Part of the Come Talk Story series | Melin Talks Story | Living Aloha Collective

🌺 Pull Up a Chair. Let’s Talk Story.

What happens when the life you’ve spent decades building changes in a single moment?

Not just your career. Not just your daily routine. But the very things you’ve used to answer that deceptively simple question:

Who am I?

That’s the question at the heart of today’s conversation with Florence Acosta, creator of BECOMING YOU.

For more than 20 years, Florence worked as a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA), caring for people during some of their most vulnerable moments. She built a career, became a leader, and was accustomed to being the person others relied upon.

Then, on April 22, 2023, an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) ruptured, causing a massive hemorrhagic stroke.

In an instant, everything changed.

Florence had to relearn how to walk, talk, eat, write, and navigate the world. She lost her career, much of her independence, and the familiar identity she’d spent decades building.

But this isn’t a tidy story about overcoming adversity and emerging triumphantly on the other side.

It’s something more honest, more complicated, and, to me, more meaningful.

It’s about learning to live in the space between grieving what was and discovering what might still be.

And Florence is still figuring it out.

Aren’t we all?

What struck me most about her answers was her willingness to hold two truths at once: gratitude for the life she has and a longing for the possibilities still ahead.

I think there’s a little something here for anyone who has ever had to ask, Who am I now?

So pour yourself something good, get comfortable, and come talk story with Florence. 🌺

🌺 The Signature Seven

1. Before we talk about what you do, who are you when nobody is asking for your resumé?

Florence:

“I’m Florence. A woman who is still becoming.”

I’m a wife, a mom, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a storyteller, and someone who believes there’s more to us than the roles we play and the titles we carry.

For more than two decades, I built a career as a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA). I became a leader, an executive director, and the person others counted on to take care of things.

Then, on April 22, 2023, my life changed in an instant when an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) ruptured and caused a massive hemorrhagic stroke.

I had to relearn things many of us never think twice about: walking, talking, eating, writing, and navigating the world around me. I lost my career, my independence, and the version of myself I had known for decades.

For a long time, I struggled to recognize the woman looking back at me.

Today, I’m learning that I am more than what I do, what I achieve, or what I can contribute to someone else’s life.

I’m curious. I’m hopeful. I’m a work in progress. I love a good conversation, meaningful connections, and helping women see possibilities they may have stopped seeing in themselves.

I’m also a woman who knows what it feels like to lose her way and begin again.

That’s a big part of why I created BECOMING YOU. I believe we never stop becoming. We don’t have to wait until we have everything figured out to begin.

2. Give me two things in your life that might look completely unrelated to someone else but are absolutely connected in your mind. Connect the dots for us.

Florence:

“An operating room and a blank page.”

At first glance, those two things couldn’t be more different.

For more than 20 years, I worked as a CRNA. In the operating room, I cared for people during some of their most vulnerable moments. I learned to pay attention, think critically, make decisions, and understand that the little things can make an enormous difference.

Then I experienced vulnerability in a way I never could have fully understood from the other side of the bed.

My stroke changed my relationship with my body, my identity, and my future. The woman who had spent years caring for others suddenly needed a tremendous amount of care herself.

Today, I write. I share stories. I ask questions. I help women explore what they want their next chapter to look like.

The operating room taught me how much care matters when someone is vulnerable. The blank page gives me a place to explore that truth in a different way.

One taught me how to care for people. The other is teaching me how to help people see themselves.

Different settings. Same heart.

And both have reminded me that sometimes the most meaningful work begins when we meet someone exactly where they are.

3. What does taking care of yourself look like in actual practice, not the Instagram version?

Florence:

“For me, self-care has become a lot less about bubble baths and a lot more about being honest with myself.”

After my stroke, I spent a long time grieving the life I had lost. I struggled with depression, my changing identity, and the loss of independence that had once defined so much of my life.

Eventually, I had to accept that I needed help. That wasn’t easy for someone who had spent years being the person others relied on.

Taking care of myself now means acknowledging when I’m struggling instead of pretending I’m fine.

It means asking for help, working with a mental health professional, honoring what my body can do today, and celebrating progress that other people might not even notice.

It also means making room for things that make me feel alive again: writing, connecting with people, creating something meaningful, and exploring what might be possible next.

Some days, self-care looks like taking a small step forward. Other days, it looks like accepting that the small step is enough.

