The stone-faced food critic Anton, a man known for destroying restaurants with a single review, is given a dish to taste by the hopeful protagonists Remy and Linguine. Someone nearby scoffs at the dish. It’s ratatouille, nothing fancy. But when Anton takes a bite… suddenly, he is no longer a critic.

The taste pulls him into memory, into a kitchen, into a feeling that existed long before judgment. Long before standards. Long before Anton learned how to be a critic.

He is a child again, being comforted by his mother. She feeds him a plate of ratatouille, and he finds peace.

In my opinion, this is one of the greatest moments in all of cinema. The filmmakers do not send us into Anton’s past with a simple cutaway. Instead, the frame pulls him backward into the memory itself before returning him to the present seconds later. It captures the way memory actually feels: sudden, sensory, and powerful enough to collapse time.

This scene has stayed with me for nearly 20 years, because it reveals something many of us lose without noticing. Anton is a food critic, a man whose entire identity is built around judging what appears on the plate. But there was once a time when he simply loved food. Before opinions, standards, and reputation entered the picture, there was just the experience of it. The warmth, the comfort, the feeling of being cared for.

Ratatouille is a film about memory and cooking, but the moment points to something much broader. It reminds us that long before we learned how to evaluate the things we love, we simply loved them.

Most of us did not begin loving what we love because we were good at it. We loved it because it made us feel alive.

Writing before we cared if it was publishable.

Dancing before we knew how we looked.

Reading before we wondered what it said about us.

Over time, the audience grows louder. Metrics appear. Standards arrive. Our creativity doesn’t disappear because we forget how to make things; it fades because we forget how to be moved by them.

Instead, we perform, and we aim to impress instead of allowing ourselves to feel.

So, the real question becomes this:

One thing I’ve noticed, both in my own life and in the work of people who have thought deeply about creativity, is that the way back is rarely intellectual.

Elizabeth Gilbert writes about following curiosity rather than chasing validation. Julia Cameron built an entire practice around refilling the creative well through morning pages and artist dates. Psychologists studying creative “flow” say our best work emerges when we lose our self-consciousness and become absorbed in the act itself.

Different language. Same truth.

Creativity returns when we stop performing and start participating again.

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I am still learning how.

Throughout my twenties, I believed that if I wanted to be a writer, everything I created needed to be impressive. Every idea had to prove something. Every draft had to signal that I was talented enough to deserve the next opportunity. If the first attempt at something didn’t feel extraordinary, I would grow frustrated almost immediately, sometimes even defeated.

Without realizing it, I had begun performing the role of “frustrated writer” instead of simply writing.

Part of that mindset came from ambition. Part of it came from the culture we live in, where creativity is often tied to recognition, milestones, and visible success.

It becomes easy to believe that the point of making something is to demonstrate that you are worthy of attention.

But over time, that pressure drains the wonder out of the work.

When every attempt carries the weight of needing to be remarkable, very little feels safe enough to explore. Curiosity shrinks. Play disappears. The thing that once felt joyful starts to feel like a test you must pass.

What I’ve been relearning in my thirties is something much simpler and much harder at the same time: returning to the act itself.

To write because the opera in the Douro Valley scene I envision needs to exist. To read because “The Will of the Many” pulls me in so completely. To sit in a dark theater while Hamnet reminds me of the power of cinema. To wander through the National Gallery of Art because the Impressionists discovered 150 years ago how to make paint look like it’s moving, and I still can’t look away.

Moments like these don’t feel productive. They don’t immediately lead to output. But they reconnect me to the reason I loved storytelling in the first place.

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That realization showed up for me in an unexpected way today.

It had been one of those days when the creative well felt dry. I write constantly for my day job, and by the time I turn to my own work, the pressure to get it right can feel heavy. There are always deadlines, expectations, and the quiet question that lingers behind every sentence: Is this good enough?

This afternoon, I got into an Uber to head home to Alexandria. Two days earlier, it had been eighty-five degrees. Today it was snowing, which felt absurd for March and somehow matched the strange mental whiplash of the day.

The driver, Jesse, had a radio station playing early 2000s music. Train’s “Drops of Jupiter” came on.

Suddenly, I was somewhere else entirely.

That song immediately brought me back to being a kid riding in the backseat of a car with my sister during a Massachusetts summer. Windows down. Sunlight through the glass. That feeling of being young enough that a song about loss and the universe could fill your entire world for three and a half minutes.

Now, without thinking about it, I started singing along.

After the first chorus, I said to Jesse, “This song is still great twenty-five years later.”

He agreed, and for the rest of the ride I just sang along in the backseat, completely forgetting about the emails, the deadlines, and the pressure that had filled the day. For a few minutes, there was no audience and nothing to prove. There was only the joy of a song that still felt alive.

And that, I think, is the feeling we are trying to return to.

The critic in Ratatouille does not rediscover his love of food through analysis. He rediscovers it through a single bite that reminds him of how food once felt.

Creativity often works the same way.

The way back is frequently sensory. A book you loved when you were young. A song you once played on repeat. A place, a smell, a ritual that carries you back to a version of yourself who loved the thing before it became something to prove.

These moments are not distractions from creative work. They are reminders of why the work mattered in the first place.

If we want to create from a place that feels energizing, we may have to return to those moments first. To the stories, songs, films, and experiences that moved us before we were trying to impress anyone.

Because that is where the love lives.

And it is often where the best art begins.

That if you’re doing it “right,” you can point to the milestones like signposts and say: here. Here. Here.

And if you can’t, if your life is a little messier than the outline you once imagined, it starts to feel like failure. Like you missed a turn. Like everyone else got the map, and you didn’t.

I’ve been circling this lately with my therapist. Not as a dramatic crisis, but as a recurring hum. The sense that I should be further along than I am. That I should be able to justify every season of my life with a clear outcome.

Around the same time, I found myself listening to a recent episode of Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast about feeling behind. What struck me wasn’t any single idea, but how familiar the feeling was. The way it slips into the background of capable, functional lives. The way it disguises itself as motivation, when it is often just pressure wearing a productive face.

It mirrored what I had already been sitting with: that the discomfort isn’t always about where we are. It’s about the story we’re telling ourselves about where we should be.

I believe in story.

I believe that meaning often arrives late.

Still, the feeling shows up.

The chapter that looks like “in-between” is still shaping you.

In 2014–2015, I worked three part-time jobs to stay afloat in New York while waiting to move to Los Angeles. One of them was at the Metropolitan Opera Gift Shop.

In some ways, it was glamorous. I was back inside the arts again. Rehearsal music drifted through the halls. Chagall murals were displayed in the house with grandeur.

In other ways, it was hard. Long shifts on my feet. Working Christmas Eve. Making ends meet in a city that doesn’t make that easy.

That year, I couldn’t go home for the holidays.

My parents came to New York and stayed with me in my four-floor walk-up in Queens so we could be together.

At the time, it felt like a holding pattern. Later, I realized it was training.

I learned how to sell without selling. How to read people quickly and kindly. How to invite someone into an unfamiliar world without making them feel out of place.

I became very good at recommending Roberto Alagna’s Pasión to women just starting to flirt with opera (If you know, you know).

I also fell deeper in love with the art form myself. I snagged orchestra tickets and brought friends to Carmen and Un Ballo in Maschera. Opera stopped feeling distant. It became something shared.

That knowledge stayed with me.

When I interviewed at LA Opera after moving west, I was hired the same day.

And in 2016, while behind the press stand for The Magic Flute, I first came up with the book idea I’ve spent the past two summers workshopping at the Disquiet Literary Program in Lisbon, and that I’m still writing today.

None of that was obvious when I was ringing up Chopin Liszt notepads and folding scarves.

But without that season, I wouldn’t be here.

“Behind” is usually a narrative, not a fact.

What I keep returning to is this: feeling behind is rarely about what’s actually happening. It’s about the story you’re telling about what’s happening.

We decide a season “doesn’t count” because it isn’t legible as progress.

We call something a detour because we can’t yet see what it’s giving us.

We label a year as wasted because it didn’t produce a headline.

