Excited to have finished the first draft of my new urban fantasy book “Dark Legacies”! I just grabbed this tracker from Scrivener, my writing program.

Been doing some heavy lifting. Moved from Japan to the US a month ago. I got my memoir out last week, “Freedom Year: How Trying to be a Dominatrix (and Failing) Changed my Life.” Then I dove into accounting and business development this week and today I finished the book I began in quarantine!

I have teachers who tell me that an important part of healing trauma is to flood your body with pleasure and the things that feel good–but for a long time this was a hard thing for me to really feel all the way down. The thing that brings me back to it is the sunset.

When I was growing up, I was lucky to have a grandmother who would take stacks and stacks of photos. Often in every stack, there were several photos of sunsets, where she tried to capture the beauty in a shot but it never fully did it justice even with the beauty that *was* caught on camera. What can capture the beauty of a sunset? You just have to be there to experience it.

I decided to paint a sunset for my cover for Freedom year because it signifies a feeling for me that is very near and dear to my heart. It’s the feeling of being fully connected to myself and the world, of feeling a deep and enduring self love for every part of me including parts that are broken or sad or angry. It comes from moments in my life that were pivotal, including at the end of Freedom Year where I discover what I have been looking for all along.

I truly feel that there is something spiritually blissful about witnessing a sunset and other kinds of beauty in nature. It reminds me that I am part of everything.

I wonder what your vision of life is, when you truly feel alive, when things are working out even if it’s complicated. No matter what has happened in your life, when you remember it, you can feel that feeling again.

Do you have a moment in your life like this, or a vision that encaptures this for you? What is freedom for you? What is power for you? People can feel it in their bodies differently. After all the chasing I’ve done in my life, this is the most important thing of all.

If you want a free sample of my book “Freedom Year: how Trying to be a Dominatrix (and Failing) Changed my Life” go here.

Every day I ask myself what it is time to create. The answer varies: from the soup I make, to the books I am writing, to a new program for other people who want to write a book… I am always cooking something.

I am trying to let go more and just go with it. It feels good to just let go. Just trust myself, like I did by putting my book out even if it’s a bit taboo 😀

What about you? Do you have a lot of ideas? Do they ever get bottled up?

Had an exciting interview this afternoon with my friend Andrea Hylen on the things that I learned from writing Freedom Year: How Trying to be a Dominatrix (and Failing) Changed My Life.

This is part of the book’s bonus material. I have so many other bonuses planned in gratitude for everyone who buys the book: a song, art, poetry, other clips… It is endless. I have so much to continue pouring out around this source of inspiration.

As Andrea said to me today, this book covers a sliver of my life but there is just so much that can be said about it. We had a great conversation today. I look forward to the next podcast we plan to do in the future as well.

So many exciting things happening! Everyone who buys the book will get access to all bonuses with a link included in the back.

Kindle readers will be able to see the link tomorrow!!

More info about how to buy Freedom Year as well as links to get a free sample if you want to start there.

Thanks everybody

I’m happy to announce that my book “Freedom Year: How Trying to be a Dominatrix (and Failing) Changed my Life” is now available for sale and preorder on Amazon!

It’s taken me 8 years, maybe more, to write my book. I’m so excited. It’s really happening! The ebook version will be available on my birthday August 8th, when I will turn 33. You can preorder it here. Or if you’d like to have a physical copy, you can order that here.

The relief I have felt this week has been extraordinary. I have been working on this project for so long: 8 years. At times it sat by untouched like a fallow field, and I was giving it rest. At other times I was working on it hours every day for months in a row.

This is truly something I want to share with the people who will get it and enjoy it, but most of all it’s a present to myself. In order to do that, I’ve had to accept the flaws that come with being in a hurry to get this out!

I’ve really felt that if anything were to happen to me, I’d feel I’d completed the point of my existence if I could just get this book out.

It’s time to ship it out in the world and I think the timing could not be more perfect.

Go here to order if you’d like to read the book and pick what format you like best.

-Or-

Go here to start reading the first 3 chapters for free.

P.S. Thanks for being on the journey with me.

I know many people are proponents of the kind of book you can write in a weekend, but this was never going to be that way. This book has required so much soul searching, so much facing my fears and judgements, so much pain and trauma healing!

And in the end, I’m truly satisfied with the book even if you can always edit just a little bit more.

I want to share this story with the people who will get it and enjoy it, but most of all it’s a present to myself.

To me, as I turn 33 on August 8, “Thanks for being here.”

It’s time to ship it out in the world and I think the timing could not be more perfect.

If you’d like to know when the book is available or get a free sample of the first 3 chapters delivered to your inbox for free, go here.

I’ve grown so much as a writer in the course of those eight years, and as a person. The book changed me, and I changed the book.

Stay tuned for more or go here to get first access–an email will be sent to you when you can order and you’ll be able to start reading today with a free sample.

​*The past few months I’ve been listening to Sarah Jarosz (left) and her newly released songs from ​World on the Ground over and over. In the last year I’ve been writing more songs that tell a story like “Tides”, rather than just being about inner feelings, myself.

