I’m a person who loves signs, synchronicities, and learning the story behind things. So I’ve been thinking about weaving more of that into the writing, the kind of thing that, once you know it, you start seeing everywhere.

There are two directions I keep circling: the secret life of colors, and the secret life of symbols. I can’t decide, because both feel important to me.

Each week would come with the story behind a color or symbol, and one question to carry with you.

So I’m asking you. Here’s a little taste of each.

Behind the Scenes: Colors

Electric Blue

On April 26, 1986, a 24-year-old engineer at Chernobyl heard a thud. Seconds later, he realized radiation was filling the air. He later described what he saw: “I could see a huge beam of projected light flooding up into infinity from the reactor… It was light bluish, and it was very beautiful.”

Electric blue walked into history in the 19th century, showing up in a British drapers’ journal in 1874. Today we see it as the color of the future, the glow of screens in films like Minority Report. Sometimes that future feels unnerving. The image above isn’t unnerving at all. That one singular color holds the serenity of a night sky and the terror of the future

Where in your life are you holding two truths at the same time?

_{Source: Kassia St Clair, The Secret Lives of Colour. Engineer’s account as quoted in the book.}

Behind the Scenes: Symbols

The Compass

For centuries, the compass has been both a practical tool and a symbol of our search for order, direction, and meaning. On old maps, the fleur-de-lis marking north is often said to have started as a T, for Tramontana, the north wind.

A magnetic compass can be thrown off by its surroundings (hi, that’s me). Our inner compass gets thrown off too, pulled between what we know consciously and what we carry underneath. That’s why finding your direction is never one decision. It’s constant course correcting, until the parts of you finally line up. Aka, True North.

Where are you ignoring your own compass?

_{Source: The Book of Symbols: Reflections on Archetypal Images, ARAS, published by Taschen.}

So, which would you rather receive?

And if there’s a color or symbol you’ve always wondered about, tell me in the comments. It might become a Field Note.

The first one lands in October. I can’t wait to start.

— Jolene

A child at Northview Heights said it this summer while we were making the scenery for their production of The Wiz. She pointed at a section of a flat — one section, very specifically hers — and said:

“I painted that.”

I have been going to Northview Heights on the North Side of Pittsburgh for a summers now. The first time, I brought a mural design of the Pittsburgh skyline and a lot of buckets, and then I handed the paintbrushes to kids between seven and twelve years old, which meant handing over control of my own design. The paint did not land where I imagined it would. Colors overlapped. Somebody made a choice I never would have made.

This summer I came back for the play. Different job. Same thing happened. Somebody stood in front of a piece of scenery and claimed it out loud.

What struck me was not the pride, though there was plenty of that, and she had earned it.

It was the tense.

Painted. Past. Finished. Settled. Said about a piece of scenery that will come down when the run ends, get broken apart, and probably end up in a dumpster in an alley, the way most of what I’ve made in twenty-five years has ended up. She said it like it was permanent. And I think she was right and I was wrong about which part was the permanent part.

The flat is temporary. The sentence isn’t.

Because “I painted that” is not really about paint. It’s about I was here. My hands were part of this. Something exists because I contributed to it. That doesn’t come down with the set.

I spend a lot of time thinking about what remains after something ends. Probably too much. But I keep landing in the same place: the thing that lasts is almost never the thing I thought I was making.

What’s something you made that no longer exists — and what did you keep from making it?

Being the person in front has always been much harder.

I learned early how to read a room. My childhood was shaped by chaos and domestic violence, so I became highly attuned to what was happening around me—the energy, the tension, the things being said without words. That awareness eventually made me very good at creating environments and telling stories visually. It also made me very good at staying useful behind the scenes without allowing myself to be fully seen.

That is something I am trying to change.

This past February, I attended a Chinese New Year celebration where an intuitive was answering questions onstage. I had been challenging myself to do more things that made me uncomfortable, because I believe those same things make me feel most alive.

So I stood up in front of a room full of people and asked my question.

When I spoke about the work I am building now—bringing aesthetics and awareness together, helping people read their own rooms, understand what their spaces are revealing, and create environments that better reflect the lives they are trying to live—Jenny D was listening.

Afterward, she approached me and invited me onto her podcast.

That small act of bravery led to this podcast conversation.

We talked about art, grief, signs from the other side, rebuilding a life, working behind the scenes in the entertainment industry, and what it means to finally step forward and tell your own story.

This conversation was not simply about my work.

It was part of the work.

