I’m writing to you on my former wedding anniversary. It’s an intimately familiar date that is no longer celebrated. In five years from now, I don’t think the significance will matter like it once did, as each passing day brings my former partner and I closer to an unknowing. But I made a commitment to myself to honor feeling all that rests on this heart within these letters I send, and so I’m here to say there’s still some feelings for this day.

There’s a lot I don’t know about. There’s experiences I don’t have, memories yet to be made, blindspots from privileges I’ve inherited, and an ocean of grief that has yet to reach my shore. But me and my heart do know some joyous things about young love.

I know what it feels like to be in love for the first time. I know what it feels like to stay up all night, swapping stories that make my chest ache from laughter. I know what it feels like to be handed a mix CD with songs that remind someone of me. I know what it feels like to exchange love letters across a great distance. I know what it feels like to close that gap, to drive across the country, my future riding shotgun, high on the thought: I’m doing it, we are doing it, this is our dream! I know what it feels like to say “I do,” and with each vow, project a sense of forever onto a precise moment we want to celebrate over and over again. I know what it feels like to believe in love, and while they say change is the only constant, I do choose to believe that love in its infinite seasons can be counted on too.

And so my friends, on a significant day that continues to lose its shape, I am taking a moment to honor a period from the beginning of my former partnership by listening to Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros’ album ‘Here’. We loved this album and saw the band live at a traveling mini-festival. There’s some funny stories tucked into that concert that brings a goofy grin to my face. This album feels so specific to my experience of time and place in 2012-13. After many letters on grief and the darkness in my marriage ending, it feels good in my lungs to sing songs from a forgotten time of our youthful delight. I’m curious, what albums and concerts take you back to 2013? What does that year feel like to you through music? Who is with you, what sensory expressions come to mind? Whatever your answer may be, if you turn the volume up, you just might find tucked between each song two kids dancing with love’s long memory.

My friends, thank you for witnessing my reverence for love, especially the achey, faded bits. Thank you for holding me close while I make my way through this ending. Today, in the present, I know so much more about love. I can’t wait to share in future letters about all the beauty that has filled my life after loving someone enough to let them go.

With love & possibility,

Jordan

I am writing to you today from six months ago. Six months ago, it was January 19th. Do you remember your thoughts from then? The worries, the aches? Do you remember where the sun found you, what you were hoping for six months from then? Suddenly, we are here in the curiosity of now.

My message is simple and clear: this is all practice. Practice everything! You are a life learner. You are a student in this grand world of living, tending to your inner and outer garden, inviting love, safety, and kindness to bloom. I’m guessing that loving yourself for who you are, with what you have in this moment and without striving to change, is a challenge. If you agree, I’m here to say I see you and that I can relate. If I had to guess, the challenge of loving yourself comes from your wounds, from surviving hardships, and from trading wants for love outside yourself. If you agree, I’m here to say I see you and that I love you for trying.

You have learned so much in six months. You have learned it is okay to just be who you are in each moment. Some moments loving yourself completely feels divine, joyous, and easy. And other days, it is really hard to hold. My message for the easy and the hard days is the same: reach in gratitude toward those you love. Often times those folks are waiting to share something you need to hear. Share, practice, lean-in, love.

My friends, I am so proud of you for knowing what you need. You can trust yourself and you have a strong intuition on what would be most helpful. How beautiful is that knowing? May this letter be a reminder of the simple, a reminder of the moment, a reminder of yourself. Keep looking.

With love & possibility

Jordan

Jordy’s Magic Elixir of Desires (open in July) (keep practicing) 

I am decisive with my time, energy, resources.
I possess a strong ability for discernment.
I am gentle, compassionate, resilient and patient with my patterns.
I act, love, and speak from a place of calm, ease, and flow.
I acknowledge when I am using old curriculum and pivot.
I am in alignment with my values, my heart, my body, my spirit.
I am able to slow down, feel grounded more often than not.
I don’t make experiences about my worth.
I am not afraid of making mistakes.
I am worthy of love, care, attention.
I can let go of what is ready to be put behind me.
I live well: rested, resourced, and grounded.
I remember I have a body that knows more than my heart and mind!
I remember that loving myself is a worthy investment.
I remember this is all practice, I can always begin again.

I wrote this letter from the sunroom in the house I moved into not too long ago. I’m baking in here, uncomfortable from the hot summer sun but stubbornly committed to creating something in a new room that makes my insides feel good. This room brings me closer to my art practice, to the work I would like to do, and to the things I want to say.

Friends, what makes your insides feel good? Right now for me it’s the week I ate breakfast out of a thrifted Bass Pro fishing themed mug that reads ‘Reel Cool Grandpa’. And the first opportunity to wear a pair of charmingly ridiculous pants. Why? Because wearing gingham pants with an embroidered shamrock on the right ass cheek feels good and that silly mug reminds me of Arkansas, and isn’t it nice to pause when your spirit finds something it’s fond of?

Last week I attended a pride writing workshop that altered my insides completely. This workshop was so sweet in community and ripe with generative ideas. I love meeting people. Something takes over my body when I find myself in spaces that feel exciting and new. I glow all over. So imagine my delight at my first opportunity to combine this with writing. Because for me, writing makes me feel alive. I even shocked myself by volunteering to read a few lines I wrote! I spoke into a microphone! In public! I’m still riding the high of this night of firsts.

Which leads me to a dream I had recently of a rainbow. In my mind, the arc filled the sky, framing the farm I grew up on. And would you know it friends, the next evening NYC experienced a bold, clear rainbow. Folks took pictures, someone I love sent me a glimpse of that bright light in the sky. They asked me more about my dream and this connection made me feel hopeful. Living in a dream and noticing the living. Which reminds me, are you aware of how delightfully cheerful New York City is right now? Talk about hope, love, dreams, and the divine power of unity! I’m taking my rainbow dream and my new city as a sign that I am finally home.

So I ask again, what makes you feel good? What life experiences have left your insides completely rearranged? I’m tuned to my surrounding good fortune after a few years of answering questions from the dark, but I have the capacity to hold both. Maybe your insides are a delightful Lisa Frank picture (my dream also included a pond of giggling baby orcas) or maybe your insides are twisted up in the shadows. Both/and/more is possible and a-ok. Together we can make space around whatever life wants us to notice. Take real good care of yourself & others out there!

With love & possibility,

Jordan

Today my heart/mind/spirit is sitting with the medley of folks whose lives have brought so much meaning to my very own. You see, I come from a long line of failed marriages. On both sides of my family you’ll find those I now believe to be experts on love. They possess an innate willingness to be open, get lost, start over, and try again. As a child from divorce, I have long carried a fear with me of a relationship failing. I once viewed those that came before me as missing a key ingredient, as if they somehow never quite got love right. But with more years behind me and a failed marriage under my belt, I now think of failure as proof of trying.

I come from a long line of storytellers. On both sides of my family you’ll find a handful of folks blessed with the gift of the gab. These legends loomed large in my young life with their talent for holding a captive audience in the warmth of tall tales and jokes. I am made up of generations of stories traded around dinner tables, gatherings, campfires, and tailgates. When I laugh, what you are hearing is my ancestors love pouring from my heart.

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The verbal prowess of my family has passed down to me through the written form. Oh, how I love to write — on substack, for my novel, in letters to folks living half a country away. Sometimes when I write, I recognize the writing of my dad and my papaw. Which inevitably brings me to a reoccurring thought, that my hands are an exact copy of my dad’s hands. I can trace my paternal lineage in each soft knuckle. I come from a long line of hands that have worked land, built structures, and held the preciousness of life. When you rest your hand in mine, what you are feeling is my ancestors resilience, strength, and ability to dream.

Which leads me to thoughts on a long line of fiery women. On both sides of my family you’ll find women who are hell-bent, spitfires, and not to be messed with. These are women that love you something fierce. I think of a recent invitation to consider anger in shades and textures. All I can imagine are the women who raised me and how they possess a specific shade of anger that is packaged in some of my favorite southern descriptions. Like how ugly is used to describe a rude, yet honest behavior. Or how if one refers to their self as being hateful, it really just signifies to their guest they have the gall to say what everyone else is thinking. And don’t even get me started on the polite hostility of a well-timed bless her heart! (There’s something more here that I hope to return to and explore in a different season. Please hold me to this!)

So you see, in this long line of storytellers, fierce women, failed relationships, and hands, I have a recipe for love. It’s messy, meandering, knotted, robust, but leaves me feeling full every single day. There is power in claiming what is mine, to say that I know how to love and I am loved fully, wholly, completely. This claim is what gives shape to my day, my breath, and my hope for the future. I want to keep trying. I want to linger a little bit longer in all I don’t know. I want my love to carry me a bit further than it did the last time.

This claim is what gives shape to my day, my breath, and my hope for the future. I want to keep trying. I want to linger a little bit longer in all I don’t know. I want my love to carry me a bit further than it did the last time.

I’ll end with some practical advice on taking only what you need and leaving the rest behind. It’s a common message I love to hear from Renee Sills of Embodied Astrology, and an inspiring message found in the 8 of Cups. For this next stretch of living, I am taking with me words, tokens of the spirit of love, proof that failure is good, and memories with folks I’ve loved/lost/laughed my ass off with.