I really enjoyed this article by Sarah Jarosz on writing her latest album and her point of view on this sort of song-writing. She feels like a soul sister, like me, she dropped everything during COVID-19 and spent the months with her boyfriend–she turned a terrible situation into an opportunity to be with the person she loves and rarely gets to see with touring.

*Listen to songs from her new album and live performances for free on youtube. One of her most addicting songs is “Johnny“.

*My new original song “Tides” is now available on Patreon. Get the recording as well as five other songs I’ve recorded, plus other bonuses for only $1.

Good books:

*I’ve loved “Nine Perfect Strangers” by Liane Moriarty. My review: “AWESOME read. A highly entertaining page-turner that is a little bit of everything: exciting, interesting, deep, light-hearted, fun, mysterious… and it has a positive ending. It wasn’t too light, and it wasn’t too heavy. Of course, it helps that one of the characters is a writer, which I can relate to! It kept me entertained on an eleven-hour flight when my eyeballs were about to drop out of my head, and that says something.​​” See it on goodreads.

*Also enjoyed “Pretty Things” by Janelle Brown. My review: “Absolutely compelling and well written book. I highly recommend. It was such an easy read, and I found it difficult to put it down. Not a “deep book” really, but not just fluff either. It hooked me good and did not disappoint​.” See it on goodreads.

Always know what to do next because you can hear your intuition and trust it with free monthly updates. Click here to sign up.

​This post is an update from my journey to Japan written July 7th.

I’ve just touched down last night. The flight from Japan was long but not as bad as I’d expected. Everyone respected the rules of social distancing and mask wearing.

To return is surreal. Did I leave? Outside my parents house so much has changed but they set it up for me to quarantine alone here and much inside has stayed the same.

At the same time, I have changed. And I’m glad that I have, but I have to integrate. Everything I see and feel makes me question where I have landed compared to where I was. A part of me judges that it’s not enough although of course it is. And my mind wonders about the future, which is impossible to fully plan and commit to at the moment so I have to be okay with not knowing when I’ll see my boyfriend again. Of course I already miss him even though we talk all the time at a distance.

I forgot about my possessions, the clothes and art and things here waiting for me. I came into a space of detachment around most of my things while in Japan. I either didn’t have it, or had to risk using it to death and being replaced. I think the detachment is good although I’d still like to enjoy everything.

In a way, I don’t want to get used to things here because it’s putting the time I had in Japan firmly into the past, especially since I’d like to return to see my boyfriend. But of course change is the only constant in life and I’ve survived a lot of things this year that challenged me in so many ways. I know everything will be ok.

oddly it feels daring to say that these days but I’ve already survived my mother dying so seriously I know that even in the worst case, life goes on.

The biggest lesson I learned in Japan this year was to let go of control, acknowledge it is an illusion and I don’t have it. I’ve always been a planner and pusher of myself, and it just doesn’t work out. There are ways that work for ME and ways that don’t even if they work for someone else. There is another way for me to do things. I listen to myself, I follow my soul.

I hope that as I am in closer contact and communication with my world in the USA rather than being in a bubble abroad, that I continue to hear my own self clearly.

Get more updates on the journey by monthly email, as well as a notification about my new Memoir Freedom Year: How Trying to be a Dominatrix (and Failing) changed my life by signing up here.

To my beautiful man in Japan. You teach me it is okay to miss someone. When COVID gets in the way, when borders and boundaries are closed, when we can’t touch, can’t speak face to face, can’t share a meal or a room, I know there’s nothing wrong with wanting to and with missing you, just like with others in my life.

…

We live in a time of enforced separation. Some of it is enforced by law and regulation from the outside, some of it is our choice to keep people (and ourselves) safe. Its a matter of life and death. I don’t have a choice about not seeing my boyfriend in Japan now that my Visa has ended, but with family and friends I try to be safe which means we don’t act as we once did.

Like many others I am feeling it. I find strength in sharing how I feel rather than tucking the feelings inside silently. Nine times out of ten, others can relate. I know I am not alone.

Years ago, I dated one or two guys who were “above” missing. I said, “I miss you,” they said, “It must be because I do so much study and Zen meditation, but like I don’t overly attach to anything or anyone.” Of course I felt needy after that, reluctant to say it again.

Some people think not having feelings is the ideal, they think the more evolved thing to do is to turn your feelings off.

But I know different. I think shutting off our feelings is what is wrong with the world. My life has been a journey of missing, from the day I last saw my mom when I was very young. I know what it is like to long for someone who is not here. I know that not being able to see friends and family exactly like before is an emotional blow that deserves to be honored, not discounted as useless material to suppress. We are human, this is how we were made: to miss what we value. In some ways that’s how we know how important it is.

It sucks. You’re not wrong for missing and neither am I. I wish I could offer you an easy solution but the truth is feeling your emotions IS complicated and it takes time. Don’t skip it.

If you enjoy my writing stay tuned for information about my book Freedom Year coming out in just a few weeks! Xo