August Newsletter

Transitions, the First Wiggly Tooth, & White after Labor Day.

Hi everyone,

I hope you all had a restful summer, and are enjoying the last few days of leisurely scheduling, warmer weather, and ripe, colorful produce.

I did have a restful summer break, and I am enjoying the last bell peppers, sweet and ripe tomatoes, peaches, plums, sweet cucumbers, and corn.

But like a wave, by nature, restful enjoyment was followed by more agitated waters — not stormy ones — yet wavy enough to prompt this writing:

August has been a month of transitions.

As many of you know, starting this month, my newsletter has transitioned to the Substack paid membership program. I am aware that this may lead to a loss in readership, but I had to make this decision to honor my work and my professional self-esteem.

Over the years, this newsletter has grown in depth, self-inquiry, honesty, and quality.

So it has become important for me to nourish a genuine audience, and to be compensated for my craft, just like I pay my aesthetician, my plumber, baker, interior designer or artist I love.

Because this is mostly symbolic a step, the membership is only $35 per year.

You see, this isn’t about money; this has to do with how I need to feel about the writing I have been sharing for years, and it is about the quality content I share without ads, without selling products, or “influencing” purchases.

Transitions — I said at the beginning — slightly agitated waters at summer’s end.

I hope you’ll embrace this transition by subscribing to the beautiful world of Following The Breadcrumbs.

So, let’s talk about transitions:

Many of you have followed the six weeks Benmont, Catherine and I spent in Italy, and many of you have followed what these six weeks have represented for me: a time of grounding, reckoning, slowing down, being reminded what really matters in life, a time of healing. So it won’t come as a surprise that, this time, coming back to Los Angeles was difficult.

Truthfully, what was difficult wasn't coming back, for I missed home and friends.

What was difficult was envisioning the transition to a new version of my Los Angeles life big enough to hold all I had learned in Italy.