I’ve learned that taking care of yourself isn’t always pretty, productive, or photogenic.

It’s admitting you can’t do it all alone.

And it’s finally giving yourself the same compassion you’ve spent years giving everyone else.

4. What’s one ridiculously small thing that brings you an unreasonable amount of joy?

Florence:

A really good idea that makes me stop whatever I’m doing because I HAVE to write it down!

My brain is constantly connecting dots, dreaming up possibilities, and turning little observations into ideas for BECOMING YOU.

A phrase can become a post. A conversation can become a podcast episode. One question can send me down an entirely new creative rabbit hole.

And when the words finally come together in a way that makes me think, THAT’S IT! That’s exactly what I wanted to say!

Oh, that feeling.

It’s such a little thing, but it brings me so much joy.

I think it’s because creating reminds me that there are still so many things I want to explore, share, and bring into the world.

I may not know exactly where every idea will lead. But I love that little spark when something clicks.

“Apparently, my brain runs a 24/7 idea factory, and nobody told it there were business hours!”

5. Of everything you’ve written, created, built, or contributed to, what’s ONE thing you wish more people had seen? Why this one?

Florence:

I’d choose my story of becoming someone new after my stroke.

For years, I identified with the things I’d built: my nursing career, my leadership roles, my family, and the responsibilities I carried.

Then, in a single moment, the life I recognized disappeared.

I had to learn how to live in a body that no longer worked the way it once had. I had to grieve the career I’d spent decades building.

And I had to face a question I hadn’t expected to ask at this stage of my life:

Who am I when I can no longer do the things that made me feel like me?

I wish more people could see that part of my story because I know I’m not the only woman who has looked around at a life that appears perfectly fine from the outside and wondered where she went in the middle of it all.

Not everyone experiences a stroke.

Sometimes the thing that changes your life is an empty nest, a career ending, a relationship changing, a loss, or simply realizing that the life you’ve built no longer feels like your own.

My stroke took so much from me.

Rebuilding my life has also opened a door to a different kind of purpose: helping other women recognize that their story isn’t over just because the life they planned has changed.

That’s why I created BECOMING YOU.

I want women to know they aren’t broken because they’re changing, and they haven’t missed their moment because their next chapter looks different from the one they imagined.

“You can lose the life you knew without losing every possibility ahead of you.”

I’d point people toward my Substack publication, BECOMING YOU, where I share the stories, questions, and little sparks that have become part of my own journey.

My suggested featured piece is “What If You’re Not Lost?”

It captures the heart of this message: sometimes we aren’t lost. We’re discovering who we are becoming.

🌺 Explore BECOMING YOU with Florence Acosta

6. Who is doing work you think more people should know about? Who are they, and why are you passing the lei to them?

Florence:

I’d pass the lei to Blair Ames, a fellow stroke survivor I’ve connected with through the shared experience of navigating life after a stroke.

People who are willing to share their experiences instead of hiding the parts of their stories that might make others uncomfortable are powerful.

Stroke recovery doesn’t end when someone leaves the hospital.

The physical recovery is only one part of it.

There’s also the emotional work, the identity shifts, the changes in relationships, and the challenge of figuring out who you are when life looks nothing like it did before.

I believe more conversations about those realities matter.

They help people feel less alone, give visibility to experiences that aren’t always understood, and remind survivors that their lives still hold meaning and possibility.

I want to see more people making room for the whole story of recovery and not just the inspiring before-and-after version.

That’s why I’d pass the lei to Blair: in recognition of the importance of sharing our stories and helping others feel seen.

🌺 The lei goes to Blair Ames.

Visit Blair’s Stroke Recovery & Rehab Substack

7. What’s something about being human you’re still figuring out?

Florence:

“I’m still figuring out how to love the life I have while making room for the life I still want.”

I spent so many years moving forward with a plan. I went to nursing school, became a CRNA, built my career, stepped into leadership, and raised my family.

I was accustomed to working toward something, solving problems, and figuring out the next step.

Then my stroke changed everything.

I couldn’t simply work harder to get my old life back.

I had to learn to live with uncertainty, accept help, grieve what had changed, and discover a new version of myself without knowing exactly who she would become.

I’m still learning that I don’t have to choose between being grateful for what I have and wanting more.

I can appreciate my life and still dream.

I can be proud of how far I’ve come and still have hard days.

