9 Years.

I intentionally saved Monday’s newsletter for today, 7.13. It’s a special day for me and I always acknowledge it with some words of reflection, so thank you for accepting this special edition. Today marks 9 years of sobriety. Alcohol was my drug of choice and it is seriously nothing short of a miracle that this lush has done 9 years of life without a sip.

Time can be stingy with her insight. I was so full of questions in the beginning. I wanted to know, Why did I do that? Why was I made this way? Why did it take me so long to quit? Why, why, why? But Time, in her ever omniscient wisdom, has only answered a few of those questions and the bulk of the story is still developing.

Here are a few things I know:

Being a lush was fun and glamorous for a long time until it wasn’t, as they say, but I was unaware of the moment it went from was to wasn’t.

Closing every party like an even sadder version of Peggy Lee singing “Is That All There Is?” is definitely a sign of that shift, but you can find forgiveness for yourself for not seeing it.

Windows of clarity are as real but as elusive as my kitty and anyone who gets close to one is very fortunate.

Many of life’s problems can be attributed to alcohol’s fallout but no matter how much karma debt you’ve paid off, sometimes life will just wreck you. You will find ways to respond that will surprise you.

You can be spontaneous and impulsive, you can have many ideas that hit the cutting room floor but you can also make daily right choices, you can follow through, and be proud of yourself for doing so.

I’ll say one more thing with you in mind. It’s no coincidence that I quit drinking in the thick of perimenopause. My body was in revolt (sorry I’m about to get corporeal up in here). I was bleeding like I’d been murdered, I couldn’t sleep for sweat and anxiety pouring out of me at 2am every morning like an alarm bell. I was constipated, creatively and well, all the ways. The body is always the first to send out the SOS and I believe it’s merely the messenger sent from the soul, but I shot the messenger, over and over until that aforementioned window of clarity that I just knew if I didn’t try, I’d die. So I wedged myself through.

If you need some support, my inbox is open.

The Middle-Age Gaze

As my personal new year approaches, I’m reminded how grateful I am to have a June birthday. Seasonally, I’m peak-idea manifestor. In January, the traditional NY, my ideas are soft, sleepy and slow, like winter mornings and me. In Spring, they have a shape, feel more seeded. But come Summer, they are fruiting. So birthdays, especially since I hit my mid-40s, are a ticket to change.

I had this idea to transition my photography career, put all of eggs in one basket and focus on one genre, solve one problem. And it’s a problem I share with my avatar: I want my creative work to be meaningful to me, I want cohesion but I don’t want to be bored, I want to serve up beauty on a platter to whomever wants to eat, I want to look how I feel and most days, that’s inspired, curious, satiated and yeah, beautiful.

I put out a call for volunteers because photography is one of those creative acts that just feels stupid to talk about. You got to show it, not tell it. I summoned women over 40 who were in a creative career, enjoyed a creative hobby or desired to transition from Not This, to This. Because I believe that women over 40 can resist the invitation, the invitation to step into an identity that they haven’t yet mastered, to answer a call even when they don’t recognize the voice, to want validation even while giving less fucks. I had a hunch I wasn’t the only one who needed this but I told myself I’d be grateful for 2 responses. I got 15. Validated.

I’ve been having the most affirming consultation sessions with these women and I’ll have my first session in two weeks, the week of my new year. Launching this, everything else I do falls right in line. Writing about middle-age, passion, transitions, recovery, craft and art in this newsletter, making garments that reflect the vibrancy of the feminine mystique while also honoring my commitment to live less harmfully and creating imagery under the middle-age gaze that serves women in their most dynamic years of their lives, feels, yeah…this is it.

I’m excited to take you with me in my transition. I’ll see you every Monday! (Yes, I said it!) I look forward to sharing more of my insight into middle-age, creative purpose, and rewilding beauty into my everyday.

I’m looking at you, 54.

PS. As always, the shop is open! A few silk dusters have been added and lots more coming this week. Check my instagram periodically for drops (via goofy dance reels, most likely).

Reinvention Ascension #53

My old journals tell me everything I need to know. Sure, birthdays should be a time of reflection, but my birthday journal entries of the past remind me of that movie trope when the boss pokes her head into some unwitting employee’s cubicle with “Can I talk to you for a second?” and your gut just knows this person’s in trouble. The conversation may even start off with a positive, but the very next sentence is, “And while I have you…”, then all of the disappointment and nine ways to Sunday they have fucked up is unleashed in one excruciating exhale. They are heartbreaking, these historic birthday reflections, truly.

