Notes on Privacy (CLAUDE Remix)

History feels like it's on fast-forward. In a few generations we've gone from oral traditions to written ones to streaming video that moves faster than I can remember what happened yesterday. I used to take photos to mark special places, people, and events. Now my phone is glued to my hand whenever I'd rather not think too hard about something. Convenience has a price: autocorrect has chipped away at my spelling, I sometimes skip writing whole sentences - my vocabulary and communication have suffered for it. I've uncomfortably called my phone my external hard drive. It’s not far from the truth.

This goes deeper than vanity. In my late teens I learned that to survive, I must chase joy at all costs. …So I document everything (PICS or it DIDN'T HAPPEN! <JOKING/NR EMOJI>) and yet seem to remember about the same, maybe less. Meanwhile, my digital footprint is perpetually outgrowing my ability to manage it. I wonder whether privacy is archaic, and whether the laws meant to protect it will fall short again once artificial intelligence (AI) outpaces those, too.

I'll date myself a little with this: I was a college freshman when Facebook was brand new, a small community open only to people with university email addresses. After logging onto the WWW, we started tossing personal information out the door like old shoes. A short while before I’d called my dad from my first iPhone, amazed: Internet! Email! An address book in the palm of my hand! He was amused. HE had been the proud owner of the first POCKET CALCULATOR in college – one the size of a Steno Pad that clipped to the outside of his pocket.

Our private health information (PHI) may be the last sacred frontier of data privacy. HIPAA, passed in 1996 around the time dial-up was calling for computers in every middle-class home, is best known for keeping your PHI out of employers’ hands and anyone else’s who lacks proper authorization.

Why does that matter now? AI is rapidly rolling out, electronic health records (EHRs) are improving efficiencies with administrative tasks for providers, and without proper oversight and protections, America could be traveling toward 1984 faster than you can say George Orwell!

Entrepreneurs will find opportunity, but the big players with deep pockets have political pull, and they're the ones to watch. Start reading, keep conversations going. And VOTE!

ORIGINAL WORK COPYRIGHTED TO HYPE GIRL MEDIA; REWRITTEN WITH CLAUDE V3.16

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

— George Santayana

Notes on Healing (Edited)

The practice of meditation is one of 8 limbs of what we in the West call “yoga,” which includes a physical practice. In traditional practice, “dharana” or concentration on a single object, leads into “dhyana” or meditation - a state of heightened awareness without focus. “Asana,” or the physical postures of yoga, are intended to prepare the body and mind for these conditions of concentration and awareness. Each of the 8 limbs of yoga are interrelated in helping us live ethical, balanced, fulfilling lives, unrelated to any religion.

I struggle with meditation as much as anyone, finding it quite unnatural to sit in solitude, much less trying to do something while doing nothing at all. I picked it up while living in chaos, hoping to find peace within since my external world seemed so wildly out of control. Thankfully there are a lot of apps and guides that make getting started a lot easier.

After years sitting with myself, I’ve happened upon some key insights no therapist could have told me. Learning to approach yoga as a practice (NOT perfect) has been essential in unlocking more compassion towards myself and those around me. I Heart Huckabee’s has a great blanket metaphor (debated throughout the movie) signifying how everything between the material world and consciousness is connected, and I have indeed noticed a shift in my external circumstances when I’m able to quiet my internal world. This isn’t a quick fix (although a step away with some breath work always helps deescalate), but preventive medicine with compounding interest.

Eventually I’ve started to notice more subtle shifts in my mood and behavior when not meditating, and with practice, am able to examine with curiosity and non-attachment, which opens the door to change. Making room for me to choose who I want to be and how I can adjust to my circumstances -

working with people and situations rather than in opposition.

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“It’s dark because you’re trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly.

Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

-Aldous Huxley, Island

Notes on Growth (Edited)

Before I learned what "practice" meant, you might catch me candidly saying "balance isn't my strong point" when falling out of any unilateral asana. That has been historically true of my physical existence, but the more it happened, I noticed myself saying it, and then realized it was also true of my entire conduct. One thing to realize, another to work through.