I can accept my limitations without letting them define the boundaries of every possibility ahead of me.

And I can be a work in progress without treating myself like a project that needs fixing.

I think we spend so much of our lives trying to arrive somewhere: the next milestone, the next achievement, the next version of ourselves who finally has it all together.

I’m beginning to believe that becoming isn’t about reaching a finish line.

It’s about learning to be present in the life we’re living while remaining curious about who we might become.

I’m 53 years into this life and I’m still meeting myself.

I think that’s one of the most beautiful parts of being human.

We’re allowed to change.

We’re allowed to begin again.

We’re allowed to surprise ourselves.

“We’re allowed to become someone we haven’t met yet.”

That’s what BECOMING YOU means to me.

🌺 Melin’s Takeaway: We Are More Than What We Can Do

Florence, mahalo for trusting us with your story.

As a social worker, I’ve spent decades supporting people through grief, loss, trauma, and life transitions. One thing I’ve come to appreciate is that losing a familiar identity can be its own kind of grief.

And it isn’t always visible to the people around us.

What stays with me about Florence’s story is that she doesn’t pretend everything she lost has somehow been replaced by something better.

She acknowledges the loss.

She honors the grief.

And she leaves room for possibility.

All at the same time.

I especially love her observation about being a work in progress without treating herself like a project that needs fixing.

Whew. That one deserves to sit with us for a while.

So many of us spend our lives being useful, dependable, capable, and productive. We become so accustomed to being needed that we can forget we’re worthy of care simply because we’re human.

Our worth was never supposed to depend on our productivity.

And here’s another thing I appreciate about Florence: she’s not waiting until she has everything figured out before sharing what she’s learning.

She’s showing up in the middle of the becoming.

That’s courage of a quieter kind.

For me, that’s Living Aloha, too. Honoring ourselves and others through all the changes life brings, including the ones we never would have chosen.

Florence’s story reminds me that we can grieve yesterday, care for ourselves today, and remain curious about tomorrow.

No neat little bow required.

🌺 Get to Know Florence

If you’ve ever questioned who you are beyond your career, your responsibilities, your relationships, or the expectations you’ve carried, Florence’s writing offers a thoughtful place to explore those questions.

At BECOMING YOU, you’ll find personal reflections on identity, rebuilding, self-discovery, and the possibilities that remain when life doesn’t unfold according to plan.

Start with her recommended piece, What If You’re Not Lost?, and explore from there.

And while you’re visiting, consider subscribing and joining the conversation.

Because good stories deserve to travel, and good people deserve to be discovered.

🌺 Now It’s Your Turn

Florence has given us a beautiful question to carry into our own lives:

What if you’re not lost? What if you’re simply becoming someone you haven’t met yet?

Have you ever experienced a life change that made you question who you were, only to discover something unexpected about yourself along the way?

I’d love to hear your story in the comments.

And please join me in giving Florence a warm aloha for sharing hers. 🌺

Come Talk Story is part of Melin Talks Story, a publication within the Living Aloha Collective. It’s where we pull up a chair, get curious about the humans behind the writing, celebrate meaningful connections, and pass the lei to someone whose voice deserves to be heard.

No fancy resumé required. Just real people, real stories, and plenty of aloha.

Aloha, Melin 🌺

Leave a comment

Share

I’ve been wondering what ten-year-old me would think if she met sixty-two-year-old me.

First, she’d probably stare at my gray hair.

Then she’d ask why I’m wearing glasses.

And then, being the bookworm she was, she’d want to know whether we still love to read.

Oh, sweetheart.

You have no idea.

Meet Little Melin

At ten, I was a curious kid.

A reader.

A thinker.

A girl whose mind wandered into all kinds of interesting places.

I loved words, stories, and learning.

I also had no idea how complicated being a grown-up could become.

I wonder what she’d make of the woman sitting across from her today.

A mother.

A grandmother.

A clinical social worker.

A researcher and evaluator.

A woman with a few degrees, a whole lot of life experience, and an ongoing collection of questions about absolutely everything.

She might be impressed.

Or she might ask why it took me so long to figure out some fairly basic things.

Kids have a way of cutting right through the nonsense.

I Think She’d Have Questions

“Wait. You have GRANDCHILDREN?”

Yes, sweetheart.

And being their Puna is one of the great joys of our life.

“Do we still like books?”

Very much.

