The Shift

Hello Reader I keep getting whiffs of the sweet sea as I move around. It smells like picking blackberries near the ocean, the salt heavy in the air, amongst dried wood and moss. There’s nothing like finding a new scent to indulge in little pockets of pleasure throughout the day. It reminds me to be in the present moment, to savor what’s here. Lately, I’ve been caught in a whirl of desiring, wanting more, new, other than this. On our limited series podcast, The Making of [An Album], Tyler and...

Hello Reader, After launching Famished, the spoken word album that turned poems from my book into tracks for hungry inner artists, I’ve felt empty. I’ve experienced this strange post-launch feeling before (welcome back!) with other projects. You spend months, sometimes years, creating a piece of work, then launch it, and well, nothing really, especially at first. I didn’t release my work into the world for fame and glory, but I thought something would shift, right? Something will happen. But...

Hello Reader, My mom pushed me off the edge. Her sudden death in 2021 reminded me I have this one life, and it’s going to end at some unknown point in time, so I might as well live it. Living it meant launching my own studio and seeing where my creativity might travel when not confined to a desk and four walls. It started with one big heart-beating-out-of-my-chest leap. I launched Kollektiv Studio in January 2022. I let go of what I thought my career would look like. I had creativity on one...

Hello Reader, When I launched Welcome to the Creative Club, I reached out to A LOT of people. One of those people was Jeff Felten, who bought the book to support me, not expecting to actually like it. It turns out that he loved it so much that he recommended it to his friend, Tyler Bodkins. Tyler, a musician and producer, reached out after reading the book. It landed somewhere tender. A friendship started to develop. While narrating the audiobook, I felt a rhythmic flow to the poems. I asked...

Hello Reader, Recently, on a podcast episode, I was asked what advice I’d give to someone who's feeling lost. I had practical answers in my back pocket, but the answer that felt true was one I imagined most people wouldn’t want to hear: “Stay in the feeling of being lost.” Because maybe being lost is how you find yourself. I grew up amidst moving boxes, my mom’s futon, unfortunately, following us everywhere, along with Peruvian wool throws. A sore back and itchy skin weren’t the only sources...

Hello Reader, I was in the energy of hundreds of millions of dollars. Yesterday, I sat in meditation, being guided through what it would feel like to hold and be in the energy of an increasing amount of money. First, I picked a number, then tripled that amount, then 10 times, then 100 times, which landed me in the energy of hundreds of millions. I looked around me, the backdrops lush and lavish, with flashes of my apartment in Paris, candlelit drinks on the roof overlooking the Arc de...

Hello Reader, It’s been a weird time. Another one of those inbetweeners. Between here and there. Rounding a bend. Entering a new, bigger space. These little deaths and new births happen simultaneously, and frequently, if we’re growing like milk-fed teenagers who don’t smoke. Yet, they’re discombobulating and unsettling because we don’t know where we’re going or what’s next. This uncertain unknown is hard to stay in. Old habits kick in like attention-seeking Kardashians. The desire to stir...

Hello Reader, I’ve been on a few podcasts lately to promote the recently launched Welcome to the Creative Club audiobook narrated by yours truly. Despite circling similar themes related to creativity, what it really means, how we lose and find our creative power, and how to unleash it, each podcast is an unexpected experience, a less potentially fatal version of Russian Roulette. I never know what to expect when I dial in. Most of the time, my strawberry-patterned socks get blown off. You...

Hello Reader, After a two-week trip to Montreal with family to visit family, I'm yearning for structure. Routines were tossed aside and sleeves yanked for attention as I stumbled out of my daily rhythm. It was discombobulating and wonderful. The fabric of our family stitched together despite occasional side-eye looks from my 11-year-old stepdaughter entering adolescence to the sound of Sabrina Carpenter, who’d rather visit Sephora than a waterfall higher than Niagara Falls. When I came home...