I started to learn bumping up against mental limitations in yoga if I kept breathing - when I was frustrated, even when it was most challenging, feeling I couldn't endure a moment longer - so long as I shifted my attention back to breath, my body moved through the struggle. Over time, my practice has become a puzzle and a celebration, always leading back to joy.

It is noticing your edges, moving through the boundary, and releasing judgment about the result. This repeated yoga practice results in equanimity - physical and mental oneness. It is truth in simply being.

I'm able to share this with you now, because after years of practice, I'm more firmly rooted in Dancer (Natarajasana in Sanskrit) - something else I could "never" do. As my physical balance has evolved, so has my focus and inner peace.

That's not to say I'm immune to emotion. I still cry when mourning losses, or when old wounds are aggravated, bitterly when backpedaling into old habits. I'm still practicing forgiveness for myself and others. And the cycle begins anew.

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“Best to let the broken glass be broken glass, let it splinter into smaller pieces and dust and scatter.

Let the dust between things widen until they are no longer cracks but the new places for things.”

-Colson Whitehead

Notes on Helping (Edited)

I come from a long line of ‘fixers.’ You got a problem, I'll solve it! Dust this, tidy that, new shirt/new shoes NO ISSUES, keep cleaning into the corners so everything looks just right. It's hard to learn in fixin' culture that the premise relies on an assumption of something needing cleaning, and we're not always right.

I've been trying to help my whole life with the best of intentions, and messing sh*t up sometimes too. We all do. Failing with grace, maybe that's why I have faith -

it's certainly not ego that gets me back up again.

Sometimes force of will is easy to recognize - always easier to judge in others. Other times it creeps in, touching thoughts as it becomes our words and behaviors. Lord, forgive me. Here it feels like I could be asking you!

I can't stop, won't stop helping. It makes me feel alive. But I also need help learning, I think we all do. So we all should KEEP TALKING.

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"The first story that he ever showed me was "Rubio y Morena." I didn't like it (and still don't).

‘So fix it,’ he said. He knew, of course, that there is no fixing someone else's story or life but he was curious to see what I would do.

So I reversed backward-running sentences, removed repetitions, simplified the often ponderous images. I was rather proud of the result. He was deeply irritated.

‘What you have done is remove my style, which is all that I have.’

He was right."

-Gore Vidal of Tennessee Williams

Notes on Sobriety (Edited)

There was a time before I was born when I was peaceful, and sober, and free. No decisions to make, nowhere to go. A blank canvas, sure - the bones were there, but only experience to layer in values and beliefs and should-be’s. Here fallen from Eden I was seeking something better than had been laid out before me, yet unseen, carpe diem and then some please!

To whom much is given… I wasted lot. Piss poor drunk, making spectacles of sh*t they said about me - if they said it, might as well give ‘em run for their money! No hired hand, girls just having so much fun. Wild normal night on Sixth Street! Lies lies lies. I tell myself never mind, I liked it. Well it’s a good thing I can’t remember, another drink please!

I drink drank drunk until my only buddy left was an empty bottle. Woke up alone on Rosh Hashanah with a single commandment

saying drink and die. I may be a fool but Jesus saved a sloppy wretch like me.

You can take the drunk out of the bar, but you can’t take the alcoholic out of the drunk. This fuzzy brain is just waking up. Maybe I’ll eat an orange or a peach today. If I get diabetes after eating six packs of Oreos, do we blame Nabisco or my lack of self-restraint? Thank God for his merciful grace, none of us deserving, all freely sharing. Forgiving myself, that’s some dirty work - with mastery, easing up on others, learning to let go - we all do it, all of us, hiding in fear and shame - inside-out. I keep cleaning, no more time left for disease in me, I want to be free. This is sobriety.

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“Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape. These things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling. And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light. And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom.”

