In the spring of 2017 I had the chance to sit down with Mitski to talk about music, self-care, and what was happening in her life at the time as she transitioned from being an IYKYK indie artist to being very well known across the globe. During that conversation she said a bunch of thoughtful, incredibly tender things, but this part has always stuck with me:

“I think the most important process for understanding the world and what’s going on in yourself is to name things. We name streets, flowers, people, experiences, identities – we need to name a thing in order to make sense of it. I think songwriting is another naming process, where you give a name to a big muck inside you, or at least a little part of the big muck, in order to feel like you know it, and know where to put it. So I could say that writing songs has been a gateway to a deeper understanding of myself, but I actually think songwriting has given me a much simpler understanding of myself, in that all these messy, dark, unknowable things can be named, and become 3-minute songs to put on an iPhone instead of stirring in the big goop of the mind.”

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MITSKI x LOGAN LYNN

“Naming The Big Muck Inside You”

Read our chat in full HERE.

It has taken me days to accept that my friend Brent is not here anymore and I still can’t really find words for what this sweet man has meant to me and my own recovery over the years.

Beyond holding space as one of the few people I know who look hot with or without a beard — which I will gladly admit was what I noticed about him first and is VERY RARE — this handsome guy made space for me in Oregon’s recovery community when no one else would. He saw value in my journey from there to here, and he made sure other people knew it. He showed me respect in rooms I had been disrespected in and fought for me, and others like me who had carved their own path to recovery, to have a space at the big table. And it worked. Read the rest of this entry »

Happy to be here.

I think it’s hard for people who meet me now to picture me before I got into recovery, and I love that for all of us.