It was me practicing what I am still learning: I do not have to disappear in order to create something meaningful.

Thank you, Jenny, for giving me such a warm and honest place to step forward.

Listen to our conversation here—and please follow Jenny while you are there. She tells real stories about real people, and I believe we need more of that type of honesty out there.

New here?

I didn’t paint it with paint, exactly. It was a heavy-grade adhesive—basically a giant sticker—cut into shape, laid down, and then painted safety yellow. Bright enough to read instantly. Then aged, so it didn’t look new. It had to feel like it had always been there.

That was the goal.

We had 24 hours.

I installed it early in the morning, knowing it would be driven over all day—golf carts, crew, equipment. There wasn’t really a way to test it at that scale. At some point, you just have to commit.

I remember watching the first cart roll over it.

Waiting.

To see if an edge would lift. If the illusion would break. It didn’t. It held.

For a few hours, those arrows directed traffic like they belonged there. Like they had history. Like they had been part of that space long before we showed up.

And then, just as quickly, they were gone.

Sometimes you don’t know if something will work until someone drives right over it.

There was a time when a refrigerator was just a refrigerator. A door was just a door. You opened it. You got what you needed. You closed it. End of interaction.

Simple.

Now I hesitate sometimes. There’s a pause somewhere in the back of my mind that didn’t exist before. A kind of awareness. Because I’ve stepped through one before. At Meow Wolf Santa Fe, I opened a refrigerator and walked into something that didn’t follow the rules I understood.

And the strange part is—I didn’t hesitate. No panic. No resistance. Just— Okay. We’re here now.

It makes me wonder how many other doorways I’ve walked past without stepping through. Not literal ones. Not hidden passages behind kitchen appliances (but maybe?!) But moments that could have opened into something else entirely—if I had let them.

The thing is, I am a curious person. If I see a door, I open it. Whether it’s in a place we’re filming or somewhere inside someone’s mind. If it holds the promise of expansion, my curiosity tends to win.

For better or worse.

But familiarity changes things.

When you know a space—like your own kitchen—you stop questioning it. A refrigerator door doesn’t feel like a possibility. It feels like a guarantee. You already know what’s on the other side.

Most people don’t open their closet expecting to be surprised.

But what about the doors you don’t recognize as doors? The ones hidden inside something familiar. The ones you move past because nothing about them asks you to look twice. The ones within yourself.

Maybe it’s just this—

A willingness to let something feel unfamiliar for a second longer than you normally would. To not immediately explain it. Or categorize it. Or move past it.

I still open doors the same way. But there’s a quiet knowing that the world isn’t as fixed as it looks. That reality has edges you can soften, if you know how.

Not every doorway leads somewhere new. But once you’ve walked through one that does— you don’t forget that it’s possible.

I spent years painting and designing worlds for film, television, and theater — places that had to feel real, even when they weren’t.

So when I got to paint an alien sculpture for a toy store opening, it felt like the perfect little collision of everything I love: imagination, storytelling, color, character, and making a space feel just a little more alive.

This is the kind of work I love most — when an object stops being just an object and starts becoming part of the story of a place.

I also paint custom artwork from photographs, murals, objects, and pieces that help bring a room, brand, or memory to life. You can see more or inquire here: www.madebydames.com.

It is different from painting. Painting makes me work for it. I have to adjust, ruin, fix, repaint, and negotiate with the thing until it finally decides what it wants to be. And even then it sometimes likes to continue to argue.

Digital art gives me a little instant gratification.

I run a filter. I push the contrast. I tweak the saturation until it sits right on the edge of too much. It feels a little like putting on makeup.

Same face. Different vibe.

The photo is still the photo. The place is still the place. But the color changes the mood. The contrast changes the memory. Suddenly, the image starts telling a different truth.

That is what happened with this Taos image.

I didn’t know I needed this version until I made it. The original photo held the place. This version holds the feeling.

Maybe that is what I am doing with memoir too.

Taking the same life, the same memories, the same old photographs, and adjusting the contrast until I can finally see what they were trying to show me.

It wasn’t the biggest thing in the landscape. It didn’t demand attention. But something about it held the entire scene together. Quiet, grounded, completely itself.

I kept thinking about it after I left Taos. So I painted it.

This is my way of holding onto a moment that didn’t ask to be remembered—but stayed anyway.

Here’s the time lapse video.

And I wasn’t exaggerating when I said that.

The other thing is that when you create illusions for a living, it becomes really hard to trust what you see.

