Honestly at the moment i feel infinite
Duct tape roses you made, D.C. 2025.
Many thanks for your patience as I claw my way back here. All year Iāve had this feeling of words being out of reach, my grasp on them clumsy and haphazard. I blame a cocktail of things ā world news, posting on Instagram, an albumās worth of vulnerable subject matter, low iron. Skittish of my own mess, I keep waiting for chapters to deliver themselves all sewn up with a neat ending before I tell them to you, even though I know by now the real storyās always open heart and you canāt tell it without blood gushing everywhere. Better to treat this like I do my journal, I think, scuzzy tangle of images transcribed from the whitewash, not the shore. I miss you too much.
Iām coming to you from LA, evening light soft and gold on the keys, farmersā market persimmons arranged on the counter with all the manic precision of a woman suddenly not hosting a nightly 12,000-person party. The post-tour emotional dip is inevitable for me, this one compounded by being my first time doing nothing literally all year. How me to have six days off from my all-consuming decades-long art project and freak out that actually, Iām wasting my prime years. My body is grateful though, drinking down ten hours of brushed teeth sleep a night. We go on little neighbourhood walks at night and I think, around now Iād be leaping barefoot onto a treadmill.Ā
Ok, I think itās time to talk about Ultrasound.
Is it gonna feel like hyperbole if I say this tour is the highlight of my career so far? That itās better than I could have dreamed, and I was dreaming big?
From the first moment in Austin, when the laser drew me up from under the stage and you were there, hungry and roaring and agile, I knew it was on. All I had to do was try keep up.
Thereās so much about Ultrasound that I love, but no lie, the main thing is you. Youāre whatās profound about all this, what you do with my songbook, and I built the show around that phenomenon, knowing itās more profound than any production trick I could dream up. I wanted the stage to feel sort of plain and democratic, an extension of the same spaces inhabited by you and the crew rather than where the queen lives. Partly because creating beauty and intrigue using modern utilitarian pieces is very L4, but mostly because I really believe that at my shows thereās no one star. I walk through the crowd and feel the line between performer and spectator dissolve entirely. From the B stage I watch as you become the show, dancing with your friends and not looking at me, and experience a sense of fulfilment and gratitude like Iāve never felt ā in my windbreaker and necklaces breaking into a million pieces, the visions I had at 14 finally realised. From there I often think, if it all ended tomorrow Iād be at peace.
But Iām glad itās not ending tomorrow :p
Iām psyched to announce aĀ few more shows, in Mexico, forever fav, and LA, cause it was just sooooo good there the other night, easily my favourite show of the tour which took me by surprise! All up forĀ saleĀ right now.Ā Iām still not sure how much Iām gonna play next year, I think I gotta keep writing, so let it rip.
What else? Been scrolling Instagram for fucking hours to come down, adrift in a sea of shit at 330am. Really wild to me how obviously and directly it correlates to feeling sick. Also filling notebooks, reading a lot.
Tour book stacks here, yes some repeats, you know by now I love to return to the texts
My body aches somewhere new every day, my fault for falling off with lifting, it really cures all and I miss it. Have cooked up a couple special limited run merch pieces, will show you soon.Ā
Hereās a cute little series from after our last show in Seattleā Emma turned 24, Champagne in the hallway, burgers in the parking lot, last glimpse at our beautiful truck.
Sometimes I am in awe that all this creation is happening in a time and place where so many structures are breaking down. My therapist tells me an analogy about how the caterpillar and butterfly attack each other inside the chrysalis, her point, I guess, being that something is always dying and being born. We discuss how my work, artistsā work generally, is alternately palliative or prenatal. In some cities I felt an intake of breath when I faced the audience with my taped chest, realised that for some people seeing a woman going all the way into herself like this pushes them to an edge, and my heart swelled with gratitude that I was being trusted with that.
Iām so excited for Europe, seeing so many friends there, swimming before shows, the O2, but thatās still to come. Tonight Iām in my feels about the journey we went on together this past month in the US, wanna say a huge thank you to every single person who came. Something is always dying and being born, something very precious, made of nothing but our bodies in the light and dark.
I love you so much, more than I thought possible,Ā
Confetti drawing from my notebook
(source: received this email)