Come and join me on the porch!
This is where I sit with my heart (preferrably on a porch swing), look out across the landscape and reflect on where I've been, where I'm going, and what I'm learning along the way.
Since February 19th, 2026, I have been publishing daily reflections on my Substack, Life by a Thousand Cuts.
It's certainly not a quest for virality. This is a practice of giving my voice, life, and self a place to exist however they need to.
Every day, I randomly select a message I've cut from a collection of literary ephemera I've gathered over the last five years.
Once a cut is selected (though I admit I am not above putting one back if my immediate reaction is "eh, not today"), I use it as a writing prompt and invite whatever wants to be written onto the page. The result is a growing collection of essays exploring inner child healing, personal growth and power, identity, creativity, spirituality, feminine embodiment, love, and the ongoing process of becoming.
The collection of cuts is eclectic: early-2000s Christian sex education books, Penthouse magazines from the 1970s and 80s, vintage interior design and gardening books, Architectural Digest, self-help books, travel pamphlets, and more. I hunt for fun books at library books sales and thrift stores.
Why these things? Because they tell the story of where I come from, what I’ve grown through and what fascinates me. I grew up in a deeply evangelical Christian household with “pastor” parents, while also being the little girl who loved driving through neighborhoods looking at beautiful homes with her family. I watched my parents make vision boards filled with dream houses long before I started creating vision journals of my own. Somewhere in that collection of clippings lives a map of my curiosities, contradictions, upbringing, and aspirations.
The practice has become a way of returning to and existing as myself...cut by cut, message by message. With each piece, I create space for something to bleed out and back into my life. Taking what is hidden or stowed away and allowing it to emerge, speak, grieve, celebrate, remember, or come back to life.
It keeps my relationship with writing strong (I want to be the greatest friend to my creativity) and sharpens my ability to find meaning in unexpected places. It reminds me that creativity is less about waiting for inspiration and more about creating the conditions for it to arrive.