And I can go either way.

If I see something that I don’t think is real, and I check it—and it is real—I don’t just accept it.

I start thinking about how it was constructed. How it was created to look that way.

And on the flip side, when I see something that isn’t real— I think about the exact same thing.

How was it built? What did it cost? Was it less money to have scenic create it? Or would it have been more cost-effective to just use the real thing?

Seeing the world through this lens, honestly it never really turns off. And I don’t think people realize what that does to you over time. Because eventually, you stop just seeing things.

You start reading them.

And then there’s this other realization that always comes in…

Nothing needs to stay.

Everything in movies is temporary.

Everything.

We build entire worlds knowing they’re going to be painted over, torn down, or turned into something else. Sometimes we spend days getting something just right—and then we change it. Because it’s not about permanence. It’s about what works.

And once that really sinks in—you can’t help but start thinking about your own life that way.

If nothing has to stay…then what am I holding onto? Or what can I create right now?

If everything can be changed… then why am I living with things that don’t feel right?

This is where it stopped being about movie sets for me. Because I started to realize, if I don’t like something in my house, or in my life, or even in myself, I don’t have just to accept it.

I can look at it.

I can question it.

And I can change it.

And that sounds really simple. But it’s not. Because if everything is changeable then what am I choosing not to change?

What am I tolerating that I don’t actually have to?

What have I convinced myself is just “the way it is” that isn’t?

That’s the part that gets uncomfortable.

Because in movies, we change things all the time. We’ll start something, and the Production Designer will come in and say, “This needs to be a completely different color.” And we change it. We don’t argue with it. We don’t say, “but it was already done.”We just… change it. Until it works.

So I have to ask myself: Why don’t we do that in real life?

I read a lot about perception and how we’re not actually seeing reality. We are actually interpreting it. Filling in the gaps. Focusing on certain things and completely missing others.

Seeing what we expect to see.

And the more I think about it, the harder it is to ignore because we’re not just living in reality. We’re participating in it.

So if that’s true…

then what am I reinforcing? What am I choosing to see? What am I ignoring?What version of my life (or myself!) am I actively building without even realizing it? Because at some point, this stops being about illusion. And starts being about responsibility.

Because it’s one thing to realize nothing is permanent. It’s another thing to realize you’re the one holding the key to so many other versions of the worlds you know.

And once you see that, you can’t unsee it.

So now the question isn’t just: What am I creating?

It becomes:

Why am I creating it this way…and what would it take to change it?

I’ve been off work for about a week and a half now. We were snowed in from the Snowmageddon of 2026.

I was supposed to leave town—drive through Buffalo, head up to Sar…

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When I started Skewed North, I thought I was simply writing stories. Stories from movie sets. Stories from chasing inspiration across continents. Stories about love, loss, chaos, and the occasional WTF moment that makes you stop and ask, wait… what just happened?

I didn’t have a grand plan. I just needed somewhere to put the stories that kept piling up.

But over time something unexpected happened.

The stories started organizing themselves.

Patterns began to appear.

My life—like most lives, it turns out—has chapters.

There was the Globe-Squatting era, when my sidekick and I tried to house-sit our way around the world. There was Panic Quietly, when everything looked fine on the outside but was quietly falling apart underneath. There was the Wandering Widow era, which changed the way I see the world—and myself—forever.

And then came Recalibration: the slow process of figuring out what the hell to do with the rest of my life.

Somewhere along the way I realized something important.

Skewed North isn’t just a blog.

It’s the field journal of a life lived under the influence of inspiration.

And the more I wrote, the more I saw that everything I do—my art, my film work, my travels, the strange detours life keeps throwing at me—comes back to the same core idea:

Aesthetics and awareness shape the way we navigate life.

The environments we build, the stories we tell, and the attention we bring to the world all influence the direction we move.

That realization led to something bigger than I originally imagined.

So I’ve spent the last months quietly rebuilding the structure around the work.

Think of it less like a rebrand and more like a map finally coming into focus.

What Skewed North Is Becoming

Skewed North is still the storytelling heart of everything I do.

But it now sits inside a larger creative ecosystem that connects the stories, the art, and the philosophy behind both.

Here’s how it all fits together.

Skewed North (here on Substack)
This is where the stories live.

It’s the ongoing field journal from a life spent following inspiration across film sets, continents, heartbreak, reinvention, and everything in between.

