selves safely and joyously. And it is such a guaranteed, boring fact, that reporting on seems laughable.

A tea mug with the encouraging reminder to relax.

In this world,

I am failing in love and I do not like it.

The person I am falling for is beautiful and brilliant and kind. I have learned from previous relationships that it takes a while for me to feel safe and so we have been moving slowly. We have had a lot of talks and a few fights and a lot of beautiful moments. We stumble home from the bar they found for me, the only one near us that is dedicated to mead (which I had offhandedly mentioned to them was my new favorite drink). And as we walk up the stairs to their apartment they do something very them, something that immediately makes me smile. I say it without thinking:

“I love you”.

And I am immediately embarrassed. No, more than that: I am afraid. The upswell of enchantment that led me to say the words dissipates immediately, swallowed by my terror.

They are blinking at me in shock.

“What?” They say, stunned, and I immediately backpedal.

“I uh I uh I like you…a lot!” I blurt and push past them, not able to meet their eyes anymore. They let it go but we both know they heard me.

It takes another bottle of mead for them to gather the courage to ask me what I said again.

It takes another half bottle for me to admit it.

It takes another week for me to actually believe them when they tell me they love me too.

That moment reminds me in abhorrent detail just how terrifying love can be. How the loveliness, the beauty, the joy of love doesn’t negate the terror. Doesn’t negate the memory of all the other times people I loved have left me feeling destroyed. Doesn’t make love feel any more safe to feel.

One of the great contradictions of my life is that I am both a deeply empathetic person and I struggle greatly with my own feelings. I can be stubborn when it comes to grief, obstinate when it comes to anger, impatient when it comes to healing. I can be untrusting when it comes to triumph, suspicious when it comes to joy, terrified when it comes to love. I make a lot of space for other people to sort through their feelings, but it feels burdensome to do so for myself. And so I often live in wildly swinging pendulum of extremes. Either I am suppressing the strong emotions that I feel are threatening to overtake me, making my feelings muted or hard for me to access. Or those feelings catch up to me and I am overwhelmed and activated, unable to move forward well. It often feels like a never-rending rollercoaster.

And it is exhausting.

Joseph O’Malley and Breaking the Binary Theatre

In my play Death Comes in Threes, one of the cyclical fights the Selves are constantly engaged in is whether or not it is safe to feel. Myself, the practical one, is fine with not feeling, believing feelings are dangerous. But Me isn’t as convinced.

Me: …You think it’ll come back?

Myself: What?

Me: The feeling. Do you think we'll ever feel again? 

Myself: What we need to feel for? 

Me: To know we ain't gone nowhere. 

Myself: We ain't gone nowhere. We here. We always here. 

Me: But it don't feel like it. 

Myself: What it feel like then? 

Me: …like a heavy rock inside of somebody’s backpack. Like a corpse in the wrong grave. Like lichen growing over something that’s gonna make somebody somewhere wanna scrape us off if we accumulate too much. Heavy but empty. Gone but rotting. Whatever gets left behind after you die, that’s what it feels like. Feeling was horrible, but it was better than this.

We live in a world that benefits from us being disconnected from ourselves. It tells us feelings are too dangerous and offers a million ways to avoid them. And the truth is feelings ARE dangerous. They are powerful. And they are inevitable. They are not facts, but they are vital information. And when we don’t handle them with care and respect, they can become a threat to our well-being.

It’s been just under a decade since I was actively suicidal. And one of the greatest gifts of my recovery has been a slow realization that my feelings do not have to be a threat. My feelings are an invaluable part of me, of being human, of being alive.

And refusing to feel them will not keep me safe.

What happens when we are courageous enough to feel, even when its dangerous?

What happens when we treat our feelings (and our bodies) as sacred keepers of wisdom that should be respected?

What happens when we equip ourselves with the tools to hold our feelings with care and intentionality?

Does anger become less paralyzing? Does sadness become less destabilizing? Does love become less terrifying? And are we able to be in the world better than we were before?

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The seaside town I spent my thirtieth birthday in.

I am in England, in a little seaside town, sitting in a park and crying. I am turning thirty and I have been crying all day, the gentle, cleansing type of tears that make you feel like you’re in a movie that favors pastel coloring. It is the sad kind of crying but it feels good to do. I have been heartbroken for while now and resisting it. Every time I feel the grief well up in me, I tense, constrict so it can’t make it to my heart fully. And so it lies there at the edges of my everything, trying to pry itself inside.

But on my Birthday, as a rule, I deny myself nothing. This one day, I refuse not to feel my feelings. I don’t have anyone please, I don’t have anything to do. Its my Birthday and I can cry if I want to.

And I do. I sit in a park and I call a friend and I cry, letting everything I’ve tried not to feel for the past month or so find its way through me. And at the end of that day I feel lighter. Freer.

This moment reminds me in exquisite detail just how freeing grief can be. How the heft of the loss doesn’t negate the beauty of what I’m mourning. Doesn’t negate the memory of all the love I was lucky enough to experience.

All I need is to be brave enough to feel it.

Because we can hide from our feelings and rob ourselves of this divine aspect of humanity. Or we can be courageous and honor the feelings we are so lucky to feel.