In fact, we’ve found a way to turn our love of reading, writing, and asking questions into conversations with people all over the world.

“People all over the WORLD?”

Yup.

We can talk to someone in another country without leaving the house.

“Like the Jetsons?”

Pretty much.

Although we still don’t have a flying car.

Frankly, given Honolulu traffic, that’s a disappointment.

“Are we happy?”

Ah.

Now that’s a bigger question.

The Things I Wish I Could Tell Her

I think I’d want to tell little Melin that life doesn’t unfold in the neat, predictable way we imagine when we’re children.

There will be beautiful surprises.

There will be heartbreak.

There will be times when she feels brave and times when she feels very, very small.

There will be people she loves deeply.

People she loses.

People who teach her things she never wanted to learn.

And people who remind her that the world is still full of goodness.

I’d tell her that being smart doesn’t mean she’ll always know what to do.

Being capable doesn’t mean she has to do everything.

And being kind doesn’t mean she has to make herself smaller so everyone else can be comfortable.

That last lesson?

Took us a while.

A long while.

What I Think Would Surprise Her Most

It wouldn’t be the technology.

Or the grandchildren.

Or even the degrees.

I think she’d be surprised that, at sixty-two, I’m still figuring things out.

That grown-ups don’t actually reach some magical age when all the answers arrive.

I remember thinking adults knew everything.

HA!

If only.

I think she’d also be surprised that I’m writing publicly.

Sharing stories.

Asking questions.

Inviting strangers into conversations.

Because the little girl who loved books and lived so much inside her own head has become a woman who wants to hear what other people have to say.

Not because I’ve suddenly become an extrovert.

Good heavens, no.

I still love my solitude.

But I’ve discovered that curiosity can be a beautiful bridge between people.

And stories?

Stories are how we cross it.

Maybe She’d Be Proud

Not necessarily because of the degrees, job titles, or accomplishments.

Although I suspect she’d find those interesting.

I hope she’d be proud that I kept going.

That I remained curious.

That I learned to question things.

That after all these years, I’m finding more room to be myself.

And that I still laugh.

Sometimes at the most inappropriate moments.

Especially when life gets absurd.

I’d like to think we’d get along.

Although she’d probably be appalled at how early I go to bed.

Now I Want to Hear From You

One of the things I love most about Melin Talks Story is discovering the human being behind the profile picture.

Not the polished biography.

Not the professional accomplishments.

Not the carefully curated version of ourselves we present to the world.

The person underneath all that.

And I’ve been thinking this could become a wonderful conversation for all of us.

Imagine your ten-year-old self sitting across from you today.

What would they notice first?

What would surprise them?

What would make them laugh?

What would they be proud of?

And what might they gently remind you that you’ve forgotten?

You don’t need a profound answer.

Maybe your ten-year-old self would simply be thrilled that you can eat ice cream whenever you want.

Or horrified that you voluntarily eat vegetables.

Or deeply disappointed that you still haven’t learned to whistle.

All answers welcome.

Come talk story with me 🌺

Finish this sentence in the comments:

“My ten-year-old self would never believe that I __________.”

Funny, tender, ridiculous, surprising, or wonderfully ordinary.

I want to hear it.

Because every grown-up carries a whole collection of younger selves.

And I suspect those younger selves have some pretty good stories to tell.

Aloha, Melin 🌺

P.S. Ten-year-old me would also like to know why I spend so much time looking for my glasses when they’re sitting on top of my head.

Leave a comment

Share

Subscribe now

Aloha! Come inside. You don’t need an invitation.

When was the last time you had a conversation with someone that made you forget to check your phone?

Not small talk.

Not networking.

Not someone telling you how successful, productive, or impressive they are.

I’m talking about a real conversation.

The kind where someone shares a little piece of themselves, and suddenly you recognize something of yourself in their story.

Maybe you laugh.

Maybe you get a little teary.

Maybe you think, “Oh my goodness. I thought I was the only one!”

That’s the kind of connection I love.

And that’s why I created Melin Talks Story.

🌺 First, a little about me.

I’m Melin. A Native Hawaiian woman, mother, grandmother (Puna), clinical social worker, therapist, researcher, evaluator, and self-described nerd.

I’ve spent more than three decades listening to people’s stories, asking questions, and trying to understand what makes us human.

You’d think after all those years I’d have people figured out.

HA! 😂

If anything, I’ve become even more curious.

