I started writing this newsletter last Sunday morning from the Kennebunkport Motor Lodge in Maine, but it was such a gorgeous day and I wanted to go outside, and then I flew home for one night to meet with coach Elizabeth Canon in Malibu by the ocean, and then to Portland, OR to meet the newest little baby in the family. I tried to write it on the plane to Maine, on the plane home from Maine, and then I just decided not to send it, my brain was racing and I wanted to say so much and I couldn’t get all the words out; maybe the muse can’t quite settle into you at 600mph. I thought I would be mad at myself, but I wasn’t. I wrote myself a big fat permission slip to close my computer and just sit there. I made a decision that I was allowed to follow my own pace, and more importantly, to trust my own pace.

Also It’s summer! Summer is for play, not deadlines! And I went to Maine to play.

I have spent most of the summer at home with our dog Sunny, while Ryan is traveling the world for work. It’s not like me to stay home, I come from a family that is on the move. I love to fly. I love airports. I write about flying a lot. My grandfather was on the first flight of the Concorde to Paris. I was less than one month old when he took that flight; I was born into it. I started flying alone at four years old in a little triangle of mom, dad, and grandparents. I love being in the sky. I love the liminal state with strangers, although I obvs don’t always love the strangers cuz, you know, stranger danger, but sometimes I hold their hands if they are scared. But life doesn’t actually happen in the sky, it happens on the earth. We’ve all seen that George Clooney movie where he travels all the time, he’s super efficient in the TSA line, but he’s lonely, and he thinks he falls in love with that woman, who happens to be a married woman, and he’s sad, but ultimately the experience brings him back to earth, oh, it’s called Up In The Air I think.

Life happens on earth. I need to repeat this to myself over and over. I used to only aim for the sky, but 95% of life’s gifts are on earth, so basically, I’ve been selling myself short. I am right here and you are right here. Also planes always have to land so they don’t run out of gas.

And maybe, I think maybe perhaps potentially I couldn’t write it because I was avoiding something here on earth. Or I was avoiding writing about something that other people will read. Two weeks ago after the newsletter came out Tessa called and I said, oh god I think that one was awful, I feel so vulnerable, and she said, it’s because it was really you. She was right. It’s scary to be really you in the world, but how terrible would it be to spend your whole life not allowing yourself to be yourself? Like you spend your entire life being like oh, I wish I was a dahlia so bad, but you were already a rose the whole time!! No shade on dahlias, it’s an example.

I have spent so much of my life not allowing myself to be fully me in the world, or I’ve been some of me, but a dialed back me, a restrained me, because you have to be cool, not have needs because needs are gross. I was the girl that made out with you, and then pretended that we’d never met the next time I saw you, but inside I was a fireworks show of feelings. I am afraid to take up too much space, but I am so tall, and I love show tunes, and I have so many opinions and ideas. I want to be pretty, but not so pretty that people hate me or lurk me. I want to be smart, but not so smart that people think I am an asshole. I want to wait for you to stop talking, but it’s all just moving so fast. I have always wanted so much life, because we only get one that we can experience right now, and I don’t want to waste it by holding myself back anymore. I’m tired. I’m almost fifty. I mean. Seriously, what’s the point of living, and not letting your soul sing.

When my aunt was dying she went to a dying retreat and when I picked her up she kept saying, I don’t want to die with my music still inside of me. It's a Wayne Dyer quote I think. I didn’t want that for her, I don’t want it for you, and I certainly don’t want it for me.

So maybe here is what I was embarrassed to write, that I went flew across the country for three nights to go on a full on Ana Inciardi vacation. I went to go to Portland to the opening of the two week mini print pop up, and then to drive around Maine in a rental car collecting mini prints and going to magical places and listening to a book on tape. I also needed to see my friend Karly and I needed to be alone with myself outside of LA for a minute. When I write it it seems so silly that I am so embarrassed, but while I was driving this sentence popped into my head, Obsession feeds us in the places we are starving.

And then I asked myself, what is it about this mini print situation that is feeding me? Where am I starving?

I am also embarrassed to keep writing about how I have spent much of the summer in a quiet state of grief, because grief again, seriously, what a buzz kill! I have had so much shame about my grief, and here we go again, right when I have a plan to build build build I am faced with another part of my space ship flying off into a galaxy where I cannot reach it. My body is forced to reorient to a world without her here on earth. We built our brains together as they were forming on Rhinebeck benches with cigarettes and iced coffees, and now I am left here with just my part. I am so mad, and I call a friend and I say, I have plans and this is getting in my way, which eventually forces me to consider, that it is not in the way, it is the way. I am both relieved and annoyed by this.

These truths aren’t outstanding, but they are mine; they both currently reside directly at the center of my heart. It’s scary to show yourself, but I am telling you the truth to help regulate both of us, because we are designed to co-regulate. Telling the truth to yourself is one of the fastest ways to regulate the nervous system. You can keep doing that box breathing all you want, but if you are lying to yourself it’s gonna take a lot longer to calm down, because we are in flight or fight mode from ourselves.

Telling the truth is also the fastest way to unclog a creative block, but that’s a discussion for another time.

And so you know, I had the absolute best time. My intuition to go to Maine was 100% exactly what I needed.

In conclusion…

What music wants to get out?

What are you obsessed with?

What are you starving for?

What do you think is in the way, that might actually be the way?

Is there something your intuition is telling you that you think is dumb or silly, but it just keeps on trying to get your attention?

lol casual inquiries. love you, J

Please enjoy some paintings from the Colby College Museum in Waterville, ME. Honestly one of the nicest museums I have ever been to, and I have been to A LOT!