Well...I disappeared and I guess I'm back now.

It's crazy seeing that the last post I made was right before I moved to California.

My expectations of being able to sit down and document everything that was happening to me as poetically accurate as possible just wasn't going to happen when I got caught up in everything that was what it was.

Especially now since I am constantly interrupted.

I loved writing in this place because I entered a state of flow; where I could pair visceral music with visions from memory or from the day in way that whomever would read this could maybe understand what magic (or lack of) that I had felt.

For a while things were too crazy and only music did justice because my vocabulary and my experiences were so different and advanced that it exceeded my ability to share it enough to justify the experience.... and my privacy.

Where we left off - the end of 2016 - felt almost as if I had been hiding underwater... and not in a calm body of water, but rather in a deep pool that had bodies and large appliances (some plugged and unplugged) being thrown in with me, knocking my buoyant helpless body that wasn't ready to surface...

of course in this metaphor I can hold my breath for an infinite amount of time and am incapable of dying from electrocution, but the point is... there were shocks... but they didn't destroy me but affected me.

If anyone told me that the latter years of your twenties were going to be so rich and tumultuous I would still react the same way.

Okay. Bring it on.

So... yeah. 2016 was filled with death which forced me to be (more) questioning of life, and fear, which forced me to realize how brave I could be, and that with everything that ends, something 10 times better always comes along (something I have said to myself since I was about 6 or 7 to help myself cope from a deep sense of hopelessness which was likely undiagnosed child depression).

And now, 3 years later, we're here. I have two dogs and a husband ---and there's a huge part of me that carries the essence of this blog within me still that wants to do this:

And now, 3 years later, we're here. I have two dogs and a husband

Because - how could that be????

For some reason, the college version of myself doesn't demand that I explain because the second I decided to rise above the overwhelming sense of the unknown and against everything that said "no", there was an underlying river within me that always flowed towards the large ocean that is my heart.

And despite that happiness, I thought to make room for all these new things that demanded my time and attention for full comprehension (because 2016 taught me how life is fleeting of course) -- I wanted to be present. I wanted to learn entirely how to love and learn and feel and hurt and worry in my brand new life.

But there was always something missing.

And it was this.

Because for the first time in my life - I don't get to be alone (TWO DOGS AND A HUSBAND! remember). I spent a lot of time growing up entirely by myself - and I don't remember specifically if I hated it but I remember feeling lonely because I wanted to converse.  So instead, I would spend hours and hours typing on my Windows 95 PC (I WAS SEVEN. THAT'S CRAZY) a flow of words in Courier New, Center Justified (Without knowing at the time that that was basically screenplay format) and I would type.

and type

and type and type and TYPE and type.

Until like, 4 in the morning or until I had answered all my questions or felt satisfied about the amount of words I had gotten out of my head... and felt new again.

I'm pretty sure I swung a 1000+++ page count on that Microsoft Document (it didn't even have that paperclip character that would pop up to annoy you because it was so old) and saving it to one of these:

So, I sort of abandoned my blog. I abandoned writing because instead of doing it for myself, I started worrying about affecting whoever was reading it or if people really cared or if I was sharing too much of myself and losing privacy.

Oh, and I also started Instagram.

And I realized that -- I have become someone who can't be dishonest about herself so I might as well hone that because i'll just justify it as a strength.

My husband (who is also a writer) has defined me in a meeting as having:

...an ear for truth and a nose for bullshit.

And I realize that living in Toronto made me resent the city because I had to do and work jobs that didn't allow me to entirely be myself. And that's all I've ever wanted -- I mean, isn't that what everyone really secretly wants? The ability to have full expression??? No tension? Freedom to be curious and create?

So yeah - not being able to write restricted an inherent desire to and the cathartic satisfaction I got from it...

It also seems to make sense because I found out that my maternal great-grandmother was a playwright in the Philippines and my grandmother and her siblings would act out her mother's plays for the neighbours (I vow to forever type things the Canadian way)  and someone must've stolen them, or there was a fire, or maybe both - but there was a devastation and all of her stories were lost.
And, I guess, she never wrote another play again because WWI had begun.

Writing runs in my blood and I must do that part of me justice.

SO yada yada yada

Let's bring you up to speed. I live in Los Angeles. I love it here. It's different and America is strange but every time I look I am caught breathless with the beauty of the landscape, or amazed at all the crazy things, and even the people here look like art because everything here is rich with story. There are annoying things, there are scary things and there are things that make things life but I like it here.

I've gone back and forth to Toronto with David at least 6 times since 2017 and family is so important to me and mine is so large that the small amount of time that I am able to have when I go is entirely focused on them because they mean so much to me. THEY MEAN SO MUCH!!!! AHHH. Those people are so funny and kind and love food that it's one of the hardest things about living in a place that I love that has to be so far away from everything else that I love.

My first commercial just aired...!!!!!!


I spent two days shooting in down the street from my house (if your commute anywhere takes you less than 15 minutes here - you have been giving a blessing because NOTHING takes you less than 15 minutes here. All the traffic stories about L.A. you've heard are mostly true) at an elementary school. My co-star was a kid named Hudson who was better focused and more professional than most adults I know. Our director of photography won the Oscar for Green Book and I even got to do the voice overs, which is where all that time in the vocal booth singing these past years and all that voice training has directed me to-- one day I really hope to be a few cartoon characters on TV or in movies.

If you've been keeping up I've gotten to do a few voices for some short films and a web series already and did a voice for the video game Fallout.

AND yeah - the hustle continues. I feel good about sharing even if no one either got this far or even checks to see if I update this anymore...

but if you do, please leave me a message in the comments because I'm sure i'd love to see how you are doing if it's been a while.

Love,

Ferdelle