New Moon, New Year, New Chapter

Things have been in the dark over here for many weeks due to big life changes, and the dust is still settling (for now). It is 5 am on the first day in 2025—I am choosing to use the solitude of the early hour to to finally, finally write.

I am inching ever forwards in a relocation to Western NC, and every so often I can access the part of me that can write or move my body. I had lived in Baltimore for almost ten years, it was my home; and so I have been grieving the loss of that life with close friends, most mere blocks away. Google maps slaps me in the face every time I try to get around in my new town, inquiring if I am trying to return back to my Baltimore address. I spend all day everyday with my child who loved her friends and has only ever known Baltimore, and our house there and her treasured forest school. The canopy enveloping all of this is me dissociating at my worst, compartmentalizing at my best as I organize, unpack, and reinstate our existence in the myriad of ways modern society requires, all with a four year old assistant.

The Move

In a lot of ways this move has felt like a break-up. In so many ways it is a wonderful opportunity for my family but I MISS my Baltimore life. There were so many built-in, daily ways that community made my world go round. I wouldn’t say I took them for granted, the closer we got to leaving the more claustrophobic my insides felt knowing I would be starting over in community, the fact that I had created such an ever present network a weak assurance I could do it again. I see now how the older we get, a big move gets less seductive, we get SCARED. I am very much so still in the what-have-I-done phase. At the same time, while I kick myself on a weekly basis as the change evoking member in my family unit, I know I never want to rest on my laurels.

Timing has been a strange, serendipitous element in this transition, with my husband getting a job offer the same day that Helene forever changed the landscape and lives of our soon to be hometown of Asheville. The day that he drove our belongings down from Maryland, the city of Asheville lifted the boil advisory on the city’s water–for two and a half months the people of Asheville were without potable water. Yesterday, the last day of 2024, we sold our house in Baltimore, which feels like the book-end of this initial chapter.

I was able to go on a hike yesterday with my family, something we did growing up over summer breaks. My daughter was hopping from rock to rock, excited to see where the stream went. The trees swayed ceremoniously and the clouds were swift, the wind blowing rain into the valley out of what felt like nowhere. The stress that has burrowed deep in my body over the past two months of moving, the past two weeks of being with family relinquished just the tiniest bit. I love the drama of the weather here, but that sense of wonder I have always had about it gets cut short now knowing there are so many people throughout the region who are weathering this winter without their homes post Helene. A friend of mine passed an article onto me, Who Owns The Mountains by Olivia Paschal that has my gears turning–how to immerse myself in a traumatized, grieving community with intention? In the wake of this natural disaster, how will towns be rebuilt and for who? Mutual funding and neighborly reciprocity have made an impact as federal aid gets tied up in bureaucracy. If you would like to contribute, I am listing two programs that are doing meaningful work below.

Beloved Asheville is a non-profit that participated in the initial crisis response post Helene with basic necessities including healthcare, clean water and food, while also committing to long term projects like their “Beloved Village”, offering need-based, equitable housing thoughtfully designed to encourage community via gardens, play spaces etc. From delivering heaters and tiny homes to the displaced, to formally gathering latinx community leaders to engage with WNC latinx youth they do good work!

Save Beacon Village is a gofund me hosted by the Beacon Village Neighborhood of Swannanoa, NC to rebuild their homes. The community did not have flood insurance and are pending approval for the FEMA elevation program. They have been hard at work gutting what is left, removing siding, chimneys and the like ahead of WNC winter (bare in mind Helene hit at the beginning of October, there has been little to no time), determined to rebuild their lives. There are so so many artists and small businesses that hail from this area, that lost out on the biggest season of revenue on top of losing their practice spaces and studios. I don’t have a comprehensive list but buying small, from WNC is so appreciated at this time. As I edit this L.A. is battling multiple wildfires and winter storms are endangering people, wildlife and the like. It is a tough season we are in for so many reasons, and a day doesn’t go by in my new hometown that I don’t cross paths with someone who has been personally touched by disaster, may we be kind and collective-minded with what we have, it is ever the way forward.

For now, we ride out this reset happening on universal levels. I have been helping friends old and new with perimenopause issues here and there, the business as a guide ever present in my mind, however far on the back burner. I am hoping to host some free, virtual menopause circles once I have a little time to myself to organize. I am sowing seeds of reciprocity, of rest (where I can find it), or pondering this winter season. I am reading Northwoods by Daniel Mason, a delight as we look for a new home and miss our old one. The idea of all of us leaving lasting impressions in these cherished spaces is comforting to me at this time. I recently finished The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry and wow, I cannot recommend it enough. As bad as I am about romanticizing life in order to get through it this book invokes the idea that you live for what you intuit to be special and miraculous…

I am a fermenting freak it turns out! I have my first batch of sauerkraut off gassing, sourdough bulk fermenting in my oven, and a friend is sending me milk kefir grains. I am listening to Know Your Budget thanks to a friend, (Kelci Tillman, who has a wonderfully dreamy and heady Substack as well that I cannot recommend enough, I miss her dearly !!!) YNAB is drawing me into more intentional, less wasteful ways to spend my money and slowly breaking down the walls of my money anxiety. It will be essential to tackle as I ready myself to really give the menopause guide business a-go. Finance stuff gives me the ick but YNAB is less about making money, and more about how your spending habits align with your core values and the ways you want to spend your time? What ways can you organize money so that you are not stressed by your finances and you can make financial decisions from a clear headed and knowledgeable place on a regular basis? So for now, I am cancelling my streaming accounts and spending my evenings fermenting <3