What are you taking with you? What do you need? For you, I want to say: May you feel optimistic about your plans. May your sources of encouragement be so loud and therefore impossible to doubt. May your spiritual practices hold you. May you answer when your intuition calls. I too know that we are ready to say goodbye and welcome in the same breath.

With love & possibility,

Jordan

Where I currently live in the Northeast, after a brutal, freezing winter, there has been a miraculous set of days that has brought, drumroll please: sunshine. Temperatures above 50°. No! Coats! Needed! Time has literally rushed forward. The crushed velvet blue of dusk is back. The chirping birds are back.

I know, it’s a false start. I’ve lived here long enough to be familiar. But my friends, we are so close to a new season. So close to spring melting deliciously into summer, leaving us all sticky, golden, and flirtatiously hopeful. A much needed respite.

On what appears to be the last sun-dappled day, I’ve found myself stringing together a few words from the heart to share with you. You see, I had a dream that I’ve been tightly holding onto for so long. A dream that is gently and persistently asking me to die. But when I sat down to capture the death of this dream, I was surprised to find what came to the surface isn’t about my marriage, home, career, or purpose. What’s asking me to let go is the dream of a fearless-feeling girl who doesn’t need help, who is fiercely independent, who does most of this life alone.

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Until this very moment, I didn’t know that who I’ve been living as was asking me to release my firm grasp. I hadn’t really considered my strengths of independence and drive could be upholding a familiar role I have been playing. I offer my past self kindness and grace, knowing the role came to me out of survival and longing. They say be careful what you get good at, and friends, I have become so good at not having needs, at being able to figure it out alone, at predicting a future of let downs and not allowing myself to come near that burning flame.

When tasked with answering what do I want, the words that tumble from my body is to let go. The words that spill out from my heart is to share more. The words that dance from my spirit is to be so completely wholly myself that I forget the time before and the previous dream and all the ways I’ve been running and looking over my shoulder and holding my breath.

Is this what the kids call crashing out? Because I think I’m here, in your inbox, on your homepage, tenderly crashing out from the depths of my heart. Surrendering and saying yes. Finally agreeing to let go and make room for life.

By the time you read this, the sunshine will have passed. The weather will fade back to words like mist, wool, and chilled. I will have successfully attended two therapy sessions. By the time you read this, my subconscious brain will do cool funky things I won’t even know the half of while I sleep. I will have begrudgingly ate three salads in my desire to eat the rainbow. I will have inhaled a gorgeous novel. By the time you read this, the moment will be different because life goes on. The wheel turns, things keep spinning, and another day arrives.

I am still the fearless-feeling girl, but I’m on a new dream quest to embody and become the fearless-feeling woman, writer, artist, sister, friend, lover who knows how to ask for help. The new dream is learning to love my wholeass self. And by wholeass, I mean loving fully, tightly, fiercly, the dark shameful parts of me. The guilty bits, the shadows, the dishonest narrator. I want to love the self who has caused harm, pain, gotten it all wrong, made mistakes, and feels uncomfortable. That’s the new dream. That’s where my internal GPS is set. I trust myself to get there and I trust my ancestors, the moon and the sun and the stars, my friends, my family, my studio, my coworkers, and my therapist to help get me there.

Anything out of alignment to this new dream is being thoughtfully, lovingly, respectfully, and achingly laid to rest.

In my practice of sharing needs, I want to ask for your help. I need your help remembering this is water. I need your help creating a better future, one that is rich in friendship, community, and safety. I need your help tapping into the well of joy through laughter, sensuality, play, indulgence, and passion. I need your help with mundane resources in every form imaginable. I need your help remembering that I am me, despite the tornado of change I find myself in. I need your help when it comes to reaching out and checking in. I need your help with asking better questions. I need your help remembering it is possible to start again at any moment.

I need your help with practicing my wholeass love.

Thank you for reading, thank you for holding, thank you for helping me. I quite like this new dream we have found ourselves tucked into. May you find the strength to make it to the next set of minutes. May you find your voice just when you think it won’t be heard. May you turn toward the sun. May you feel the love of others who want to help. May you let go of what is asking you to die. May you grant yourself so much grace with the grief that fills the space of what you were once carrying. I too am here, bewildered, at what the body, heart, and spirit feels like when unencumbered. Let go of what is not yours to hold. Keep looking.

With love & possibility,

Jordan

2026 is here, can you believe it? I find this time of year to be quietly exciting with every list, wish, tarot pull, and conversation. And yet, how can our hearts not break by the weight of this country? How can our minds not rage over the information coming through our screens?

A simple question that I am softly observing lately: how does the heart know when it is time to let go? The message I received: let the body be the one to tell you.

For this letter, I am offering grace to a collection of pain from 2024/2025. This was a time I spent in deep loss, where gauzy memories float in and out of a heightened state of survival. These personal scenes of heartbreak, loss, and love are bravely asking me to let go. I catch glimpses of who I am becoming in the alteration of life after marriage/partnership/long-term love comes to an end. There are many stories I wish to share beyond the ache of my past. I look forward to this gentle unfurling.

November 2025

Fuck, I forgot what it felt like to have a trauma response. I forgot how to read the signs of an impending episode. It takes me days to figure out what is wrong with me. This once familiar dance I knew by heart while my marriage was mending/pausing/falling apart has temporarily become unknown. My heart forgets so easily in this new life. But my body remembers what my heart has decided to move away from.

October 2024

All the songs suddenly make sense.
Lyrics click into place,
lost meaning now found.
So much pain and airing out happens in art
and suddenly I am here seeing all the colors.
Safe zones, gates
blown wide open.
New meanings and definitions apply.
I am but a student
learning all the hues of your eyes,
and the subtleties of your body,
as you trade
and deceive
and we start and stop.

February 2025

I think my spirit is dying. I think our hearts have started to take on water. I might be drowning. But something tucked away inside is begging me to swim. Or maybe it’s my husband, who suddenly looks afraid. I want more than anything for him to be the one to reach for me. Grab my arms, pull me close.

I look for the emotional lifeline.

All I need to hear is one true thing.

November 2024

I would describe myself as fearless, because I am absolutely willing to take the risk for what I want, those I love, and what I believe in. I am not afraid of getting burned or scuffed or fucked up when it comes to matters of the heart.

And yet here you are, making me question. You are daring me to look. And I just don’t understand how you can’t know that while this thing between us may scare me, I am certainly not afraid of it. I am not afraid of you, I am not afraid of us. I am still here, standing up, in the shadow of a future we’re still figuring out.

So I’m daring you back. I want to know if you’re tough. Can you witness me and hear me and hold me through what we call our love? Your actions speak to a willingness to risk but I guess I’m here looking at you, figuring out if that’s what you meant or to call your bluff.

For Cash

I feel dead outside.
Inside is vibrant and exploding with rage and anguish.
On the surface, I don’t know how to feel
out loud,
openly,
together.

Somehow the words are on the tip of my tongue and in the back of my throat and on the brush of your hand.

But it’s easier to let words die.

I say nothing,
hear something,
see everything.

March 2025

You are listening to Dylan and I’m listening to Miles and that just paints the picture doesn’t it?

I turn back to writing because it’s the one thing that keeps me going.

Will my brain crack open like a fucking egg? How much more of this can I really take? How is it possible to notice all the beauty while holding all the ways of being betrayed?

I read somewhere I can create any outcome I wish.

I wish to write this book.
I wish to put it in the hands of people I know.
I wish to make it out of this deep loss, together.
I wish for you to get better.
I wish to be stronger from head to toe.
Cracks and breakthroughs and relapse and fatigue.

Keep going, it is worth it,

Keep going, it is worth it,

Keep going, it is worth it,

Keep going, it is worth it.
Miles Davis, I too am kind of blue.

October 2025, again in December

Help me understand, where are we right now?

I have questions that shouldn’t be asked unless there is a gentle kindness attached but as we know, I am not afraid to look.

It can’t be true, and it can’t be kind to say, but all this time was my life waiting for me to make this departure? And when I didn’t answer that call, did the guides, my ancestors, magic, bits + bobs that you and I may or may not believe in —did they make the decision?

Am I really all the kind things people continue to say? I want it to be true, so I cling to their words. I want to hear them, I want it repeated, I want to write everything down so I can find myself again. I want to feel drunk on thoughts from those around me, to reassure my place in this world. I’m here, I’m standing, I’m sitting, I’m walking.

I’m here, right?

What if I freak out and ruin this whole thing? I still don’t know if I’m referring to the moment, the night, or the entire timeline of us.

I feel exhausted at the inability to fully arrive. For the first time in a few months I feel the familiar choking feeling. I have all these words I’m willing to spill, to stumble over, to pass to someone new, but I’m caught between memories and ghosts. Different eyes look back at me in the dark and I am laid bare. I want to be seen. When I finally find my way back to the present, which is here and now and our bodies wrapped as one, I can breathe.

I promise I’ll keep trying. I promise I’ll share. I promise I will tell someone new when I find the words. I promise I would have told you everything if I knew how.

April 2025

I hate to say he is right. I hate hearing this one true thing, that perhaps I should consider what it would be like to not be together.

I hate this so much because of how hard I love.

Of course I am scared, of course I am lonely but I am here, in calmness and in pain, in strength and in commitment, trying—desperately, softly, tenderly—to understand. Love is what I have. Love is what I believe in.

