a place to call home
June 13th, 2026
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STORY TIME
This album is filled with countless stories. From memories of my California upbringing, to falling in love and becoming a mother. It honors lineage and those who have shaped me. Many different places and people are hidden within its layers. Produced by my friend and fellow musician Ben Larsen, in his home-farm studio, with a window overlooking a great big oak tree. The many beautiful instruments that are heard throughout the album are from him and friends he brought in.
Each song has a unique and specific mix of instruments, the fullest accompaniment being on songs’ a common’, and the simplest one, a place to call home.
This namesake song was written on a beautiful winter evening, looking out over the Columbia River and Mt. Hood, a five-month-old baby on my back. The simplicity of the song called for a simpler sound— no harmonies, just lead vocal, piano, and violin. It is the last track on the record, a sweet closing that holds the underlying energy in its entirety: a reminder that home is as much emotional as physical.
Over the last year of releasing different singles, I have shared a little writing and photos to go alongside. They are meant to be a meandering, collage-style piece of work, to read as if you were opening up random pages in a long, full book of stories. These are just a very few of many, for life has a way of gathering layers upon layers of love.
sanctuary
(Official Music Video)
To become a place takes a long time. To become a people connected to each other and the earth requires that we begin the work of becoming our place. This is not an absent longing for what is not here, but the profoundly simple choice of saying yes to what is, again and again. It questions us to stay, putting hands and hearts into the soil, paying attention to the particular land and people we find ourselves connected to. Not to say there is no path for the wandering. The call of the open road is a force unto itself. It is a bold vocation to go, it was what brought me here. But what comes after the wandering? Perhaps less dramatic, there is a similar potency, albeit different, in staying. The journey of becoming a place takes us from the realm of dreaming and into the Dream: a world that sings back. It is a relationship, a slow cultivating of attention, presence, and, most importantly— love.
I shouldered my backpack up higher, trying to even out the lopsided packing job pulling on my right shoulder. I enjoyed the winding road up to Grandmother Oak, although not all my classmates felt the same. I rarely minded to physical displeasures of elemental existence. Both the heat and cold reminded me of my aliveness, bringing with it a smile of spirit.
The classmates who did not seem to enjoy this daily hike up the road to the park and then another walk off road to the tree, were usually the ones who most enjoyed getting to the tree. It was the best play space anyone could hope for. A canopy hid a great cathedral within the oak’s branches, with flat ground to eat our lunches and play games after. Great big branches swept downwards, enticing students to climb their sturdy and steep bodies.
I did not enjoy climbing the tree. I tried, once or twice, but refused to go very high. While the elements and the labors of hiking brought me joy, the thought of being high off the ground was terrifying. I much preferred the steady cadence of steps that led to a destination, then the arrival itself. Luckily for me, my friends also enjoyed playing amid the rocks, staying close to the ground, and finding many an imaginative way to spend our time.
While her branches were daunting, they were simoultanouesly kind, and her trunk grounding. She was as alive as the children playing in the comfort of folds, and my relationship to her was as effective as my childhood friends.
It was a snowy night come January. I had spent the evening partaking in family merriment and food. I stepped out the front door onto the fresh snow-covered steps in front. The stars glimmered with secrets, and I set off towards the yurt tucked into the forest just a hundred yards away. A bit of the snow fell inside my not-tall-enough shoes, dampening my wool socks. An edge of frustration crept into my already overstimulated self. “I wish”— longing whispered, and then stopped. I didn’t know it then, but that longing would be fully realized in the coming years. But at the moment, the wish was but a reaching. And in the reaching, I saw something so precious, so wondrous in its simplicity, my heart cracked open, and grief swelled like an ocean. I almost missed it. That timeless sip of tea— and my mother— still so young, glimpsed from outside the window.
There are familiar forms found in many a myth. Whether we call it an archetype, a blueprint, or just the way things are, there is a rhythm to the song of life. One thing you will almost surely find is that the end is not the same place you began. Oh, perhaps the physical place, yes, but the internal landscape—the shape of your personhood, no. It cannot be the same. Myth, in essence, is transformation. Both for the teller and the listener, the person within it, and the person outside looking at it, and potentially, all the world too.
What are the ingredients for transformation?
I do not think it can be curated.
Sold.
Bought.
That’s the funny thing about life. And humans. No matter how many times we try to put words to it, box it up and keep it safe, life humbles us. With nothing more, and nothing less than a mirror to see the world through.
