Notes on Gossip (Updated)

I was 16 when my ex-boyfriend's gang of friends handed me a helium balloon labeled SLUT on Valentine's Day in the middle of the cafeteria, along with a Hate Note from the “popular” senior girls. Later that year, an upper-classman started chanting my new nickname - STEPHANIE ~ THE SLUT ~ STEPHANIE ~ THE SLUT as he passed out newspapers in the common area. It may or may not have mattered how inexperienced I was with sex at the time, but the topic seemed to preoccupy a number of my peers, and I became trapped in an echo chamber of rumors and depression and self-harm.

Going home, there was no one to cry to, as therapy is a New Age thing lost on Boomer parents who were traumatized in other ways and caught up in their own shit. I buried myself in academics and counter-culture, never expecting to live past twelfth grade. As God's grace would have it, I'm thriving beyond my thirties, and shows like 13 Reasons Why watch like documentaries as much as dramas. Good art (yes, Hollywood is known for some of that) serves as a lens through which to see ourselves and each other - perhaps in a new light, or some old, but focused, ever focusing.

Now we're adults, and people pass around hateful comments on the internet like Covid - just as much sickness and shame attached. What's worse, these words contain more violence, attacking our identities and ethnicities… how we raise our children, mental health diagnoses - our bodies and our minds. Unlike the virus, there's no vaccine to provide immunity. We haven't quite learned that sticks and stones and words too destroy human vitality.

What would cause us to run around throwing stones, destroying relationships and ourselves, in direct opposition to our shared survival instinct?

Fear, I would guess. Unhealed, avoided, shamed and blamed fear.

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Notes on Work (Republished)

Millenials get all the attention (for better or worse), but no one ever talks about Gen X. We’ve inherited a love of nostalgia from our Boomer parents and learned how to talk about generational trauma from our bankrolled therapists, but we haven’t quite progressed American society beyond bipartisan henpecking or violent abuses of (still) white male- dominated power structures. Perhaps we're a bit too economically and spiritually hands-tied. But when it comes to Gospel, we're the generations that claim Tupac and Nirvana and Aaliyah - their lives, as much as their lyrics, a testament to how frayed our cultural fabric truly is.

Our Generations, and those after us, have also been faced with the sobering reality that if we don't get a handle on CHANGE, real change for the BETTER, and QUICK, this Promised Land may not stick around for much further development. Caught in this friction between American idealism and its dystopian present manifest, we frequently find ourselves at odds with earlier generations, who dismiss our resistance as insubordinate or lazy, and also with each other. But who could really blame us for wanting liberty and justice for ALL, or the retirement and Social Security we're paying our life's wages into? Some of our ancestors built the American Dream upon it. Others did not, and the wise among us are trying (finally, belatedly) to wake up. There must be some common ground.

Covid presented a forced opportunity, not only to Americans, but to the world, to SLOW DOWN. Rather than fritter and waste and mindlessly work our passionate lives away, for the first time in the post-Computer Age, we had a cosmic moment to shut down and reconsider our priorities. The incessant grind and push to do do more and more was halted and a new kind of challenge emerged to face ourselves and each other. Forced out of the funhouse and into focus with ourselves, it's not surprising we didn't like many of the things we saw. To return to systems that have failed so many generations would be lunacy after being granted such freedom.

Yesterday I was gently reminded by my teacher to shift my hips in pigeon, allowing me to access a deeper stretch that I haven't felt after years practicing yoga. Sometimes that's all it takes. We practice with our sincerest intentions and honed skill, but we're still boxed into some corner until a gentle hand (or in Covid's case, an Earth-shattering shove) moves us into a completely different space. You still have to choose to stay on; to do the work.

For Our Generation, that looks like examining my shit - what I bring to the table - good, bad and ugly, and working to heal from the inside extending outwards to make this world a better place. It looks like working smarter, not necessarily harder - producing mindfully, with quality and intention and respect for those around me. It looks like being The Change we want and ALL so desperately need. It's not easy sitting in discomfort, but that's where meaningful work happens, where the nasty shit gets scrubbed clean, and better days roll out ahead. Difficult conversations must be had, solutions must be found, promises must be kept. THAT is the American way forward.