-Kahlil Gibran

Notes on Productivity (Edited)

I'm amused when people are surprised that my primary physical activities are yoga and Pilates, keeping a strict schedule seven days a week. I've maintained this routine for the past five years, with a few exceptions. I didn't start out that way; change was incremental, beginning with three 30-minute workouts every week one year, increasing to four the next, five the following - wanting to challenge myself more as time went on and I found new activities I loved.

I work out for my head as much as for my body - feeling so much better after moving that stale energy around and releasing tension. It became critically important during my cancer diagnosis, like a savings bond for my health.

My yoga teachers often speak of taking our practice "off the mat" - as in what we learn about ourselves in class may be relevant to other areas of our lives. When I first started practicing, I became easily fatigued and frustrated with myself, then with the teacher, sometimes lamenting under my breath. I didn't understand that part of my practice involved learning compassion towards myself through the struggle, and after years of practicing, have developed much more mental as well as physical strength.

This mindfulness is important in the creative space, as we're often struggling to produce on a schedule according to demand (real or imagined), but quality work takes time, engagement, and inspiration that isn’t always driven by external factors. On the bottom line, it costs more. As a consumer, it matters where we spend our money -

each purchase a little investment in the creator's stock.

When packing for a move, I’m reminded that even though I try to keep a lean lifestyle, I still have things I don’t need, and the waste troubles me. Generosity aside, where I spend my money counts, evermore in an economy where prices are climbing and salaries have not been adjusted to the cost of living for decades.*

Part of my role as a conscious consumer is to take only what I need and leave the rest for someone else, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy the highest quality in the meantime. In my travels, this has usually been found locally in any city I might visit. As I move towards dissolution of MAVEN MAINTENANT, preserving the brand’s core values of intentionality, sustainability, and purpose will continue.

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*EXAMPLE: Range of average income before taxes according to Consumer Expenditure Surveys (2021-2022) was $81,251 (Southern region, low) to $104,423 (Northeastern region, high) according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Notes on Wandering (Edited)

While born in Pennsylvania, my family moved about every 3 years until I was 12. When we finally settled in Houston, I desperately wanted to be included with the kids who had known each other since preschool, but belonging was a feeling left behind in Austin. When I escaped a purgatorial run through high school, I didn’t apply anywhere else, just came straight back home, the only one I’ve ever known.

The more I’ve traveled, I’ve relished this deep connection to place that goes far beyond lines on a grid or stamps in a passport. Maybe all you can do has already been done, but there is only one me living and breathing and feeling now. As attached as I am to my comforts and routines, I’m ever yearning to know what’s outside of my finely curated box - how it looks and feels and tastes. So I move around a lot, keeps me learning.

When I moved in with my mother in Indiana, a cousin (also divorced) suggested I was “looking for myself.” I bristled. The most lost I’ve ever been was trapped in an abusive marriage. When I take a trip, I get lost for fun, to remember it’s okay to trust myself and the God of the Universe that a holds us all. Never telling who or what you’ll discover.

Little moments of serendipity, like the well-timed stranger who shares a drink and some soulful conversation. Locals love to make recommendations, how I found my favorite pizzeria in Ravello. That time I met a cute German in a discotheque then he showed me around the Pinakothek. I could eat my way through New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and back again. Little wins, like making a friend at Cimetière du Père-Lachaise who can actually understand my broken French. Stunned by pink beaches and also the strange colonialism throughout the Bahamas. Imagining myself cultured and being shocked again there is SO MUCH MORE to know, always more to learn.

Returning home, I got a little more than I bargained for this last trip. Nothing like family to remind us of who we are - and how we’ve grown. Lessons about home too - as we grow, we get to choose. The work is to stay open, even when it’s painful, even the parts you’d rather not see - then setting healthy boundaries.

Taking it all in, our expectations, the reality, the memories - what’s left of any great trip is the change within, that’s playing for keeps.

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“Not all those who wander are lost.”

