bloom

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Matthew 7:12). Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel is a gift. It is a marvel when you can bask in its light as you look backward toward the vast expanse you had arrived from. We show people the easiest way to make it through a crowd at a concert. We make space so people can feel the music. Guides. A guide for the tens of thousands at night who go out is often a DJ. Time for a small story. A local DJ hides a song away from the world that they’ve discovered. It’s made people cry. It’s brought people together. It’s opened up their eyes to ways they could change. This gem might be a song that would set a soul free if heard alone in their room. It might be a record that would take feet and remove fear through its beat. Perhaps this song...

Twenty-three switchbacks between Lake Serene and us. The trail comes into a small plain of sorts, a million shades of green interlaced with branches teeming with leaves and wildlife. Trees were growing out of other trees — nature helping itself advance and thrive. A friend of mine had invited me to get out of the city. I increased our ardent pace and didn’t feel any drudge of the ascent. I wanted to feel the chilling water through my muscles and bones. Reaching the summit, I hesitated to dive into the clear water ahead. It was not due to the temperature but a new obstacle I was not accustomed to handling. A curve-sloped rock face that touched the waterline made it difficult to conceptualize how I would get out of the water. There was nervous excitement. My friend dove in first and showed m...

At the intersection of 11th and Fir, I refined my definition of what it means to be liberated as I closed the front door on a rental Chevy Tahoe, tinted windows and black paint dusted by the trails we had traversed. That weekend, I discovered a new source of inspiration to further the excavation of my soul and the connection between us all. The Gorge Amphitheatre was formed by a natural catastrophe almost 50,000 years ago when an ice dam ruptured in what is regarded today as Canada.  A rush coursed across plains, eroding the landscape with ferocity and grace that boomed beyond any human-designed tower of speakers. The natural process of the world carved out a home for what would become known as one of the most beautiful natural venues in North America. Water into wine, in 1980, hundre...

Thirty-two years it took for me to trust myself. A sliding glass door to an inherent truth–value in my existence. “Stepping into my first dance-music concert was the beginning of opening that door,” I thought to myself, as I walked the grounds of Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island. Standing amongst countless variations of flora and trees, my dad seemed to recite their names by memory. Hundreds of acres of meticulously designed gardens represented their natural surroundings while defining their uniqueness. It was the vision of someone who built an enterprise in timber, trusting themselves to give the community a treasure of reverence. The reserve was a place outside normalcy that ratified reality, like a music festival. I stood still for a second and closed my eyes. Inside of me was both ...

Previously, I discussed how making time to “date” ourselves can pave the way for increasing our emotional intelligence. It is a key to understanding “you” as a human. Humans are driven by emotion. Heightening your emotional intelligence improves your ability to respond to different situations optimally. To know why you feel the way you do, without mystery; meaningful action to better your well-being can take place with clarity. Once you’ve been dating yourself for a while, you begin to understand the tiny nuances and narratives in your mind that cause subsects of the emotion you are feeling. Suddenly, you identify the core reasons why you feel the way you are from a trauma-informed perspective that sees the origins of the moment you are in. You understand your triggers, the characters in y...

Nails on a chalkboard. A semi-truck skidding to a halt on the interstate as its back jack-knifes, sending sparks cascading across rows of cars like the Fourth of July. A never-ending vacuum on a Saturday morning outside of your apartment door. What do these three things have in common? They are all analogous to how I used to treat me when I was alone. Emotional intelligence ultimately falls to us: our ability to regulate our emotions, and perceive our emotions. I had never lived on my own until last year. Be it parents, roommates, or a significant other, I had always had someone around. As a socialite and a former serial monogamous, my adult years have teemed with staggering levels of distraction. Equating external human interactions and connections to distractions might sound harsh. What ...

It was mid-50s out in the crisp Pacific Northwest air. Discolored hands carrying bags of groceries in the cold, a washed, dull look splashed onto my face. Between point A and point B, I felt alone. It’s challenging to fit into much of anything when you walk on a tightrope wearing neon blue and sequin, I murmured to myself. As Broadway crested its peak, I wondered if I had plateaued. I had a myriad of tiny conspirators passing through clamoring for the captain’s seat to my day. I sighed, hoping to myself that a deranged criminal would come to shoot me, making my desire to die not my fault, merely my beneficial coincidence. For all of the solutions in the world, for all that we are capable of, we are still human and can have thoughts like these. More passive, with no plan, no timeframe. A fe...

Alanis Morissette and the notion of sensitivity hadn’t ever been paired together before for me. Years back, we used a website called the random Alanis Morissette song generator which would, after the input of a few choice words, spit back to you a song full of resentment and malice for your enjoyment. Her grunge-infused success never stirred me as coming from a sensitive soul either. Jagged Little Pill sold a fascinating haul of over 30 million records, propelling her to stardom and a permanent place in the history of American music. It also catapulted her into a world that she would have to prepare herself for deeply, and compensate within; at moments, one she’d have to survive. “They wanted the outcome and the fruit of my trait,” Alanis said in an interview with the legendary Elaine Aaro...

For Mother’s Day in 2017, I prepared a song called “Spirit” for my mother. She had been battling breast cancer along with other health complications, and her morale was declining. The fight was one of many years, multiple cancer outbreaks and several events weighed upon her consciousness. “Spirit” possessed the sound of the animal kingdom, with soaring resounding synths that crooned upward with poise. Elephants were her favorite animal, and I made sure they trumpeted with pride. My good friend Sabre laid down vocals exuding grace. I designed a piece that embodied who she was as a human being and what she meant to me. It was the first song I had ever recorded explicitly for her. She was the most radiant being I had ever met in my life, a soul that desired nothing more than to see others shi...