Listening to the On Purpose podcast while working through these ideas, I kept thinking about how often we confuse visibility with value. How easily we dismiss anything that isn’t immediately recognizable as success, even when it is quietly doing essential work underneath the surface.

Story doesn’t work like that.

In good stories, the part where it looks like nothing is happening is often the part where everything is being set up.

The character is learning skills they’ll need later. They’re developing the taste that will guide their choices. They’re becoming someone who can hold the next chapter when it arrives.

The problem is that when you’re living it, you can’t see the structure. You can only see the absence of the outcome you thought you’d have by now.

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The invisible work is still work.

One of the most painful things about modern life is how quickly we dismiss anything that isn’t easy to display.

If your season doesn’t translate into a title, a post, a before-and-after, or a clean announcement, it can start to feel unreal.

But some of the most important growth you’ll ever do won’t be visible.

You’ll be learning how to stand up again after disappointment. How to make decisions without applause. How to trust your own pace. How to stay devoted to what matters even when it isn’t yielding immediate proof.

That is a foundation.

One question can change the chapter.

When you feel behind, the impulse is to rush.

To make a fast decision just to quiet the discomfort. To choose a life that looks like it’s moving, even if it isn’t true. To treat anxiety like urgency and call it ambition.

But “behind” is not a compass. It doesn’t point you toward what you want. It points you away from uncertainty.

So, here is the question I’ve been practicing instead:

What is this season shaping in me that I’ll need later?

Because in hindsight, the Met Opera gift shop wasn’t the time before my real life began.

It was part of the path.

It gave me language. Taste. Confidence. Social ease. Art-world fluency. A deeper love of the form. It made opera feel close enough to share, and that instinct to share what I love became a thread through everything that came next.

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You don’t need to justify your life to believe it matters.

If you’ve been quietly panicking about timing, this is what I want to offer you:

You’re allowed to be in a chapter you can’t summarize yet.

You’re allowed to be in the middle of something that won’t make sense until later.

You’re allowed to have a season that looks unimpressive on paper but changes you in ways you’ll one day be grateful for.

A life doesn’t become meaningful because it follows a clean timeline, but because you live it by paying attention.

And attention, over time, turns ordinary days into something you can actually build from.

A small ritual for the days you feel “late.”

If you want something gentle and practical, try this in your journal:

• The chapter I’m in right now is…

• The story I’ve been telling about this chapter is…

• If I assumed this chapter mattered, what might it be giving me?

• What might I understand about this season a year from now?

You don’t need to force the answer.

Just don’t abandon the chapter while you’re still living it.

Because one day, you’ll re-read it and recognize it as essential.

Around the same time, Rachel McAdams received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Domhnall Gleeson, her co-star in About Time, spoke about her not just as a gifted actor, but as someone whose presence makes everything around her better. It echoed the very thing this film quietly argued:

What endures is not optimization or reinvention, but attention.

On the surface, About Time is built around a familiar device. A young man discovers he can revisit moments in his past and change them. But like many good stories, the premise is a decoy. This is not a film about fixing mistakes or rewriting history. It’s a film about learning how to inhabit the present.

The most powerful stories are rarely about control. They’re about presence.

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The Story We’re Taught to Tell Ourselves

Many of us live inside an inherited narrative that tells us creativity will return later.

After the right choice.
After the wrong one is fixed.
After life becomes more manageable.

This story keeps us waiting. It encourages us to see our current lives as provisional, something to endure rather than inhabit. Creativity, in this framing, becomes a reward for improvement instead of something that emerges from attention.

You can see the effects everywhere: Writers holding drafts hostage until they feel ready; artists waiting for clarity before they begin; women postponing beauty, rest, or leisure because those things feel irresponsible when life is busy.

In these moments, it’s not that creativity has disappeared. It’s that we’ve stepped outside our own lives, watching them from a distance, convinced we’ll enter fully later.

What About Time Actually Teaches

What About Time understands is that this way of living doesn’t work. In the film, (spoiler alert), time travel eventually becomes unnecessary. Once the main character learns how to fully inhabit a day, the impulse to redo it fades.

The heart of the story isn’t the romance, but the relationship between father and son. Love shows up through repetition. Shared meals. Long walks. Familiar jokes. Even grief is held through presence rather than correction.

One of the film’s most radical ideas is also its simplest: live the same day twice. Not to fix it. Not to improve it. But to notice it.

This runs counter to how we’re taught to move through the world. We’re encouraged to treat our days as raw material to be optimized. But the film suggests something quieter and, in many ways, more demanding. Those ordinary days, when lived with attention, are already enough.

What lingered for me as Gleeson spoke was not the shape of her career, but the care he described. Careers endure. Presence is what people remember.

The story doesn’t ask us to fix our lives.

It asks us to notice them.

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When Change Is Dramatic and When It Isn’t

This isn’t an argument against change. Sometimes, creative rebirth is dramatic.

Sometimes it does require a move, a rupture, a decisive leaving behind, because there are moments when starting over is necessary and brave. But those moments are not the whole story. I wrote about this last week in “Begin Again (Without Burning It All Down),” and I’m still thinking about it.

More often, creativity returns not through reinvention, but through attention. Through staying. Through learning how to inhabit the life you already have, instead of constantly preparing for the next one.

Living in the present doesn’t mean settling. It means recognizing when transformation comes from arrival rather than escape.

Reframing the Ordinary as Creative Material

Creativity doesn’t always ask for a new life. Often, it asks for a new way of seeing the one you’re already living.

A walk becomes a scene.
A meal becomes a moment.
A conversation becomes dialogue.

When life is treated as disposable, something to rush through on the way to something better, creativity dries up. There’s nothing to work with. But when life is treated as meaningful in itself, imagination begins to stir.

The story doesn’t begin when life gets interesting. It begins with attention.

This is why so many creative people feel stalled without quite knowing why. It isn’t always a lack of discipline or desire. It’s a loss of contact with meaning. Days blur together not because nothing is happening, but because nothing is being noticed.

You don’t need to narrate your life from a distance, as if it’s something you’ll revise later. You need to arrive where you already are.

Drafts don’t come from fixing yourself. They come from living inside your days with enough attention that language sharpens, images form, and meaning emerges. The present moment isn’t a limitation on creativity. It’s the threshold.

A Gentle Invitation

What would it look like to live today as if you weren’t planning to revise it later?

What scene are you already in, but avoiding?

What ordinary moment might be asking for your attention?

You don’t need to rewrite your life.
You just need to step fully into the story you’re already living.

If this way of seeing resonates, you’re in the right place. Live In Story is where I explore storytelling, presence, and the creative life week by week. You’re always welcome to stay awhile.

It isn’t subtle. It doesn’t whisper. It demands spectacle.

Burn it all down.
Start fresh.
Become someone else.

January, culturally speaking, loves a dramatic exit. We are encouraged to treat our lives like failed drafts — something to be scrapped entirely rather than revised. New year, new habits, new identity, new everything. As if erasure were the same thing as courage.

But lately, I’ve found myself resisting that impulse. Not because I’m complacent. But because I’m no longer convinced that destruction is the most honest form of movement.

This year, I don’t want to torch the set just to prove I’m serious.

I want to begin again without burning it all down.

The friction of staying. The patience required to keep working inside a life that is still becoming. It can feel braver to leave than to look closely. Easier to demolish than to revise. Sometimes it’s necessary to phoenix. I’ve certainly had those moments. But it’s not always the healthiest impulse.

Life revision is quieter work.

Revision asks you to stay with the material long enough to understand what’s actually wrong. It requires discernment. Precision. A willingness to admit that something can be imperfect and still worth saving.

That’s harder than a clean break. And yet, it’s where the real craft lives.

For a long time, my ambition mistook noise for progress.

I said yes quickly. I overcommitted easily. I took on roles that looked impressive from the outside but felt strangely hollow once I was inside them.

It took me a while to name what was happening, but eventually I found the metaphor that made it clear: I was ambitious but I was starring in the wrong movie.

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The lighting was wrong. The pacing felt off. The script didn’t match my voice.

And yet, because the role was offered, I stayed. Because it looked “good.” Because other people told me it made sense and I needed the money, the stability. Because ambition, when misaligned, is very good at convincing you to keep performing even when the story isn’t yours.

