about.
Our free-spirited curiosity and creativity are coaxed from our hands at a young age by a culture that worships straight lines and predictability.
It’s not surprising that the pressure to think in rigid certainties is so strong. Add the seductive ease certainty provides – muting our fears, soothing our anxieties, and ironing out the bewildering complexities of life – it's no wonder we’re drawn to dogma like moths to flames.
I recently heard the enchanting Elif Shafak say, “We live in a world of clashing certainties.” I have to agree with her sentiment that what we need is not more certainty, but more nuance, more pluralism, more multiplicity.
All to say, we need to get cozy with ambiguity and uncertainty.
We need spaces where curiosity, chaos, mystery, and paradox are not only encouraged but held in high regard. These are, after all, the fertile grounds of creativity, freedom, truth, intelligence, and, ironically, clarity – the things most dear to my heart.
Instead of answers, what I share here in this digital garden is a variety of lenses, frames, stories, artifacts, and moments of recognition to try on for size. I wish for this to be a well-crafted, beautiful space in which to think dynamically, create freely, and call on something more generative than certainty.
Some days I will achieve this, and other days, not so much. Consume anything I say with discernment, running it always through your filters of truth with the knowledge that I am, indeed, fallible as fuck.
The themes I'm drawn to exploring almost always boil down to what I've shared above, but the specific angles and swirlings from which I approach them are constantly changing. This is simultaneously my writing studio, my commonplace book, and my grimoire... an ever-evolving place to collect what I notice, work with language, and record what quietly alters the way I see and live. It's my creative life, in motion.
I organize my posts in collections, so you can navigate to what's most meaningful to you.
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Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little.
- Agnes de Mille
little tidbits about me
I am a curator of liberating perspectives, a voracious reader & researcher, and a connoisseur of mixed metaphors.
I'm also endlessly curious about the heights and net worths of celebrities.
My 47 years on this planet have been an off-the-rails experiment in the study of freedom, risk, change, hope, uncertainty, and revision.
I spent the first half of my life invincible. Now I'm acutely aware that death is coming for us all. Guess this is how I'm spending the second half of my life... Obviously, I'm existential.
I'm a longtime lovergirl of creative entrepreneurship, and have been enterprising in various forms, both online and off, for over two decades – including 13 years as a hair designer and another 13 years as a life coach. Now I'm leaning into the character of an artist, indie author, creative consultant, and all-around prolific businesswoman.
I hail from midwestern America (Nebraska, specifically) and spent over a decade living nomadically between California, Hawaii, Colorado, and Bali.
Recently, I moved into a traditional, open-air Balinese joglo after living in a hotel for six years. My villa [soul]mates are my grown daughter and a ginger kitty. We call ourselves, collectively, the Three She-Migos.
Our new home features a giant lizard living in the rafters – whom we've declared a boy and named "She." He conveniently eats bugs that wander in from the garden, then inconveniently, poops them out around the house.
I enjoy hearing from readers, fellow artists & entrepreneurs, and anyone navigating their own uncertain paths. Drop me a line at contact@chandranicole.com for collaborations, consulting, coaching, or to connect over shared questions about this strange business of being human.
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
- Walt Whitman