We get to choose how we want to be in this world. Over and over and over again we get to choose. And when we choose to feel, we choose to be in the world as fully as possible. Even when its hard.

Especially when its hard.

PS. This is what I’m reading, this is what I’m watching, and this is what I’m applying to these days.

and for making it to the end, a happy!

This playlist is giving “subconscious shedding in the dreamscape” energy. Pisces is a sign of dreams and delusions, hopes and fantasies. New moons are times of new beginnings, of seeding. Time to clear out the gunk in your shadowland and seed the kind of transformation that flourishes in the dark.

My love,

There is a world, and in that world, people are singing the sun up.

They wake in the wee hours of the fading night, sleep still stuck in their eyes. They can feel when it is time to gather, and even if they can’t, one of their neighbors will collect them. They go to their porches, their sidewalks, their welcome mats drenched in darkness. They breathe deeply or yawn, whatever gets the oxygen going. And then they sing, the first note that calls to them. Some like to close their eyes as they search for the perfect space to fold their voice inside. Some like to watch as their community weaves a net of harmony with which to capture the planet’s favorite star. In this world, wars in Iran (or anywhere really) are hard to wage because light requires collaboration. Every elementary school child lost is one less voice to summon the morning. Besides, there is a certain kind of pride in watching your voice yank the world out of its slumber, one that means less need for national shows of bravado. The people let that pride fill them, every dawn, let it rest in the pit of their diaphragm for just a few glorious moments. Then they carry on, living in the world they sang into existence, waiting to do it all again.

In this world,

My ankle is breaking.

I can hear it, the snap of bones deafening, as if it is occurring right against my ear. It is a panicking thing to hear your bones fracture, and I immediately brace myself for the pain. I anticipate it being unimaginable, and I assume it is only my panic that is keeping the full breadth of said pain from slamming into me. So, naturally I cling to my panic, sure that when the adrenaline wears off I will be screaming rather than whimpering.

I squeak out a terrified “it’s broken” to my walking partner but they urge me to remain positive. I interpret this as “deny everything” and so I resolve that my ankle is in fact not broken, even as it falls in the most disturbing of angles.

But the subsequent x-ray confirms my ankle is in fact broken, in multiple places, and will require surgery. Still, I resist. “Maybe I won’t really need surgery.” “Maybe it’s not that bad.” No matter what, I am in need of a splint, and I am warned that it will be painful to get one. It is suggested that be put under mild anthesia so I am unconscious while they do it. But I am deeply terrified of needles (which are needed to put one under) so I once again I am panicking.

One of the doctors, a woman, looks at me critically. Throughout this experience it has been the femme-presenting folx (the nurses, the residency student, the x-ray technicians, and now this doctor) who have been listening to me the most. This doctor listens to my concerns about the needles and decides I’m stronger than the others think I am. She tells me that if I’m that afraid of needles (which I desperately am), then I don’t need to be put under for the splint. I am given some pain medication in tablet form, and I stay awake as they re-align my ankle.

I feel the pain.

It is painful.

But it is bearable.

As the weeks pass and I embark on what continues to be a relatively long healing process, I think about this afternoon. More accurately, I dissect it. I quickly recognize it as a fractal of how I experience pivotal transformation overall:

1. The break (from the past/what has been true).

2. The panic.

3. The anticipation of pain.

4. The assumption that it is only the panic that is keeping the pain at bay and thus embracing said panic.

5. The denial.

6. The confirmation of what I already knew.

7. The denial (part 2!).

8. The recognition of my strength.

9. The re-alignment.

10. The actual pain.

11. The realization that the pain is bearable.

12. The start of healing.

One glance at this process and one can see the places for improvement. But l am striving to be less fixated on constant improvement and so I have actively resisted the impulse to pick apart my process. Instead, I am sitting with one particular phase: the realization that the pain is bearable.

What would it be like, instead of renovating my entire process through a careful elimination and rearrangement of less ideal steps, to simply commit to repeating this one step over and over?

To break.

To know the pain is bearable.

To panic.

To know the pain is bearable.

To anticipate the pain.

To know the pain is bearable.

and so on and so on. Instability has had me in its clutches for months now, a recurring cycle of breaking that I haven’t had the energy to resent. But it was only when the break became literal that I suddenly realized the lesson might not be about how to stabilize.

The lesson might be in how to accept the break.

And begin to heal.

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Obligatory Selfie.

In Black Girl in Paris, my musical about Sally Hemings (written in collaboration with the brilliant Jacinth Greywoode) Sally breaks down at the end of Act 1 (spoilers!). Throughout the piece, she has been an incredibly resilient figure, stubbornly upbeat, refusing to be discouraged by her circumstances. But in the aftermath of a major moment over which she has no control, she decides to break the world rather than accept things as they are.

The Dance - Black Girl in Paris - December2025 - Composed by Jacinth Greywoode

Sally begins to dance.

It is a grieving.

It is a shedding.

It is a loss,

poured into the earth.

The Ancestors mimic her against their will.

It is a grieving.

It is a shedding.

It is a loss,

poured into the earth.