I will not abandon, I will not turn away, I will not quit looking. I refuse. Is my love saving or drowning me? Am I thinking of me or us? I throw my body through these questions all these months because I don’t know what else to do.

And slowly, I have become tired. Of course I have.

But I don’t care.

Heart, do you hear me?

I said I don’t care.

Where dreams go when your heart is dying,
February 2024

A long time ago, before this, before you and me, I decided to facilitate breaking my own heart. In youthful naïveté I ended a relationship before someone could potentially hurt me. I achingly dreamt of this someone’s face every night that first year.

And so you see, it’s 2024 and this dream felt like coming home after not seeing someone for such a long time. I take someone in for who they really are in the moment. Questions hang between breaths. Hunger reads between eyes. I mistake my emotional desires for want of the real thing. Hands in hair and teeth splitting lips into smiles. There’s a momentary out of body / out of dream realization that there’s no friction, no sense of touch, not even a hint of the physical, but it’s simply not enough to stop us from trying. There’s the rising steam of the shower and the ease in which I wrap my legs around someone’s waist. There’s water on our skin, following phantom trails of our past. When kissing someone’s lips I feel a story untold, an agreement to get there eventually, but not tonight. Tumbling into bed, tangle of sheets. How time apart suits someone well. The ease in which we open to each other. Lips map out new curves and dips.

I confess, it feels as if my dreams purposefully keeps us apart. It’s like noticing a stranger, their face concealed by something on the street, and no matter how quickly I move, our timing and pace keeps our identities hidden. Cruel really, to never see this stranger’s face no matter how hard I try.

July 2024 responds to July 2023

One foot in front of the other. That’s been the rhythm of our life lately. Or maybe it has always been this way. Maybe this will be forever. One foot in front of the other and for the first time, I find myself looking over my shoulder to catch if you’re still with me. Are we still in step? What is on the path ahead? When did I start asking so many questions? I am looking for you everywhere. In the moment, in the past, in the shadow of a future we’re still figuring out. One foot in front of the other and I think we are now on different sides of the aisle, around the corner at the store. One foot in front of the other because if I stand still, the shadow of suspicion will pull me into the whirlpool of things we left unsaid.

January 2026

It’s January and all that was seven, eight, nine, ten months ago. A year, or two, or less — It depends on which season you’re visiting me from.

It’s January and I’m looking at my reflection in the front room window. It’s me against the jet black night. It’s January and I remember. We/you/I did that. We/you/I made it through that time. We/you/I navigated this with love.

I now know how low the flickering flame of my spirit can get and how little I can sustain myself on. And while I don’t ever want to find myself back in that place, I must tell you my friends, I am grateful for every scene that brought me to today.

A spell I am offering myself from a place of trust and courage:
I have changed.
I know what I need and crave.
I am afraid, a bit, sometimes, often, but I know how to move along.
I walk with my grief.
I choose to notice, not fix.
I choose to listen, not assume.
I choose to look forward.
I already have what I need.
I know how to take care of myself.
I am learning how to trust myself, again and again, and again.

Each year I pull 12 tarot cards to correspond with the months ahead — a practice inspired by the moon studio — and for me, January looks like DEATH.

Wise interpretations and words from Beth Maiden on Little Red Tarot:

Life’s cycles of change.

Where to begin with this most ominous of cards?

As an archetype, Death is the great transformer. Death is the Wheel turning. Death is the march of time. Death is inevitable.

But this isn’t about literal death. It represents part of a cycle that we move through over and over in our lives. Our lives are made up of eras, identities, chapters, each one a cycle with a start and a finish. Death is about the finishing, the ending of a cycle…and the start of something new. Death carries rebirth inherent within it, its necessary conclusion.

Death is a necessary letting go, so that we can move forwards and grow into the next era of our lives. We must allow our ego, our identities, to ‘die’, we must accept that life changes, that we change, so as to grow into what comes next. A snake shedding its skin does not try to hold on to the old skin, pretending to still be yesterdays version of itself. It lets it all go, wearing its new skin, being its new self.

This card represents the inevitability of transformation and growth. You will not, can not, be the person you were yesterday, last month, last year, last decade. The transition from one era, one version of self into another can be welcome, or it can be painful. You don’t have a choice, it is a natural process. But you can choose whether to embrace death, to move with it, or to resist and fight it. - read more from Beth Maiden here

I do not know and maybe you too do not know, so really, we are here together taking solace in each other’s unknown. But one clear thing that feels true to me is that if you find relief in a direction, then let that be the arrow to guide you.

Thank you for witnessing my heart, my rage, my questioning self, my desire, and my hunger. Stay soft, stay in love, stay close to those around you. Be so loud in voice, spirit, body, and soul. Keep looking, keep asking questions.

With love & possibility,

Jordan

Today I am showing myself love by returning to a mantra: I know how to take care of myself. This care is an act of love and a dance of remembrance.

The type of care I am remembering goes back to basic needs of hunger. We cannot give, love, and help others if we are not taking care of our body, mind, and heart. So may this short letter be an offering, a reminder, a whisper to take care wherever you are.

Today in my care, I see how my energy is asking to be used. I’ll make French toast and invite play into this act through a medley of ingredients. Brioche slices, golden eggs, heavy cream and a splash of coconut milk. I’ll add a dash of cinnamon, a drop of cardamom extract, then sprinkle in clove, allspice, black urfa chili, and vanilla bean bourbon sugar. Here is a mystery of flavors waiting to soak in.f

I am currently listening to the softness of my body by witnessing the places that are healing from extreme emotional trauma. In my care, I offer somatic practices of tapping and mindful movement. The message comes through in fragments: rest, release, play, listen. Cleansing tears and shuddered wails— an energy asking to be released back into the earth.

I believe by taking care of ourselves first, there is likely to be a tender opening in the capacity to take care of others. I imagine this care extending to a partner, a pet, a friend, a neighbor, as it widens to our local community and beyond. I believe by taking care of ourselves and each other, we remain soft. We are here together writing letters of love to the tune of trying. Let softness be our strength. Let trying be our practice. Let remembering be our balm. Because giving up is simply not an option.

My friends, I believe love is the garden we must tend during these painful times of witnessing. We must bloom so vibrant and stand so tall until our softness, our care, our love, our community will be impossible to ignore.

Where does this letter find you in your own knowing and remembering? Please share what’s sustaining you, what morsel is taking care of you, what practice is holding you up. Keep looking.

With love & possibility,

Jordan

I wrote most of this letter to you from a rainy Sunday in October with my heart stretched out on the floor. I dug my fingertips into its deep center, felt the sticky ooze and the ache of what I was missing. Today I’m writing to you from a crisp day in December. These memories and wisps of a particular feeling seem to dissolve in an instant, like spun cotton candy touching the pink of my tongue. I’m kicking myself for not sending the letter right when I felt this particular shade of grief, but I’m also choosing to trust the mystery of holding it back. The last few letters have examined grief in waves, in blur, and in running. This letter honors a moment and the ache of missing.

I want to say that I’m grieving the loss of trust of my oldest friend. There’s so much I want to tell him. I am going through such a profound awakening, of becoming, exciting firsts and embarrassing fumbles. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to tell him, to ask questions and express concerns, to giggle and guffaw. I imagine we would be walking through a bookstore, coffee in hand, suspended on the magical experience of picking up an extended conversation that happens over an entire day. We used to be so good at that, time and distance never once tripping us up. We used to be so good at moving slowly and with intention. We used to be so good at lengthening and deepening in our hearts, our interests, our practice. Our friendship had a rooted knowing centered on love and care. And we used to be so good at being friends, didn’t we? That’s what I’m grieving, the loss of that deep, unfiltered knowing.

I still haven’t purchased the tea kettle. The money for it sits in the account and I just can’t bring myself to do it. Out of all the things to tell him right now, this is what I would say. It’s so me, so us, and we would be on our way talking about the small details in life that spin into the fabric of living. Not always, but today, in the beginning of autumn, what I wouldn’t give to be speaking to my oldest friend about a tea kettle.

How is the darkness of the season sitting with you? How do you keep yourself afloat during these times? I’m asking as a friend who is always looking for reminders on how to stay present in the expansiveness of living. I hope this letter finds you honoring all that you miss and love. May it find you thinking back fondly on the follies of youth, on autumn days stretched in conversation. May it find you on a crisp day in December, walking and choosing to share your heart with someone you love. May it find you wanting to breathe every little insignificant detail into their ear until all the sweet nothings add up to a lifetime. We can always choose to start again.

With love & possibility,

Jordan

I am writing to you from a new season, one where I am saying yes to what moves me. I am saying yes to the moment and yes to plans. I am saying yes to living, to music, to dancing, to new experiences. And from this heartfelt swell of yes, yes, yes, I find I have so much energy coursing through my body. I am living swiftly, in a blur, in every single color.

While most of the yeses, the new season, the blur is coming from a place of joyous wonder, there’s still my ever present grief. The fullness of expression can only be experienced through feeling it all as I shared in my last letter to you. I think it is important to share all the moments, as many as we get, in an attempt to get as close as possible to the full picture of living.