The publication now has three simple sections:

Skewed North – (for free subscribers) with long-form essays and stories.
Field Notes (for paid subscribers) – shorter dispatches from movie work, the road, the studio, and the in-between moments.
The Atlas (for paid subscribers) – the deeper archive: memoir drafts, journal entries, private podcast episodes, and the behind-the-scenes creative process.

If the public stories are the road, The Atlas is the deeper map.

Skewed North Studio

This is the philosophical home of the work.

After more than twenty-five years designing cinematic environments for film and television, I began to see how deeply environment shapes perception. The spaces we inhabit influence how we think, feel, and orient ourselves in the world.

Skewed North Studio is where I explore that intersection of aesthetics and awareness—and how intentional environments can help people realign their story, their space, and themselves.

Made by Dames

Made by Dames is my online shop.

This is where my paintings, photography, and creative objects live—things designed to bring inspiration and intention into everyday environments.

Some of you have already seen glimpses of this work over the years. The shop and the collections are now being organized in a way that connects directly to the philosophy behind Skewed North.

In other words: the stories, the art, and the environments are all speaking the same language.

Why This Matters

For a long time, these pieces of my life existed in separate places.

Film work over here.
Art over there.
Writing somewhere else entirely.

But the truth is they all come from the same place.

The same instinct that leads me to design environments for a camera is the one that leads me to paint, travel, write, and pay attention to the strange signals inspiration sends.

Everything I create is really exploring one question:

What happens when you trust the compass—even when there’s no clear road?

That question is what Skewed North has always been about.

Now the structure around it finally reflects that.

What This Means for You

Not much is changing about the spirit of this space.

You’ll still find:

🎬 stories from behind the scenes of the film world
🌍 travel and inspiration from around the globe
💔 honest reflections on grief, love, and reinvention
🎨 glimpses into the studio and the creative process

But the publication will feel a little clearer and easier to navigate.

New readers will find a Start Here guide that points to the key stories that shaped this strange map.

And paid subscribers will see more of the deeper material appearing inside The Atlas—including audio dispatches, private podcast moments, and fragments from the memoir I’m currently writing.

Yes, there’s a book coming.

Probably more than one.

Because it turns out when you start writing the map of your life, the roads multiply. And I am also like a run-on sentence that sees all things interconnected.

A Note of Gratitude

If you’re reading this, you’re already part of the reason this work exists.

Substack has become the place where I can write in real time—without a publisher hovering, without a production schedule, just the stories as they happen.

That freedom matters more than you might realize.

It’s what allows this publication to remain a living journey, not just a finished narrative.

So thank you for riding along.

Whether you’ve been here since the early posts or you just stumbled in recently, I’m glad you’re here.

The map may be skewed, but the road is getting clearer.

Hop in the sidecar.

We ride at dawn.

A Note for Paid Subscribers

If you’re a paid subscriber, you’re riding a little closer to the engine of this whole operation—so I wanted to share something with you first.

As the Skewed North ecosystem continues to grow, I’ll be releasing new art from Made by Dames here on Substack before it appears anywhere else.

That means paid subscribers will occasionally receive:

• first access to new paintings, prints, and photography
• early previews of upcoming collections and special editions
• subscriber-only discounts before pieces are released to the public

Think of it as getting the first look inside the studio before the doors officially open.

I’m also beginning to shape a small Skewed North community space here for paid subscribers—a place where we can share ideas, reflections, and the strange signals inspiration sends when we’re paying attention.

Nothing complicated. Just a campfire for the people already riding along.

Your support makes it possible for me to keep writing these stories, creating the art, and following the next strange turn in the road. So this is my way of saying thank you—and letting you see what’s coming before the rest of the world does.

You’ll start seeing these releases and updates unfold over the next month—just in time for spring and a fresh season of creative energy.

And one more piece of news: I’ve also been setting up a new paint studio and workshop space, where I’ll soon be offering one-on-one painting sessions, small group workshops, and other painterly adventures live and virtual! More on that soon.

In the meantime, here is a sneak peek at the new paint studio!

But this one feels different.

It starts in Alaska—with a voicemail that changed my plans.

It leads to a birthday I’ll never forget, standing on set while Tom Hanks sang to me.

And it ends with something I didn’t expect at all—

a handwritten letter that reminded me what it means to be human.

It moves through a birthday I’ll never forget, standing on set while Tom Hanks sang to me.

It holds a tragedy our film community endured together.

And it ends with a handwritten letter that arrived in my mailbox weeks later — a letter that reminded me what it means to be beautifully human.