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The Prophet says this in Kahlil Gibran's opus -

"And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,

And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,

And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,

And all work is empty save when there is love;

And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God."

Notes on Giving (Updated)

I was raised to be a Nice Girl. Yes please, no ma'am, hide your tears or better yet - don't cry at all. Excuse me, I’m sorry, I’m SORRY, I’M SORRY!!! Poised and well-behaved, straight A's - brother was known to call me the Golden Child. "You catch more flies with honey!" - my Nana says, and she's right. I kept doing what they told me until I walked straight into that blind trap called sin in my early teens, losing my purity to a boy who smeared my name across two schools. Then things got dark.

I didn't learn about being "nice" until much later in life, how it has so much to do with other people, perceptions more than realities. I was such a nice girl, giving away big chunks of heart and soul, throwing good over bad to cover up shame and getting tenfold back again. I gave and kept giving in, until one day I was covered in more flies than a sack of shit. And then I did implode.

Things get weird when you fall down and can't pick yourself up again. Maybe that's why I believe in God, because I have to, since I know I didn't save my own damned self.

On my crawl back up, I learned about kindness. When you're so nice you empty yourself of any goodness left to give, it takes a village to get on your feet again. In the pinnacle of Covid's hysteria, quarantine storms raging, their business risking failure, without question or consideration of personal cost, my aunt and uncle brought me Home.

Self-care isn't selfish because you can't take care of anyone else until you mind your own business. In being shown kindness, I learned to be kind. As I learned to forgive myself, I forgave others. After finally coming home to a space where I found peace and healing, I left filled enough to share with others. Even when I'm living paycheck-to-paycheck, I enjoy being generous, because I know the depth of my blessings. And that's the only nice shit that matters.

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Notes on Silence (Updated)

There are many dimensions of silence - physical, internal, social, and eternal. Some have been forced upon me, others sought in refuge or in hopelessness. Examining the topic, I can’t force morality upon it, only observe what has been done with the vastness of absence, and in doing so, honor the sanctity of our complete presence.

I was 14 when I first tried to remove myself from this planet, very timidly, and in secret. A boy who did not know Love told me if I was serious I should use a gun - God’s first miracle that I was too afraid. So continued my muted martyrdom amidst torturous bullying, lies, and despair. After several failed attempts, I almost succeeded at 17 - scared me into believing I could think myself happy for nearly 2 decades. I mishappily partied through my teens, twenties… none the wiser to that trauma time-bomb waiting for a man to sweep me into a perfectly dystopian marriage that I’d never leave. Insults? I’ve heard worse. Threats? Asking for it. Financial abuse? Familiar. Lies and manipulation? Never suspected. I was ALL IN, stakes ever-rising. Because gravity need not apply, I thought I was happy. Well enough. Risen from baseline?

God saving my teenage life didn’t feel like such a miracle when that house of cards came crashing down with divorce and the dismantling of everything I knew and loved during Quarantine 2020. There I was, in the middle of my life crisis (amidst the WORLD pandemic) clinging to scraps of everything that made me sick to begin with. Forced to let go, I was given a glimpse of utter sobriety. No where to go, no where to hide from a stark honest look at myself. I thought I’d never face the world again.

I wish I could say God rushed in to reward my defeat with an immediate transformation of mind, body, and bank account, but as a good man told me, it took a long time to dig that hole. Many years of bad decisions, poorly chosen company, and dysfunctional behaviors does not evaporate with one brilliant epiphany. When I was hopeless and could barely get myself out of bed, a special woman told me “just do the next right thing.” Two pieces of wisdom that began to change my heart and life forever. I didn’t stop wanting to kill myself, but I stopped trying. I started talking to God, and I found Hope. When released from Quarantine, I found community with safe people who taught me about real love. I sat in daily meditation and noticed while in external silence, endless chatter littered my mind. I kept sitting and noticed as my inner world softened, so did my external circumstances. There I discovered my voice - strong, resilient, worthy.