The more they dance, the more the world crumbles into disrepair, the more the Ancestors are pushed further and further away from Sally, deeper into the shadows, a pile of ruin separating them from her completely.

When it ends, Sally, gasps for air.

For the first time since we began…she is alone.

And in the remnants of her destroyed world, she begins to cry.)

Sometimes the reality of a situation demands a breaking. We live in a society that tells us we need stability to be well, but then manufactures instability to keep us unwell. It tells us wars and tariffs and stricter immigration policies are the stuff of solid ground, and yanks from us the actual things that would let us live easier, like affordable groceries or reliable infrastructure. We need only touch a toe into the landscape that has been forced upon us and know that it is inevitable these flimsy foundations are destined to shatter.

So what if we allow the breaking? What possibilities are born from not resisting an inevitable fall, and instead deepening into our resiliency? What if it is both true that the pain is deeply painful and that we can bear it?

And that it is only when we face the break that we can truly begin to heal.

Upcoming Events

This interactive event invites audiences to explore how musical storytelling extends beyond the stage to influence other sectors. At the next Fast Forward, MTF will investigate how technology can serve as a liberatory tool for artists and creators.

Bring your questions, your insights, your curiosity. Together, we’ll generate actionable ideas to clarify what’s next for liberatory musical storytelling in a technologically expanding world.

RSVP Here.

Upcoming Opportunities

Bethany Arts Fall Artist Residency

Bethany Arts Community (BAC) offers residencies to emerging and established artists for the development of both new works and works-in-progress. BAC welcomes artists working across any discipline and medium, including visual artists, sculptors, writers, playwrights, choreographers, musicians, composers, performance artists, filmmakers, and more to our Fall Multidisciplinary Residency. Any and all artistic mediums are encouraged to apply. Enjoy an environment where artists from different disciplines and walks of life can work in community and near each other, creating opportunities for generative collaboration and cross-pollination.

The Fall Multidisciplinary Residency runs for one, two-week session of 12 artists from September 22 – October 6, 2026. Artists are provided room & board, a private studio conducive to artists’ medium and/or project, 3 basic meals a day*, and a $225 stipend per week upon completion of the residency. Artist is responsible for transportation to and from BAC and any supplies or materials needed for their practice. We ask that you only apply if you can stay for the entire length of this residency and are 21 years or older.

Apply Here.

And for making it to the end, a happy!

Solar Eclipse in Aquarius

North Node Eclipse in Aquarius = Revolution is a vibe. Moving to Qobuz means that my link isn’t as pretty but my heart is lighter!

My love,

I am recovering from surgery and I am learning so much about rest. I have an overabundance of thoughts, but only so much energy to order them. Every day I am put into more intimate awareness of what stillness is. I am surprised by how Still I Haven’t Been for most of my life.

So here I am with a playlist made pre-surgery to hold you all over as I adjust to my pain management schedule and really figure out what it is to rest.

I am eager to be able to write to you all properly once more when I am more recovered. I hope you all are well and enjoying this preview into Eclipse season.

and for making it to the end, a happy!

Leo is a showy sign so I felt very much Baddie In the Middle of a Hostile Government Takeover Vibes for this playlist.

My love,

I recently broke my ankle and it is resetting my entire life. I am hoping that reset will yield a better, more thorought moonletter but for now it’s just requiring me to slow down a lot a lot. Thank you for your patience and enjoy the playlist!

New Moon in Capricorn is ultimate On My Grind shit. This playlist is BAD BITCH WORKING energy and I’m playing it any time I need to get through a tough workday.

My love,

I am trying to have things done, not perfect. I have been thinking about flow, what it means to create containers where I enjoy my work. I am so fortunate to have a lot of control over both how I work in this world and what I work on. What that has taught me is that How is just as important, if not more than What. I am currently working on an offering to help people figure out their own Hows better and I’ve been using this Capricorn energy to do it.

But in all honesty, I’ve overdone it a bit and I’m the edge of a bit of a cold. So instead of pushing myself too hard, I am getting this letter Done instead of perfect and making sure I get you your tunes.

Until next time!

Upcoming Events

Theatre Now is excited to welcome back Tony Award-winning lyricist Lynn Ahrens (Ragtime, Once on This Island) for another Master Class as part of our Industry Night series on Monday, January 26th at 6:30pm. The evening will feature 4 songs written by members of the Musical Writers Lab including Thalia Ranjbar & Kat Cartusciello, Jonathan Keebler & Bob Kelly, RJ Christian & Cameron Reese, and Richard Rodgers Award winners AriDy Nox (me!) and Jacinth Greywoode.

I would love to see you there if you can make it! Tickets are here.

and for making it to the end, a happy!

Cancer is the feels feels feels of the water signs and this playlist is Deep Feeling Mermaid themed, a marvelous way to start the new year imo.

My love,

There is a world and in that world Venezuela isn’t under attack.

Solar energy has long supplanted oil as the world’s primary energy source, followed by wind and hydro. A band of geniuses figured out how to mass produce solar panels (and various solar converters) and distributed it to the poorest people all over the world, teaching them how to build their own.