The problem wasn’t effort; it was casting.

There’s a difference between ambition that expands you and ambition that fractures you.

Aligned ambition turns into action that feels clean. Focused. Sustainable. You know what belongs in the frame, and just as importantly, what doesn’t. You’re willing to let certain things go — not because you’re lazy or afraid, but because you’re protecting the integrity of the story you’re actually trying to tell.

Misaligned ambition, on the other hand, multiplies commitments. It fills your calendar while emptying your attention. It asks you to show up everywhere except where it matters most.

It looks productive. It feels exhausting.

I’ve lived both.

This is why January doesn’t feel like a blank page to me anymore.

It feels more like a return to a manuscript I never stopped writing — just paused, misread, or tried to force in the wrong direction.

I don’t need a completely new life. I need a clearer edit.

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That realization has changed how I think about “showing up.”

Right now, showing up doesn’t look heroic. It looks small and unremarkable. One act of care. One act of creation. Every day. Not perfectly. Not always publicly. Just consistently enough that the story keeps moving forward.

Some days, that creative act is a paragraph. Some days it’s a sentence. Some days it’s simply staying with the work instead of abandoning it when it resists me.

This kind of devotion doesn’t trend well. But it builds something sturdier than momentum. I used to believe that if I didn’t feel dramatic urgency, I wasn’t trying hard enough. Now I’m learning that urgency can be a mask for avoidance.

When we rush to reinvent ourselves, we don’t have to sit with the quieter questions:

What am I actually trying to make?

What deserves my full attention?

What would happen if I stopped auditioning for lives that don’t fit?

Beginning again, for me, has meant answering those questions without theatrics. It has meant declining things that would look impressive but cost me my center. Letting go of work that pulls me out of alignment, even if it flatters the ego. Accepting that some seasons require precision, not expansion.

This isn’t a retreat. It’s a recalibration.

There is something deeply countercultural about refusing to burn everything down.

It means believing that the past wasn’t a mistake. That earlier versions of you were not naïve failures, but necessary drafts. That growth doesn’t always require rupture.

Sometimes it requires staying long enough to learn the lesson properly.

The older I get, the more I see how often we confuse destruction with bravery. We applaud the dramatic pivot, the public reinvention, the bold departure. But we rarely talk about the courage it takes to recommit — to choose again what you’ve already chosen, but this time with clarity.

To stay in the scene. To refine the performance. To tell the story more honestly.

This year, I’m less interested in becoming someone else. I’m more interested in becoming more precise. More faithful to the work that matters. More selective about what earns my energy. More willing to trust that a careful rewrite can be just as transformative as a total overhaul.

If you’re standing at the edge of a new year feeling the pressure to reinvent yourself, I hope you pause long enough to ask a different question.

Not what should I burn down?
But what still has life in it?

Not who should I become?
But where am I being asked to recommit with courage instead of urgency?

You don’t need a new story.
You may just need a truer edit.

Journal Prompt

Where in your life are you tempted to burn it all down — when what you really need is a careful rewrite?

I have come back to this question a lot recently, seeking an answer.

Last month, on my birthday, I spent four hours at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia (part of the National Air and Space Museum). It is a place where history hangs above you in perfect stillness. Aircraft from every era line the vast hangar, suspended between motion and rest, the way memory sometimes holds a life.

I joined a 90-minute tour led by a docent who used to be an aviation journalist, and for the first time, I saw aviation not just as machinery, but as story. Plane by plane, he walked us through human longing: the first experiments with flight, the daring innovations of the 1930s, the aircraft that helped end wars, the ones that pushed us beyond our atmosphere.

At one point, we stopped in front of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. I had seen photographs of it my whole life, but standing before the real thing felt unsettling in a way I didn’t expect.

Beauty and terror often sit close together in history. Awe and ache can live in the same breath.

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But it was the Boeing-Stearman that stayed with me.

A 1943 N2S-5 Kaydet, the closest model to the yellow biplane from The English Patient, my favorite film. In that story, flight is longing. Flight is an escape. Flight is the ache of becoming someone new while carrying the weight of who you have been.

Standing beside the Stearman, I understood why I had chosen this museum for my birthday, and it was not just because I love the beauty of a plane. It was because of what aviation represents to me.

I have always believed my future is something I will have to fly toward, and aviation embodies that possibility. It carries the promise of reinvention, the sense that life can lift in a new direction if you let it.

During the tour, the docent mentioned that there is a Flying Circus in Virginia where you can pay to go up in one of these planes. The thought lit something in me. I had not known that was possible. The idea of climbing into a machine like that, open to wind and sky, felt like discovering a doorway into a version of myself I had not yet met. I am already counting down to spring.

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And while I walked through that hangar, it occurred to me that this is what calling the creative self back often looks like:

You go where beauty lives.

You follow the pull of wonder.

You place yourself in the path of something that wakes you up.

This is, at its core, the purpose of what Julia Cameron calls an artist date.

In her infamous book, “The Artist’s Way” (which changed my life in 2019…more on that in a future article), describes artist dates as weekly appointments with your inner artist, small acts of exploration meant to restore curiosity and delight. They are meant to be done alone, because solitude sharpens attention. They are not rewards for productivity. They are practices of becoming.

Artist Dates reawaken the parts of us the world tries to harden, inviting us to move through life with openness instead of obligation. They give the imagination something to respond to.

When life grows too heavy or too fast, creativity often slips into the background. It does not vanish. It waits. What brings it back is not force, but beauty. Romanticizing your life is one way of inviting that beauty closer. It is not naïve or frivolous. It is a deliberate way of seeing that keeps the creative spirit alive.

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When you feel disconnected from your creativity, begin there.

Pause.

Seek something beautiful (like planes are to me).

Let it rearrange you.

If you are afraid that you are losing your creative self, you are not alone. Many of us feel that fear quietly. But she has not disappeared. She is waiting for you to notice her again. Begin with beauty. Take yourself somewhere that opens your attention. Let yourself wander. Let yourself listen. Let yourself feel the world again.

The part of you that creates is still here.

She is simply waiting for the runway to clear.

This Week’s Journal Prompt:
Where could you take yourself this week — even for an hour — to help you remember the part of you that has gone quiet?

The first couple of days felt strange, the way it always does when the pace shifts suddenly. But eventually the mind begins to unclench, and a different kind of attention returns.

Rest has a way of recalibrating us. Burnout rarely dissolves in a single day off, and even a long weekend often touches only the surface. Extended quiet gives us enough distance from daily noise to notice what has been happening underneath it.

When the pace slows, creativity stops scattering. It comes closer. It becomes easier to hear.

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What Rest Reveals

There is a noticeable change in how the mind functions when it is not constantly absorbing. Without the usual stream of notifications and small obligations, silence becomes less like emptiness and more like a doorway. Thoughts arrive at a gentler pace, which makes them clearer and more honest.

A friend finds her best ideas while hiking up Runyon Canyon in Los Angeles. Something unlocks for her midway up the incline. Elevation creates perspective.

For those of us without mountains a Metro ride away, smaller openings offer the same invitation. Wandering through a museum without a plan. Walking slowly through each gallery while listening to Michel Legrand’s main theme from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Taking the long route home to watch the light shift across familiar buildings.

These small encounters with beauty soften the inner pace. They remind us that creativity thrives in openness, not pressure.

The Creative Return

When the mind is quiet, ideas return in gentler ways.

They appear while making tea, or standing in a quiet gallery, or looking out a window at nothing in particular. They stop feeling like something that must be chased and instead feel like something waiting to be acknowledged.

Doing Less as a Way of Seeing More

A slower rhythm reveals things that speed hides. It becomes easier to notice when choices come from habit rather than desire. It becomes easier to see when a project feels alive and when it feels like performance. Rest clarifies what deserves continued attention and what might be ready to be released.

Doing less sharpens instinct. It makes room for curiosity. It clears space for the work that truly belongs to us.