When freely chosen, silence is serene, a practice of commune with the Divine within and beyond ourselves. When stolen, an act of violence in violation of our First Amendment rights. Over time, ideas, people, and culture may be silenced - the ultimate form of oppression. Speaking from personal experience, it’s painful, dirty work scrubbing the lens of the mind - remaining present to what lies within myself in ongoing exchange with my environment - however; this work must be rigorously pursued if freedom is to be maintained.

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"It's rather like your voice. You put up with your voice and speak with it

because you haven't any choice. But it's what you say that counts. It's

what distinguishes all great art from the other kind. The technically

accomplished buggers are two a penny in any period."

-John Fowles

Notes on Politics (Republished)

I'm looking at you, America. Important, commonly agreed doings to medicate bipolar and ADHD,

But when it comes to Our Government, this spasmodic divisiveness is normalcy.

You know why weed is getting decriminalized? Because the Boomers are finally getting cancer.

Everybody hates Pharma until You get sick.

Cannot be avoided, it's all around us. If not on screens, on the job... in our homes.

Proper navigation is key - balance of heart and ego.

Would you like insurance with that?

-Your first-born will cost ya!

Jazz - but make it smooth.

Can we ever really know another's needs before walking in their shoes?

Speak, but slower. Listen. Always listen first. Strength and softness are two sides of one copper coin.

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Notes on Self-Care (Republished)

It's been said if you don't take care of your wellness, you will be forced to take time for your illness. Here's how I know that to be true: When I was 32, I got sick. C-word sick. And you know what I did? I kept working. No one told me to stop. This is the culture we live in.

It probably sounds weird to be grateful to Covid, but I am. I had barely pulled the E-brake on my daily grind when quarantine pulled the rest of the globe into a stalled halt. After Cancer, I wasn't scared. I went to the shops and my yoga classes until the very last shut down. And then I cried.

Here's the thing that we in the Western Hemisphere seem oblivious to - everything is connected. So you might push something down over here, completely deny it over there, but it's going to rear its ugly head somewhere else. For me, after a brief lifetime of abusive relationships, unhealed trauma, and self-destructive habits (that I will not catalog here aside from working myself to near-death), I got sick.

And then I got a lucky break. After every kind of diagnostic test imaginable, it was determined there was no known cause (genetic, or otherwise) for my cancer, nor is it likely to recur. So many are not so lucky. (Note to Reader: This is never to imply that cancer is OUR FAULT - it is NOT, and THAT is another topic called TRAUMA, about which I may write another day).

All of this to say, I got a crash-course in Self-Care. And then Covid put us all through the wringer, and I became an Honor Student. It's a lot more fun when you make daily, weekly, monthly rituals to take sweet care of yourself and reap the benefits in advance of life's curve-balls. It's a lot more rosy when you set healthy boundaries (with yourself and anyone else taking from you) before things get so dark. This isn't about instant gratification. This is about a nice, long life.

Corporate is starting to wise-up, providing incentives for preventive healthcare like reductions on premiums for non-smokers and stipends for mindfulness apps. Insurance (somewhat of a joke, no matter where you source it) has yet to catch up. Based on the State of Our Union, I'd say we have a ways to go. And so we should!

My self-care begins with prayer and meditation (both free), and tops out with the obvious vintage binge, fitness classes, and high-end beauty treatments (material boosts to spirit ARE self-care when mindful to budget). We all have our things. And a spoonful of sugar…

I'm getting personal because I want You, Dear Reader, to know how important this IS. I've learned the hard way that shame and hate and blame only destroy me. It's hard work to convert that nasty shit to something better, but it's worth it. ALWAYS.

KR

SK

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Notes on Venus (Updated)

There is an allure, so irresistibly compelling about our femininity, some men will go to any length to get it. I was 12 when an uncle told me, “You clean up nice!” and I felt pretty. This part of me has been the curse to end all blessings, though the World would at once give me privilege without protection, trust without boundaries, shame without justice.

