Part 1: Shedding

am I talking about skin or personal growth? u decide.

Sometimes I think I'm failing; I'm learning to be patient. Hbu?

I began How About You in my office.

It is an eccentric little room, a patchwork quilt of the person I am and the people I have been. A massive art deco mirror painted almost garishly with black and gold wildcats sits just above a little altar, which is covered with two Turkish towels and littered with crystals and feathers and incense. My standard “mid-century modern” pre-fab desk is nothing to write home about, but simple and nice enough to fade into the background— across it I usually have various books, my journal, pens, and easily two or three empty seltzer cans. The little drawer is stuffed with fake nails and batteries and pens and cables and tweezers and bobby pins and lighters and an ankle brace and pimple patches and and my little supplement pill box. I am, to my delight, prepared for almost anything.

On the wall above the desk I’ve hung about forty paint samples, a neon lightning bolt and rainbow, a piece of gradient-and-text art by a poet friend. A few of my belongings hang in the closet, mainly things I don't wear very often--photoshoot clothing, a black blazer, and a couple of avant-garde dresses—there is one with sequin patches on the breast and back of it that I sewed on myself, and wore in a music video.

I feel like myself in this room, somehow. I am not a person who has historically felt that I really and truly know myself, a reality which is more than evident in my lifelong (so far) fixation on personal growth. I come to write and work in here because, no matter what is going on in my mind, in this room I often find myself in tune with something deep and interesting and mysterious and beautiful. I have come here in the dark to bask in the glow of the neon lights and work on songs that deeply move me. I feel thrilled here. I feel inspired here. I feel safe here. I have made love to the muse in here. Perhaps especially in this room, in the blur of despair and delight that is songwriting, I am always shedding skin. Today I am packing up the crystals and the feathers (the incense stays) and putting them away somewhere for another time or another person—I'm not sure which.

How About You will be released on 9/29. (If you happened to read my last update, it said something different than this — plans shifted a bit and that song is coming out after this one instead :) more on that later.) I am more than ecstatic to announce this—this song has kind of cut me open or something. I’ve made a lot of music, and I love it all. But some songs seem to glimmer a bit more dazzingly in the sun, and I am moved every time I hear them — How About You is one of those. It feels both river deep and mountain high. It is immersive, heartfelt, sparkling. Can you tell I’m in love? I’m so proud of it. I can’t wait to share it next week!!

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xo,

Audrey