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The Small Practices That Anchor Rest

Rest looks simple, but it is a practice that requires intention. A few gentle shifts can open unexpected space:

• keeping the phone powered off until the mind feels settled

• removing email and social apps to reduce noise

• walking without a podcast so thoughts can unfold

• writing only when the mind feels open rather than pressured
  stopping before depletion

• seeking beauty on purpose: a painting, a melody, a street that slows the breath

These practices soften the edges of the day. They create the conditions where creative instinct can step forward.

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Rest as Restoration

Rest does not need to be earned. Rest is what restores the part of us that creates. Ideas need time to form. Emotions need room to settle. Imagination needs space to stretch. Creativity moves in cycles, and rest is one of them. The more closely we honor that rhythm, the truer the work becomes.

Where the Path Leads

Rest reconnects us with the version of ourselves who created out of wonder rather than expectation. That part is always present, waiting for space. And rest often rekindles a desire to wander, explore, and be nourished by beauty. It calls us toward the kinds of experiences Julia Cameron describes as artist dates — small journeys that feed the creative spirit and bring us back to ourselves.

This Week’s Journal Prompt:

What small, beautiful ritual could help you return to yourself this week?

For most of my twenties, I understood elegance as presentation. A well-chosen outfit. A tidy apartment before guests arrived. A moment captured at the right angle. But as I have softened my pace and rebuilt my creative rhythm, I have realized that elegance lives deeper. It moves through your choices, your inner dialogue, your energy. Your space matters, of course, but only when it reflects the steadiness you cultivate within yourself.

Elegance, I am learning, is an ethos.

A way of moving with intention instead of urgency.
A way of speaking with clarity instead of performance.
A way of tending to your interior life with the same devotion you offer your outer one.

In an age that rewards speed and spectacle, elegance becomes a kind of quiet refusal. It asks you to be deliberate when the world wants you to be reactive.

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Elegance of Mind

An elegant mind chooses discernment over distraction. It lingers with a thought long enough to understand it. It trusts silence to reveal what rushed answers hide. It treats attention as something sacred.

Lately, I have noticed how easily my thoughts scatter. How quickly I absorb someone else’s pace. How often I forget that focus is a form of self-respect. Cultivating elegance of mind means slowing down enough to hear the ideas that arrive softly. It means letting your inner narrator speak at her natural cadence. It means choosing language that feels aligned with what you truly believe rather than what you think you should think.

There is a gentleness to this kind of clarity. A steadiness. A willingness to let your thinking take the shape it wants to take.

Elegance of Language

When I imagine elegant language, I think of words chosen with intention. Words that feel grounded rather than performative. Words that sound like the truth spoken in a calm room.

In a culture that rewards immediacy, elegant language is measured and clear. It pauses to ask what is actually meant. It considers the kindest, truthful phrasing. It carries a quiet authority that comes from choosing the right words rather than many words.

Refining language becomes a way of refining thought. And when thought is refined, living follows.

Elegance of Living

Elegance of living is often misunderstood. It has very little to do with curated routines or minimalist perfection.

It sounds like saying no to what pulls you away from yourself. It sounds like telling the truth about your capacity. It sounds like phrases such as “This isn’t a priority for me right now” or “This isn’t where I want to invest my time or resources.” Not as an apology. As clarity.

It looks like lighting a candle before you write so your mind arrives fully.

It looks like keeping fewer, better things so your space feels like a refuge.

It looks like honoring your boundaries without needing to explain them.

It looks like paying close attention to the beauty your life already offers.

Elegance of living creates warmth rather than sterility. It makes room for presence. It allows your life to feel like a place you inhabit with care, not a schedule you try to outrun.

Elegance does not depend on expense. It depends on attention.

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Elegance in an Age of Noise

Our culture often treats elegance as a luxury, something reserved for special occasions or special people. But I am beginning to see it as a form of self-preservation.

Living with elegance steadies you. Speaking with elegance quiets the pressure to be loud. Thinking with elegance interrupts the belief that more is always better.

Elegance creates space inside you. It clears the static. It returns you to a sense of enough. It reminds you that you have agency in the pace and texture of your days.

Meaning can only catch up to you when you slow down enough to notice it.

A Small Practice

I have been asking myself one question at the end of each day:

Where did I choose elegance today?

Sometimes the answer is small.

• I paused before responding.

• I closed a few open tabs.

• I spoke to myself the way I speak to people I love.

Sometimes it is bigger.

• I turned down something that did not align.

• I protected my creative time.

• I tended to my inner life before tending to my inbox.

Elegance, I am learning, is a posture. A rhythm. A way of seeing. And in a world that celebrates volume, it is quietly powerful to build a life that speaks in softer, more intentional sentences.

This week’s journal prompt:
How do I cultivate elegance in my life?

Journaling has become the place where my inner world catches up to me.

It’s where I hear the things I was too busy to feel. It’s where I notice the stories I’ve outgrown. It’s where I meet past versions of myself, the way you run into an old friend at a café—surprised, softened, suddenly aware of how much time has passed.

What I’ve realized is that writing does not just record your life. It reframes it. It gives shape to the inner seasons you’re moving through, even the ones you haven’t yet named.

And lately, I’ve been moving through a quieter season. This is the pace where reflection begins to do its real work.

Below are the questions that have helped me listen. They’re not meant to “fix” anything. They’re meant to open a door.

Where My Prompts Begin

Before the questions, I try to settle into a gentler posture toward myself. I light a candle, choose a page without expectation, and remind myself that this is not about writing beautifully. It’s about paying attention.

The Prompts I Keep Returning To

1. What season of my life am I in, and how does it feel in my body, not just in my mind?

Naming the season helps you stop fighting the weather.

2. What have I been holding alone?

We all carry something quietly. Writing it down makes it less lonely.

3. Which memory has resurfaced recently, and what version of me is asking to be seen?

Sometimes the past knocks because you’re finally ready to understand it.

4. Where am I craving softness?

A gentle life starts with a single softened corner.

5. What story have I been telling myself about who I should be and is it still true?

Old narratives linger long after their purpose ends.

6. What beauty did I overlook this week?

Paying attention is its own form of devotion.

7. What part of my creative life feels neglected, and what is the smallest way I can return to it?

Not a leap. A step.

8. What have I outgrown that I’m still trying to fit into?

Letting go is its own creative act.

9. What am I learning to want?

Desire evolves when you’re finally quiet enough to hear it.

10. What would feel like care to the woman I am right now?

You can offer yourself what you once waited for.

11. If this chapter of my life needed a title, what would it be and why?

A question that turns your current reality into a story worth paying attention to.

Why These Questions Matter

Slowing down is not always peaceful. Sometimes it brings up the feelings we outran for years. But writing is how we metabolize what we’ve been carrying. It’s how we sift through the noise and step back into ourselves gently, without judgment.

This is how I’ve been learning to live in story—not by rushing to answers, but by asking better questions. Questions that make room for meaning and intention.

Gerwig’s Little Women moves through time the way my mind does when I am trying to make sense of who I’ve been. It circles instead of marching forward. It lets the past interrupt the present in fragments that feel more like emotion than chronology. Her structure is not in the novel. It is her own creation, a nonlinear frame that treats memory like something alive.

I relate to this more than I expected.

When you are creatively healing, old versions of yourself start visiting again. Some arrive with warmth. Others bring questions you thought you had outgrown.

I have been meeting these earlier selves lately, sometimes with tenderness and sometimes with discomfort. And in returning to them, I keep coming back to one moment in the film: Jo stands at the top of the stairs, confessing that she wishes she did not feel so lonely. She has spent so much time fighting to be independent, but she wants to be loved, too.

That scene’s honesty has stayed with me, because creative healing often feels like that revelation.

You change your life. You slow down. You give yourself room to breathe. And somewhere in that silence, the loneliness you outran for years finally catches up to you.

That is why I have been thinking about this film (and Atonement… but more on that in a future article) while building a gentler, more artful life. It gives me language for something I have felt but never really named.

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How Greta Gerwig Reframes Memory

Gerwig cuts between childhood and adulthood intentionally. The golden scenes of girlhood feel almost too bright, the way nostalgia tends to be. The adult scenes have a cooler tone. Both are truthful, but the contrast reveals something important.