I have been listening to dreams for a time now. I have found that there are many different kinds of dreams. Visions, nightmares, illusions, ideas, subconscious thoughts, messages, communication, and more. As I delved deeper into dreams, I decided to research the root word. I found two significant original meanings. One was connected to an Old Norse word for illusion, and the other was an Old English word for joy and music. In old myths, the positive and negative aspects of dreaming are more permeable, both integrative to an experience of wholeness. One travels through a diverse landscape to find something of value, personal, cultural, wilder, or Divine. The answer is usually surprisingly simple—one that already existed within the person, tied to an early experience, or connected to relationships made.
In many ways dreaming mirrors wilderness. We can direct energy, but control belongs not to will. Our belonging within it does not lead to perfection, but rather connection, and a deeper intimacy with ourselves and all that is.
On an early morning in late August, she finally made her entry. Strong, beautiful, and clear, she reflected the blue sky that was to be hers that day. Cloaked in mystery, she waited for her perfect timing to arrive in the ecstacy of the moment. A feeling of belonging throughout the struggle of birth remained rooted, always available, long after that great tree, that wise organ of life that pumped blood and oxygen followed. The cord was cut, but never broken. The light of life was shining once again. The animals, the trees, and the plants knew, the mycelial networks and ancient waterways knew, and so did the stars. Her time was now, and it was bright.
When Freydis finally arrived, she came true as the song: The last few days of August, in the early morning light of a clear-blue-sky-kinda-day. She was born in the bathroom, onto a mat on the floor, with light streaming through the window. I got to sing her into this world. I am forever grateful.
We are growing together in sweet and slow ways. Taking it in. Exploring the world. Finding our rhythm, again and again. She is a true gift, her song is the stuff of miracles and birdsong. My first year of motherhood has been my most creative year to date. Immediately postpartum I began to create, almost everyday. People asked, “how, why?!” But for me it was how do I not? It wasn’t something I planned. It was not something I even valued in my head. It was just my way of processing, transmuting, and arriving into motherhood. Freydis must have a very creative spirit, too, perhaps even enjoys that her mother creates. The night before labor began I dreamed of artistic visions to come. Seven months later I showcased my first art show ever at Moon Mountain Highway called, When the Wild Dreams Me. Everything created was made after Freydis was born (all but 4 pieces made during pregnancy). These creative acts were my life force— grounding me deeper into presence and strength in this first year of maitrescence.
Tom, in many ways, is like another grandfather. My father’s biological dad passed away while my grandma was pregnant with my father. It was a deep tragedy and created many dimensions of grief, as loss often does. His brother, my great uncle, was very close to him. My father was adopted and raised by my grandfather, Jerry, who is very much alive and well, and we have always been close with him. But it has been a true gift to have Tom bring memories of Joseph with him and share that part of our family tree through stories and blood.
I had the blessing of visiting Tom, without knowing, only days before he passed away in September, with my daughter.
Home is not a place, and yet deeply tied to it. It is more about the relationship to place than place itself. In this way, relationships shape our sense of home and belonging in life. Relationship is alive— in the sense that it must be continuously tended. When neglected, the bonds weaken. Home is a slowness, a tenderness, to return to again and again throughout life’s storms. The places and people we call home may shift, but it remains the same: our relationship to each other and to place are what give us our sense of home in this world. I wrote this song last winter when I was imagining a time when I would be reminiscing on the season I was currently in. The snow was falling, lots of tea and coffee were being consumed, and the fireplace was hot. As the seasons change once again and the darker time of year takes the stage, may we remember that the seasons are always changing, and have gratitude for the one we are.
The Footprints a Place Leaves Behind
The imprint of our September arrival was still fresh in the late autumn air. It was November, and this strange place was just starting to feel familiar. The western red cedar and ferns danced with open oak forests, like the ones we knew back home. Gushing rivers now replaced the once dry riverbeds, and the heat of a California fall was now a rain-soaked memory. It was just past dusk. I had spent the better half of the day in the wonder of a miracle garden, picking everything I could before the first frost of the season. The cold came late that first year, and we made the most of it. The afternoon’s harvest lay on the kitchen counter, covered in dirt. This was my home now.
It’s funny how places stay in us. Everywhere I have ever been must live inside me, for I see their reflections wherever I go. Sometimes the particular angle of basalt in the sun catapults me back to the granite in Arizona, or the scent of pine blows in on a westerly wind, bringing me back to those summers in the high desert of Colorado. I sometimes even remember places I lived long ago, before I was even born.
There is a question now of belonging and what it means. I have no answer, and yet my quiet search does not waver. I have found some semblance of it, at times, reminiscent of all the places and people I have once been.