August

On Now: Women talking, summer leaving, and a new retreat offering

Sep 06, 2024

August was beach days that spanned golden afternoons well into the last light of blue hour. It was sandcastles and hands full of seashells—his hands and mine—and holding onto the last of summer with everything we had. It was seaside croissants and fancy hotel lobbies and sweaty naps with our arms wrapped around each other. It was leaving early because of a hurricane but still being grateful for the time given, the time shared. It was trying to lean into arms other than my own and wondering if love will ever feel safe. It was my Grandma turning ninety-three and trying not to cry in the hallway over her ever-worsening dementia. It was reading aloud in bed to my husband and his heart beating against my back. It was rainbow superhero capes and over-proofed sourdough bread and flowers made of marzipan. It was being consumed by nostalgia and immersing myself in the things that make me feel connected to the people I love. It was orange wine and reading Billy Collins to a room full of women and spending the last of the warm days in the river. It was painting with flowers and finding love notes from my husband in my tea box. It was blowup pools and blue lake sunsets and whole cities built from blocks. It was making a book of all my Grandmother’s paintings and feeling that one day this may be all we have left. It was seeing a bear every week on my walk and running even though you’re not supposed to run—fleeing has always been my response to fear and to heartache. It was trying not to sacrifice my dreams and needs for the sake of others but not knowing any other way to keep everybody safe and happy. It was drawing the sun with my son and guiding women in a writing circle and feeling the power of language. It was cocktails in tiny bars in a thunderstorm and walks to the record store in ninety-degree heat. It was climbing trees and dancing under the big maple and smoky chipotle tacos beside the campfire. It was chocolate cafes with my son and reading books to him about Paris and filling both of our heads with dreams of cobblestone streets. It was Turkish baths and salt scrub and a long overdue date night. It was moonlit walks around the lake and sparklers in the dark and doing things that scare me to try to force myself into believing there’s always a way to do the things you love.

WHAT I’M READING

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin is a book I've turned to before, but after diving into Stephen King's Fairytale, I found myself craving the anchoring force of Baldwin’s powerful language, emotional depth, and layered themes in identity, love, and the flaws within the human condition. I needed stories about real experiences with real people in a real world filled with tangible circumstances. Plus, the novel is set in Paris, and I’ve been particularly drawn to European settings lately—Paris, especially. I just wanted to immerse myself in the energy of the city in any way possible.

The story centers on David, an American in Paris, wrestling with his identity, sexuality, and desires during a time when such topics were often kept quiet. We delve into David’s intimate yet conflicted world as he’s torn between his societal expectations to marry a woman and his passionate feelings for Giovanni, a charismatic Italian bartender. His inability to reconcile these parts of his life leads to tragic consequences, not only for his relationship with Giovanni but also for Giovanni's fate.

The prose is some of the most intimate and beautiful I’ve ever read. Its unflinching honesty and compassionate portrayal of flawed, seeking, all-too-human characters encapsulate everything I crave in fiction and in life. What strikes me as profound about the novel is its illumination of love’s dual power to save and destroy—something that still scares the hell out of me about love.

This book is deep in its emotional interiority, and if you haven’t read it yet, I urge you to settle in and let it move you. It challenged me to confront all the aspects of love that still scare me, even after twelve years with my partner. Will love ever feel safe? Can I give and receive love in a way that doesn’t make me feel like something bad is about to happen? Facing these questions while reading the book, especially since I read most of it aloud to my partner, was challenging.

Reading aloud is something I’ve always loved; it connects me not only to my partner but also to myself and the art itself. There’s something truly powerful about hearing the language and story in my own voice, especially while feeling my partner's heartbeat against my back as he holds me. We have so little time to read together like this and I had forgotten how special it is to me, how intimate. I’m going to try to make an effort to do it more and perhaps even find a way to include my son in this ritual, so he, too, can experience how special it can be. I’m always looking for ways to deepen our connection as a couple, as parents, as a family, and I love how this allows us the space to slow down and listen and just sink into art and each other.

“Today” by Billy Collins

I read this poem at a Lume Collective event and wanted to share it here.

We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly… The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.
- Anaïs Nin

WHAT I’M LISTENING TO

“Whole Lotta Love” by Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin is one of my all-time favorite bands—the band that set my whole life trajectory in motion (the reason why I set out to work at Atlantic Records in the first place). Lately, I’ve been showing Pressley live videos, and wow, there's nothing like that rock and roll feeling. It’s like a drug. Always has been. I float on it. Watching his face light up to these songs for the first time is so pure and so special.