This is why the film lingers. It shows how the past shifts depending on who is remembering it. The facts do not change. The meaning does.

I have been noticing this in my own life. Memories I used to view through embarrassment or self-criticism appear softer now. Moments I once dismissed as small suddenly feel pivotal. When I look back from where I stand today, I see layers I was too young to understand at the time.

This is what reframing really is. Not denying what happened. Not pretending it hurt less. Just giving your past the benefit of your present wisdom. A friend reminded me of this on Friday during a much-needed phone call.

Where My Past Meets My Present

There are memories I carry that still sting, even after years. Times when I pushed myself to achieve instead of resting. Times when I accepted too little from people because I didn’t know how to ask for more. Times when I dimmed my creative instincts because I thought ambition had to look a certain way.

I used to revisit those memories with judgment. Now I try to return with curiosity. Who was I then? What did I know? What did I not know yet?

Gerwig’s adaptation seems to ask the same questions of Jo. The flashbacks don’t just show what happened. They show her relationship to what happened. They show how she has learned to see herself differently, even when she cannot fully articulate it.

That is what reframing has begun to feel like for me. It is a way of honoring the younger self I once viewed through a harsher lens. A way of saying: you did the best you could with the information you had.

Creative Healing Requires Looking Back

Slowing down makes old memories louder. When you stop rushing, you finally hear what your life has been trying to tell you. Sometimes that message is encouraging. Sometimes it is painful. Often it is both.

Reframing helps you recognize that the story you told yourself about your past may not be the whole story. You begin to see turning points where you used to see mistakes. You notice resilience where you used to notice fear. You understand why certain chapters hurt and why others stayed unfinished.

And maybe most importantly, you stop believing that you are behind.

You begin to see that you have been gathering meaning all along.

A Softer Way to Begin Reframing

I don’t believe in forcing transformation. I believe in approaching it the way Gerwig’s film approaches memory. Gently. With warmth. With space.

Here is the practice that has helped me the most.

• Return at your own pace: Let the memory come to you. Some arrive easily. Others take time.

• Notice how you used to interpret it: Were you harsh with yourself? Were you confused? Did you carry guilt that was never yours?

• Invite your current self into the memory: Ask what you know today that you did not know then. This is where something shifts.

• Keep the facts, but change the frame: Reframing is not rewriting. It is understanding.

• Give the moment a new meaning: Not a perfect meaning. Not a final meaning. Just a gentler one.

This is how I have been learning to live in story. Not by editing the past, but by meeting it with a narrator who has finally grown into her voice, quietly bridging who I was and who I am becoming.

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And If You Feel Lonely in the Process

You are not alone. Creative healing can feel isolating, especially when you are rebuilding your life into something more intentional. I feel it too. Jo March felt it. Most women who choose a creative path feel it at some point.

But loneliness is not an ending. It is a threshold. It is the quiet place where you begin meeting yourself again.

And that meeting is the beginning of a very different story.

Questions to Journal About

• What memory has been resurfacing in your quiet moments?

• What version of yourself lived that scene?

• What did she need that she did not know how to ask for?

• What do you understand now that she could not have understood then

• How might the meaning change if you revisit it with a wiser, softer narrator?

I came up with the idea for a story in 2009. Sixteen years later, I’m still writing it. And somewhere along the way, I realized that’s okay.

I was eighteen and co-directing a one-act play at my high school. While at Barnes & Noble searching for opening night cast gifts, I found the PostSecret books. It was based on a Tumblr-era project where people mailed their secrets to the site’s creator on scraps of paper and postcards, each one turned into an image and shared online. I opened up one of the books — I forget which version — and the confession stopped me cold.

Someone had mailed in this:

Everyone who knew me before 9/11 thinks I am dead.

I stood there, in this book behemoth in Framingham, MA, bombarded by a flurry of questions. Who was this person? What happened to them? What made them write this? That single sentence became the seed of what I have now spent nearly two decades trying to write, or rather, understand.

It stayed with me because it wasn’t just a confession. It was a rupture between two lives — the one that existed before and the one that had to begin again. I didn’t know it then, but something in that secret mirrored the quiet dissonance of my own generation.

When I was eleven, I lived through 9/11 like everyone else my age, part of the so-called “peak millennials,” born in 1990 and 1991, who grew up in the glow of the 90s and lost it overnight. I was sitting in my fifth-grade classroom when the teachers told us what had happened. I raised my hand and asked to call home because my sister and her boyfriend worked in New York City. My teacher brushed it off and said, “Well, we all have sisters’ boyfriends.”

I didn’t lose anyone that day (thank God), but it marked something in me. I grew up both inside my life and somehow just above it, always watching, always wondering what it all meant. Maybe that’s why I have been trying to tell this story ever since.

Over the years, the story changed forms. In college, I tried writing it as a screenplay. After graduation, I tried again. When I moved to Los Angeles, still trying to become a filmmaker, I told people about it constantly. It was the story I couldn’t shake, the one I would write when I finally “figured it out.” I filled notebooks with false starts and outlines, convinced I just hadn’t cracked the code yet.

If you’ve ever carried a creative idea that won’t let you go, you know the feeling. The notes that multiply. The drafts that almost work. The quiet promise that one day you’ll finally get it right.

I thought the answer was more effort, more pushing, more doing. And sometimes that’s true. Discipline matters. But I’ve learned that art often asks for something gentler, a kind of listening that can’t be rushed.

There’s a difference between writing through resistance and forcing something before it’s ready. The first deepens you; the second drains you.

In 2018, I finally wrote a short story version that felt real. Eleven pages were somehow written in seven hours. For the first time, it was out of my head and onto paper. I felt relieved, almost proud. Then I tucked it away, certain that now, finally, I could write the “real” screenplay version.

I didn’t.

Looking back, I don’t think I was emotionally ready. Not because I hadn’t “lived enough,” but because I hadn’t yet developed the self-trust to tell something that vulnerable. My protagonist mirrored parts of me I was still afraid to face, and writing about redemption is difficult when you’re still learning to believe you deserve it.

A year later, I revisited the story and shared it with a few close friends. One said, “This is really good.” I was stunned. I had spent so many years doubting my voice that I couldn’t believe anyone meant their praise. But people connected with it. Some even said it healed something in them. That response reminded me that work doesn’t have to be finished to matter.

I had done a lot of creative healing (thanks to The Artist’s Way) by 2020. The story became a quarterfinalist in the ScreenCraft Short Story competition, a small but meaningful nod. Then came a pandemic, a cross-country move, and a quiet unravelling of what I thought my creative life was supposed to be.

I rented a converted carriage house in New Orleans for a month and wrote the first draft of the novel version in 2023. It was short, closer to a novella, but it existed. Then life shifted again—new job, new home, new beginnings back on the East Coast. I put the story down, and that was okay. I wrote other things, moved other projects forward, and focused on rebuilding. The creative process isn’t linear. It loops, pauses, and recalibrates. Every season has its purpose.

In 2024, I used the short story to apply to the DISQUIET International Literary Program in Lisbon. I got in.

My mentor, Katherine, told me something I have carried ever since: “Sometimes you have to let a story go. If it’s meant for you, it will come back.”

She was right. That year, I stopped forcing it. I revised the story one last time and set it aside.

Then, quietly, it returned.

In 2025, something shifted. I realized I wanted to explore the characters’ journeys across a trilogy instead of a single book. I outlined a version of the first novel that finally feels like the story I was always trying to tell. It isn’t a redemption story after all, but one about what happens when we avoid the things that haunt us. I know. Very meta.

I’ve started writing again, slowly, without urgency or guilt. I no longer measure progress in word counts or deadlines. I measure it in presence, the willingness to meet the work where it is, even when it asks for more time.

That kind of patience takes courage. The outside world rewards results.

We live in a culture obsessed with output, where worth is measured by what’s done, not what’s being shaped. But creative endurance is an act of quiet rebellion. To let something take its time is to trust that the process itself has meaning. To believe that the waiting, the reworking, the returning, are not detours; they’re the work.

If you’re carrying a long story too, one that has changed shapes, resisted your timelines, or simply asked for patience, maybe you’ll recognize this.