Come, sit at my table - there’s more than meets the eye.

No one cares about Norma Jeane, and Marilyn’s exploits are more exciting than Jackie’s, but this, that, and the other are only three ways of being. Spoiler - Marilyn denies Norma Jeane, Jackie hates Marilyn, and JFK makes out like a bandit (but all 3 lose in the end). We still paint them pretty holding the fondest memories closest to our warped little hearts.

This equation is familiar, abysmally dismissed as a “feminist” reaction to an imagined “patriarchy” by the very same who maintain and benefit from such systems. And yet, as in any abusive environment, both parties suffer. Fragile bodies and minds violated so young, this is why we’re not better wives and mothers raising healthy sons and daughters. Have you called your mother today?

So long as we’re playing this game, let’s make sure Marilyn and Jackie are clawing for the same stupid job at 85%* of John’s wage, while inflation soars and most households require double-income to survive. Have you paid your taxes today? Good thing you’re married, what a break!

At least these folks are white and moneyed, how about when disaster and disease strike the disadvantaged? We’ll say young Norma is black, impoverished, and impregnated by an uncle who tells her to keep a secret. John doesn’t like paying taxes to support black Norma’s baby. John also insists that his god requires this baby live in poverty along with her. Let’s pray Norma miscarries!

Meanwhile gay Norma (black, white, brown, or silver) is overworked because she has no kids and no tax breaks which is often discreetly enjoyed by any colleague who finds an easier way on her account.

If the real Norma Jeane had lived to tell Marilyn’s story, she may have realized abundance just beyond suffering in a state of lack. A problem cannot be solved before it is named, but once the error is identified, it must absolutely be set right. Meaning I stop trying to fix you and find freedom in forgiveness to heal ME. The striving, the numbing, the micro-managing, the blaming, the worrying, the silencing of my soul abated in prayer and practice with the only One who can make me whole again. I must have new life, I gasp and grasp for it with desperation of the dying and hope known only to those calling upon God. And when my amends are complete, first to myself, then to others, discovering divine Grace and profound healing leads me freely and most humbly to your service. Question is, whatever shall you do?

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“If women were really people - no more, no less - then all the things that

kept them from being full people in our society would have to be

changed. And women, once they broke through the feminine mystique

and took themselves seriously as people, would see their place on a

false pedestal.”

-Betty Friedan

*Women earned an average of 85% of what men earned according to a Pew Research Center analysis of median hourly earnings of both full- and part-time workers in 2024, compared to 81% by Pew in 2003.

Notes on Practice (Republished)

Anyone who has ever committed to specialization of a skill knows there is no perfection, only continuous refinement and adaptation. Art changes the artist as much as the viewer.

I took yoga teacher training because I wanted to learn more, perhaps open a studio of my own (setting myself up to be employee #1), then The Pandemic happened. While we were all experiencing very personal levels of shock, panic, and grief, I was clinging to my communal practice for dear life. Home was not a safe place to be, but on my mat, I became fully present with myself in a moment, a movement, a breath taken then released. There are lovely ways to exercise in solitude, but I will always prefer yoga in community.

This practice - and I love it for giving me that word - is always and simply that. Some days I can headstand, other days I topple over. I can take my mat to the same corner of one studio with the same teacher 7 days a week and every single moment of each practice is different because that’s how I am and how life is within me. It’s the only time I slow down enough to notice, but I do, and that mindfulness is precious. It’s why yoga is truly a way of living and moving through life - we are all students and teachers, when open to the lessons.

Experts in any discipline know this; great artists drip, Olympians trip, A-listers have flops. It’s what makes the good shit so valuable. So even when winning (especially when losing), I keep coming back to practice, to remind myself of truths sometimes only my body knows, often wants to release, and return to center.

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"Perhaps the immobility of the things that surround us is forced upon

them by our conviction that they are themselves, and not anything else,

and by the immobility of our conceptions of them."