One afternoon, after my usual walk around the lake, I blasted “Whole Lotta Love,” rolled down the windows, and I swear I was transported to another realm. You know when you find the perfect song that matches your mood and the exact tone of the day? That was it. It was exactly what I needed to hear. Being moved by art in such a visceral, powerful way was everything my soul needed.

Music will forever be my first love, and I need to remember that and use it to bring me back to my center.

Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette

My best friend Nick introduced me to Alanis Morissette when I was nine and he was eight. My mom was in prison and I’d just moved into my grandmother’s shitty little blue apartments because my dad had been evicted. We had to get rid of our dogs (except one) and leave everything we had because there was no space and no money to store it. So, I arrived there with nothing but my sad, broken little heart, and Nick was a like a firework gone off in the dark—a thrilling light full of wonder and explosive presence. I felt good when I was around him—I felt happy; I laughed until my face hurt, and god damn, I needed to laugh.

I remember sitting outside on one of those flimsy plastic patio chairs, wearing denim shorts and no shoes, when Nick tossed Jagged Little Pill into my lap. He didn’t wax poetic about it; he simply said, “Try this,” as if it was a pill that could make everything better. And for a moment, it did. It gave me a place to put my rage; it resonated with my bitterness, angst, and anger. We’d take the CD into his garage, turn off the lights, and blast it at full volume while thrashing around in the dark. He made me feel like my rage had a place, like it was never too much, like it was okay to be angry. He gave me Alanis, and she gave me a space to scream into everything that hurt, and it felt good.

About five years ago, I saw Jagged Little Pill on a shelf somewhere I can’t remember and bought it for $9.99 with the intention of mailing it to Nick as a reminder of how she saved us both, but I ended up tucking it away in a drawer. Then life happened and I completely forgot about it.

I found it last week.

Thankfully, my mom had bought my son a CD player, and he’s currently in his CD era. I popped the disc in, cranked the volume, and pressed play. Immediately, my son started jumping around—not in rage, but in joy, which up to this point is all he has ever known, and I'm so grateful to say that. But his rage will be welcome here, with me, with music, when it shows up because that's just the result of living life. It was surreal, rocking out with my three-year-old to an artist who helped heal my young heart. We danced for three hours straight, replaying the CD again and again. His favorite songs are “All I Really Want” and “You Oughta Know,” but he also likes “Perfect” and sings it in his sweet, small voice. He's learning to make the peace sign for “Hand in My Pocket,” and the whole experience has been perfectly nostalgic.

If you haven’t rocked or raged out to the music of your childhood, I highly recommend it for a release and an unexpected hit of joy.

WHAT I’M WATCHING

Before Sunrise

I’d seen the “Before” series, but it had been a long time, and Perry hadn’t seen them, which made watching them again all the more special. If you aren’t familiar with the “Before” trilogy, it was filmed nine years apart, with the first film in 1995 and the third in 2013. It captures a relationship between Ethan Hawke (Jesse) and Julie Delpy (Céline) as it begins, begins again, deepens, and strains over the course of almost two decades.

In the first film, “Before Sunrise,” you meet Jesse and Céline during their first encounter on a train. Céline is headed to Paris, but Jesse persuades her to get off the train with him in Vienna where they spend the night wandering the city, discussing life, love, and personal philosophies.

I love the film's minimalistic approach, its realistic dialogue, and how it captures the emotional depth of a budding friendship and relationship over the course of one night. It’s dialogue-heavy and rings true to those early, exploratory conversations we find ourselves in when connecting with someone new.

Watching it reminded me of the early days with my husband as we traveled around Europe, walking through cities and getting to know each other deeper. It made me nostalgic for that time and for Europe—traveling and the easy hope of my twenties. I resonated with Céline’s perspective, filled with wonder and optimism, seeing the world as she wished it to be. Whereas, Jesse’s character reminded me of my partner, with his ability to cut through to the center of things, which sometimes diminished the magic. But he was hopeful, too, only it was a scared kind of hope.

After the film, we reflected on how much the characters mirrored our younger selves and how we have changed—in some ways for the better, in others, maybe not so much. It reminded us of the fleeting nature of young love and ease and exploration driven by sheer wonder. How love, hope, ease, and wonder are still available to us, though now they often require a conscious choice, a deliberate effort to choose each other again and again. And so, we do.