It isn’t a failure to still be writing.

It’s faith.

Faith that the story will return when you are ready for it. Faith that time is not the enemy of art, but its teacher.

Maybe that’s what the creative process really is, not a race toward completion, but a conversation between who you were when the idea found you and who you have become while learning to honor it.

Somewhere between those two selves, the story waits.

And when it’s ready, and when you are, you’ll meet each other again.

November always feels like the season of home.

Here on the East Coast, the air has started to bite, the sweaters have come out of storage, and the streets are beginning to glow with the first signs of the holidays. In other words, Halloween has left the building, and it’s time for hot chocolate, pine-scented candles, twinkle lights, and rooms that feel cozy and merry.

Maybe that’s why this is the time of year when I think most about the craft of living.

We spend so much of the year moving through our homes on autopilot, but once the air turns cold, we start to slow down and make things beautiful. Candles appear on the tables, blankets are folded within reach, corners are rearranged, and little comforts return that make you want to linger.

For many of us, this season also brings back our favorite cozy films. The Holiday is one of mine. It follows two women, Iris and Amanda, who swap homes for the Christmas season to escape heartbreak. In their new surroundings, each finds unexpected renewal, love, and a deeper sense of self.

Released in 2006 and permanently etched into the millennial imagination, it is the movie that made every woman fall in love with Iris’s Rosehill Cottage in Surrey. You know the one: uneven stone floors, overstuffed chairs, stacks of books, and a fireplace that seems to understand you.

Every November and December, it circles back into our lives with its perfect blend of comfort and charm. Once upon a time, you could book a stay at the real-life cottage that inspired the film. Now, people have even recreated the cottage, not in Surrey, but in Georgia. I sent a reel about one to my interior designer friend recently because the details were on point, though, of course, without Jude Law.

What is it about that cottage that captures us so completely?

Part of its charm is that it feels like Iris herself. The uneven stone floors, the worn floral armchairs, the piles of books, and the mismatched teacups all mirror her warmth, her quiet intelligence, and the softness she has learned to protect. It is a space that holds her, one she retreats to when the world disappoints her, but also where she begins to find her strength again. Every detail feels personal, chosen, lived in. That is what makes it beautiful.

There is a moment in the film when Iris finally stands up for herself and says, “You’re supposed to be the leading lady of your own life.” That line has stayed with me because it is about ownership. You cannot be the leading lady of your own life if the space around you drains you. You cannot create, rest, or even dream when your environment does not give you peace or reflect the person you want to be. Perhaps this is why ideas like Marie Kondo’s have resonated with so many of us. A home that feels aligned with who you are becoming naturally invites a sense of calm and confidence back into your life.

The craft of living begins with shaping your space to support your best and most creative self.

When you fill your home with objects, textures, and details that hold meaning, you begin to live with intention. Over time, I’ve learned that you don’t need to live in Surrey or have a Nancy Meyers budget to create that feeling. You can build it anywhere.

For me, it begins with small rituals. My room is covered in collages, layers of color, and paper that remind me of moments, words, and images that matter. I light candles when I write, their soft glow inviting me to slow down and pay attention.

On cool mornings, I wrap myself in my DC United blanket, take my journal to the deck, and sip tea or espresso—especially espresso, if I am leaning into my Portuguese side—as the sun rises. Those quiet, unhurried moments have become a kind of reset, a reminder that beauty and inspiration are already here, waiting to be noticed.

Creating spaces that hold you is not about perfection. It is about presence.

The goal isn’t to design a home that impresses but to create one that makes you feel grounded and alive.

Does your home make you exhale? Does it invite you to linger? Does it remind you of what you love?

Those questions have become part of my rhythm. When I’m rearranging my space, I ask:

• What do I want this room to invite - rest, focus, inspiration?

• What details make me feel at ease?

• What can I remove to make room for what matters?

• Does this space reflect who I’m becoming, not just who I’ve been?

I call it “enjoying my rent,” or choosing to live beautifully where I already am. Not waiting for the next home or the next season to make things lovely, but crafting a space that feels like it belongs to the story I’m living now.

If last week’s essay was about finding creativity out in the world, then this one is about coming home to that same feeling. A space that holds you doesn’t just protect you from the cold; it reminds you of your warmth.

As we move toward the holidays, when the world starts to sparkle a little more, I hope you’ll take a moment to notice your own corners. The light on your desk in the morning. The way a candle flickers beside a half-read book. The quiet of a room that feels like it’s listening. These small moments are the foundation of a life that feels intentional, beautiful, and lived on purpose.

So, make your space cozy, yes, but also make it yours. Let it hold you, inspire you, and remind you that your life is something you are shaping every single day…

What would it look like if we lived this way all year?

When the weather is warm, the owner sits outside surrounded by curiosities that make you pause mid-walk: painted teacups, tarnished mirrors, and old maps curled at the corners. Last fall, it was a row of tiny, well-loved books that stopped me in my tracks. Tiny, as in small enough to fit in your pocket.

The owner told me they were printed shortly after World War I; some editions were given to soldiers during the war itself. Many were pocket Bibles and collections of poetry, but a few were stories I knew: Pride and Prejudice, A Christmas Carol, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I bought several and spent the rest of the afternoon walking through town with little pieces of history in my coat pockets. They felt like reminders of how the story survives, even when the world feels unsteady.

Moments like that make me love where I live. Old Town, Alexandria, has a way of folding history and beauty into the everyday. It is here that I’ve begun to understand what I call the craft of living.

If living in story is about seeing life as something meaningful, then the craft of living is about shaping that meaning through the choices we make each day. It’s learning to place ourselves where creativity can find us and allowing those spaces to refill what the pace of ordinary life tends to drain.

When I feel disconnected from my work or from myself, the answer is rarely to push harder. More often, I need to step outside and find a place that reminds me what it feels like to be alive. For me, that practice begins close to home, among the streets that have quietly become part of my creative rhythm.

When I crave a change of scenery or feel that familiar ache to travel but can’t just hop on a plane, I look for places in town that can transport me somewhere new. One of those places is Turkish Coffee Lady, a warm, woman-owned café that feels like a small piece of Istanbul tucked into Old Town.

The scent of cardamom and roasted beans greets you before the door even closes behind you. The owner has become a friend, and everyone who works there remembers me, too. We often chat about the latest Turkish dramas on Netflix while my coffee is being made. The walls are covered in bright ceramics and a large painting of the Istanbul skyline, and I like to sit beneath it with my journal open, letting the music and color surround me.

There are afternoons when I lose track of time, writing for hours with the taste of strong coffee on my tongue. It reminds me that inspiration doesn’t always require a passport; sometimes it just takes finding the right corner in your own city that makes you feel like you’ve stepped into another world.

When I need more air, I walk to the waterfront. I love it most in the late afternoon when the light begins to soften and the river mirrors the sky in gold and rose. The air smells faintly of salt and brick, and the sound of footsteps on the boardwalk feels like a rhythm my thoughts can follow.

I usually walk without a plan, letting myself drift along the edge of the river until I end up at BARCA, the restaurant that stretches out over the water. I order a glass of wine and sit for a while, watching the light change. Sometimes I open my notebook, but often I just watch. There is something about water that steadies me. It reminds me that movement can also be rest, and that creativity sometimes begins in the quiet act of noticing.

These walks have become their own form of journaling.

The pen may stay closed, but I’m still writing in a way—storing details, shaping thoughts, paying attention. A line of dialogue from a nearby table, the sound of cutlery against glass, the way the light flickers across the surface of the river.

These experiences feed the work long before I sit down to write again.

As I walk home, I often stop to look into the windows of the antique shop where this story began. By then, the owner has usually closed up for the day, but the display still catches the last traces of light. It reminds me that beauty waits for those who linger.

Lately, I’ve been trying to be more deliberate about how I spend my time.

When I plan my days or weekends, I ask simple questions:

• Where do I feel most awake?

• What places leave me lighter than when I arrived?

• What moments help me return to myself?

Those questions are how I find direction again when things start to feel flat. Sometimes the answer is a walk by the river or an afternoon at the café. Other times it’s choosing to stay home and give myself quiet.