Homeless encampments everywhere became solar distributors and soon small, unofficial energy centers began popping up, too numerous and too efficient for capitalism to destroy. This sudden democratization of energy almost sparked excessive violence from The Elites, but their armies had long been filled with mostly poor people and those in power were shocked to find that their soldiers also liked their energy free.

And so began the Energy is Life Era.

The shift away from using remnants of the long dead to fuel our every endeavor had a huge impact on the global economy. A fundamental shared belief rose among the populace: The economy should support life, human and otherwise.

And as a result the resources needed to preserve life? Became irrevocably free.

In this world, food, water, shelter, communal space, and much more are available to everyone at no cost. People mostly live communally anyway, but even those living alone have access to their basic needs.

Venezuela has long since transitioned from oil as its primary economic source. It reinvested its colonial wealth into its people and collectively they determined that music should be the new economic driver for their collective.

The US, likewise, has transitioned steadfastly away from the pre-Life economy and now its primary economic driver is decolonial methodologies. Because of the vastness of the country, there is ample opportunity to try simultaneous experiments across geographic regions. The fall of colonial empire in the US was/is multifaceted and people everywhere are ensuring that those ways of unbecoming are being spread far and wide.

All governmental agencies have been co-opted towards ensuring life is honored and protected. So the CIA has no time for covert operations, knee-deep in scouring its own archives for almost-successful freedom stories it previously blockaded.

Most wars are virtual, a series of polls spread against the digital sphere, vicious and full of rigor. No one cares who wins, but many participate for the Feeling of Conquering without the any of the fall out. The Olympics is an exception, still held every four years, and always in person. It is the only World War anyone cares to worry about.

Venezuela and the US are frequent collaborators, combining its industries to the delight of a global audience. Experts in both countries often come together, creating songs of freedom to be sung for generations to come.

A gorgeous sunrise over a lake, where I like to go and meditate.

In this world, I have lost the blanket my mother made for me.

The last time I saw it I was reserving a seat on a Southwest Flight back from the Boise BIPOC Playwright’s Festival. I’d met a wonderful array of actors during a reading of The Wetlands and two of them were depending on me to make sure they didn’t get stuck with middle seats on the way home.

Once my new colleagues were safely seated, I retrieved my blanket. But I can’t remember if I wrapped myself in it afterward (like I usually do) or if I put it under the seat. In the end, it doesn’t matter. Somewhere between that plane and the uber back to my apartment, I lose my blanket.

And I never get it back.

I call the airport. I call Southwest. I log lost reports with both. I call my Uber, fully willing to pay the $20 lost fee if he has my blanket. Nothing works. It’s gone.

It takes me months to tell my mother. I have had this blanket since college and it has been my constant travel companion since I received it. My mother has been utterly delighted every time she has seen a picture of a new bed in a new place covered in that old blanket. And it made me feel that no matter where I went, I was carrying her love with me. To lose it made me feel scared, and panicked and full of shame.

But when I finally tell her that after thirteen year I have lost my precious, precious blanket, my mother is completely unfazed.

“Oh, I was making blankets for Christmas this year anyway,” she says. “ I will make you a new one.”

A new blanked, blue and purple and made of love and care.

The New Year (in America at least) often brings an onslaught of “New Year, New Me” ideology. We are told that this our chance to “start over”, to resolve to be better than our past self. But what those messages often skip over is how hard it can be to become a “new” you.

Releasing the old us is rarely a fun process. There is a lot of shame and anxiety. There is a lot of attachment to who we have always been. There are a lot of patterns and people who we inevitably lose as well.

In fact, I can always tell I’m on the brink of/in the middle of a major transformation when I go through a breakup. Friend, job, romantic, it doesn’t matter: If a major relationship has ended for me, then usually, a part of me is also coming to an end.

So while I have had countless “new me” moments throughout my life, I am deeply aware these evolutions are often as marked by grief as they are triumph.

But here’s the thing: My new blanket is better.

Obligatory Selfie.

It’s softer, it better matches the palette of the new bedroom I just finished decorating, and its got brand new prayers said over it, prayers my mother crafted for this moment in my life.

My old blanket was wonderful. It saw me through thirteen of years of life, it protected me, it helped me make home for myself over and over again in wild and beautiful and unfamiliar landscapes. It was exactly what I needed when I went off to college.

But this new blanket? It is what I need now. And if I had never lost the old one, it would have never been made.

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The more we cling to what we have lost, the longer we delay the arrival of we are deserve to recieve. The sooner we are honest about what we have lost, the sooner what is meant for us can come into existence.

As painful as it can be to lose old loves, old patterns, old selves, we can rest assured that what is meant for us cannot be truly lost. And when we give up what we have outgrown, we make room for what we are growing into.

We make space.

Space for new love, new patterns, new selves. Space for what we need in this moment to come into being. When we make space, we let the Universe know there is room here for something different, something new.

And that’s where the magic can begin.

Upcoming

My new blog The Practical Artist launched yesterday. You can check it out here:

Until Next Time,

This is what I’m reading and this is what I’m celebrating in the world.

The book is part of my Radical Imagination Syllabus, a study guide I’m engaging in as I gear up to launch my course later in the year. Stay plugged in for early bird specials and the like later this year.

And for making it to the end, a happy!