I think it was August 2018. I had just boarded a train in Alaska. Alaska was the last state I needed to see before I had officially seen all 50. On a whim, I booked a flight and wound up there. I had planned to stay at least a month.

I had just stepped off the train in Talkeetna — which, yes, is called the climbing town with a drinking problem — and my cell service came back. There was a voicemail.

It was the Art Director I’d worked with before.

“Hi Jolene. I’m wondering if you want to be the on-set painter for the Tom Hanks movie coming to town. It starts next week.”

Now. I had only been in Alaska for a week.

But Tom Hanks?

Of course I was going back.

I boarded the train as fast as I could to get back to Pittsburgh — but not before I had one more little adventure with my newly found Russian friend through Talkeetna and up to Denali National Park.

I started the show right after Labor Day. Tom Hanks would be arriving on 27 September.

My birthday.

That morning, I got into the shower and, as I was getting ready for work, I looked up at the ceiling and said to my late husband, “You better show up for me today.”

Little did I know what he had in store.

I went to work and everyone had that feeling. You know the one. The “Oh my gosh, Tom Hanks is coming in” feeling. And he was playing Mister Rogers. Which felt kind of surreal.

As a kid, I didn’t really watch Mister Rogers. There were too many other things happening in our household for me to relax and watch him. If I did, I don’t remember. But I knew who he was. I knew what he stood for.

We were filming in a house on location. I was in a back bedroom aging down a picture frame. On set you always wear a walkie, so there’s constant chatter in your ear.

I was about to walk out into the living room to hang a piece of artwork when someone said over the walkie, “Tell Jolene happy birthday.”

I’m standing in the hallway when I hear Tom Hanks say, “Jolene? Jolene? Who’s Jolene?”

I had to step into the room anyway. My face was red as a beet. I popped my head around the corner and gave a small wave.

And he started singing “Jolene” to me on set.

Then everyone chimed in.

It was one of the most amazing days of my life.

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Film sets that disappear into dumpsters. Paintings that get stuck. Worlds designed to exist just long enough to be believed.

And I loved it.

But something changes when the space is yours.

Recently, I worked very hard to secure an art studio. Not metaphorical. Not aspirational. A real room. Four walls. Light that moves across the floor. Paint where it falls. Silence when I need it.

It feels different than I expected.

Quieter. Heavier. Earned.

For years, Skewed North was a philosophy — the idea that being off-course wasn’t failure, just a different orientation. Now it has walls. Now it has a physical anchor.

And with that comes a deeper responsibility to the work.

The studio isn’t just where I’ll make paintings. It’s where I’ll refine perception. Where I’ll question what it means to capture something. Where I’ll explore the tension between control and surrender.

Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned as an artist, it’s this: not everything is meant to be captured.

Some things are meant to be witnessed.

That lesson didn’t come in a classroom or a gallery. It came through a lens.

When I first started doing photography, I didn’t think much of it. I had booked a flight to New Zealand and Australia and needed a camera, so I bought a small Canon PowerShot and went. It wasn’t ambition. It was practicality.

But somewhere on that trip, something shifted.

Photography gave me faster results than painting. I didn’t need to stretch canvas or wait for layers to dry. I just had to look. And when I started using a macro lens, everything changed. You don’t understand how complex a flower is until you crawl inside it with glass. Layers on layers. Colors nested within colors. What looks simple from afar becomes architectural up close. It expanded my thinking. It made the ordinary feel deliberate.

Over time, my photography evolved. At first, I shot to remember where I had been. Then I shot to capture the moment as it was. Eventually, I began to see the world only through the lens. I was present for the shot, not for the moment.

One day in Hawaii, I forgot my camera.

Of course that was the day a whale breached at sunset.

It was enormous and sudden and perfect.

And I missed the shot.

I stood there, hands empty, watching something I couldn’t freeze, couldn’t frame, couldn’t replay. Just sky, ocean, and that massive body suspended in air before disappearing back into the water.

It was beautiful.

And it was gone.

I thought about that whale for months. Not because I missed it—but because I didn’t.

Then it happened again in the Badlands…

We were driving at dusk — that deep purple-to-pink-to-ultramarine hour when everything feels cinematic without trying — and four rams stood silhouetted against the sky. Their horns curved like ancient calligraphy. They were positioned so perfectly it felt staged.

My husband was willing to turn around.

I told him not to. He had been driving all day. There wasn’t a safe place to pull over. It would have been inconvenient.

And just like that, the moment passed.

