Finding the Frequency: When Wild Hearts Connect
Sometimes, the strangest stories find you at just the right time—little lightning bolts that remind you why you are the way you are, why your own wild heart beats to its own rhythm. I recently stumbled upon the tale of the Birdman of Alcatraz, a convicted murderer who, from a cold prison cell on a rock in the middle of a bay, penned a detailed book called Diseases of Canaries. He smuggled that manuscript out, page by painstaking page. Against all odds, that dusty little volume earned the respect of bird lovers across the world.
That kind of strange, obsessive brilliance? Yeah, I get it. That book belongs on my shelf—wedged somewhere between my beat-up copy of Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer and William S. Burroughs’ raw genius in Queer. It’s a trophy of sorts, a defiant reminder that art doesn’t need permission. Sometimes, it just needs stubbornness, a pen, and a little room to make noise—even from inside a cage.
Bookshelves and Boundary-Breaking
Speaking of space, my husband recently bought me four sleek Danish bookshelves. A hopeful gesture, perhaps, that maybe—just maybe—housing the chaos would contain it. He knows better, of course. Books breed when you’re not looking, multiplying like wildflowers after a spring rain. But maybe love is just that—making space for someone’s beautiful clutter. Honoring the uncontainable parts of them. Or, you know, carrying twelve boxes of paperbacks across state lines without asking questions.
Because yes—we moved. Arizona to North Carolina. We packed our life into yellow and black bins and hit the road because… it just felt like fucking time. Not a midlife crisis. Not a calculated career leap. Just a gut-level, universe-whispering “go.” The kind of move you make when the old storyline has run its course, and you’re ready to write something new—even if you’re not totally sure what it’s about yet.
Rolling East: A Road Trip Symphony
Driving here was both easier and stranger than I expected. We rolled through time zones like a traveling circus with poor planning and free breakfasts. New Mexico was our desert farewell; past that, it was like the earth exhaled and forgot to bring the sand. Amarillo was flat and forgettable, except we somehow managed to order a full-on seafood boil—crab legs, crawfish, shrimp—the works—in landlocked Texas.
Oklahoma gave me the creeps. I stepped out to the car at night and genuinely expected someone to come sprinting out of a cornfield like a rejected horror movie extra. In Kentucky, we crossed a bridge that looked like it was made of Tinker Toys—structurally questionable, but whimsical as hell. We hit Nashville and did what you’re supposed to do: ate hot chicken sandwiches we immediately regretted. Asheville was quirky and bohemian—definitely going to spend more time there.
And of course, Millie—our loyal Goldendoodle and road trip therapist—was along for the ride. She sniffed the air in Kentucky with this weird ancestral intensity. We joked that she knew. She should know. She was born there. “She’s the easiest thing about this trip,” my husband noted.
Chapel Hill: Where the Trees Eat the Sky
Enter Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
The funny thing is, being here already feels familiar. My grandma was born just a couple hours south of where we landed. She was pure Southern elegance—long fingers, mauve nails, closets full of fancy dresses that smelled like mothballs and minks. She said “shrimp” like “srimp” and could rock a lipstick in black-and-white photos like it was war paint. I swear I catch her in the breeze sometimes—bossing the hydrangeas or fussing at the deer.
The trees, they just devour everything here, a green tsunami. If the world ever went dark, the trees would swallow the cities whole, highways turning into forgotten paths gobbled up by the relentless green. The houses sprawl, each with its own patch of earth, like Pinetop without the hicks and the rebel flags. Every corner seems to house a doctor, a testament to the pulsating heart of the medical schools at Duke and UNC. And the creatures are everywhere—spiders spinning cosmic webs, deer standing sentinel by the roadside, huge bucks with chandeliers on their head strutting through Chapel Hill neighborhoods like they own the joint. Everything here, it’s alive, vibrating with a raw, untamed energy, a testament to the vibrant, chaotic hum of existence itself. Firefly’s own the night.
We’re slowly learning the lay of the land, letting the rhythm of this place sink in. Soccer is king here—my son’s been deep in English soccer camp all week, and next week, he and my husband are heading to the Bayern Munich match in Charlotte. Meanwhile, my daughter and I are taking off on a girls’ trip to the Outer Banks to meet up with some friends from back home. A little salt air, a little sand between our toes, and a whole lot of new memories waiting to be made.
Slangshot 