I’m looking forward to watching the next film in the series, “Before Sunset,” and finding the through-lines to then and now in both their story and my own.

Women Talking

Trigger Warning: This content contains mentions of rape.

I didn’t fully understand what this film was about when I chose it. I was drawn by Rooney Mara (swoon), the captivating cinematography, and the title—what’s more powerful than women finding their fucking voice? I picked it based on those elements alone, not realizing how horrifying the story was.

The film is inspired by real-life events that took place in a secluded Mennonite colony where women were systematically drugged and raped by men from their own community. It opens with this stark reality, and I knew immediately I should have turned it off. Every part of my soul recoiled and told me to shut it off, but it was too late. I needed to see justice. That was my hope anyway.

The narrative mostly unfolds in a hayloft where a group of women grapple with how to respond to the violence. They debate three options: do nothing, stay and fight, or leave their colony altogether—the only home they’ve ever known. To add more context, these women are illiterate and have never seen a map; they're completely unaware of their geographical context and have no idea what lies outside their colony, which itself is suffocating to think about.

As they deliberate, they confront their pain and anger, navigating themes of faith, forgiveness, and the future they yearn to build not just for themselves but for their children. God damn. The children. I can’t handle any sort of brutality toward children, even the mention of it, I mean, who can?! That’s the thing with this film—it mostly eludes to things without actually showing the horror of it, but it’s enough to make you sick, which is one of the film’s points. I’m just not cut out for these kinds of stories.

What makes the film so profoundly impactful, though, is how it shines a light on these women's resilience and their journey to reclaim their voices in a world that has silenced them for so long. It invites you to sit with these women in their most vulnerable moments and explore their collective determination to shape their own destiny, despite the odds.

The film is predominantly dialogue-driven, which I typically love, but I found myself restless and impatient for the women to take decisive action—to just fucking do something. At one point, I blurted out to my husband, “I just want to see them murder those motherfuckers.” And that in itself is it’s own brutality and I know that, but I just needed justice, and I couldn’t see any other way.

I won’t give away what they choose, should you be brave enough to watch it (don’t). I don’t recommend it as the heaviness sticks with you long after the credits roll. It left me emotionally raw for days and I had a hard time reintegrating back into my own reality. I’m a deep feeler who falls head first into art—the lines between my reality and what I’m consuming dissolve and I am in the world that’s been created. Even writing about it now, my stomach feels all topsy-turvy.

Aftersun

This film was a tough one. It centers on the relationship between an 11-year-old girl, Sophie, and her dad during a summer vacation at a budget resort in Turkey, just the two of them. It follows Sophie in her coming-of-age angst, capturing how she sees the world in a way that feels so visceral, reminding me of being a kid—looking at the world with those very same eyes. Yearning for connection, thrill, and adventure, but still needing care, gentleness, and stability.

Her relationship with her dad is depicted with tender intimacy, which made me miss my own father and reflect on all the ways he took care of me as a child. At the same time, it revealed how little connection we truly had, how much I had been grasping for whatever I could because he was all I had. It also made me think of how my son will be at eleven (he's three now) and how I hope our bond remains strong—grows stronger even—and that he still lays his head in my lap so I can stroke the soft space between his eyebrows and trace his face with my fingertips. I hope he trusts me to share all the ups and downs that come with adolescence, knowing that I’ll meet him with openness and acceptance, free of judgment.

This broke me because I saw my own father in his sorrow and in his grief, trying to hold it all together, trying to maintain a sense of normalcy. My heart ached for the dad in the film, my own father, the younger me who felt all the sadness he carried but felt powerless, and for Sophie because even if and when we sense something is not right with our parents, we have no idea how to help them other than to love them. But so often, love is not enough, and I’ve found that to be one of the hardest truths of life.

The film exhausted me because I yearned for a resolution for both characters, yet because of the nature of his illness, I could feel the dark undertones and kept waiting for something bad to happen, which, of course, mirrors my own life. This is currently something I’m working on—settling into the peace or joy of the moment without waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under me. This kind of work doesn’t happen overnight; it is a process, especially when you have wounds as deep as mine that have been woven throughout childhood.

Depression can be quiet and can go unnoticed, but there can be subtle signs if we’re open to noticing them. Again I think of my father, how after his brother died he wanted to kill himself but didn’t because he didn’t want to leave his mother with two lost sons, and how I can still feel the grief on him now. The sadness that never leaves. Depression if you call it by its name, but even knowing, I don’t know how to help him. I never have. How do you help someone who doesn’t even let you love them?

