Last fall I had the joy of spending a week in a beautiful wood in south Nashville, just me and a wild dog named Bella who roamed the perimeter and rolled in dried leaf piles and didn't wear a collar because she belonged to the land and the land to her. One morning I woke up beneath the vaulted ceilings of the old cabin and had four images in the front of my brain: soft light, my own pup, a record playing early enough to know that I lived alone, and a tea kettle. I finished writing my record there and recorded most of it two weeks later with Juan Solarzano and Aaron Shafer-Haiss at Jd Tiner's Glass Onion Recording Studio before returning to California to let everything marinate. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Six months have passed and I am back in Nashville. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

I am taking in the soft light of spring; sunshine diffused by clouds and blossoms. Shakey snores besides me as I write this, his paws tapping the couch in dreams where he is jumping puddles and train tracks. I live on my own with him and Lola, a well-fed black cat with green eyes whose lovely parents are on tour. And the tea kettle - the one that sat atop the stove for me to find it as an old friend and wink from the universe - is the kind that sings.