I replayed it for months. The bend in the road. The exact angle of the light. The hesitation. The decision. I imagined another car pulled over nearby. Did they get the shot? Did the rams scatter? Did someone coax them closer even though the sign clearly said not to feed wildlife? It felt too perfect.

Too perfect to let go of.

So I tried to solve it the only way I knew how.

I’m an artist, I told myself. I can recreate it. I can paint it. I can rebuild it from memory. I can control it this time.

But the more I turned it over in my mind, the clearer something became.

The best photographs of my life are the ones I never took.

They live somewhere cleaner. Unduplicated. Unshared. Unedited. Perfectly intact in the part of my brain that holds wonder.

Photography taught me how to see.

Missing those shots taught me how to be there.

There’s an illusion artists carry — that we can recreate anything. That if we didn’t capture it, we can build it. That if we missed it, we can manufacture it. That the mark on the canvas makes the moment real.

But sometimes the most honest art is restraint.

Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is not turn around.

I used to think my job was to capture the world.

Now I understand something different.

My job is to witness it.

The whale.
The rams.
The light bending around something I couldn’t hold.

They didn’t disappear because I failed.

They remain because I was there.

And sometimes—

that’s enough.

Until Next time…

Subscribe now

BUT before I go! Some sneak peeks into my new studio. It is a work in progress, but I am getting closer to opening day in April. I will send out an announcement, and if you're local, I so hope you can make it!

I’ll open my computer with one idea in mind, and then Facebook memories start popping up…
This time last year. (You were working on Mayor of Kingstown and watching the paint freeze on your brush because you were working outside and it was below freezing!)
Ten years ago. (You were on an awesome beach in Isla Mujeres.)
Different places. Different versions of me.
Different spots on the planet.

I wasn’t collecting places. I was trying to locate myself.

And suddenly I have ten more ideas about what I could write about instead.

I’ve always been intrigued by people who go on the same vacation every year. For most of my life, travel meant the opposite to me — seeing something new, stepping into a culture I hadn’t experienced before, letting unfamiliar places stretch me in ways I couldn’t anticipate.

Returning to the same place always felt a little… boring.

BUT Hawaii is the exception.
It’s one of the few places I’ve returned to again and again. I will always go there now because it is where my husband’s ashes were planted as a coconut tree. So now I return—not out of habit, but because part of my life is rooted there.

I remember the first time I saw the ocean there. It was the bluest blue you could imagine. The white-tipped waves crashing on the black lava rocks gave so much contrast. And then there were the black sand beaches, the red sand beaches AND the green sand beaches. You just can’t get that color combo anywhere.

On one of my first return trips, I remember being so excited to smell that air again. I woke up and walked barefoot through the lānai of Aloha Chapel and Go Go Lounge with a cup of coffee, listening to the wind move through the palms. Nothing dramatic happened. I wasn’t thinking about the past or the future. I just noticed how my body softened in a way it rarely does at home.

It started because it meant a lot to my husband. Hawaii mattered to him for reasons I came to understand over time. Then it mattered to us together. And later — after he died — it took on an entirely different meaning for me.

I went back not to recreate the past, but to make new memories of my own. To see parts of the islands I’d never seen before. To experience it as myself — alone — and let it become something different. And also to remember who I was, once.

Looking back now, that feels eerily similar to how I’ve lived my life since his death: not trying to undo what happened, but trying to build something new inside the same body, the same world. Different time stamp.

It also made me rethink the people I used to quietly judge for going to the same place over and over again. Maybe for some people, that place is the only place they feel fully like themselves. Maybe it’s not about adventure or novelty at all, but about having a reference point — somewhere that reminds them who they are before life piles back on.

This week I saw a post on Instagram that stopped me mid-scroll. It said people often change their lives more after travel than after therapy — not because therapy doesn’t work, but because travel creates contrast.

When you travel, the brain can’t rely on autopilot. New streets. New food. New language. New faces. The nervous system is forced into presence. You temporarily step out of your usual roles — employee, partner, caretaker, version-of-yourself-with-history — and you become just a person moving through space.

And sometimes, that’s enough to hear yourself more clearly.

That idea hit me because the first time I ever really “went away,” it wasn’t college. College felt expensive and impossible. I went away to be a summer camp counselor instead. At the time, I didn’t have language for it — but I think I was learning how to trust myself. A coming-of-age experience, if you will, just in a unique way.