What makes this film significant, aside from its portrayal of a complex father-daughter bond, is its nuanced depiction of depression. It serves as an important reminder to be vigilant and compassionate, recognizing the quiet signs of mental illness in those we love and even those we don’t. Again, I think of my father, how after his brother died he wanted to kill himself but didn’t because he didn’t want to leave his mother with two lost sons, and how I can still feel the grief on him now. The sadness that never leaves. Depression, if you called it by its name, but even knowing, I don’t know how to help him. I never have. How do you help someone who doesn’t even let you love them?

Life and Other Things…

Powerful Words

Ever since my son was a baby, I’ve been practicing affirmations with him, a practice I’m still learning to embrace for myself. There were moments when I doubted he was absorbing these affirmations—maybe they just weren’t his thing, much like they sometimes still feel foreign to me. But then, one evening under the glow of his star-lit reading tent, he said, “Mama, I need to tell you some powerful words.”

I’ve never called affirmations powerful words, though they are. I've just never described them that way. My son arrived at that understanding on his own, and my heart bursts at the way he absorbs learning and explores the world. Instead of speaking affirmations as traits about himself, he paired “I AM” with actions or objects he’d personified. I mirrored the action or objects with the traits, and we exchanged words back and forth until his eyes grew heavy with sleep. It was all so beautiful.

What I would have given to lie in the dark with either of my parents, to hear them speak powerful words with me, to me, and over me while they ran their fingers across my cheek.

Never underestimate the power of language and the seeds it plants and nourishes. I am eager to watch his “Powerful words” practice grow and evolve, to hear him express them, share them, and shape the ritual however he chooses.

Here is an excerpt from our exchange that evening:

Son: I am kindful. (God, I love that he invented this word. It's pure, so distinctly him.)

Mama: You are kind.

Son: I am kissing.

Mama: You are affectionate.

Son: I am laughing.

Mama: You are silly.

Son: I am going out the door.

Mama: You are ambitious.

Son: I am books.

Mama: You are smart.

Son: I am putting on a show. (He’s talking about singing and playing guitar for an audience, which he often does for me and his stuffed animals.)

Mama: You are creative.

Son: I am laying on the pillow.

Mama: You are peaceful.

Our back and forth inspired me to think about the daily actions we take and whether they align with the words and stories we tell ourselves—and vice versa.

What are the words and stories we’re telling ourselves and do they align with the actions we’re taking each day?

I’ll be paying attention.

In the company of women

I’m someone who holds a lot of ‘jobs’ and does a lot of things. In terms of where my money comes from, it’s a myriad of businesses that all highlight my vast skillset. I co-manage Rhodes Wedding Co. with my partner, consult on social media strategy for brands, authors, and women entrepreneurs, write for this Substack, sell my little books, and recently co-founded Lume Collective—a restorative retreat experience aimed at reconnecting women with their core through guided journaling within a supportive community. At the moment, Lume is mostly a passion project, and if I’m lucky I’ll get to keep it that way. And by that I mean I’ll get to preserve the vigor and vitality that runs through it without losing the magic by turning it into a “business.”

This month, we hosted a mini day retreat for Lume Collective. It was a stripped-down version of our usual weekend retreat, packed into one warm afternoon. We had a meal together and drank tea and wrote and shared and listened. I went into it thinking that because it was condensed and simplified, we wouldn’t be able to go quite as deep and that we’d scratch the surface of the center, but not quite make it through. But I underestimated the transformative power of writing and the magic that happens when women gather in a safe space to be seen, heard, and understood. True depth. Raw, untouched emotion. An emptying. But also, a rejuvenation. We left feeling realigned with ourselves and deeply connected with each other.

The experience made me feel so held and lit a fire in my bones to host another weekend retreat. From March 14-16—just before spring—we’re hosting a three-day restorative come-as-you-are retreat in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. The weekend is centered around rest, connection, and self-discovery, designed specifically for women who are in deep need of an intentional reset. It will be a time to reflect, release, and call in the spring season of renewal.

Through an immersive practice of guided journaling and restorative offerings such as yoga, meditation, writing, a private heart-centered portrait session, and ceremonial cacao, you will connect to your inner self to rediscover what lights you up while letting go of what no longer serves you. Whatever you want to release and renew, this is YOUR time to pause, to find yourself where you are, and to connect to yourself and other women in a nurturing space.

You can learn more here and get $100 off if you place your deposit by September 17.