As 2025 comes to a close, I am ruminating on what feels like a grief year for many of us. There has been a lot of shedding and letting go across the collective. So I am curious about what people are longing for more of in the world, for next year and just in general. Personally, I am longing for Ease.

What about you?

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Sag is the chillest of the fire signs, so rocking to a lot of vibey rage/boundary setting to close out the year.

My love,

There is a world and in that world there is a candle.

The candle sits in the middle of a small island. The island sits in the middle of an ocean. You can only get there by boat, a small dingy that sails itself. The only thing you are permitted to carry with you is a singular wish, scribbled on parchment and crumpled in your palm.

When you walk up the craggy shore line, you feel the wind thread its way through your hair. Sea spray kisses your cheeks as you hike up and away from the crashing tide. When you make it to the small hill, the air grows crisp and vibrant. You breathe it in and start to climb.

At the peak, the candle burns as it has always burned, soft and consistent and confident. It has never seen a sunrise and so it only knows itself as the brightest of all lights. You come to it, as everyone does, quiet and humble. The heft of the air lets you know this is not a place for anything else. The candle waits patiently as you fumble with your wish and offer it to its flames.

It gobbles the wish down, burning blue and then white with power. The taste of your wish is desperate, but most wishes the candle consumes tend to be desperate. But your wish is also determined, stubborn, resolute in its coming true. This is the candle’s favorite kind of wish. It chews on your desire until the crackle of it is completely absorbed and then it settles back ito its warm, comfortable yellow hue.

You wait a moment, unsure if your wish has been accepted.

But then you feel it.

A flame in your own gut.

An echo of the candle.

You back away, grateful, and bear your spark all the way back to the boat. The candle watches you leave with fondness. It wishes you, it’s newest vessel, all the luck in the world as the boat floats back into sea.

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As my mama said, God did his big one when it comes to the Northern Lights. This video doesn’t capture the absolute incrediblness of this experience, but it’s all I got so.

In this world,

The Northern Lights are twisting above my head in the most spectacular ballet I have ever witnessed. It has been cloudy all week and my group has been warned that we might not be able to see the Aurora if it doesn’t clear up. We have been ignoring that warning, confident that whatever gods are in charge of the night sky in the arctic circle will surely work in our favor.

And yet and still, when the Northern Lights appear before us, when they dance across the night sky with utter abandon, we are all joyously surprised. It is the kind of natural phenomena that affirms the Universe loves you. A temporary miracle, all the more astounding for the fact that it will not last. I cry at the sight. I am reminded just how much bigger the world is than my tiny little self. And, simultaneously, I am reminded to be grateful for a self that can bare witness to the bigness of the world. I am fully in my body for a whole ten minutes, a feat I have not been able to accomplish for months. And I am overwhelmed by how beautiful living can be.

I see, with startling clarity, what my life would be if I was fully present for it. And so I resolve (once again) to be more present.

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This abstract sculpture made in honor of the composer Sibelius is in Helsinki, Finland and I literally only got the picture because I recognized the composer’s name because of the Sibelius program. But how gorgeous, right? !

Our society revels in distractions, in distancing our minds and our bodies and our spirts so that our true power is always diminished in some way. We learn to run away from ourselves. We, in fact, are encouraged to run away from ourselves, to avoid the fullness of our being. One way we might do this is to take a talent we already have and use it to avoid ourselves.

For me, it’s problem-solving. I love to fix things. I adore a self-help book, I am addicted to effective systems, I have worked in social justice spaces since I was thirteen and am well acquainted with a good strategy session. I am the pioneer of receiving clinical therapy in my family. And if there is a challenge, my first impulse is to tackle it, wrestle it to the ground and render it improved.

It is a gift in many contexts, one I am often rewarded for. But recently, it has also been exposed as a defense mechanism, as a way to feel like I have control even when I don’t. This year has gifted me multiple situations that were impossible to “fix”. It showed me all the ways I had transformed a talent into a shield. Now, I know the lesson.

But that doesn’t make it any easier to learn.

One of my group pictures got this amazing candid of me that I want someone to make a viral meme.

In a society fixated on “perfection”, fixing things is encouraged. Buy this, it will fix it. Try this, it will fix it. Listen to this advice, take this class, pay this specialist. We focus so much on trying to “fix” a situation. And when we don’t? When we can’t solve the “problem”?

We are failures.

We are not good enough.

We are worse than broken: We are unfixable.

But not all challenges are problems.

Not every hardship we face is meant to be fixed.

The amount of stillness I had to embody to allow the birds to come to me was worth every moment. This was one of my favorite parts of the trip.

What would it would be to be full? To embrace grief as fully as triumph? To allow anger as eagerly as joy? What would it be to have a relationship with ourselves that isn’t about fixing our “problems”, but about embracing our entire range of being?

There is a world where we are too beautiful to be broken. We are too complex to be perfect. We are too alive to be fixed. It hurts finding this world in myself. Allowing a fullness that has no need for constant improvement. It hurts to allow loss to do its job.

But there is a version of all of us that can bear any loss because we know exactly how full we are. A world where we never forget that loss is just another teacher, showing us exactly how full we can be.