Recently while on a train, I was caught up in the unfocused scenery outside the window. Sun-kissed branches and rolling hills of somewhere I’ve never been. Hot tears and Big Thief’s Not was playing as loud as my delicate ears could handle. I sat there as just one person in this fast moving landscape trying hard to pinpoint the why of this feeling: I don’t want to slow down. My body tells me otherwise. It was the end of a very fast week, every moment balanced precariously on my finite resources of time and energy. Believe me when I say, it was all planned and accounted for with love, joy, and adventure in mind. And my week went fantastic, it worked, I was present, I was fully there! The rush of it all felt so good. This past year I spent so much time in the suffocation of grief and used all my energy on repairing a marriage that ultimately failed. Now that I am here on the other side of all that, I am pushing hard to use my time & energy for joy and for feeling the range of everything once again. I welcome the intensity of everything. I gladly let it wash over me again and again and again.

And so there’s the highs and the lows. Sometimes it feels like flipping a pillow over to find the cool side after a restless night of sleep. I need both sides to find comfort and relief. A few nights ago I felt a grief wave wash over me in the most unexpected place. Something had shifted and I felt a creeping, familiar feeling. It was the lonely kind, a feeling where I lived for years, where I let months of my time drown in. I felt myself curl inward, lost inside a shell, only able to hear the whoosh of my heart beat. The lonely drowning feeling was followed by a wave of self consciousness and a sensitivity to knowing. I had been quite present just the moment before and then suddenly felt swallowed whole, forgetting all the ways in which I am bold, known, direct, effortlessly me.

When I catch these lingering unwelcome sensations in my system, I want to run away and toward and far and between.

I want to run away from that one night. A line was drawn across our living room floor. We stood there baring our teeth. He asked me months before to try to see him for who he was in the present, as someone who is capable. It took all that time to get to this last picture of us, our hearts bleeding on the floor. I want to run away from the insatiable feeling that I could eat him alive and the devastation in knowing he would just let me.

I want to run down the streets of my own heart. I feel my ancestors. They call to me through the wind in the trees. I want to run out of arms that held my youth and into the embrace of something true.

I want to run between knowing and unknowing. Once you know, you can’t go back, but sometimes doesn’t it sound so good to linger in the softness of before?

I want to run toward the adventure of my life. I’m at the beginning of a book, the action unfolding after leaving something behind. I want to run ahead. I want to spoil the moment with how each chapter ends.

I found my way back to the present and out of the grief wave. I always do. Each time is different. Sometimes I’m back quickly, a small blip in the conversation, able to connect to what’s happening now. Other times it takes days. But the important thing I want to share with you is that there is always a way back. This time I needed more space to find the words. I wanted to share in the moment and I wanted to tell a person I love and trust. But wanting isn’t enough for time and energy. Deep sigh. Let it linger. Hot tears and I know, I fucking know, the only way out is through. I know I have to feel it, I know it will pass, I know it is okay for the feeling to be confusing or for it to not match the moment of what is. I know I can still trust the experience. Grief wave, ghosts, memories, familiar edges, not feeling good, wanting to run, not wanting to slow down. I can trust it all as information that I’m here feeling and trying.

I want to share with you that navigating the waves of grief doesn’t necessarily get easier each time, but more like you can notice, recognize, and brace for it. It changes you and soon you become an expert on finding your way back. That is all you have to do my friends, you just have to find the way back. It’s different every time. For me personally, I can find my way back through writing about the uncertainty of an experience. I can find my way back through noticing my surroundings. I can find my way back through people I trust, even when I don’t have the words to say can you help me please? Just find their eyes, notice the light outside, hold a familiar pen, rub small circles over your heart. Soon the way forward will emerge.

I hope this letter finds you in the present. May it find you after landing somewhere soft. May it find you after you found your way back to yourself. May it find you moving slow with intention or at joyous warp speed. There is no right or wrong answer for how to live, love, and be. Keep looking.

With love & possibility,

Jordan

Thank you for such tender, kind responses to my last letter. There was a huge release for me from that deep share on the burning impossibility of grief. I felt love bloom. I felt pain unclench its tight grasp. Right now in our days together and apart it feels like we are living in a made-up thing of unimaginable pain and love. I think we call that thing: the world, here and now, twenty-twenty-five, living.

It’s a maddening time in this made-up thing. I’m here thinking about the illusion of control for the personal and collective. I’m here frustrated over not having the answers, the direction, or the energy. When I get quiet with myself, these frustrations tend to lose their shape. What’s left is the realization that I have quite a bit to offer in words on love and on how to keep going. Because today you and I will keep going.

People matter. I can’t let go of this line by Hanya Yanagihara in her novel A Little Life that reads: “All the most terrifying Ifs involve people. All the good ones do as well.” We can play the game of what-if from the lens of pain—What if I never met this person, what if I had moved here or there, what if they stayed—and play the same game from the lens of love. On and on it goes quite beautifully because through pain and love, people matter.

I want to share with you how my days are filled with people who matter. Our lives are braided together through language and expression. I have a guestbook of summer visitors, ticket stubs from travel, stacks of voice notes, pictures for the “just because.” My calendar has never been this full. My heart is stretchy — a description I have lovingly borrowed from a friend. My senses are overwhelmed. There’s friend, foe, stranger, and those folks in the blurry future I have yet to meet. I believe each and every person we encounter matters deeply.

I want to share with you the new shape of my days. I write and collage. I flip through magazines. I take evening ice-cream walks through my neighborhood. I look into the eyes of strangers and I cry under treetops. I sing in public. I collect CDs. I dump money at every suffolk county thrift. I blast jazz through the windows and collect ceramic dishes. I dance my ass off and I laugh. No one told me just how good the laughter would be on the other side of pain. Take note friends, it will be good for you too.

I want to share with you that I remember how to have a good day. A good day unfolds slowly, through bundling in a colorful knit to sitting down at the writing desk and gazing out a window. There’s jazz playing softly and the warmth of a mug and the comfort of the room. I built this room with good days in mind. It is filled with books and art supplies, stacks of notebooks, magazines and a small bed. I’m here returning to the room, to the good day, to remembering and beginning. I return over and over again. Of course I tend to forget the way. I bet you do too. Let this be a reminder to ourselves of the dance between remembering and forgetting. It’s not about being perfect. It’s about remembering how to practice the steps.

I’m writing and having conversations about my own return. There are notes jotted down to myself, conversations over coffee, chunky paragraphs sent to people I love. We fill the air, the space between limbs, with this delight of returning. I want to share with you that I have returned to living. I have returned to sharing. I have returned to my body and spirit. I have returned to a deeper understanding of love. The last chapter in my life was painful but I never stopped loving, not for one damn second. I don’t know how. Love almost killed my spirit and I’m so grateful for that almost. I have seen how far my stretchy heart is willing to go. Love is the only way I know how to take another step forward, especially when it feels impossible in this made-up thing: the world, here and now, twenty-twenty-five, living.

I believe we have many seasons ahead together where we will feel love and pain. I want to witness you remembering and practicing how to take the next step, to keep going, just as you are here witnessing me. Catch me in color, in art, in song, in laughter, in tears, in ecstasy, in silence, in gazing. Keep loving, keep looking.

With love & possibility,

Jordan

After multiple seasons where it felt impossible to breathe, I am grateful to find you again. To be here in words and images and feelings. We have been working hard, together and apart. I look forward to hearing about what has made you laugh, weep, and ache. Post a comment, send me an email, text using only emojis or pictures. Voicenote me a poem or a song you can’t get out of your head. Let us rejoice at the new season and honor how hard the journey has been. We made it here together. How beautiful.

I’ve made it here and this is what I am longing to share: My marriage is over.

The first thing many say to me is “Oh, I’m so sorry,” followed by “what happened?!” Oh, how I want to tell you what happened. I want to scream about it. I want to paint what happened in every color across all the walls that have held me. I want the trees and the sky and the blades of grass to touch every single detail of what unraveled. I want to plant secrets and lies in soil, watch what takes bloom through cracks in concrete. Tears of my grief become rivers and I want everyone to lap it up. Taste my longing, coat your tongue with the grit of no sleep. I want to set what was once ours on fire and ask friends to look, don’t blink, just look at what is burning.

In my grief, I built myself a sad, lonely art gallery. I’ll hold your hand as we walk through it. Here is the sculpture of static noise, a dangerous column of tinsel-like hues. The gallery card reads nothing good happens after midnight. There’s a bulletin board of fluttering sticky notes holding bold, horrible doubts and questions. Object title reads dead on the outside. We quickly walk past a dark room with a projector, the walls illuminated by a sickly glow. Film titled ask better questions. My sad lonely art gallery is full of art that documents my life from one spring to the next. And oh, how I want those hard months to be known. Ask me what happened and there’s an ocean within me ready to break in waves, ready to crash against the contours of your shore.

My marriage is over and the details matter, but sometimes it feels like it only matters to me. I’m back at what is burning. I want to crack myself open and let you peek inside at what I’ve been holding within. I don’t want to release moments one pebble at a time. I want to shovel and scoop, hollow out and let you marvel at my angry little gems. Friends and family assure me that I have the right to do and say what I want. Even my former half agrees — I bet you would too. Everyone assures me there is no wrong answer, no incorrect way to react. When I share this uncertainty, the when and why of it all, everyone often mulls over about what they would say in my situation. Those words become kindling for this burning.