Every trip after that opened me differently. Every new place let me meet myself in a new way. What I thought was wanderlust might actually have been a desire for a deeper relationship with myself — and if we really do use the world as a mirror, then that would make sense.

Which brings me to the part that’s harder to sit with. I haven’t gone anywhere in over a year. No big trips. No dramatic departures. Just staying put and noticing what surfaces when there’s nowhere else to project myself. Some days it feels grounding. Other days it feels strangely uncomfortable — like standing still long enough for the noise to catch up.

So now I find myself wondering:

Do we travel to escape — or to orient ourselves?
Do we return to certain places because we’re stuck — or because they hold a version of us we recognize as home?
And if travel helps us recalibrate… what does it mean when we stay still for a while?

I don’t have answers yet.
But I’m paying attention. Well, kind of…

I always have an eye to the sky and ear to the ground. But, yeah, that other eye is free to pay attention.

Before I go any further, I want to be honest about something. Travel doesn’t fix everything. It can be destabilizing. It can crack things open without telling you how to put them back together. Insight without integration can leave you feeling unmoored. I’ve experienced that too.

I don’t believe travel changes people because it’s glamorous or freeing.

I think it changes us because it interrupts the illusion that the life we’re living is the only one possible. And for me, I love breaking through illusions. And, ironically, creating them (ie, working in movies and television).

When you travel, especially alone, identity isn’t needed. The scripts fall away. You solve small problems, get lost, adapt, and survive. Not dramatically — just enough to rebuild trust in yourself.

Every small act becomes a quiet vote of confidence. You navigate a foreign street. You order food without knowing the words. You miss a train and figure it out anyway. And slowly, you start believing in yourself again. You trust yourself. And if you screw up, you learn and adapt to yourself.

You realize you are the one who can figure it out. And you do.

There’s a pattern I can see now. First comes contrast — realizing other ways of living exist. Then comes manageable (sometimes calculated) risk — uncertainty without catastrophe. Somewhere in the middle, identity loosens just enough for authenticity to slip in. And slowly, without fanfare, orientation resets.

You know that saying: if you want to know the truth of a person, watch how they treat the waiter? Travel works the same way. When there’s no routine and no one who knows your story, whatever’s real rises to the surface.

Looking back, I don’t think my need to travel was about distance at all. It was about contrast. About stepping far enough outside my familiar environment to hear what was actually true for me — not what was expected, habitual, or inherited.

That’s why returning to Hawaii eventually stopped feeling like it was “boring” to go back there and started feeling like anchoring.

Some places don’t exist to transform us. They exist to remind us who we are when the noise drops out.

Hawaii became that for me — not a place to go backward, but a place to reorient forward. A place where grief, memory, and new possibility could coexist without demanding resolution.

So when people say travel is escapism, I no longer agree.

Escape implies avoidance.
Orientation implies agency. I’m all about the agency these days

And maybe the reason stillness can feel so uncomfortable after a life of movement is that we’re finally integrating what we learned instead of chasing the next mirror. (I am talking to myself here, too!) Maybe staying put isn’t failure. Maybe it’s a pause long enough to ask what actually changed — and what hasn’t — before moving again.

Maybe staying still doesn’t mean you’re lost or stuck. Maybe it means you finally know where you are.

And look, everywhere you go, there you are. Home in yourself. Regardless of where that is.

Travel doesn’t always take you somewhere new.

Sometimes it brings you back—

to a version of yourself you didn’t understand the first time.

Until Next Time…

I don’t.

I treat them like weather.

I operate under a different assumption:

There will be feelings.

Not as a threat. Not as a flaw in the system. Just as a fact of being alive and paying attention.

This has always been true for me—on the road, in love, in grief, in art, in rooms where everyone else pretends they’re fine while quietly scanning for exits.

I don’t.

I’ve learned that feelings aren’t the thing that derail us.

Avoiding them is.

Skewed North was never about finding the straightest path.

It was about learning how to move when the compass spins—when clarity disappears, when certainty evaporates, when the road dissolves into fog and intuition.

Feelings, like travel, have weather.

Sometimes it’s light turbulence.

Sometimes it’s a full storm system moving through the body.

I don’t mistake that for danger.

I don’t ask, How do I get out of this?

I ask, Where am I—and what’s the next true step?

That’s the difference.

Sit With This

My real way of being—the one I use on myself, not as a performance for others—comes down to a quiet directive:

Sit with this.

Not because it’s pleasant. Not because it’s noble.

Because it’s already here.

I don’t rush to fix the feeling.

