The Roots Down There Are Riotous

Don’t think the garden loses its ecstasy in winter.

For the past several months I have been creative director for Hayley Williams. Well really it started before that. She crossed the country and kinda moved in with me and then three days later there were wildfires. We evacuated in the middle of the night both fumbling to locate our doggo’s foods by iPhone flashlight at 4am. Little did we know that leaving that morning would ultimately land us back in Nashville — the place we both grew up, where we met and became friends, the place we tirelessly worked to “escape” from. Tails between our legs. It has always been a very complicated relationship for us Nashville natives.

Now for me, this was my first real visit back home in the three plus years since leaving for LA, and I was only slightly beginning to peek out of the deep dark depression clouds I found myself swimming in for nearly five years. Lack of purpose, lack of meaning, lack of work, lack of fertility, lack of money, lack of plan. Lack lack lack. And fear fear fear.

Leading up to the new year, pre-wildfires, I was having long walks and deep life chats on the reg with my friend Kristine Claghorn around the Arroyo in South Pas, and one day we decided to finally turn those convos into episodic podcasts on topics like stress, imposter syndrome, loneliness, aging and more. She and I started researching and recording not even a month after we landed in Nashville. Me and Dan’s “plan” was to just temporarily get out of the craziness of LA. Hayley wanted to be creative together and see what came out. Six weeks max, I thought defiantly as we packed up the car and drove to Hayley’s house in Tennessee.

hayley and my husband Daniel James were cranking out one devastating hit after another and found themselves with over an hour’s worth of gorgeous, heartbreaking, memorable and somehow feel-good songs that eventually became an album. The album. And I got to witness it all firsthand. Sometimes I would pop down after work to hear what they had whipped up in the coupla hours before. Other times we’d get high and inspired and randomly end up throwing stuff at a song — me, mostly hanging/observing/talking too much/scrolling my phone and them cranking out banger after banger. We’d laugh and dance and talk maniacally to our dogs. For all my good ideas I also have a lot of bad ones. But one I’m proud of is the high harmony part in the chorus of “Kill Me.” My first writing credit lol (0%).

So many cherishable nights. Then it all came spiraling out. Seventeen songs dropped in the late of summer, singles, all at once — the following three a few months later with the official album. One new hair color, a bunch of talented friends and an eruption of creativity. We joked that the rollout was rolling itself. We traveled around to celebrate and spread the good word. We toasted the past, present and future and got to know our ghosts. Seeing these songs come to life in a live setting with thousands of people screaming singing shouting belting all the words is so personally cathartic I’ve found myself emotional every single time (shock).

In all seriousness, it’s been a true joy and honor to see so many friends pour their heart and soul into art in times like these — be it music or film or photography or hair or makeup or performance or art or writing or or or. Lifeblood type shit.

With the Plain View podcast, I was sharing myself vulnerably and personally online again — something I had kinda gradually stopped doing when my black hole depression loop had entered the chat. I shifted my focus to helping and supporting other people in new ways. I made a point to get my ass outside a whole lot more (in large part thanks to H’s obsession with porch hangs and Dan’s love of long walks). I laughed with my friends. I wrote a lot. I got dressed up more. I stopped undervaluing myself. I cried boatloads of tears. I ate boatloads of edibles. Then I started to work on my connection (relationship?) with my body. Maybe a more accurate word for what I was searching for was a feeling of embodiment. Curiosity. Presence. I felt so parched, hung out to dry with no one to really blame but myself. A somatic practitioner told me I was dry as a desert. That we needed to get my sparkle back. I walked the half a mile home unable to differentiate between my tears and the downpour.

Fast forward to a lot of other diff things and times and people and places and back and forths. It certainly hasn’t all been pretty but it has been real and deep and felt and lived. And now I am starting to make sense of it, this past year and a half, in my cozy bathtub weed-induced word vomit. The roots are riotous.

Being creative director for Hayley is truly a dream scenario that I didn’t know could exist in quite this way. It’s like all the random jobs I’ve had and roles I’ve played (from working at a record label when I was nineteen to doing PR and creative for a fashion brand to designing pieces for my own store and consulting for various businesses) have morphed into all of my favorite things. I’m designing cool merch with cool people, dreaming up shows/events/collabs, popping in for various tour stops, writing and voice memo-ing in multiple time zones, directing billboards in New York and LA 🤯, playing dress up and photographing my best friend, working with her best friends who are also now some of our best friends too. Life can be funny and I am happy for now. It’s been a whirlwind but a beautiful one.

Okay so how do you return to a space (Substack) for the first time in eleven months? That is if you don’t count my shit-posting over in the Notes section.

How?
I’m not sure,
but
this is a start
Shit’s glum out there
we need one another
Clean the slates,
let’s gooo
a clearing in the forest,
machete to a meadow (heh)
The sparkle is back bitches
a softer landing awaits

—

“Don’t think the garden loses its ecstasy in winter. It’s quiet, but the roots down there are riotous” is from mystic and poet Rumi.

---

NOTEWORTHY

—This piece on going quietly public on the internet. A great reimagination (and manifesto graphic) of how to exist online as a sensitive creative person.

—Zines are reclaiming their territory on the coffee table, and I am very here for it.

—In these days of AI slop, it makes me so happy to see people creating adorably comforting stop motion videos, this one with wool felting.

---

PLEASURE

Lately I can’t stop listening to NYC-based Chanel Beads.

40 is the new 40. 🙃

If you’ve followed along for awhile, you’ll know I created a custom candle for my old shop Goodwin. I am over the moon to announce that we’ve brought Moon Dance back (with a new look!) for Hayley’s webstore.

---

CONTEMPLATING

Teens In Their ‘90s Bedrooms. I miss tacking posters up on all my walls.

“Carmina, Carlota: Retail Ritual.” Spanish artist Carlota Guerrero’s new exhibit features images of her and her daughter in luxury fitting rooms — the intrusion between idealized femininity and the raw demands of a baby.

Behind The Design: Lucy Williams. The British blogger shares her casual cool home, and it is truly the stuff of dreams.

---

Photo Credits: All pictures taken on film by me.