I need to clear the air
some changes are coming :)
Hello my friend,
Like most of us, autumn has always stirred something restless in me—it’s a season that begs for bold moves and new beginnings. An ancient feeling that would rise at the start of each school year, a siren call for my always-hungry spirit.
But this year feels a little different, because it’s the first fall in eight years that I’m not starting over in some semi-major way.
Those last seven Septembers flash before me—kicking it off by moving to Prague after graduating college in 2017, then each year after that: starting a new job in Vietnam, launching my freelance writing career, moving to Mexico then to Guatemala, taking a sabbatical to travel rampantly through Fiji, Vietnam, Thailand, and Morocco, and finally, moving back to the states in 2023.
When you constantly start over, it turns out your life gets wider and wider, but not always much deeper.
I was so busy collecting experiences, memories, and new friends that I didn’t see the ways in which my values changed and my life no longer fit what mattered to me. My trip to Costa Rica this past summer was a window into a new way of seeing my life. A mirror I didn’t find particularly flattering, to be honest.
As with so many other things, that trip was a reaction, an attempt to rebalance the scales of my life, as I wrote about prior to the trip here. As I said then, when we moved back to the US last year:
“I dove headfirst into creating a sense of home, rootedness, groundedness. I bought an aeropress, a standing desk, a fucking mug warmer to place on that standing desk.
I got a library card and became a regular at the farmer’s market. I started pulling a weekly tarot card, recovered my crafting bin from college, and invested in the somatic luxuries of a foam roller and a foot massager.
I bought renter’s insurance and a goddamn swiffer mop.”
Over the past eight years, traveling had become a core part of my identity. So it makes sense that my knee-jerk reaction to my increased domesticity was to book a one-way ticket to the most remote off-grid spot I could find in Central America.
But once I arrived, I realized that my values had shifted while I wasn’t looking. As I get older, it turns out I’m more interested in going deeper, even if that requires me to go a bit narrower.
Sitting alone in the rain in Costa Rica, no cell service to contact loved ones or distract myself online, I considered:
How many more Christmases will I get with my aging parents?
How many more quiet, free moments with my partner, before we’re ready to have kids?
How many more days spent laughing with my friends in person, when we’re spread around the world?
I think about the top five regrets of the dying a lot. While I don’t fear that I’ll ever work too hard (as if! My goal in life is to work as little as possible), I do fear that the selfish path of rugged individualism I’ve spent so much time pursuing has come at the cost of feeling tethered to the earth, my people, my community.
I see that even here, in this newsletter project—that instinct to go wide.
I tried to snowball it into something much bigger than it needed to be, sooner than it needed to be. There’s something in that “going wider” that feels like prove-it energy—I wanted to prove to you that I am legitimate. I wanted to build big and fast and wide.
It quickly became overwhelming. I launched an advice column! A monthly interview feature! A month-long art prompt offering, and plans for several workshops!
I started Honeycomb to help myself remember my own most basic truth: that life should center pleasure and curiosity and connection.
I wanted to share my own journey of creative recovery, pivoting my writing career to be the right fit for the life I wanted, in hopes that it could maybe help others to do the same (you can read more about this here, it’s one of my favorite and, coincidentally, most popular posts).
Ultimately, I believe that more of our time should be spent in delight. My simple aim is to center awe, joy, and creative practice, and in order to do that, I’ve decided to make the following changes to this newsletter:
1. Ask Honey and the Hive will no longer be on a strict monthly schedule.
I’ll post these as the spirit moves me. They will be free for everyone. (P.S. feel free to submit an anonymous question for Ask Honey here, and you might be the next feature!)
2. The GET UNSTUCK: Moving from Creative Block to Flow workshop is coming soon.
It’s going to be pre-recorded instead of live, and completely free to anyone who wants it. I’ll let you know when it’s ready!
3. The subscription model will be changing.
Hint: it’s taking the project IRL, where paid subscribers get something super special in the mail every month. Details to come soon! Current paid subscribers: you’ll get an email about what this means for you. No hard feelings if you choose to end your monthly payment :)
Thank you so much for being here.
Whether you’re a brand new free subscriber, or one of my very first paid subscribers, it means the world to me that you’re here. I can’t believe I get to do this. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. More soon ♥
Honey’s Toolbox is your weekly go-to for filling your creative cup and putting your ideas into action—from prompts to spark your imagination to gentle nudges that get you moving. Grab a few tools my friend, it’s time to start tinkering alongside your creative spirit.
1. Read Saving Time by Jenny Odell
While her first book, How to Do Nothing, made quite a splash, I haven’t seen much in the zeitgeist about this newer book of Jenny Odell’s. If you enjoy flipping the concepts of productivity and time management completely on their head, I highly recommend this book. It’s like 4000 Weeks on crack—heavier on the research and staunchly more anti-capitalist.
“Maybe "the point" isn't to live more, in the literal sense of a longer or more productive life, but rather, to be more alive in any given moment—a movement outward and across, rather than shooting forward on a narrow, lonely track.”
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2. Make @wakeupwithmarley’s Caribbean remedy
I always wanted to make this while living abroad but had trouble sourcing all the ingredients as I was living out of a backpack. It’s a potent and tasty homemade concoction that uses herbs, spices, honey, and citrus to naturally boost your immune system during the colder months.
Marley writes, “I start taking spoon fulls each morning around September, as the weather begins to change. This Caribbean remedy has been used for generations to strengthen the immune system while fighting the cold, flu, fungal, bacterial and viral infections.”
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3. Listen to “In a world addicted to guilt, find the land of Innocence and Forgiveness”
This podcast episode from Gabi Abrão’s clearpilled shook me to my core. It explores the ways in which we can untie ourselves from the constant guilt spirals within ourselves as well as from the grievances we take against our loved ones, specifically partners. A heads-up: don’t listen if you can’t get down with a little woo-woo.
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4. Make ancient Babylonian stew
I’m not kidding, I cried a little when I read this article about 4,000-year-old recipes recovered from ancient Babylonian recipe tablets. There’s something about cooking that feels so intimate, that reading this makes the distant past feel somehow so much closer and alive.
The article includes a recipe translated from one of the tablets for lamb stew, using common modern ingredients like leeks, cumin, and beer. The perfect cozy fall recipe, no?
That’s all for now.
Talk soon,
Katie
Ooh I felt this one 🙏
As a travel-enthusiast, I found myself resistant to some of the things you've written here, but I do grasp the wisdom within the lines. It surely is difficult to balance the depth and width of life, while having so meagre of a control over external variables. I hope you're feeling satisfied with where you are now, and I'm glad to have had the chance to read this, Katie. Thank you.