Grief has expanded me thoroughly this year. The combination of my growth and my grief has reshaped what I know my bounds to be. I am learning to feel, even when it is difficult.

I am slowing down when I encounter a challenge. I am breathing deeper when I feel overwhelmed. I am deepening into every emotion, positive or negative, and giving it as much space as I can manage. I am crying on trains and laughing too loud in the grocery store. I am unlearning perfection and re-learning existence. I am being present, as often and as thoroughly as I can.

Sorrow will always fade. Joy will always return. Fullness is a gift (that’s why they call it the present!) and there is so much beauty in the temporary miracles. All we have to do is allow for them.

Community Plugs

MTF - We Got Us Campaign

Musical Theatre Factory, an amazing organization that I just happen to work at is doing an end of year push for our We Got Us Fund. Please donate!! Everything you give goes straight back to artists that are actively changing the world.

Joy Corner

This and this are bringing me joy nowadays.

And for making it to the end, a happy!

P.S.

This is my LAST MOONLETTER OF THE YEAR and I am sitting in deep gratitude with how this practice has grown this year. I do not know how much longer I am staying on Substack (I really miss the design control I had when I was using my own platform) but I am committing to at least one more year of doing the moonletter here and doing it as consistently as possible. Let me know if there is anything you want to see more of next year!

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Gemini is the sign of the switch-up. Duality, both/and, yes/but vibe and for me thats upbeat, ironic and silly jammy jams about figuring shit out.

My love,

There is a world and in that world a newly forged adult is unraveling. Strips of self sloughing off in their sleep, thin strands of skin and ego littering their bed sheets. In the shower, fragments of being fall off in waves, clogging the drain. They know they should be afraid, but they are mostly baffled: They have been diligent in their self-work and have only just gotten used to their current form. But the strands are growing thicker, the accumulated weight of them ripping away from their body with ever-increasing discomfort.

It takes the expected amount of time for them resign themselves to the reality of the situation and put in a request for time off. They buy a whole bunch of groceries and cook up weeks worth of meals that they subsequently freeze. They stock up on water and deep clean their apartment. They tell their family and friends they will be gone for a while and then lock their phone and laptop away in a vault with a lock they don’t have the key to. They buy a new journal and put it on their bedside table. They pull all their curtains closed, put fresh new sheets on the bed (their favorites) and they lay down.

Sometimes the unraveling feels like an exhale. Other times it feels like penance. They try not resist any of it. They expect to become nothing, are prepared for it, for all of who they to be called into question and dissipate into ether. But they are pleasantly surprised when their threads of self stop falling away and instead begin to re-stitch. Then, even more astonishingly, new threads spring in the empty spaces of their self, stronger and more vibrant than any self they’ve ever had before. It becomes clear, as it always does, that they aren’t disappearing. They are just becoming someone new.

They drink their water. They eat their food. They write their dreams. They cry their tears.

And they wait.

A truly incredible tree growing every which direction.

In this world,

I am standing in the middle of a forest, trying to remember a time where I didn’t have to visit nature. I am nursing myself after a recent heartbreak and feeling genuinely grateful for the gnawing ache. It is astonishing to me how much I run from myself when I am allowed: Into the future, into the past, into my screens, into my anxiety. Worrying is my favorite escape valve from the immensity of being. Which is why heartbreak is one of my most capable teachers: It drags me back into my body and doesn’t let up until I surrender to it. I am forced to learn the lesson, one way or another.

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Obligatory Selfie.

Often when I grieve, I grieve in spirals, new loss and old collapsing onto each other in an ever verdant cycle. My default coping mechanism for growth-I-did-not-ask-for used to be numbness: Social media, bingable tv, indulgent orgasms, endless sugar, work projects that allow no room for thought. None of these things are inherently bad within and of themselves. But I would wrap them around me like a shield, something to stand between me and my feelings. I would disappear myself, hoping if I wasn’t able to find me, neither would my hurt.

But it never worked. Hurt is something akin to indestructible: It simply stretched thin across time until it became a powerful wall of hurt, menacingly tall, waiting to tip over and crush me as flat as I tried to crush it. When we are not in our bodies, we are not in control. When we leave ourselves to avoid what we think we cannot bear, we guarantee whatever it is has the power to destroy us. If we try to fight ourselves (not our addictions, not our shortcomings, but our actual selves) we are guaranteed to lose.

But when we are in our bodies, we are consciously aware that control is a facade. The only thing we “control” are our actions. Everything else, we partner with. And it becomes a choice: I can partner with numbness and put myself at risk of being destroyed with my eyes closed. Or I can partner with heartbreak and learn the lesson it seeks to teach me (again). The lesson is the reward. The lesson is the reward.

A glimpse of street art from the vantage of NYC city bus.

Luckily I do learn my lessons and I know now misery is to be savored. I re-learn the specific feeling of my crumbling, how it constricts my chest and leaves my left shoulder hurting. I let my ears ring and the tears that refuse to fall pound circles in my head until they are ready. I become intimately acquainted with just how despairing I am and as a result, I get incredibly good at knowing just how much that despair is dissipating over time. The pockets of relief in my chest spread with each passing day, allowing for other things to bleed through like gratitude and awe.