-Marcel Proust

Notes on Compassion (Remastered)

LORD if I had a USD every time I said something passive-aggressive or downright MEAN to myself! The funny (as in ironic/not LOL kind) thing about meditation is that I started noticing just how often that IS, and it's ANNOYING. Over time, I'd bet it's downright DETRIMENTAL! Perhaps even impacts my relationships with other people!

Before I stopped being so angry with God, I called this thing the "Jesus Principle," as in YOU (the proverbial) cannot help anyone who isn't willing to help themselves. While forgiveness is not self-interested (at least not on God's part), it benefits the giver as much as the receiver. The practice of forgiveness is H A R D. And forgiving oneself, in my experience, is hardEST. Completing this process is F R E E I N G.

Paradoxes galore. Soon as I level-up, I might start resenting that dingy self I used to be (HI, shame), maybe people who reflect that prior version of me, and I get brazen. Maybe I never awakened to edges snagging half-healed wounds of others, keep carrying on. But I live and hopefully learn…

There is always more Compassion -

To have and to hold

To give and to take

To love and to make.

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Notes on Cinderella (Remastered)

Come close, I'll tell you a story - the only ones I tell are true. When I was a girl, I was teased for using big words and a having a flat chest, although those mocking loved to cheat off my papers, handsy too.

Soul searching led me back to my roots, a little Community in Houston, English at UT, wanting to work the fashion industry and coming up bone-dry in 2010 with a BA and the economy on the outs. I couldn't even volunteer abroad despite being heavily over-qualified (remember that recession?), so I took a job in retail trying to get close-up with clothes. Eating PB&J five days a week felt like starving, no art. I thought I sold out when I took a job in corporate, but science was my second love, and I knew I'd be able to dress the part.

I worked the only way I know how, like my mother's only daughter, with all I have, and with heart. Still, over a decade later, kept feeling this hole where my art was, until one day there was a break. One man, then one woman told me yes - You Can Do That - and so I did.

I started managing budgets and projects and timelines. With every spare dollar and moment, I was curating clothing and images and content. I went a little wild and started a business called MAVEN, thinking I should see how far this ship can sail. I trademarked my clothing because I'm making some of that too. People ask me what She Does - this MAVEN, and like most new business owners, I don't really know. What began as a name for a blog parked on a star has grown to include celebrity wardrobe styling for editorial and video shoots, consultation services for creative direction & set design, and this archive of weekly publications. I might be sleepless and broke as hell but I’m full of glee.

So the crestfallen girl who dreamed of working for Lucky Magazine but figured a career the next best way to make people healthier in Corporate America while starting this fledgeling side-hustle may have come full-circle... and ended up front-row at Soho House for the PatBo Fashion Show during SXSW. Walt Disney much? Only if the shoe fits.

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Notes on Empowerment (Remastered)

I was sitting in a nail salon in Anywhere, America when I overheard two grown women discussing how their friend would look "slutty" if she chose a certain shade for her manicure. Question: When did the color, length, or design of our manicure (really, any application of cosmetics) become a symbol of how experienced a woman is with sex?

To begin with, answering these questions yields no reasonable answers, aside from squirmy revelations about how we view ourselves. I could sit in This Chair and prescribe what she Should do with Her face and Her body and Her career all day long, but come no closer to truth or happiness.

This conversation comes up a lot during styling consultations, but the script gets flipped. It takes a lot of vulnerability and trust working with clients, and it's usually quite early when someone will set some hard boundaries around what they "can" and "cannot" wear. Kelly was a NO to crop tops. Mark insisted on cutting an arm off every designer shirt I brought him. I was thrilled when Kelly ended up choosing the Tibi crop we shot her in most of the day and when Mark agreed to the Double RL shirts (both sleeves in-tact) not because that's what I wanted, but because they looked phenomenal and their confidence radiated through the iconic photos we captured from those very different shoots. As a stylist, it's my greatest joy to see someone overcome a limitation they set for themselves - and nail it.