J.R.R. Tolkien

Notes on Departure (Edited)

I was 24 years old when I graduated college and first left the country - 2 events that would indelibly change the course of my life, and endlessly annoy my father over which to hold responsible for my indecipherable politics. I landed first in London, a city I had completely dismissed as America’s stuffy elder with an accent, and left enchanted. The gardens, the tunnel, the beautiful shops and pubs all accessed on foot, the pristine maintenance of history and ceremony that seemed long forgotten in the States…

I didn’t see at all what I expected, and I was delighted.

More importantly was the transformation starting within me - setting aside my assumptions before entering new cultures and personal interactions, allowing myself to develop confidence as I navigated new streets and transit systems, learning to feel a place as much as I might consume it with my other senses. I also realized during that trip how American geography and history must be similarly rich, but was mostly unknown to me, and returned wanting to know more about my homeland.

A few years later I took a job that would have me traveling across the U.S. almost every week for the next 5 years. I’m a window-seat person (there are many benefits beyond a great view - privacy, an easy place to rest, more room) - business travelers are campy about their positions. For many years, every time the plane took off, I would be overcome by a sense of awe watching the runway peel away, then the buildings, and the homes, then the city, passing over State lines. When I first took the job I was getting out of a toxic relationship and could genuinely feel my heartache lessen as I moved farther away from him and the home we had shared. I was also comforted by this universal sense of compassion, realizing every person in each building below, multiplying as the webbing of roads and cities passed, had lives of equal importance with similar or greater struggles than mine. For years I sat by the window and zoomed out of my own myopic world view, then zoomed back in upon landing as we all must do.

My favorite trips are this kind - those that provide insight, but also longing for return. I remember the first time I went to Marfa, like a kid in a candy store, I explored every artful corner on bicycle and returned home thinking I’d never wear anything but diaphanous embroidered gowns and vintage tapestries thenceforth. I went back a few years later (my wardrobe mildly evolved) and realized there was a lot more going on [culturally] than I saw the first time around, and I had changed a lot, too.

This trip is a little different, as I’ve left my home in Austin for an indefinite period of time, with an unknown endpoint. Nonetheless, if travel (or Covid) have taught us anything, it’s that the best laid plans… And sometimes that’s the most delightfully imperfect point.

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“A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.”

-John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

Notes on Allergies (Edited)

In Austin we have an abundance of monstrously overgrown weeds known as cedar trees, and roughly 3 months of each year they set about their life’s work polluting with pollen that brings on an endless fever. Symptoms are akin to a certain virus that sent the world into hibernation in 2020, and we might do that here, if not for the necessity of life-giving air, needed everywhere.

I’m one of the unlucky ones blessed with an annual sinus infection or ER visit, that was until I found the appropriate flushes and sprays keeping my airways prepped to prevent such disasters. Perhaps no small coincidence that since I quit smoking in 2015 and started this routine, I’ve been breathing easier.

Cedar be damned, even the hippies might help me raze the lot.

Cats on the other hand, I really enjoy. Playful with just the right amount of mischievousness to know we’re kindred. Problem is, I’m also allergic, with any close encounter ending in weeping fits of sneezing. The thing about cats is they are tremendously curious about any unsuspecting person who takes the least interest in them, which makes me a prime target for their amusement. Knowing this, I have options - strategically avoid, pet/scrub/pay anyway, or pre-medicate. Playing with fire, but at least we’ve reached an understanding.

Illness isn’t always so easy to identify and treat. I was raised in a home where depression is a failure of will, faith, or fortitude, as in go to your room until you fix your attitude. And if all else fails, FEAR can compel the saddest sinner to survive. There were junctures when I could have been medicated, should have been medicated, but even the dimmest realities hold light when we’ve never known the world brighter.

This is perhaps how we played hopscotch with healthcare during The Pandemic, trying to make sense of a catastrophe too great to be named, rough beginnings without end, from infection of our bodies to the troubled hearts and minds following sadly in their wake. Depression is something like that - onset distinctly ringing as clouds cover all understanding, rarely noticing its delicate departure.

And yet, the seasons change.