After going from sharing space with someone for over ten years to suddenly not, I feel as if I am touching the fire of my youth again. Back to being just me. For so long and many times on this very substack, I have connected with my inner child. I see her clearly: thick wire frames, soft smile, overalls and a stack of books. She keeps me company and I advocate hard for her. But this summer I was greeted by an older and younger version of me. I’m seeing myself at eighteen: spitfire, passionate, flirtatious with a pile of canvases and sketchbooks. She’s unafraid, unfiltered, annoyed, and deeply feeling. When I feel the heat of my rage or spot another swell in the ocean of my grief, I think of her. How would eighteen do all this versus me at thirty-three?

And from this seat, as I pause, as I sit still, as I listen, the only thing that keeps me from lighting a match is knowing that I am going at the speed of trust. I trust that I know. And instead of being greeted in anger from my teenage self, I am surprised to find her smiling. There is fire in her eyes as she recognizes the flames within mine. She reaches out for my hand, laughter on her lips, a hint of knowing. We are one and the same. I am that fearless feeling girl. We are telling, sharing, aching, and bleeding to the beat of our own heart. We know how to live. And that’s what all this burning is for, it’s for living and seeing clearly again.

Just when I think I’m not okay, I spot a pair of googly eyes on an object. I open my notes and see a poem. I spot a robin in the grass. I continue to lean into and out of love’s embrace. I don’t know where I am going, only that I am going at the speed of trust. I trust my body. I trust my words. I trust my heart. I trust all the messages coming to me. I trust poetry and tarot cards. I trust solo dinners. I trust the sound of the ocean, the breeze in the trees. I trust the morning light. I trust the guidance of the moon. I trust the laughter barreling from someplace deep. I trust soft lips. I trust the creases around my eyes. I trust the ache in my neck. I trust dancing feet. I trust piles of words from those who held me when I didn’t trust anything at all. I trust letting go of vows. I trust we made the right decision. I trust we did this together, even if it feels like I am alone in a strange dream. I trust that something that was broken between us has suddenly become the guiding light out of a very dark room.

I hope this letter finds you going at your own speed. May it find you after shedding something you once loved, longed for even, but no longer need. May it find you in a new season where it is easier to breathe. May it find you surrounded by all the things and folks you trust, even when it is hard to do so alone. And if this letter finds you alone just know I’m right here with you. Keep looking.

With love and possibility,

Jordan

After all this time I have never quite figured out the art of reading a newspaper. For my Dad this was akin to being gifted in ballet. There was a mesmerizing way in which he could hold the paper open with two hands, balance the pages in the space between a folded knee, and quite suddenly, flip and fold the paper into a new configuration.

My dad is a newspaper and radio kind of man, often listening to sports shows on long drives and reading multiple local newspapers a day. I have memories of him bringing a newspaper inside with him to family gatherings or asking someone to pick one up. I’ve seen him reading the paper— and in this family it is always called “the paper”— in people’s living rooms, in the cab of his truck, on vacations, at his daddy’s house, in a reclining chair. If my dad is coming to your living room for a long visit with any possibility of waiting, a hint of idle time, then you can count on him to be reading. Or at least you could when I knew him best. I have a habit of using the past tense when I speak of my dad or Arkansas and I suppose it’s because I was always there in my youth in ways I no longer am as an adult. I pull the past into my future, examine and write and remember as if it is all gone but I’m aware, and you should be too, that we are both still here doing all of this living albeit apart.

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As a kid I didn’t think much of my dad’s paper habit while in the company of family, but looking back on it now, how bold, how brave! This is the language of a man who does not have a single care about the expectations and perceptions of others. Back then, this was a man who wanted to read the paper, to fill the gaps with something of interest, maybe out of boredom or irritation or something else. Family and friends all made conversation with him and he certainly made it back. But how bold to send out a signal, a wave of energy that reads to me now as I hear you, but I am also choosing to do something I care about, need, and enjoy. God, so much of this describes me.

When I think of my dad and the paper, I think about my papaw’s house. There were skoal cans and a wintergreen aroma rising from red solo cups. I think of cold cans of coke and fresh packs of wrigley’s big red. I think of the timed chemical puffs meant for the flies and piles of cigarette butts. I think of the brown carpet and how it always reminds me of hamburger helper. I think about how I have a similar carpet here in my cottage in New York. In my papaw’s house there was a brick fireplace landing that doubled as the stage my sisters and I performed on at gatherings. That house was all wood paneling and tall windows. The door to the main bathroom was missing its handle. I remember how nervous I was to go in there, stuffing a warsh-rag in the gaping hole to try to get some form of privacy. All of the quirks were easy to brush off in the moment because when I went to my papaw’s, I was getting a tall tale, a room full of laughter, the promise of a full belly, and the possibility of an adventure.

When I think about my dad and the paper, I think about holidays with a kitchen island full of sheet-pan cakes, cobblers, and dishes covered with shiny foil. I think of my dad’s birthday and his love of fried peach pies. Back then we were living in a sea of camouflage and denim blue work shirts. Ten-gallon hats and ball caps. I think of the thwack and whoosh of a screen door. There was the warning to all guests to be wary of bringing your dog out to Nathan, specifically Westfall Loop. If you weren’t careful, my papaw would charm your dear pup and turn them into a farm dog, the kind that lives outside, works cattle, and battles snakes in the tall grass.

And I can’t talk about my papaw without mentioning mamaw too. Mamaw was moody, gruff, and tough as nails. She had her hair sprayed to the high heavens and a cigarette perched between painted fingertips. Her makeup was so thick, its powdered scent would stick to you all day from that first hug of hello. If you wanted something to get done, you had Mamaw take care of it. In my memory she was the only person I’ve known to go toe-to-toe with my papaw. She would get tickled as my family likes to say and I remember her big crushed can laugh. Here my past tense habit helps because Papaw and Mamaw left us back in 2020 within eleven days of each other. It’s hard to speak about your childhood, the past and the present, the living and the dead, all while keeping a firm grasp on your reality in the here and now.

After all this time I can suddenly see a large red barn. For years my neighbor across the street has neglected a mysterious property hidden behind trees, flowers, and tangles of wild things. But one day I watch a black limo pull up and a gathered family in formal wear and I have a basic understanding of a story. As the weather warms and I make my way out to my front porch, considering my front yard is a backyard of sorts, I notice the neighbor has cut down all the trees, cleared out every bush, forever changing the view. I talk to the neighbor whose name I learn is Stephan (but not Steven) and he shares how his mom just passed and this residence has history, that the red barn was in fact once a community dance hall. And in this experience of loss there is a mounting excitement in honoring what once was.

When I journal outside, I see Stephan’s barn and I think of Arkansas. I know there are barns everywhere but I can’t help it, my mind always turns back to home. I can’t think about Arkansas without mentioning Oklahoma. There are years of me wrestling with what home is because I grew up between two spaces, two people, two worlds. I always want home to be Tulsa, but my roots are buried deep in the soil of southwest Arkansas next to my grandmama and my papaw and mamaw and their parents too.

I’m back to thinking about my dad and how he was always stretched out on the floor. He liked to watch tv or read sprawled out on the floor with a pillow folded and tucked beneath his head. For reasons I can’t explain, it seems like he’s been laying on the floor his entire life. There’s the floor of the duplex in Fayetteville where I took all my firsts and the floor of the house in Elkins where we spent all of our lasts. There’s the creek bed and his daddy’s place and his papaw’s, the trailer in Murfreesboro. He’s all white cotton socks and knobby knees and a soft gaze.

There’s an odd feeling of not knowing how much is too little when it comes to connection. I recently talk to my dad on the phone about our shared terrible eyes. I could tell by his tone that he was calling with bad news. I see it now, the future of me coming back home only in the passings and the births. I don’t know how to keep it any other way. It’s strange how having zero expectations actually creates room for so much more. I haven’t figured out how to widen that in my other relationships, in my life, in my home. To be honest, I find myself balanced between caring too much and not caring at all.

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When I write “stretched out on the floor” I spend an inordinate amount of time comparing the proper form of stretching out against what’s natural to me. Is it “on” or “in” the floor? Which one is right to your ear and which one is fluid with my tongue? When I write “stretched out on the floor” I am referring to my dad’s once lanky frame and how it takes up space in the many living rooms of my early memories. But it is Angel Olsen’s poetic version that floats to the front of my mind as an offering from my ear to yours:

After all this time I discover my own version of reading the paper. I unfold and spread the sheets out on a flat surface. I scour every headline in search of something true. There’s the smell and the feeling of the ink between my fingertips. The way the photos are dulled and smudged in the paper crease. Poised above with a keen eye and a small pair of scissors, I am ready to excise my own form of poetry, to stretch myself out on the floor.

With love and possibility,

Jordan

I listen to Miles Davis and remember complicated stories about his life. But here is my life and more often lately I think we should let the music simply be.

Coca-Cola in the shower, Coca-Cola in the bath, Coca-Cola in all the late nights and the hugs between.

I cancel plans for Katie, for Remi, for Zoos. I lie and I vote and I howl out why.

There’s that one day and the day right after. Soft light bathing us in a field of pink. How you say this is completely fucked up but is it so wrong to be this excited to just spend time with you?

Sixteen cans of coke.

This feels like death by a thousand cuts. Oceans 11, 12, 13. I cannot relax fully until I turn over every single stone in the river of grief.

Hook, ET, Goonies, Grease. Music is not safe but that cover of America will hold me.