I’d love to say this exercise did a 180 in the trip around the Sun that followed quitting drinking in 2014, but the change in my stance was very gradual. (Is that called, ‘learning to love yourself’?) It makes sense really, birthday rumination was a reflection of my mental state. Optimism favors the healthy. The change could also attest to simply getting older with gratitude, gratitude that gets punctuated more and more every year with loss. Either way, it changed.

Presently, Change is on the birthday marquis. Instead of dwelling on regret of all the things I didn’t accomplish over the previous year, my lens has shifted to opportunity. What is no longer working? What can I do differently? Add? Eliminate? Birthday number 53’s energetic flow surprisingly guided me straight to my closet. How do I dress myself at 53? I’m actually not interested in what is ‘appropriate’ (that’s a boring conversation). As an aside, I have never felt healthier and more at ease in my body than I do right now and honestly, you could knock me over with a feather at that marvel. Who would have thought? Certainly not me. I assumed that every year after 49 I’d feel the acute effects of deterioration and that’s just how the cards are stacked. Life is full of surprises, isn’t it?

Personal style may seem like a frivolous and indulgent endeavor, given the circumstances. It is, I wouldn’t argue with that. But if I didn’t have date with my creative muse lined up on my dance card every single day, I’d never get out of bed. So I guess it’s the pursuit of joy as a means of survival.

So just to catch you up on what my action has looked like as of late, I cleaned out my closet and have even started listing some resale of vintage and finer pieces in my Marketplace. That’s going to be a Summer regular if you want to browse.

I picked up a mystery bag at a garage sale that was full of the most delightful surprises, including THREE bias cut and lace silk nightgowns from the 40s that made me literally cry for their beautiful resilience. I mean, how many wars have they endured? And they’ve dared to remain beautiful in spite of it all. Isn’t that amazing? I made a little video that I posted on Instagram if you want to see how I’m altering them a bit so I can honor them by wearing them.

I also bought a hat and it urgently needs its own feature. I’ll have to get on that.

So tell me, do birthdays make you want to change things? Subtly or a total takedown reinvention? What has struck you with awe lately? This is the cycle of news I’m hungry for, with love.

Fifty.

My fiftieth birthday has come and gone and yet I have words in my head that have not dissolved, so here I am. There is a line in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous that speaks to a “position of neutrality”, specifically referring to the company of alcohol. I like to take the concept further and apply it to expectations. This is big work for me. Before I quit drinking, I loved to indulge in future-tripping. I loved the drama of it, I let it keep me up at night, I wanted every experience to be OFF THE CHARTS good. Like any good sufferer of the disease of MORE, I scoffed at mediocre, okay or even good. I expected great, every time. As you can imagine, most experiences failed miserably at meeting my expectations. And arguably, many of them could have been great, but I was too drunk to notice.

So back to this big work for me practicing neutrality around expectations, it works. It worked when I went to Portland, OR a few weekends ago for a Tammi Salas lovefest/Unruffled Podcast meetup/Amanda Grace RAW workshop. I kept my expectations at a low hum and the experience well exceeded that to where I’m still riding a wave of creative inspiration and productivity. My actual birthday was interesting though. I experienced an emotion I’m not used to feeling and it really caught me off-guard.

Melancholy.

Melancholy is not a dwelling I inhabit very often. It was a bit of a paradox as while I was feeling every ounce of gratitude for even reaching this milestone birthday and was overcome with appreciation for all of the birthday love that was flooding my text messages and Facebook notifications, yet, there it was. In reflection, there were a combination of realizations that spurred the emotion, I’m sure of it, the biggest one as something I don’t often like to examine: impermanence. And not just impermanence as my own impending doom, which if I’m truly lucky, I’ve reached the half-way mark but the slippage of time in general. I have a teen that will be leaving my home soon and I know, I KNOW it’s going to feel like a limb has been ripped off. I don’t live in regret but there is always lingering some lament over the paths not taken, “the ghost ship that didn’t carry us”.

As quickly as melancholy engulfed me that Tuesday morning, it had left by the evening. I drifted in the wake of, What just happened? for a bit. In conclusion, I’m happy to be fifty. Practicing neutrality around the anticipation of this birthday was about to play out, so I’m glad to be here, that it’s come and gone. I don’t know what this decade will bring, but I look forward to being astonished, either way.