I'm still curious about the conversation from the salon. When I was traveling for my corporate job, I chose classic colors to avoid looking too youthful or unprofessional - in short, to improve my chances of being taken seriously. These days when I'm invited to the office, I feel comfortable balancing a nail that pops with color-blocked basics or pared-down neutrals. I wonder when those women said "slutty," were they using it interchangeably with other words that typically undermine women in the workplace? I have so many questions, but instead remained silent as a very uncomfortable eavesdropper.

Ultimately, how we talk about others is reflective of how we feel about ourselves. Being able to sit with that discomfort, even get curious about it and try a different approach is the path to discovery. I have some very pretty pictures to prove it.

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Notes on SXSW (Republished)

Remember the hipsters? Post-punk, possibly Emo, finally caught onto European trends, could find one in any U.S. startup within a matter of years? Because I favored skinny jeans and sometimes dark-rimmed glasses in the early 2000's, I took a lot of flak.

Unlike the hippies with the war and Woodstock and their protests, the so-called hipsters had no unifying culture aside from their fashion, and maybe some music. Based on bullying from jocks & nerds alike, I understood there was a shared misconception that the democratization of fashion (as I called it) had some underlying exclusivity that was shaking things up.

Quite the opposite, as time has now shown street style, eponymous influencers, and slow fashion explode across the internet, transforming the ways we live and dress. Covid might have slowed us down, but the ideas kept cooking, and now that tourism and festivals are back in business, fashion is fun again. 2023 was the year I had my first official SXSW experience, in the most unlikely way - as an expat local parading as a tourist. It's long been my favorite pastime to get out of a rut by hopping in my car or a plane to explore places unknown, but there is no music festival like the multi-national extravaganza that overtakes the Music Capitol of the World in the Heart of Texas, and what a trip, what a treat.

Post-pandemic, SX felt more like it did over a decade ago, when you knew the right people at your favorite places, and could get up close to the stage breathing and feeling the music. It's never the same experience. I saw Andrew Cashen's band twice, leaving with a yellow rose and a blissful haze. Lindsey Mackin was smackin' her lips driving the boys wild at Hotel Vegas with Annabelle Chairlegs. KMFA hosted the most intimate live recording of Caramelo Haze that felt like stepping into radio royalty. Bose took an empty lot on the East Side and turned up Coachella vibes, where Genesis Owusu shook like Prince - I couldn't take my eyes off him.

Grabbed a pedi to the 13th Floor where Pussy Gillette puts rock-hard bitch in your punk is alive and well, thank you. Eats at Comedor, land of artful Mexican where you never know who you'll meet in the moody alcoves. And Moody Bank$ WAS there, giving a private performance for the opening of woman-owned & operated Nativas Studios. Sleep, wash, repeat. Brunch with a dear friend at old faithful Aba, get invited to the Spin Pool Party (it's SX, it's magic), wander over to SX San Jose (anyone can, and should!), stumble upon Blondshell, my new obsession for Indie-Emo rocker chick ballads. The Zombies are releasing a new album, and SX-goers got a preview of old & new at Stubb’s. Pinch me.

Britt Daniel from Spoon hops on stage to duet with titties-flying Sabrina Ellis during A Giant Dog's set at Continental Club... another day in Austin, or is it? Still decked out in PatBo, the Oracle Sisters are singing me swinging lullabies. Switch gears, Caleb de Casper swoons with sparks flying (I cannot get that hook out of my head - you should know the one). I couldn't make it to Bun B but I did see Blackillac pop off the stage with fly beats and quips taking me back to hip hop's Golden Age. Never too full for dessert, finished with the girls at Justine's.

Was it all a dream? Only the best kind, and my camera don't lie. More important is the singing in my soul seeing this magnificent evolution go beyond fashion, even beyond music, to create, connect, to rebuild community we all so desperately need. If cotton was once the “fabric of our lives,” music is the language of God's love, bringing us together again in this dance of humanity. Question is - where will it take us next?

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"Kid, you’ll move mountains!”

-Dr. Seuss