Falling from sometimes, I wish I could remember how to feel. I sip tea from a chair in a different room and gaze at all the versions of this one beating heart. With walls freshly dusted and pictures hidden behind years, the spell is always broken by this goddamn phone.

I drink the bees of my grief and I am shocked to see myself there. Half consumed, half full, mostly wet. I swill the dregs and peer forward. Their silence is wrapped in moon dust. My eyes stare back from the cup, illuminated by the light while my nose and mouth fall into darkness.

17 cans of coke.

I begin studying all the hues of your eyes. Soon I can tell the difference between shuddered and stuttered and laborious breath. Identity, Supremacy, Ultimatum. This is what long term love can feel like.

I buy tubs of cheese from the supermarket and bring them to the bath, to the couch, to late nights and sleepovers and faded mornings. On that day in November I bellow out what’s left of my heart. Each scream hits my dashboard, my mirror, and all four windows. It’s just me and the thousand impossible layers. It’s what is ahead and what is behind us. I obsess about those who cross to the beyond and how easy it is to change always to never.

2025 IN / OUT

I love this concept of ushering in something new at the beginning of the year, whether it be thoughts, people, a vibe, a tone. Here’s my personal areas of focus and things to leave behind for 2025:

IN
vinyl
RPGs
nerve
handbags
possibility
nudes
late nights
news bulletins
gaggle

OUT
playlists
.jpeg
gut
fannypacks
schemes
mixed signals
structures
secrets
pair

With love & possibility,

Jordan

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                                    Waoow
                                          Waoow-woo-woo-woo
                                    Waoow
                                          Woo-woo-woo
                                    Waoow - woof 
                                              Woo-woo-woo
                                          Waooooow!
                                    Wao-woo-woo-woo

And the acorns are falling. They roll down shingled roofs and thwop against flexed siding and pop up from the rough concrete. Acorn bullets succumb to the fate of crushed litter beneath tires and feet. They pile and ping and bounce and crack, as if one specific day (September 17th) the trees sighed and stretched into that hard to reach spot. Space between limbs. How do they know when it is time to let go?

And don’t get me started on the language of birds. Between three trees, a triangle call:

                                    hmmerrrp
                                    hmmERRRRpp
                                    hmmerp

                                          layered over the symphony of crickets.

And the humans, too. They shuffle their children toward the street and the school bus tires squeal at the crest of a hill. Exhaust fumes and the hiss of the door and the parents waving and waving. Sometimes I’ll catch a glimpse of my favorite crooning pup between the slats of a fence. He lets out all his excitement and noises in the deep backyard, swivels around maybe in hope his human companion will chase after him or possibly lay in the grass. But she just sighs and begs and bargains.

And don’t get me started on this particular language of love. A one so tender and exhausting, two beings knowing each other so well, simply figuring out how to do all this living together.

And so there’s the dog’s wailing tune and the drill of acorns and the breeze through the trees. The crickets, the birds, the children, the tires and suddenly you are right here with me listening to a September morning song.

There is a dad who is no longer my dad. He is the one in the middle, the one around for the beginning and who wasn’t around much longer after the end. In the simplest of thoughts, one day he was my stepdad and another day, he was not. I don’t think of my once-dad too often until I do, and then it comes in waves. There’s the wave of relief at fourteen hearing about the divorce. There’s the wave of love at twenty-eight sending out an elopement announcement. There’s the wave of compassion at fifteen forgiving and crying in that restaurant booth. In this sea of feelings, my once-dad exiting from my main storyline was the best thing that could happen for me.

And I feel the weight of saying this as I consider the flux of feelings from his daughters and his son. A trail of people that do not have it that easy. My half sister and her half siblings carrying the full weight of Dad. For me, it was the cleanest breakup I will ever experience. The letting go of this once-dad gave room for me to carry my own weight of Dad, the first, the man I love in biology and cannot walk away from. The letting go of this once-dad made room for me to open my heart to my stepdad, the bookend to fatherhood, the man I love in language and cannot imagine ever letting go.

And so there’s this space between limbs, just like the trees and the acorns and the waves in the sea and I am no longer questioning how do they know when it is time to let go.

And don’t get me started on taking what I want. I take the music, the gifts, the cities, and the stories. I drop the rules, the expectations, the structure, and the limits. Treasures from my once-dad I credit to him and him alone. There’s the twist and shout contest and the first trip to Arizona. There’s the hidden language of gift giving when you actually see a person deeply. In childhood the first few times my once-dad gave me a gift was a disappointment — before him, I had only learned that you simply say what toy you wish for and usually someone will make that wish real. I once wrote a short story about a time where I asked for a barbie and my once-dad came back with a beautiful book. The way I now give gifts and write letters is a language of love that comes from him.

And we could warp and twist these moments, view them through a lens of selfishness and dictating and not listening, but in all that we never understand about a situation, about my once-dad with his relationships and restless ways, I actually think because I am not his that I actually saw him. I saw him in the simple way young children can really see and perceive people, before children learn how to fret and connect and take on other people’s shit. You see, children learn from an early age how to sing all the languages of love. Like the birds, the crickets, the dog’s wail, the shuffle of feet, the acorns and the trees. I believe my once-dad and I saw each other in our differences, in this place that didn’t really fit. He was in all the drama and context and hate from the family, but I was just outside it, looking at him.

And so you can see my once-dad in my own language of love. I remember the books and the origami papers. The bright kites and the framed believe speech. There’s disney on ice and rollercoasters and drum solos. There’s the time we went to see the Village in theaters and my once-dad’s patience in explaining to me as the credits roll about the main character being blind. I imagine my Dad wouldn’t have been that patient, can see how he would shake his head in disbelief and crack up over my foolish misunderstanding. There’s the time my once-dad gave me a second chance, renting the village on dvd so I could soak the story in with my new knowledge. Here I am remembering when I don’t think of my once-dad too often until I do, and then it comes in waves. There’s the wave of happiness in the releasing of each other. There’s the wave of understanding in witnessing a person who feels they are misunderstood. My once-dad was always running and my question for him today is have you finally figured out how to stand still?

There’s this view from my porch. I know this view. I know these trees, this fence, and this house. It’s my song. The humans change but so far, I’ve remained the constant. I forget, and possibly intend on the forgetting, of how the last time I spent this much time outside on my porch was in 2020 and 2021. Pandemic. Shut down. It sounded a little something like: pain, fear, panic. A time when you could only count on the sunshine and the walks and the tears and the waves.

And I felt different then and I was different then and I looked different too. How that time held endings and recollections and insurrection and just too much. There was me and the porch, this view. I watched the grass grow and the sun bleach the plants and the ants take over blocks of concrete.

And don’t get me started on this small consideration: my front yard is a backyard of sorts.

And as an example, our neighbors once held a party for their toddler’s birthday here. Without asking, without considering, someone’s parents used our front yard as their backyard. My husband and I awoke to tents covering our neglected plot of grass, our sidewalk, our porch too. This party went right to our front door. There’s the catering tables and platters, a pair of machine operated horse rides, the kind that would be stationed outside a piggly wiggly grocery store. There’s a mass of people gathered in celebration in their backyard that is our front yard. There’s the music and the bobbling toddlers and the floating balloons and the avoided gazes in the pursuit of love. My husband and I left our house, elbowed our way through the throng on our front lawn and slowly made our way to the street. We spent the evening out in the city and we talked and laughed and wondered about how someone felt this was okay to do. We pored over what we could have and would have and maybe should have said, all to come back around to the agreement that a birthday is just one day. Something temporary.

And so there’s the rumble of a party and the cries of a child and the coins in the machine and the curious gazes and suddenly you are here with my husband and me, misunderstanding the lyrics in this tune.

There’s a triangle that repeats, a pattern my family knows well. It is the song of threes and it goes a little something like:

                                          Arkansas
                                    Oklahoma
                                          Texas
                                              (always Texas)

I think about stories of how my once-dad and my mother met and how I’m always swept up in nostalgia and the great gift of being an adult who can finally see their parents and their fathers as being humans before being yours. It’s an old song, familiar to you, but I wish I could see them as teens just like I wish I could drive in orange back to my childhood. It hits me that the first time I met my once-dad was the closest I would ever be to fulfilling that wish. Babies with a baby and thank god I was always such a good girl. Imagine if it had been any other way?

And I see my once-dad’s sister and niece and different children online and I think about what the family story is. The story is not mine to hold or know, but I still wonder. In writing my own book where I am the creator, where I am doing extra work to see and to know everyone’s story (even if the reader will never see or know because they are not meant to really know) (but I will know) I see my ego and the power of it all. All my life I think I just want to know and I’ve found a way to do all that knowing right here with you.

And so when my friends send me paragraphs of words and voice notes of details and videos through social apps of their bright faces, when they explain and give me all the details that maybe someone else in their life would try to rush, tell them to get to the point, I am healed and simultaneously seen in this witnessing of my hunger. What you say and how you are living, how you feel and what you need, the unburdening and the sigh, those moments where you just need to tell a story, need to share the drama, need to work out a comedy bit. What I’m saying is that when you choose to feed me this, when you start out by saying something like “I think you would like this,” or “I thought of you when,” I feel the language of love. The words dance through my heart and lungs and teeth and space between limbs. There’s this temporary moment of existing together across time zones and horizons where friends sing a song of understanding.

