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Zoë

@skinofstardust

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A lil forest lady bopping around in a bus and on a sailboat.
Writing things, telling jokes, and sharing my very human experience. 🧚

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It’s warm and dry and sunny and I made it back to the land of the high desert. So many memories stirred, even just with how the air feels. It feels like freedom. Finding flowers feels like freedom. It feels like hope. Song after song. Turn after turn. It’s been a while now, just enjoying my own company. At first I found my inner world hard to tolerate. Lots of noise. Lots of avoidance. I thought “Good God girl you need some spiritual maintenance!!” And nature has delivered. I feel a genuine enjoyment of my own company again. It came in around day five. I feel like myself now. Like I FEEL like myself. With so much clarity. And in that clarity is a real loving of how I am, who I am. I like my process. I like my humor. I like hearing my own voice in a vastness of silence and birdsong. I like what I’ve done with the place! I like how I see the world. I like my energy. In all of these traits I have assumed complete responsibility. There have been many moments where I felt I had no control over anything but my energy, my outlook, or my humor. Life felt like a ride in which I had no control. And now I feel such a sense of control. Well, not really control, more like independence. And in it there’s so much room for me to be joyful. To be truly so grateful. To easily embody all the things I used to work tooth n nail for. To be moved to tears because life on this earth is a miracle and me along with it. For most of eternity I’ll be dead. And for this moment in time, this pinprick, I am ALIVE.
I am relinquishing the shadow that thought I had to prove myself through suffering. Or be relatable through my suffering. Or that I couldn’t ever be doing better than anyone I love. I will suffer when suffering asks to be moved through me, but I will live my life in fucking JOY! 💌🪄

#bigjoy #schoolbus #canada #solocamping taken in British Columbia by @skinofstardust

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5 months ago

Share your joy, fiercely, bravely.
Don’t count the drops you didn’t get back.
Just emit.
Emit, emit, emit what you are.
That is all that matters.
No reaction or poor reaction,
Is irrelevant to the beauty and truth of your genuine light.
The world needs you to shine upon her,
So delight in things.
The tiniest of things.
And the world around you will become delighted.

- freely given is freely received,
my joy is yours to keep.

Photos from the Vancouver Folk Music Festival by @sheilasayphotography ♥️🪶 taken in Vancouver, British Columbia by @skinofstardust

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2 years ago

Jedediah Island lady liberation ✨🤿🧜🏼‍♀️

#freediving #sailingtrip #JOY taken in British Columbia by @skinofstardust

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2 years ago

I celebrated my birthday this weekend with some of my best friends. ✨✨✨ It was freaky and weird and fabulous. Life is absurdity and it is more doable when you’re laughing and dressed like a banana. Yes, Bananastasia made an appearance and shook up some shit!
While dancing I was thinking to myself….
“Why not me?”
WHY NOT ME????💌💌🦅
To be a little clown! To be a big feeler! To be a big booty shaker! To be a wise truth teller! To be a daring explorer! To be a big breaking griever! To be a friend through and through!
To be myself.
To be myself.
To be myself,
Is about opening the gates of restriction, rather than excavating more for viewership. All that I want to be is already within me. And my big question for 24 is “why not be it?”
When death waits for all of us…
Why not be it?
Why take precious caring hold of what you hate, what you resent, what you wish away?
At times I take great care to preserve my stories of density and resentment. This weekend showed me how to look up and laugh about this ridiculous predicament of living.

This next year will be about dreaming past the stories that have held me still. This year will be about dreaming things alive. I welcome all the other bullshit to fade away.
Opinions, pressures, performance? No thank you. No thank you.
I want to be as real with myself as I can.
I will tell the truth. I will be as weird as I wish and please. I will embody the absurdity that death has shown me and I will make art out of a singular life. I will make meaning without needing it to be meaningful to anyone else. I will make meaning without needing to show it to anyone else. I will make meaning and I will live in community that does the same.
I will survive and I will be as expressed, embodied, and alive as I wish to be.
Because WHY NOT ME? ♥️

#WHYNOTYOU? #FUCKYEAIMALIVE taken in Lookout Arts Quarry by @skinofstardust

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a month ago

There’s a sensation I’ve had in early grief where my emotions are running so high but instead of feeling like I’m going crazy… I feel like everyone else has! Because right at my fingertips is the awareness that all of this is impermanent. Even the most precious thing to me will die and fall away. I will die and fall away. I have such a finite time here and it is nothing but sacred. I feel as though I am losing some of my life to grief, but maybe that’s not true. Waking up to impermanence gives me the task of LIVING fully. There’s a clarifying that grief begs to make of you. I hope I will follow that with all my heart. I hope I will make my life everything I want it to be. It’s never been more clear that everything and nothing is in my control, always at the same time. I won’t be sleeping through it. 🦋

Also don’t mind my undies!!! Radical expression doesn’t care about your pants staying up.