The point isn’t to do more; it’s to spend more time in the places and rhythms that help me notice life again.

I think about that small antique shop often, especially the tiny books that once belonged to soldiers. They were meant to be carried—something durable and human to hold onto in difficult places. I used a few pages in my collages, and they remind me that creative work, like living, is an act of renewal. We take what has been worn or overlooked and give it another form of life.

Maybe that’s what the craft of living really is: finding the things that still speak to you and letting them shape the way you move through the world.

Where are the places that help you feel more like yourself?

Maybe it’s a coffee shop that makes you linger, a walk that clears your head, or simply a morning that belongs only to you.

Pay attention to those places.

They’re not luxuries.

They’re how we begin again.

I was seven when I first saw Ever After, a retelling of Cinderella. Though it’s remembered for its romance, the moment that has lingered with me all these years isn’t about love at all. It’s something smaller, a fleeting glimpse of grace.

Danielle, our Cinderella, is weighed down by the demands of her stepmother. Despite her lot in life, she still finds space for peace. In my favorite non-romantic moment, she slips into the river after picking truffles, accompanied by George Fenton’s luminous score. The scene lasts no more than twenty seconds before she’s interrupted by Leonardo da Vinci “walking on water,” but in that brief pause, she is no one’s servant, no one’s burden. She is simply herself — free, peaceful, and bathed in light. That image has lived in me for decades. It felt like a promise that even within hardship, there can be moments that feel like freedom.

I think about that scene often. At seven, I couldn’t name what I felt watching it. But now, as a millennial woman who has known the pace of hustle and the pressure to produce, I recognize in Danielle’s pause something I’ve been searching for myself.

Stories have a way of doing that. They give us images that stay with us long after the credits fade or the last page is turned… mirrors for our unspoken desires.

When I began Live In Story, it was partly an experiment. I wanted a place for words, beauty, and reflection, but I didn’t yet know what shape it would take. I wrote a few essays, shared a few inspired thoughts, then drifted away. Without a clear sense of purpose, the newsletter became difficult to sustain alongside the demands of “real life” and my day job. What I had hoped would feel like an outlet began to feel like more work.

In time, I realized what I truly wanted was to write about living differently, to explore what living in story really means to me. It isn’t about producing more content; it’s about learning to live with more presence. Less rush, more quiet. Less output, more meaning and intention. And as I paid attention, I began to see that many women my age are searching for the same thing. Across articles, essays, and conversations with friends, there is a shared longing — a desire for a softer life, one not driven by hustle but by room to breathe, to create, or to simply be. Some call it slow living, others the soft life. Whatever the name, it feels like a gentle form of resistance to urgency.

For me, living in story means paying attention to small moments and seeing them as part of a larger narrative. A morning coffee can be an opening scene. A career change can be a turning point rather than a disruption. A long pause or a season of waiting might be its own chapter. Stories remind us that even the quiet passages matter, and that each moment or phase belongs to the larger tapestry of a creative life.

Stories, particularly in books and films, have always helped me see this more clearly. Ever After teaches me that even a brief, wordless moment can hold the essence of freedom. Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s The Shadow of the Wind reveals how stories wait to be discovered, hidden treasures in plain sight. Richard Curtis’s About Timereminds me that ordinary days, when seen with attention, are already extraordinary.

These works do more than entertain.

They remind us that life itself can be read as a story if we are willing to notice.

I want to be clear: I don’t write these words as someone with the answers. I don’t have a map, and I’m learning alongside you. My questions are likely yours. How do we slow down when the world keeps accelerating? How do we create when time feels scarce? How do we hold onto beauty when distraction is constant? I don’t know, not completely. But I believe the asking matters, and that story gives us a language for the asking.

So this is where I begin again. Live In Story is not a manual or a guidebook. It is a companion on the road, a place to pause, to reflect, and to notice. Here is my quiet invitation: if your life were a novel, what would this chapter be called? It doesn’t have to be grand or tidy. It only has to be yours. Perhaps this moment is foreshadowing. Perhaps it is a quiet interlude. Whatever it is, it belongs to your story.

That, to me, is what it means to live in story. It is not about controlling the narrative but about recognizing it. It is choosing to see that meaning is already here, waiting to be noticed. Like that quiet scene by the river, when she steps into the water and lets herself drift beneath the sun, we too can find moments of stillness that remind us who we are.

Their presence is like a creative cocktail, shaking loose new ideas and pushing you further than you thought possible.

I’m lucky to have one of those people in my life. Her name is Sam.

I met Sam in 2021 when I was working at a global marketing agency. She was the North American creative director, and I was a senior-level manager. We bonded instantly—two mission-driven storytellers who believe that good ideas can change the world.

Sam has a story for everything and a connection to everyone. She’s basically the mayor of wherever she is. Her energy is electric in the best way. We worked on several projects together, but one moment in particular stands out.

We were building a brand deck for a major client. We’d reached the point where strategy slides and creative direction were all starting to blur. We had options, but no clarity—just that "throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks" energy that can be both frustrating and full of potential.

Some people hate that part. I love it. If you’re with the right person, that chaos becomes play.

Sam and I went back and forth for an hour—storyboarding, Googling, free-associating. At some point, one of us landed on a line that cracked the code. I wish I remembered it (confidentiality and time have erased it), but what stuck with me was the moment we found it.

We paused. We locked eyes. We knew.

And then I started singing, “This is how we do it…” Montell Jordan-style.

Sam grinned, grabbed her phone, and played the song on full blast.

There we were—two writers in a tiny WeWork in Hollywood, dancing to 90s music and finishing a deck. It was ridiculous. And it was perfect.

That moment sticks with me because it represents something I’m always trying to build into my life: a creative circle that fuels me instead of draining me.

The writing life can be deeply solitary. But that doesn’t mean it should be lonely.

We need people who get it. Who clap for the paragraph you finally nailed, not just the book deal. Who celebrate clarity, not just the finished product. Who remind you—when your confidence is cracking—that what you’re doing matters.

That’s what Sam is for me. That’s what I hope to be for others.

And that’s why I’m on a mission to encourage you to surround yourself with the Sams of the world.

There’s a popular quote: “You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” And it holds weight. Your network—and your network’s network—shapes how you think, what you believe is possible, and how you move through the world.

If you’re a writer or creative of any kind, those people matter. They shape your imagination, your emotional endurance, and your relationship to your own work.

So, take inventory. Audit your circle—not just your closest friends, but your broader community. Ask yourself: Does this person lift me up or wear me out? Do they encourage growth or resist it? Do I feel more like myself around them—or less?

If the answers make you uncomfortable, that’s okay. Change is slow, but it starts with awareness.

Inspiration is vital—and it’s also something we can build. It doesn’t have to come from lightning strikes. It can grow from shared laughter in a WeWork office, a story told at the right moment, or a friend who plays the perfect song when you crack a big idea.

Writing is a solo act, but creativity is a communal one. Surround yourself with people who see you. Who celebrate your breakthroughs. Who live in story right alongside you.

Working in a bookshop isn’t new for me, but this one felt different—part bookstore, part town square. A literary hub with coffee, conversation, and characters. That month, it was buzzing with even more creative energy during the O, Miami Poetry Festival.

Inside, poets were “in residence,” asking patrons if they wanted a poem written for them. They handed out slips of paper with questions like:

“Who is the poem for?”

“What are you looking to gain from the poem?”

I didn’t hesitate.

I’d been stuck in a story—rewriting the same paragraph five, maybe six times an hour.

So, on my slip, I wrote that I was in a transitional chapter (both in my book and in my life) and I needed something to help me keep going.

Thirty minutes later, the poet returned with this answer:

Inspiration is everywhere.
If you take the time to look… with wonder.

That one line shifted something.

It helped me finish the scene. More than that, it reminded me why I write at all.

As writers, we’re trained to seek the perfect sentence, the perfect structure, and the perfect idea. But sometimes, what we really need is to remember that stories are happening around us all the time. Whether you’re at a poetry festival in a sun-drenched bookstore, or just sitting at home, wondering what comes next.

