hey friends.

i love the solstice. there’s so much i don’t believe in anymore (mainstream holiday celebrations, romance, reform) but i do believe in the light returning. i believe life tends towards life and wants more of itself. more creation, more experience, more becoming, and definitely more joy. we all deserve more joy, and real things to celebrate, real rest, real fucking wins. i want to rip the shiny non-recyclable wrapping paper off of my life and off of this absurd death-dealing capitalist culture and find something earthen and real under it. our real bodies, our real loves. our real lessons, brutal as they often are.

what are you celebrating? how deep are you resting? where are you finding bitter cold in yourself and letting the darkness be a salve for this? i’m working on loving my disappointments, my limitations, and my heartbreaks. because every season wants to be a friend i think, even the ones that are hard to love. and the hard to love things always deserve our tenderness.

happy sun comeback <3

nola

listen live

Saturday, February 7th @ Communication (1741 Commercial Ave): doors at 7pm and first act at 7:30, we are playing last after Razor Toast (Milwaukee) and Opal Voss (Chicago); all ages; masks required; $10

listen at home

it’s winter; take a break and listen to silence, nostalgic faves, howling winds off the lake, or your friends breathing

life sparks

listening to: Punisher (Phoebe Bridgers), Little Joys (Maggie Rogers), Don’t Tell Anyone (Semler), Thirty (The Weather Station), How I Get Myself Killed (Indigo De Souza), And Just Fall (LINE), Valentine (Snail Mail), Chani horoscopes and interviews with Jay Shetty and Hala Alyan

reading: Nettle and Bone (T. Kingfisher) (thanks @Liz!), The Raven and the Reindeer (T. Kingfisher) (thanks @Liz!), The Denial of Death (Ernest Becker) (thanks @Faith!), Transness is our Salve: Trans People’s Experiences of Healing from Parental Trauma (Joonwoo Lee, Sebastian Barr, Britchida)

watching: Big Eden, A New York Christmas Wedding, Merry & Gay / Christmas with Love, Looking for Her, City of Trees, The Magical Christmas Tree, The Holiday Club, See You Soon, this lifechanging Youtube video on executive function (thanks @Baz!)

doing: winter sunsets, intentional holidaze prep, lots of self-pep talks about doing the dishes

creative themes: visibility v. vulnerability, BFFs 4ever, alternate universes/emotional weatherscapes, train dreams as metaphor, gifts and risks of portals, intergenerational Christmas grief, transcending queer imposter syndrome