And here is my husband. He gives my toe a gentle squeeze when he walks past the couch. That obnoxious big toe that I annoyingly remember every family member ragging on. I remember how early I learned to turn this beacon into my own joke, beating everyone to the punchline. I still find myself searching old photographs for a glimpse of who gave this goofy appendage to me.

And there’s that summer when my husband and I decided to watch every season of Jersey Shore. The Sam and Ronnie scene about hurt feelings over a big toe and how we both died of laughter. It sounded so funny, so simple, so stupidly real.

And here is my husband again. He walks past my blanketed feet and gives my toe a gentle squeeze. I feel his language of love.

And so there’s the laughter, the embrace, the waves, the front porch. There’s the space between limbs and the first and the once and the last and suddenly you are right here with me listening to a song about my life.

I am ready for a change, but maybe change is actually ready for me. I won’t fight it. No, no, I’ll tip my hat as we eye each other down the path in a stand off of sorts. I’ll dig my foot into the ground. Feel the grit beneath my sole, gaze forward through the heat.

Change is an inkling and a deep pit in my stomach. Change is both a hunch and the last straw. Change lives low within my belly and its whisper crawls up my throat and worms into my ear. Change says the time is now to step forward, the time is now to look. Look at what you refuse to see.

I start by reaching for the rawness of my heart and mind. I free it from my body, feel the weight balanced between fingertips. I put the rawness down and into ink & paper. Raw feelings seep through pages of lists and maps and questions and goodness, dear friend, how did I not realize until now just how heavy the weight is of everything I’ve been carrying on my own?

My rawness is truthful. It tells a story of desire. My rawness maps out all that I want in this life. I can see where I am blocked by fear and doubt. My rawness is a tangle of static strands that I gently rake my fingers through, working over each knot in a story that no longer serves me. My heart and mind cannot unknow that something I am doing every day is killing my spirit and resolve. Something I am doing is stealing away my time and my joy.

And I ask you dear friend, if I were to love myself, truly love myself, how could I ever turn away from what my heart and mind has laid out across this page, across this screen, all over this desk?

Change asks me if I am willing to cram the rawness back inside me, willing to place it on a shelf or sweep it into a corner that only knows of my despair? Change asks if I am willing to kill, willing to steal, willing to lie to myself about all the somethings.

With each no, no, no, I find myself directly on a path. It’s as if I am in a dream and I can’t quite recall how I got here. Suddenly change and I are closer than before. I realize I have missed my first steps, missed the moment I decided to move, missed the fear and the doubt of how to get here. I’m on this path. I’m doing this and I simply cannot turn back.

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I am ready to try. Other times were not successful but if I’m being honest, dear friend, the other times I wasn’t being serious. No, no, all the other times I tried I was afraid of greeting change or trying to walk down a path that wasn’t mine to travel.

This time I am ready, but it’s not because it is time. No, no, dear friend, for I realize now is definitely not my time, at least, not in the way I was hoping for or counting on or wishing through the sky. This time I am ready because doing otherwise would simply mean that I have chosen to give up. And I ask you, dear friend, if I were to love myself, truly love myself, how could I ever turn away from the path my heart and mind has laid out before me?

I misread a headline in the newspaper. I thought it read “a curiosity inspection” but really it was a cursory inspection. In a way I suppose that’s what I’m always doing here.

aes·thete

/ˈesˌTHēt/

noun

noun: aesthete; plural noun: aesthetes; noun: esthete; plural noun: esthetes

a person who has or affects to have a special appreciation of art and beauty. "Paris became home to a heady mix of radical thinkers, artists, and aesthetes from all corners of the globe."

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It’s August again. A fever of release and loose ends and settling. We made it to August and I am once again reminded of consistency and returns. I arm myself with all my senses and make my way through the heat by noticing.

My eyes glide over rolling mountainsides and bleached rays and the stuttering jolt of a train. I see sun kissed furniture and empty rooms with a severe sloping angle. I am assaulted by the humidity and the heat. I am comforted by soft texture and colors of artwork hanging in my friend’s community shop. I look up at a deep blue sky, notice the green treetops around my cottage home. Vermont, dear friend, we cannot forget about Vermont, with her lush green pastures and manicured lawns patched together with the wilderness. See the mountains and the mist. I begin to feel the familiar prickle behind my eyes as small towns roll away in the rearview mirror.

I savor every morsel August has to bring. The crisp crunch of a loaded nacho coupled with the tang of a margarita and the sharp punch of its salted rim. I witness the delight of being in union with my beloveds as they experience a food they often hunger for. I sample a few ranch sauces that make me miss Oklahoma with a fleeting ache. I love how a simple bite of food can instantly transport you to a different time and place, how it brings back the small moments from the past. I have the delightful experience of thousands of coca-cola bubbles dancing across my tongue and the sugary munch of childhood dirt loaded with gummy worms and crumbles. There’s a night of fragrant curries and spicy chickpeas and mild spinach too. One lick of a maple crunch ice cream confirms, yes, yes, this is too powerful for my midwest buds. But dear friend, to witness the delight of my family coming home to a food they love and lost too! There’s fresh lobster with buttered buns and mayo and the satisfying pop of a ginger-ale can. I try a ham & cheese croissant with delightful culinary twists, relish in the smattering of everything bagel seasoning and sprigs of dill. A hot guava empanada lives rent free within my soul. Beef jerky road side research with hints of hickory and pungent cheese from a farm. Hot pizza drowning in parmesan and oregano is a love language all on its own.

We made it to August again. This month is all armpits and deodorant and sunscreen. There’s the welcoming smell of an unfamiliar home mixed with wood and soot. The smell of eucalyptus in a sauna and hot doggy breath. Salon shop chemical dyes and fragrant shampoos. Candle wax, roasted salmon, maple, and charcoal.

I love every moment of cold water hugging my skin. The cautious walk over slick moss rocks. The return to childhood in stretching and star fishing, suspended in water and laughter. There’s a symphony of chattering teeth. This summer I experienced my first cold plunge. I sink my body into 44 degrees, feel the absence of the summertime sun. Submerged in the ice-cold water, I clasp my hands and sing softly to Remi Wolf. I marvel in lasting over six minutes. In that cold water I am starkly aware of being alive and of having a body. I feel all the gushy bloody things pumping and moving just below my pimpled goose flesh. My awareness verges on being too much, so I clasp my hands tighter and let the music wash over me.

The music, dear reader, the music! Summertime is a lesson on Charli XCX, Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, and JoJo Siwa. It is belting out Celine Dion, 90s hits and forgotten country tunes. Kid Rock in the summer is a staple, always. I tune in to Adrianne Lenker and podcasts. I make a playlist about houses. I check out CDS from the library of old country yodeling tunes. I smile to songs from Johnny Cash and June Carter and other outlaws with strong names. I can’t leave out the flirtation of 70s rock and disco. My ears adore the sound of gossip from my community, the gushes of laughter from my friends, and wince at a sudden piercing bark.

This is my hot bittersweet summer. It is about change and an uncharted path. The important conversations that happen while standing up and the figuring out of how to keep putting a foot in front of the other. My hot bittersweet summer is about noticing and curiosities, listening and savoring. Drops in the bucket for a promise of being full. Romance found within the heat. A bittersweet sendoff to the hot season that led me and you right here, to right now. This time I know we are ready.

Notice how the morning breeze sings a song about the future. Former wishes float back to me. Notice the rising temperature and the smarmy dew of makeup that never dries. Notice the new shadows gracing my skin. Peaks of muscle in known valleys of softness. Notice how the earth beneath my feet has shifted from shedding to blooming and all that’s left now is green.

Did you notice that it is June again?

Notice how deep the well of grief is? Notice how often you seem to find your way back to the surface? Did you notice the power tucked within the quiet? Notice the nerve found in being still?

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It’s June again.

Notice how my car is a science experiment, filled with bugs/debris/webs of things from nine Junes spent with the windows rolled down. Notice how all this time I was wishing for rain. Notice the spaces where I am resisting. Finger trails through an armor of pollen. Notice how hard feelings are most certainly guaranteed.

It’s June again.

Someday soon, once I’ve strung together a few clear days and collected my pretty red things, my poetry/my breath/my song will return to this body and soon you too will notice.

Notice my hunger and how my old ways tell me to be. Notice just how long I’ve been here laying low in the lush green of waiting.

September, October, November, December. I eat up the chaos and appreciate the mind-numbing rhythm. This is how you quickly pass the time. I want to hurl myself into one month after the next as easy as it is to type them all together. Septemberoctobernovemberdecember. Remember, remember, remember, remember. Saturdays are a pause but me? I want to go.

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One Saturday I pass the time by cutting off the bottom of every shirt. One Saturday I pass the hours with tabs and tabs stacked across the computer screen. One Saturday I wake late and agree to stay lost to the day. I sink into another episode. One saturday I drive around the island discovering areas new to me. More than once I exclaim “this is fucking beautiful,” to no one but myself. Because it really is.

Saturday reminds me of who I have always been which is a bit lonely, a bit restless, a bit lost in my thoughts. All of it is proof that I am here.

I am writing a book. With each utterance of this simple phrase I feel closer to my true self. They say you write what you’re obsessed with and I am obsessed with friendship & love. I am obsessed with how experience is shaped by time and how time is marked by experience. I am obsessed with the untangling and cataloging of the past. I am obsessed with the stories of the people who raised me and held me close. I am obsessed with the idea of laying out the long history of secrets, patterns, heartache, and resilience. I am obsessed with the stories that live within each of us.

