i'm back. thank you for taking care of me. (and warning: achingly beautiful photos). (Patreon)

hello my loves.

greetings from queenstown, aotearoa new zealand. way down by antarctica.

when the cold winds blows, it's cold.

i've just taken my laptop out of my bag after eight or nine days of not touching it and it's funny, to feel out of practice, clumsily typing these words. i'm tired. it's 9:15 pm here. i'm proud that i feel clumsy. it's amazing to me. typing? i remember that.

first off, two things....thank you for your beautiful comments faring me goodbye last week when i posted before dropping away, i just read them all. you're all so beautiful and kind to me. thank you. and i'm especially happy that many of you are enjoying the starry comfort playlist i made. it makes me happy to fill your ears with pretty sounds.

i have.....slowed down.

i will need to speed up - a little, at least - soon...there is the "ask amanda" column to tend to and launch on substack (i need to as your advice about some promo photos...that'll come tomorrow or the next day), i have the january althing to work on/edit/write, and there is constant ominous and menacing pile of very, very dusty projects and videos and podcasts to somehow try to make sense of but....meanwhile....

i have been not working. 

i have been just fucking BEING. resting. healing. from the trauma and gobsmacking fuckshow of this last eighteen months. i have been healing. 

and for a good week i did not touch my phone, or my laptop, or wear a timepiece, or look at a clock. 

i hiked about 40 miles (65k) in the mountain trails around here. 

i settled my mind. i was silent a lot. i meditated. i didn't eat sugar, or drink coffee or alcohol. i ate vegan. i just cleaned out the whole system. flusshhhhhhhh.

you supported me. 

you're paying for all this, you know. i wasn't doing this in a tent all by my fucking self on a cliff edge. i was at a yoga retreat, for christ's sake, and it cost real-ass dollars.

so...that felt real. i felt held. 

by all of you.

i was able to not work. or scramble. or hustle.

i was able to let go.

i sat in the sun.

i thought a lot, as i hiked and sat, and swam, and watched my fingers settle from their desire to doomscroll at all hours.

i thought a lot about the internet, and about writing, about my body of work, my past, my often-damaging speech habits, my fragile little ego. 

i thought about my songs, and this patreon and what it means to use it.

i thought a lot about the climate crisis, and ash, and new zealand, and covid, and america, and trump, and biden, and vaccines, and anger, and pain, and suffering. 

i thought a lot about my body.

i thought a lot about sex.

i thought a lot about food. 

about coffee. wine. cigarettes. chocolate. 

habits. 

i thought about being alone. about being together.

i thought a lot about why i eat my cuticles, still, at forty-five, when i'm really anxious.

i wrote songs in my head and let them go. 

i wrote songs in my head that were too good to let go and i recorded them into my phone, not feeling guilty at all for grabbing my phone out of semi-retirement. those will probably end up on the new dresden dolls record. so when you hear it one day...remember. i wrote those songs here:

i thought a lot about the people in my life. 

thousands of people who have come and gone, helped me, harmed me, hid me, loved me, hurt me, held me, emptied me, whole-d me.

i thought about the people, right now on earth, who care about me genuinely and deeply, who show up again and again with their loving words, kind and quiet support, their gentle ways, you all included. 

i thought about where to put my time.

i thought about the kind of company i have kept in the past, and about the kind of company i want to keep in the future. i thought about what i want to put into my body. i thought about how i self-soothe when i'm sad and tired. i thought about what i cannot change. i thought about what i cannot fix. 

i thought about sleep. i slept less than usual, but felt like a god when i awoke.

i thought about love.

i thought about poetry. 

i thought about the parts of myself that i have have missed for years; long-absent-friend-parts of myself that i am starting to recognize again with the kind of ecstatic and surprised joy you feel when you see an old poetic comrade who you knew once and loved...and didn't even know you missed. oh you!!! old friend!!! 

i thought about all the business that has clouded the actual poetry and enjoyment of life.

so many things - people, relationships, tours, projects, friendships, ideas, alliances - have begun and ended in a frenzy. things have cycled. people have been born and died.

as above, so below.

i thought about how i am surrounded - here in aotearoa new zealand, and overseas in my old haunts and home ports - by some of the most quality human beings the world has to offer. i have such incredible, caring, meaningful friends. 

i kissed the ground at one point, in the darkness, thinking about how lucky i am to have a circle of friends around me that hold me tight in their arms - unconditionally, and sometimes from so far away - in raging storms that would take down the strongest women. i am blessed. it rages outside, but i am seen. i am held. i am safe.

i have been through hell these past few years. 

but because of the human beings who have supported me, i am starting to edge out the other side of hell covered in glitter.....and laughing. because of my friends, because of my patrons, because of you.....

because of the wide net of love and compassion that keeps showing up every time i most need it, even when the fall is miles, and miles, and miles into the darkest reaches of hades.

you. you catch me.

you help me. 

you illuminate the dark.

i'm eating so well.

i am staying at my friend simone's house before i go home to ash and neil.

my friend simone is gone, so i have the place to myself.

i feed her pig every day. her name is pigsy.

i am borrowing my other friend's car. her name is jane. not the car, the friend. i don't know if the car has a name.

i have learned how to plug it in, away from the pig.

i didn't know you could plug a car right into a house.

my friend simone taught me where the bore on her land is and how to reset the water meter when there's a power cut out here in the middle of nowhere, because the power cuts a lot.

i am becoming so kiwi.

(that's my friend, simone).

here's another friend, shantel. we are hugging.

this morning, we went for a two-hour hike and then swimming in lake wakatipu.

it is very green-blue and very, very cold. glacial. 

the lake is made of snow.

i have never been happier in my life.

i have never felt such love, and calm stillness, and a deep and quiet sort of readiness.

i've been talking to many of my friends back home in the states over the last day or two. and everyone just sounds exhausted, beleaguered, out of juice, frustrated....just....over it.

i am here to tell you that i, for once in my fucking life, am not tired.

i listened. 

to you, mostly.

i rested.

thank you, patrons.

thank you, universe.

thank you, aotearoa new zealand.

soon, back to work. 

but everything will feel different. clearer. brighter. calmer.

my love for you all, and for everything right now, is unfathomably massive.

i love you.

i love you.

i.....love you.

how are you all doing? 

tell me. about anything. i'm reading.

(also, webchat-tier folks, i'm hopping on the home base chat thread right now as well...).

xxx

afp