I walk through the forest, breathing in and breathing out like my meditation app suggested.

Inhale: Here.

Exhale: Now.

Here Now.

Here Now.

I revel in my capacity to feel.

What a gift.

Upcoming Events

Story of the Night is MTF’s new gathering for live performance, celebration, and creative cross-pollination. It’s a space where indie musicians and musical theatre artists meet and build worlds through sound.

And for making it to the end, a happy!

That crossroads between death and rebirth is the hardest kind of limbo, and this is what I’m listening to as I navigate it.

I have so many thoughts about compost and death and rebirth and very little time to write them out. So instead, here is a playlist. This is what i’ve been reading (again) and this is what I’ve been obsessed with in pop culture. And check out the happy, cause it cracks me out.

And for making it to the end, a happy!

The Taurus Full Moon has me in deep self-care mode and this playlist is giving Clean the Whole house and Meal Prep vibes.

Before we start: ZOHRAN MAMDANI IS MAYOR ELECT OF NYC and liberation feels possible in a different way. I needed to celebrate that. What a beautiful way to bring in the full moon.

Anyway.

My love,

(Content Warning: Suicide.)

There is a world where suicide jumpers are celebrated.

Towers scrape the sky, tall and beautiful and hardly used, their insides completely empty of anything but an elevator and stairs.

Those who can, usually take the stairs. And every step is a question: “you really want to do this?” “You really want to do this?” “You really want to do this?” And if you can answer yes over and over and over again, then you know you are truly ready to jump.

Same thing for the elevator, the doors dinging open at each floor, letting you know you can get off at anytime. You can go back. You can change your mind.

But if you make it to the top there is always someone to greet you. They hug you as soon as you reach the roof, hug you tight because they love you. They listen to your final words. They hold your hand until the very end. They wait with you as long as you need.

And then, when you are ready, you can walk to the edge. You can close your eyes. You can breathe, you can scream, you can cry. And, when you are ready, you can jump.

If you jump, people cheer. They scream their love at you as you hurtle through the air. They yell their support as you fall and fall and fall until finally you land on the softest, most welcoming of platforms. All the impact is immediately absorbed as you continue to fall through the platform, sliding through its plush crevices, massaged and reshaped until every bit of the old you is squeezed out and your new self drops safely to the ground.

Every sorrow that led you to want to die is washed away. Every heartbreak, every disappointment is gone. Every unbearable reality is given up to the fall.

You are dead.

Long live you.

Breaking the Binary Theatre Festival. Samora la Perdida (playing Me) and Tẹmídayọ Amay (playing The Phone) stare up at Taylor Iman Jones (playing Myself) as they spread their arms to jump into the unknown. 📸 credit: Jo Malley Arts.

In this world,

a beloved is asking me about self-abandonment. I am curled in my thinking chair, listening intently, shuffling through my tarot cards to cope with what feels like an overwhelming amount of uncertainty. The cards are keeping me grounded, a coping mechanism I’ve developed to give me at least the illusion of answers during times where I feel truly lost.

“I hear you being really clear on how this person has hurt you” she says gently, “and that’s valid. But forget about them for a moment and turn toward yourself. In this moment, can you be with yourself?”

I stop shuffling.

In my play Death Comes In Threes, there are three “deaths”. (Spoilers!)

The first one is at the end of Act 1, where the character Me jumps off a cliff, much to the character Myself’s horror. Then in Act 2, Myself pushes Me off the cliff in a moment of extreme and sudden violence.

At the top of Act 3, Myself tries to explain why ze pushed Me:

“It was the stillness,” ze say. “It was the sitting. It was the shoreline.”

“You think there’s a reason that’ll make it better?” Me accuses.

“It was the cliff. It was the grass. It was the warmth,” Myself replies.

“You pushed me!” Me screams.

“It was the waiting!” Myself screams back.

“You pushed me!” Me insists.

“You abandoned me first!” Myself cries.

They stare at each other for a long moment.

Breaking the Binary Theatre Festival. Samora la Perdida (playing Me) stares deeply into Taylor Iman Jones (playing Myself)’s eyes. 📸 credit: Jo Malley Arts.

I think about this scene a lot. It’s one of the truest portrayals of my struggles with mental health and it all comes down to self-abandonment. There was a time in my life where I was so terrified to ask for what I needed because I was so sure that if I did, people would leave me or think of me as a burden. (I know, ironic: I was so scared to be abandoned, I abandoned myself first.) But I learned the hard way that when I abandon myself, not only do I not stop people who want to leave from leaving, but I also leave myself bereft and bitter. I leave Me screaming at Myself, unable to forgive the betrayal. I leave an inner turmoil that, if left unaddressed, becomes utterly unbearable.

So I stopped doing that shit.

Breaking the Binary Theatre Festival.Tẹmídayọ Amay (playing The Phone) offers the phone to Taylor Iman Jones (playing Me). 📸 credit: Jo Malley Arts.

We live in a society that is constantly asking us to abandon ourselves. We live in a society that encourages us to give up our values, our ethics, our intrinsic human needs, in order to conform. It asks us to make ourselves small in order to be accepted.

“Yes, there’s a genocide. But it’s to big for you to mourn. Ignore it instead.”