I don’t disappear from my own life when it gets uncomfortable.

I stay long enough to understand the terrain.

Most people want resolution.

I want orientation.

There’s a particular kind of maturity that comes from realizing you don’t need to escape every hard moment.

You need to stay present long enough for meaning to reveal itself.

I trust that.

I trust myself in emotional weather the same way I trust myself on unfamiliar roads:

Slow down.
Observe.
Adjust.
Continue.

I don’t believe in a life without friction.

I believe in a life where friction doesn’t knock you off course.

There will be feelings.

There will be weather.

There will be moments where the compass tilts and the map stops making sense.

Good.

That’s not being lost.

That’s being alive.

Navigate this.

If you want to understand what this looks like in real life—
what happens when everything actually does fall apart, shift, and rebuild—

that story continues inside The Atlas.

Subscribe now

Feng Shui is the art of placement. It’s about creating spaces that feel good—where the energy flows, the air feels lighter, and everything just makes sense. You move things around so your bed feels cozy, your desk feels inspiring, and your whole space feels balanced and alive.

When your room is happy, you feel happy too.

One of the main tools in Feng Shui is something called the Bagua Map which is made up of 9 life areas, each corresponding to a specific element, energy, and theme. You overlay it on your home’s floor plan—aligning the bottom row with your main entrance—and you get an energetic read on where your life may be flowing... or blocked. Each area holds insight. Each one invites alignment.

This island is a Bagua Map in motion. Everything pulses with elemental wisdom—water, fire, earth, wind. It’s all here, mirroring the internal terrain we sometimes forget to explore.

Let me take you on a tour of the Bagua Map, through the lens of Hawaii:

🖤 1. Career & Life Path (North)
The black sand beaches of the Big Island had no interest in my resume.
They whispered, “Where are you headed, really?”
This is the energy of water—fluid, deep, and always moving. When I floated in the Pacific, I felt the path realign under me. Not through force, but through surrender.

💜 2. Knowledge & Self-Cultivation (Northeast)
There’s something about watching a sea turtle glide by that drops you into your own depth.
In Hawaii, self-cultivation didn’t come from a course—it came from the quiet. The jungle. The stars. The soft way the island asked me to remember who I was before the world told me who to be.

🔮 3. Family & Ancestry (East)
The volcanoes here don’t apologize for their roots.
They erupt, break open, and become fertile ground.
Hawaii helped me trace patterns, honor what I came from, and choose what I no longer wanted to carry forward.

💰 4. Wealth & Abundance (Southeast)
Abundance here isn’t just money—it’s mangoes dropping from trees, wild orchids in parking lots, and sunsets so big they knock your breath sideways.
This Bagua is about tending to what matters most and trusting that joy is a currency.

💖 5. Love & Relationships (Southwest)
We carved “Happy New Year” into the sand that year.
We snorkeled with dolphins. Fought over sunscreen. Got lost. Got found.
This corner is for the relationships that teach you to love better—yourself included.

🌟 6. Fame & Reputation (South)
I learned something standing next to a waterfall:
Visibility isn’t just about being seen—it’s about being true.
The island didn’t care what I looked like. It cared how honest I was willing to be.

🎨 7. Creativity & Children (West)
One of my painting series was born here. So were the painted postcards.
This area is where inspiration shows up unannounced, barefoot and soaked in saltwater, asking if you’re ready to make something real.

🤝 8. Helpful People & Travel (Northwest)
From chance encounters with locals to the divine timing of sea turtles, Hawaii reminded me that magic is always traveling with us—if we let it.
This corner is for the guides, the synchronicities, and the strangers who somehow feel like old friends.

🧡 9. Health & Center (Center)
Everything leads back to the center.
To the barefoot walks. The way papayas taste better when you’re sunburned and laughing.
This is where I learned that healing doesn’t have to be hard. Sometimes it’s just about coming home to your own body.

🧭 Why It Matters
Your home is its own island.
It’s telling a story—through the placement of your shoes, your art, your books, and your “someday” piles.

In True North Living, I help you read that story and rewrite it to support the life you’re trying to live now.
We map your space. Decode its messages.
And realign it—Hawaii style—so that it flows, breathes, and supports your next evolution.

✨ Want to Go Deeper?
I offer 1:1 Sessions for those ready to shift their homes, creative studios, or lives.
This is energetic interior design meets soulful storytelling—alchemy in action.
🌺 Click here to learn more + schedule

Your space is talking. What do you want it to say?