Inspiration is everywhere.

We just have to be open enough to see it.

What’s the most unexpected place you’ve found inspiration? I'd love to hear.

The first time I attempted Crow Pose, I fell flat on my face in a room full of 30 sweaty yogis.

It was late summer in Los Angeles. I’d been practicing yoga regularly for two years, and my ego was hotter than the 100-degree studio.

Somehow, I’d avoided this particular posture—until that fateful class, when I suddenly felt invincible. When the instructor called for arm balances, I moved through the steps quickly, eager to prove something.

I crouched low, hips toward heels. Hands planted, fingers spread wide. Core engaged. Knees pressed to upper arms. I shifted forward, locked my eyes on a window beyond the mat, lifted my feet—and SMACK.

My love affair with Crow ended before it even began.

Because I tried to build the structure before laying the foundation.

Yoga (and Life) Isn’t About the Finish Line

I wish I could say I tried again the next day. But I didn’t.

Crow (or Bakasana) requires strength, flexibility, balance, and patience. I had none of those. I just wanted to tick the box.

Some people pursue yoga for the aesthetic—an Instagrammable headstand or a graceful balance pose. I get it. But over time, I’ve come to see yoga less as a goal, and more as a process.

In March 2023, I recommitted to my practice. I didn’t have a pose in mind—I just wanted to become stronger, more grounded, and more present in my body.

Still, I thought about that first Crow attempt. And I asked myself some hard questions:

• Was I really practicing consistently?

• Was I preparing for the hard stuff or avoiding it?

• Was I afraid of failing in front of others?

The truth was obvious: I never laid the building blocks. I jumped to the finish line without earning it. I assumed that showing up three times a week was enough, but I wasn’t truly there. I was rushing, checking boxes, half-listening to my body.

That’s not how transformation works.

This Time, I Did It Differently

I practiced almost every day.

Some days were hard. Some were just stretching. But I kept showing up—especially for the boring stuff: shoulder strength, core work, weight shifts. I stopped skipping the prep.

For weeks, I played with Crow in class. I didn’t try to “nail” it—I just got familiar. I’d roll forward without lifting my feet, then try lifting one foot, then the other. I made space to wobble. I gave myself permission not to master it.

And then, one day, I held Crow for a full two breaths.

It wasn’t perfect. But it was mine.

I looked up at my teacher and said, “It’s progress.”

She smiled: “Progress over perfection.”

Since then, I’ve practiced Crow many times. Some days I fall out of it. Some days I surprise myself. But I’m no longer afraid of face-planting—because now, I trust the process.

The Pose Is a Mirror

Crow Pose isn’t just a pose. It’s a metaphor for any big, slow, beautiful thing we’re trying to do:

• Writing a novel

• Starting a business

• Learning how to be in a real relationship

• Finding your footing again after a loss

None of these things happen overnight. And they shouldn't.

The joy is in the building blocks—the pieces that don’t look flashy, but make everything possible.

The progress is in the showing up.

The growth is in the fall.

And the story? It’s unfolding the whole time, whether or not we feel ready to tell it.

This is the craft of living—and like any good story, it takes time, revision, and courage to return to the mat.

Writers are no strangers to creative drought. We talk a lot about writer’s block—the blank screen, the blinking cursor, the prayers to the creativity gods.

But there’s another kind of stuck: creative overload.
The kind where your brain is bursting with ideas, and somehow, you still can’t move forward.

The Buffet of Too Many Ideas

Creative overload is the head side of the writing coin.
It’s exhilarating. Inspiring. Paralyzing.

You’re standing at a buffet of story ideas—each one glittering with potential—and you don’t know where to start. Instead of writing, you’re bouncing between possibilities. And nothing gets done.

Writers are often told to:

• Write everything down.

• Pick the most exciting idea.

• Return to the one that won’t let you go.

• Take a break. Clear your head.

All good advice. But incomplete.

Because the ideas aren’t always the problem.

Another Issue

For me, creative overwhelm happens when I’m not taking enough action.
And the ideas that show up? They’re always massive.

Think: epic novels. Generational sagas. Metaphorical operas.

I get stuck because I assume every idea must become a Big Project.

But what if… it doesn’t?

The Exercise That Changed Everything

Back in 2021, a brilliant career coach gave me a prompt I now use anytime I’m creatively fried.

Here it is:

Write down every idea that’s popped into your head, then ask:
What else can this be?

Yes, seriously.

Could it be…

• A poem?

• A short story?

• A podcast episode?

• A party theme?

• A song?

• A painting?

• A collage?

One of my favorite examples of this in my own life: I had this sprawling idea—a reverse Orpheus and Eurydice set within the 1930s New Orleans mob world, blending noir and horror. It was rich and cinematic and... completely overwhelming for my then twenty-one-year-old self.

So, I made a collage. That’s it. No draft. No outline. Just images, textures, shadows, mood.
It helped me exhale. It helped me keep going.

This exercise is about giving your creativity somewhere to land, even if it’s not where you originally imagined.

Try It Yourself

1. List every idea floating around in your head. One sentence or title each.

2. Ask: What else could this be?

3. Choose the version that takes the least effort and do it.
   Even if it’s messy. Even if it feels small.

Small creative wins matter. They keep the channel open. They build momentum. They help you live in story even when you’re not writing a novel.

If you try this, I’d love to hear what your overwhelming idea became or if you’ve ever taken a wild story and turned it into something smaller, faster, or totally unexpected.

Drop it in the comments or send me a note.

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The Gilmore Girls Season 3 finale aired twenty-two (ish) years ago. As a twelve-year-old super fan, I watched as the episode served up a cocktail of triumphs—Rory’s powerful valedictorian speech dedicated to her resilient mother, Lorelai, and Lorelai finally achieving her dream of owning an inn—mixed with the understated, no less bitter bite of Jess and Rory’s breakup. It’s a perfect 45 minutes of television.

Looking back now, I love how it brilliantly closes one chapter of the Gilmore Girls’ stories while opening another. But at the time? I was furious.

Of course, I loved the episode. But I had so many questions. What happens next? Will Jess and Rory reconnect? Does Jess make a last-minute grand gesture and meet up with Rory and Lorelai in Europe?

This is where I should admit something: I love spoilers.

I read the ends of books first. I sometimes stream the last episode of a series before I even start it. People find this appalling. “How could you do that? Doesn’t it ruin everything?” No. It often makes it better.

We don’t get spoilers in real life. We don’t know how our decisions will turn out. But with books and TV? We can cheat the system. We can know how it ends before we even begin.

Except in 2003, I couldn’t. No streaming. No staying up late to binge-watch the next season. No Netflix thumbnails casually giving away key plot points. I couldn’t even rewatch the episode unless I had taped it (spoiler: I hadn’t).

So, I did the next best thing.

I pulled out my pink fuzzy journal, tore out pages of a fantasy story I’d abandoned, and started scribbling—scene after scene, imagining my version of Season 4. In my world, Rory and Jess worked things out, learned from their mistakes, and built something better.

Hours later, I put the pen down and realized something strange: I felt better. The restlessness, the unanswered questions, the frustration—they were gone. I had created my version, and somehow, that was enough.

Writing Our Own Stories—Literally and Figuratively

At twelve, I didn’t care if my version of Gilmore Girls was "right." I didn’t write for an audience or second-guess my choices. I just needed to get it down on the page.

And now, as an adult and a writer, I look back at that moment and realize how foundational it was—not just for my love of storytelling, but for the way I navigate life.

Because having the courage to write your own story is everything.

It’s scary. It’s uncertain. It often means making choices without knowing how they’ll turn out. But whether on the page or in real life, storytelling gives us a way to make sense of it all.

We don’t always get spoilers. But we do get to decide what happens next.

Welcome to Live In Story

Stories have always been my way of understanding the world—whether through writing, film, or the creative process itself. Live In Story is where I explore the art of storytelling and the craft of living.

Some weeks, I’ll break down what makes a story immersive. Other times, I’ll reflect on the messy creative process or the lessons we take from the narratives we love.

Either way, I’m glad you’re here.

Cheers & XO,
Karen