back in my body // I'm a published author

In March of 2018, Maggie Rogers released a documentary titled, Back in my Body, about her love for making music and the journey towards the release of her debut album. I remember watching the documentary for the first time, snuggled up in the corner of the queen-sized bed that takes up most of my room at my parent’s house. There’s a moment in the documentary where she is playing to a crowd that have come to see her sing in a gymnasium in Juno, Alaska. She starts playing her acoustic guitar and singing the lyrics to a song that at the time, didn’t have a name and wasn’t released to the public. The song is now known as, Back in my Body, and was released as part of her debut album, Heard It in a Past Life, but I didn’t know any of this then. All I knew is that I was mesmerized by her voice, the lyrics, and what it all meant. “What does it mean to be ‘back in my body’? And how do I get there?”, I remember thinking.

Late 2017 into early 2018 was when I first had the idea to write a book. Up until that point, I had shared my poetry with no one and instead had kept it holed away in secret notebooks, tucked away in drawers for no one’s eyes but mine. But then, something changed. I wanted to hold my book in physical form. I wanted to see my poetry coming to life on the page. I wanted my loved ones to read it. But mostly, I wanted it for me. I wanted to show myself that I was capable of writing, and creating, and designing, and publishing and sharing. And I did. I actually did it.

I’m so grateful that somewhere along the way through my lineage I was blessed with the gift of writing. I truly don’t know what I would do without it. Writing is how I get back in my body. Writing is how I embody this wild, messy, chaotic, beautiful and joyful experience that we call life. Writing is my lifeline. My anchor. The gift that never stops on giving. And I am just so grateful that today, I get to share it not on a screen, but on the page, in real life, holding it close to my heart in the palms of my hands.

“Being back in my body means being able to do the things I love, but do them in the way I love, and in my way, I’m in my time, giving myself the opportunity to just be me. ” - Maggie Rogers

I got to “dream something up, and am now living it out, and will do it all over again…feeling like the luckiest person in the world” (Maggie Rogers) because I get to create, and that process in and of itself, is the gift and where all of the joy lies.

All for now,

All my love,

Onward.

-m