When it's easier to share things with quasi-friends on the internet than real friends in life.

A submission and a rejection

For two decades, I wrote other people’s stories. I built a career on telling them well. And then I gave it all up to be a full-time homemaker, slowly silencing my own voice.

It’s taken years to step back into it. To trust that my words might mean something outside of my own Substack page.

So yes—this validation means more than I can express.

Keep being kind.

Kindness is not a transaction. It does not hinge on shared beliefs, affiliations, or opinions. It is a gesture. A recognition. A quiet insistence that you matter.

So, if you’re hesitating … waiting for the “right” way, the perfect moment …maybe just start?

See it as a ripple instead of the whole ocean.

Your nudge for today to act on it:

• Stop paralyzing yourself with hypotheticals.

• Do instead of analyze.

• Start even if you aren’t ready.

Love Letters to Myself

She’s the thread that stitches past to present,

a force beyond measure,

a story still unfolding.

Art is a verb.

Let that free you.

We talked about letting go of perfection. About trusting the process. About the tension between control and flow, darkness and light, resistance and release.

My hope for The Ripple Room is to create a space for anyone who’s ever said, “I’m not creative.”

Between that first breath

And the last sigh

This cruel middle of living.

Asteroids, meteoroids, comets. Not separate things, but a shifting state of being. An asteroid can become a meteor. So can a comet. So can a meteoroid, if it crosses the right threshold. Who knew?

We don’t learn by collecting more knowledge. We learn by observing, enacting, embodying. We learn by being one with the process.

The round dome ceiling light in our bedroom,

like the harvest moon, set low—

just enough to keep the dark at bay.

You are a maker. A meaning-weaver. A ripple-starter.

For you, creativity isn’t a luxury. It’s not what you do in your spare time. It’s foundational to your existence.

I see you. I support you. I cheer you on.

Choose to introduce pause. Make something. Give it away.

My body has been forced into stillness, but my mind is a construction zone. Does anybody else relate?