#grief #expression #dancethroughgrief #parentloss #aliveness by @skinofstardust

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2 months ago

My little moments of joy amongst a ROUGH!!! summer.
No matter what I will work to find the good things in this life. I will work to make them happen and I won’t ever let them go. 💌

Things such as:

Mermaiding, kelp up-dos, Lopez island produce, fair food with my sister, kayaking and gabbing with my babe, sardines at the beach, sailing Sitka with my family and spreading my dads ashes in the sea, my wonderful friends getting married, dancing ALL night, bus camping, biking around with a big smile on my face (and a bruised butt), instant new best friends, and hanging with my favorite person of all time, Peter.

I am proud of my survival. That’s all.
🌙💌🌿🍊🌷 taken in San Juan Island by @skinofstardust

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2 months ago

It’s been two months without him now. Some days it catches up to me. I’m not gonna lie everything has felt really hard lately. I wish he was here. Most of these clips are from when he helped me fix Sitka up and paint her keel. Thank you for encouraging me dad. I’m gonna keep sailing for you and for me. 💌

#sailing #pugetsound #sailboat #hunter23 #parentloss by @skinofstardust

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3 months ago

Home.🧚🏼‍♀️ is in the orchard!!!!

So blessed to have this sanctuary to land for a while with the love of my life. If you need me I’ll be communing with the pears and dragonflies and reading on the porch. Looking forward to a sammy and a sail this afternoon. Making an altar for my dad. Taking baths. Exalting the magic of a flushing toilet. Washing dishes n shit! Doing real big house tings!!!! 🧚🏼‍♀️♥️🧚🏼‍♀️♥️🧚🏼‍♀️♥️🪄♥️🧚🏼‍♀️♥️

And I’ve got a real bougie guest house for my friends that brave the ferry system. 🚌

Thank you sweet little island that raised me and has supported me every time I return!! (even when you challenge me big time to relinquish self-surveillance and worrying about what others think. 🤔)

Growing up in a small everybody knows your business town can crush your expressive spirit or set you free into “I don’t give a fuck” land.
Can you guess where I’m going???

Thank you thank you. 🌾🪷🪄

#sanjuanislands by @skinofstardust

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3 months ago

We took the boat out for the first time since I sailed it home with my dad. It was one of the last places I spent time with him. We saw humpbacks and porpoises together. We ironed out all the quirks. Thank you so much dad. I was surprised to find that no tears greeted me, only gratitude and excitement. I felt held. I get to embark on this adventure with the love of my life. My Peter. He has held me through the loss of my dad and now we hold each other as we learn new things. I feel so genuinely excited to sail together. I thought it would be extremely hard to come back to the boat, but I just felt close to my dad. I felt that he was proud of us. Perhaps watching us in the form of a kingfisher. We thought everything through ten steps ahead. (like my dad always did) We didn’t raise her sails since the conditions and timing weren’t right. But we dreamt up the future. I felt undeniably blessed and lucky for being right where I was. The moon and sun on either side of us. I love who I get to do this life with. I am so grateful for Peter. I am grateful to be brave and motivated to make my dad proud. We are gonna sail the hell out of this little thing!!!

And we have landed on her name: Sitka.
I love my Sitka. I love my Peter. I am in love with my life even though it can be so painful. I will adventure my way through. 💌⛵️

Ps our tiller is a finger crusher and that’s not nice!! But the outboard is spiffy and running like a dream.

#hunter23 #sailing by @skinofstardust

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3 months ago

Well I could try to write something inspirational or I could be real and admit I just want to post these because I look CUTIE!!! 🪷🪄

I ♥️ brown and I ♥️ my boyfriend, he takes good pics of me and I send him cute + nice hints about things…. 👩🏼‍❤️‍💋‍👨🏼

Okay bye that’s my contribution for today.

💋 by @skinofstardust

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3 months ago

Yea…. we match.💋

But not without a fuck ton of work!!!
The older photos are from years ago. Wow. I’m grateful.
It’s better than I ever dreamt it could be.

#schoolbusconversion #buslife #offgrid by @skinofstardust

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3 months ago

I am blown away by the support I’ve gotten through the loss of my dad, getting a sailboat???, traveling in my bus, sharing authentically, and being vulnerable. THANK YOU SO MUCH. ♥️ I have shared on here for a long time and it’s amazing to have gained some traction and have found an ease in sharing authentically. It’s never felt more seamless. I love my little corner of the internet. Before my dad died I had told him I thought I might reach 10k this summer. It didn’t feel like a huge deal to me but his jaw dropped. He was so shocked and excited for me. He told me to keep going and that it might bring me big opportunities. Thank you for the support dad. I love that you knew about this last milestone. I hope I can make you proud.

Anyway enough talking to my dad, I am talking to YOU. Thank YOU for being here. Thank you for witnessing my process and my growth. Thank you for cheering me on and having my back when I feel small. Thank you for the advice and raising my confidence to sail without my dad here. Thank you for reminding me that I am worthy of being seen and heard. Thank you for being a witness to my life. It is insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and one day, I hope long off in the future, I will be where my dad is. But right now I am alive. I won’t waste a minute. And I am excited to share the adventure with you. 🌙✨🧚🏼‍♀️

Also my angel little sister ( @tasha.wandersthe.wrld )surprised me with this cake and I am so grateful. ♥️

#10kfollowers #contentcreation #vanlife #parentloss #sailing by @skinofstardust

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3 months ago