I am here writing the first draft of my book. Did you know it is my very first time? I am on the cusp of a dream becoming reality. I am here at the beginning, meditating on before & after. Here in the before, I have nothing to lose. No outside voices, no direction, no opinions to hold on to. It is just me and this window, me and this desk. I am here with my blue ink and my keyboard. The only thing that matters is what I have promised myself I would do.

I am writing a book, but I am not published and I am not an author and I don’t have an agent. I am saving the list of things I am not for the seasons to come. Right now, I am focused on it being my first time, on being at the beginning, breathing deeply into the deep rooted magic in the land of before. Today I am here writing my book. It doesn’t matter if my words are messy or unclear. It doesn’t matter if what I have to say is funny, brilliant, or strange. It is the first time and everything after will simply follow as it should.

They say you write what you’re obsessed with and I am obsessed with friendship & love. I am obsessed with how experience is shaped by time and how time is marked by experience.

If Saturday is a pause, then February is a full-stop. I am back home in Tulsa, sitting on the bed I had as a teenager. This bed holds many tears, first times, and yearnings for more. This bed was once in a different room. I remember the pattern of the sheets. I remember the books I devoured and the stories I wrote. I remember the stacks of canvas waiting for me. I remember how long it felt like I had been waiting for it to be my time. How it felt to pack-up my life one weekend when I was in college. How it felt to close the door to a room I would never see again. I never imagined after all these years this bed would still be a place to come home to. How even now, all my big heartaches have been spent right here.

We got matching nose piercings one August. You helped me fulfill a desire I’ve had since the pop celebrity sensation of the early aughts. Three months ago I didn’t even know there was a word to describe that period in my life. I still don’t know what the word is for us.

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I’ve been on the path of resentment with you lately. When you filter into my mind, I quickly bring up all my anger to throw against our good. I’ve been using my resentment to avoid how embarrassing that day was. Avoiding it because if I think too long, I will start crying and I have this nose ring. It’s been a year since we last talked and what I want to know is does crying with this ring annoy you too?

I never imagined after all these years this bed would still be a place to come home to. How even now, all my big heartaches have been spent right here.

I am avoiding how embarrassing it was to have you stop being my friend over a text. I am avoiding how embarrassing it was to push you for more. Give me details, give me examples because I need an explanation as to why you don’t trust me to be your friend anymore. I am avoiding how embarrassing it was to leave work with red eyes and hiccuping breaths. I’m avoiding how embarrassing it was to nearly collapse to the ground when my husband opened the front door. I am avoiding how embarrassing it was to reassure everyone that nothing tragic has happened, this was just a friendship thing. As if friendship was ever just. I am avoiding how embarrassing it was to say I am here, once again, crying over losing you. I am here in my teenage bed, crying with our matching nose rings. To this day I find it embarrassing to have you so determined to let me go.

January, February, March, April. I feel myself stretching out in this expanse of time. Saturdays are lonely but I need them like I need air. In this season I follow through on a fantasy of mine. I wake up fully rested and greet the rising sun. It is just me and this window, me and this desk. They say we write what we are obsessed with and I am obsessed with feeling my way through. I am obsessed with remembering that this life of mine is fucking beautiful. Because it really is.

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What if I said I used to want to be an instagram famous illustrator. The kind with a quirky website and clients of my dreams. I stalked everyone I still admire with hungry eyes, whispering “how do they do it, how do they do it,” between impatient breaths.

What if I said I used to want to quit my job. I begged the universe every day for a year to give me something different and to help me force the change. Flash cards and interviews and zoom calls with no follow-up.

What if I said I used to want New York to be meaningful. For this place to be real and worth all the distance. How badly I want New York to be mine in the way the songs talk about.

What if I said I still think fondly about 2016. The rise of girl bosses and the sea of millennial pink. The false wave of hope before what happened in November.

What if I said I used to want to be her friend forever. I still think about the summer of ‘21 when I hadn’t laughed so hard in such a long time. Our last memory together, hugging with tears in our eyes as we whisper “I’m so happy that we are friends.”

I’m here at the beginning but I’m tuned to the blooming of this past year. I spend a week with my sister playing video games and watching forgotten favorites. On another day my college best friend expresses a small need for change so we spend an afternoon curating objects for her mantel. At the top of summer I find myself floating on pool noodles in the cool water of a lake with my teenhood friend. I remember her freckles and the clouds reflected in the surface, deep in conversation right before we say fuck it, let’s get high. I drive around northern Canada with Max down a road with an end. The wind whips through our hair as we squint into the bright sunlight. I sob for the millionth time in the passenger seat of my Momma’s car. How many more times do I have left to ask her if I’m going to be alright? One dark night on a back road in upstate NY I find myself singing old songs with new friends. I remember how I begged the universe for all of you. I remember how lovely it really is to call all of you mine.

What if I said I’m still here in my house, in New York, at my job. I’m still here reading and writing and drawing. What if I said I’m still here thinking about you, about us, and about them. I whisper softly about Cadmium and Emily, telling everyone “I’m still here,” and “Things in there were just getting so loud.” I’m at the beginning and I’m tuned to blooming, to saying what it is, to knowing today this finally feels more than fine.

If I could drive in orange, I would cruise down the coast and cut a line through the bubbling southern heat. Northwest Arkansas, 1993. I want to spend a day in a forgotten time with my parents as just us three. I want to meet them in the temporary life they built together and hug them in the orange iridescent glow. Driving in orange I imagine the shock on my parents face at greeting the woman their daughter will become. In our last shared day I want to soak them in, refresh my memories with something good before we say goodbye to this version of us. As the sun fades I would lean in close to softly whisper stories in their ear about the beauty of heartache and the courage found in fear. I need them to know their story lives within me, that I am filled with their light.

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I come from a line of storytellers. On both sides of my family is a handful of folks blessed with the gift of the gab. These legends loomed large in my young life with their talent for holding a captive audience in the warmth of tall tales and jokes. I am made up of generations of stories traded around dinner tables, gatherings, deer camps, and tailgates. The deep bark and airy cackle of laughter is braided into my soul. When I crack up, what you are hearing is the generations pouring from my mouth.

As the sun fades I would lean in close to softly whisper stories in their ear about the beauty of heartache and the courage found in fear. I need them to know their story lives within me, that I am filled with their light.

If I’m driving in orange then I’m writing in blue. The verbal prowess of my family has passed down to me through the written form. Southwest Arkansas, 2020. I feel like a little girl again, suspended in awe at the unfolding of a hilarious tale. My dad regales us with stories about his own dad who passed away only days before. Friends, family, neighbors and familiar faces pass through the open doors of my dad & stepmom’s home, paying respect to our grieving family through the comfort of a hug and food. Each person leaves this home with a story about my papaw and a smile on their face. My dad holds us all captive with his version of tales about a man larger than life with hands the size of dinner plates and a childlike heart made of gold. A wave of sadness washes over me when I realize my papaw’s stories will only live through his family and how we choose to tell them.

Before his funeral my aunts and uncles find a collection of journals. Each page is a subtle glimpse at papaw’s life throughout the 80s and 90s. He kept notes on cows and chicken houses, deer spotted in a clearing, his children’s softball games, and friendly faces. My heart quickens when I find my parent’s names together on a page. Even though I am living proof that their love was once real, I can’t help but crave for more ephemera of their past. I recognize my handwriting and the writing of my dad in papaw’s crisp letters. Proof that magic is real. I wish I could remember the color of the ink on the page. It’s most likely black but in my heart it is blue.

I am made up of generations of stories traded around dinner tables, gatherings, deer camps, and tailgates. The deep bark and airy cackle of laughter is braided into my soul. When I crack up, what you are hearing is the generations pouring from my mouth.

Writing in blue on the eve of my birthday, I look back over my shoulder to my husband who is sleeping in our bed. If I could send one snapshot of life down the spiral of time it would be this right here. I want to send this moment to my younger self. North-central Oklahoma, 2011. Campus days of growing pains and generational cracks. When my head was filled with dreams and a war in my heart was just beginning. I want to send this image of today to my younger self as a tender offering of what will soon be hers. As the sun fades I would lean in close to softly whisper stories in her ear about days bathed in orange and blue.

One of my favorite parts to starting any project is getting organized. Crafting a plan is my trademark thing. When I write I like to be surrounded by a collection of lists, notecards, sticky notes, and paper scraps. There’s something so satisfying about having all my ephemera within reach. Even now I’m rifling through pages of notes on this indulgent pathways idea — which reminds me, Jordan, make sure to update your About Page with a version of this:

Creating Show me the Way often felt like swimming in a chocolate river. It was so sweet, so indulgent, so scrummy and equal parts “oh wow, I’m tired, let’s go back.” This newsletter felt like one of my best and yet I hope to never spend as much time as I did on another one like it. Don’t get me wrong — I love what was created! It holds many tender bits from my journey of trying to force change. It is the closest I have ever been to wrestling feelings about the last few years into shareable words. And it still was chocolate river level of a struggle. Because that’s how it goes. Creating something is never easy. Some words come up & out onto the page faster than the ones that ask you to tread in place, not drink the illusion, and wait to be rescued by someone impeccably dressed (although somewhat peculiar.)

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