I exhausted every rational option before landing on the most obvious one - take your **** medicine. No brows raised at Advil on a headache, or chemo for your cancer. There are a few ways to skin a cat, but when you’re in crisis, we do what works. Wholeness requires full health - body, mind, and spirit. Crisis averted, setting myself to complete recovery requires renewed energy. Rather than running into the wind, I get to fly with it, making space for fresh ideas blossoming wildly in new places. Here I will reap what I sow, rooting out weeds before overgrown. With silver bells and cockleshells, visions of new life emerge as God intended -

healing, helping, whole.

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“The camera may record exactly, but it can set down only what its

operator sees, and we see what we want to see.”

-John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley

Notes on Pollyanna (Edited)

A quaint notion, thinking she could evangelize optimism in saying and doing just the right things. Yet we see energy in motion - gravitating to those shiny, smiling souls, rather than the ones reveling in misery. Even babies know it -

unabashedly attracted to the symmetry of joy, irrespective of nationality or language.

I was 14 years old when I first attempted suicide. My switch got flipped early, knowing exactly how and when I fell into the hole, but being utterly unprepared to claw myself out. Depression is a pair of mud-filled goggles. Some never find the tools to unlock the strap that binds -

Hell can be a place on earth.

If you grew up in a family like mine, either don't-ask-don't-tell, or worry yourself to death about it - you might have the coping skills of a cactus. Stock-pile all that good shit because the drought is coming, and stay thorny because people won't care when someone comes to take-take-take-take it all away again.

So if you survive, in spite of yourself, you learn to be a very good chameleon. That all worked fine and dandy until one day TRAUMA came to a head and burst wide like a watermelon dropped from a sixth-story window. Here's the thing with the human body - there's no such thing as compartmentalization, just things in or out of alignment creating friction within and without. So if something really painful, very terrible, something awful happens - depending on its significance and duration, how young you were at the time of occurrence, many factors - we might use The Pandemic as an example - that has the ability to create changes in how you think and feel.

As long as we’re avoiding those painful feelings (sleeping, eating, drinking too much, perhaps), that's energy spent.

All this to say, I did a really good job fooling myself for many years that I was not depressed (I wasn't allowed, while living at home), and those around me too, until The Pandemic tipped those scales. “Smiling Depression” is very common, for that reason insidiously dangerous. The Pandemic may have subsided, but it’s quite normal to feel lonely while surrounded by people. Remember how shocked we all were when Robin Williams took his life? Kate Spade? Anthony Bourdain?

It took a village to help me dig up my original trauma, excavate that hole, and rebuild a foundation for a happier, healthier life. Depression is a devil on my back, and I keep a lot of tools in my belt to protect myself.

But I would rather this: accepting my past, seeing clearly, and moving intentionally forward, than tiptoeing around landmines to maintain rickety illusions.

Pollyanna has a place in my heart, because I now feel genuine joy, and want to share it. As I find healing and peace, I want the same for others. But - and this is important -

I'm practicing clear boundaries with people who do not share these same values.

That's what we call a full #LEVELUP

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If you or someone you know is struggling with depression or self-harm, national hotlines provide support 24/7. You are not alone. If you are in Austin, TX, please save (512) 472-HELP in case of crisis.

In honor of Mental Health Awareness, and in loving memory of Justin Hubner and Micah Jolly

Notes on Gossip (Edited)

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 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 sh*t. 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 (Reissued)

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 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 several 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 sh*t - 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 (Edited)

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 sh*t. 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 sh*t that matters.

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Notes on Silence (Edited)

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. 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 (Reissued)

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 (Edited)

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 for my cancer, nor is it likely to recur.

Too many are not so lucky.

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 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.

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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*In this instance, “C-word” is for CANCER

**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

Notes on Venus (Edited)

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 (Reissued)

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 (Edited)

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 (Edited)

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 grew to include celebrity wardrobe styling for editorial and video shoots, consultation services for creative direction & set design, and this archive of publications.

I might be sleepless and broke as sh*t 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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