“Yes, the Earth is being killed by big companies. But it’s too complicated for you to fix. Ignore it instead.”

“Yes, your neighbors are suffering. But someone is always suffering. Ignore it.”

But when we don’t ignore it, when we turn to ourselves and ask “What do I need?” so often the answer is more than the comfort or numbness imperialism offers us. The genocide makes us feel hopeless, so we need to take some sort of action. The climate crisis makes us feel disempowered, so we need to learn more. Our neighbors suffering makes our hearts ache, so we need to get more involved in our local community. Turning to ourselves is the intentional practice of asking “what do I genuinely need right now?” And when we do that, when we work from our longings, all our subsequent actions are actions that actively resource us. We abandon martyrdom and we embrace abundance. We take action because we want to, not because “we should”.

Breaking the Binary Theatre Festival. Taylor Iman Jones (playing Myself) leans over the bed, in deep conversation with Samora la Perdida (playing Me). 📸 credit: Jo Malley Arts.

I lost a loved one to suicide this year. And the year before that, I lost them to mental health struggles. The last time I talked to them was a fight. We had had many fights those months, all coming back to the same theme. That last fight I had a choice: I could abandon myself, make my needs smaller for this person who I loved deeply. I could tell them what they needed to hear and become what they needed me to become so that we could stay friends. Or I could be honest, say what I needed, and accept that it could cost me the friendship.

When I found out he was dead, one of the first things I thought was “I made a mistake.”

I should have said or done whatever he asked of me.

I should have bargained whatever I needed to bargain in order to convince him to keep me in his life.

I should have abandoned myself, so I would have been around to save him.

I would have given anything to be able to save him.

But of course I could not save him. The more I found out about the situation, the more obvious it became that all that I would have done was destroy myself while trying to save him. And so, instead, I re-learned an important lesson: choosing ourselves does not keep us from the pain of loss. It just keeps us from the pain of losing ourselves.

We build the skill of being with ourselves so that don’t lose ourselves, no matter the conditions: Not to depression. Not to imperialism. Not even to the people we love. We give ourselves freely and generously to what matters but we lose ourselves to no one. And ironically, when we are brave enough to be with ourselves, it becomes easy to truly be with others, unafraid that it will cost us our well-being.

“In this moment, can you be with yourself?” my friend asks me. I stop shuffling my tarot cards. I breathe for a moment.

And I choose.

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Breaking the Binary Theatre Festival. Taylor Iman Jones (playing myself) and Samora la Perdida (playing Me) lean over the phone with Tẹmídayọ Amay (playing The Phone) . 📸 credit: Jo Malley Arts.

In Process

For this moonletter at least, I am bringing back In Process posts, where you can get a behind-the-scenes of work that is deeply unfinished. (So be nice!)

Here is a song I wrote years and years ago after my first romantic heartbreak. It’s called Fall (an invitation) and I think I FINALLY figured out how to end it. (But of course, its still in process.)

Fall (an invitation) (11.4.25)

if i fall into you 
will you hold me 
like gravity 
like crazy glue 
or will you watch me as I'm falling 
wondering all the while exactly what to do? 

cause if you're watching me 
then you should know 
I've never fallen 
gracefully. 
i've always been afraid of falling, 
even more afraid of falling clumsily. 
but this time
could be different... 

if i could close my eyes,
if i could breathe too deep, 
if I could fall 
hoping 
that you will too.

i could close my eyes.
i could breathe too deep. 
I could fall 
hoping 
that you will too...
trusting
that you will too. 

fall with me?  

if dive in headfirst 
i just don't know 
what you could do 
that would be worst
than simply watching while i'm falling. 
oh the though it, it makes my poor heart burst. 

so 
if i give this my all, 
just promise me you 
won't leave me 
alone to fall, 
cause plenty others played at falling 
and i didn't notice til we hit a wall. 
but this time could 
be different...

if you could close your eyes 
if you could breathe too deep 
if you could fall 
knowing that I will too. 

please just close your eyes. 
please just breathe too deep. 
please just fall,
knowing that I will too. 
trusting that I will too! 

and I can't promise 
that on the whole way down 
we won't both yearn for ground 
wishing we had stayed still, 
but I can promise 
that when the ground gives way 
right by your side I'll stay
I promise you I will!

i will close my eyes! 
i will breathe too deep! 
i will fall,
hoping that you will to.

please just close your eyes.
please just breathe too deep. 
please just fall!
ain't that what lovers do? 
trust me and I'll trust you. 

fall with me? 

Coming Up!

This month me and Jacinth Greywoode are going to be in Prospect Musical’s 10-Minute Musical Theatre Lab! Come see some dope ten minute musicals! PMEB (the “earlybird” code) reduces tickets to $23 and is good through 11/14.

You can still become a Patreon supporter of Black Girl in Paris for FREE or, if you like cool merch, for AFFORDABLE MONTHLY CONTRIBUTIONS. This show is so dear to me, and if you want to support me this is one of the best ways to do so.

Until next time, this is what i’ve been reading, this is what I’ve be organizing within, and this is what I’ve been obsessed with in pop culture.

And for making it to the end, a happy!