I’m also an introvert who genuinely loves meaningful conversation.

Yes, apparently those two things can coexist.

Give me a thoughtful exchange with one person over working a crowded room any day.

And while I appreciate research, credentials, and professional expertise, I’ve learned that some of life’s most valuable wisdom comes from ordinary people sharing extraordinary pieces of their lives.

Which brings me to this publication.

💜 What is Melin Talks Story?

In Hawaiʻi, we say talk story.

It’s more than exchanging information.

It’s how we connect, share experiences, laugh, learn, remember, and build relationships.

Sometimes we begin talking about one thing and end up somewhere entirely different.

And that’s often where the good stuff lives.

Melin Talks Story is a gathering place for real people, honest reflections, meaningful conversations, and the wisdom we discover in one another.

Some days, I’ll share my own stories.

Other days, I’ll introduce you to someone whose voice deserves to be heard.

And sometimes, we’ll simply laugh about the absurdities of being human.

No fancy credentials required.

No pretending to have everything figured out.

No competition over whose life is more interesting.

Just people being people.

Imagine that! 😅

🌸 What’s in it for you?

When you subscribe, here’s what you can look forward to.

🌺 Meet people you might never otherwise encounter.

Discover writers, creators, thinkers, caregivers, parents, and everyday people from different places, generations, and walks of life.

💜 Find wisdom in someone else’s story.

Learn how people navigate relationships, adversity, creativity, identity, purpose, and the wonderfully messy business of being human.

🌿 Discover new voices worth following.

Every Come Talk Story interview introduces you to someone whose work, ideas, or experiences might enrich your own life.

😂 Enjoy humor, honesty, and a little everyday ridiculousness.

Because life is serious enough. We need places where we can laugh at ourselves, too.

🤝 Become part of a community, not just an audience.

Share your perspectives, meet fellow readers, support other creators, and participate in conversations that go beyond a simple like or follow.

My hope is that you leave each visit feeling a little more connected to our shared humanity.

And perhaps you’ve discovered someone new whose words you want to keep reading.

📖 New here? Start with these reader favorites.

These stories and conversations offer a little taste of what you’ll find here.

1. 🌺 13 Voices. Four Themes. One Shared Humanity.

Come Talk Story: Our first 13 conversations.

If you’re new to this community, this is a wonderful place to begin.

Thirteen different people. Thirteen different life experiences. And four themes that kept emerging: relationships, belonging, healing, purpose, and connection.

What’s in it for you: A guided introduction to the series, with opportunities to discover new writers and follow the stories that resonate with where you are in life.

Read 13 Voices. Four Themes. One Shared Humanity.

2. 🌺 Come Talk Story: Meet Alex Searle

The conversation that started it all.

Alex, the creator behind 1000 Ways In, was my inaugural guest.

A father, musician, entrepreneur, writer, and thoughtful observer of the human experience, Alex helped launch this little experiment in connection.

What’s in it for you: A reminder that creativity, curiosity, and honest reflection can open unexpected doors to understanding ourselves and others.

Meet Alex Searle

3. 🌺 Come Talk Story: Meet Nabanita

Finding humor, perspective, and meaning through life’s difficult seasons.

Nabanita is a mother, writer, and two-time cancer survivor who shares what she’s learned about solitude, resilience, relationships, and finding joy in ordinary moments.

What’s in it for you: An opportunity to reflect on how adversity can change our priorities, and why the smallest joys sometimes become the most meaningful.

Meet Nabanita

4. 🌺 Come Talk Story: Meet LaNiedra Chaney

Resilience, reinvention, and remembering who you are.

LaNiedra shares her experiences of motherhood, homelessness, personal growth, and reclaiming her sense of self.

Her story reminds us that one difficult chapter never defines an entire life.

What’s in it for you: A fresh perspective on resilience, identity, and the possibility of beginning again.

Meet LaNiedra Chaney

5. 🌺 Come Talk Story: Meet Belinda

What the forest can teach us about change.

Belinda is a Nature and Forest Therapy Guide and Midlife Career Development Strategist whose perspectives connect nature, transitions, self-awareness, and belonging.

What’s in it for you: A gentler way to consider change and the different seasons of your own life.

Meet Belinda of Evergreen Essence Forest

6. 🌺 Come Talk Story: Meet Ral Joseph

Curiosity, creativity, and building the community we hope to find.

Ral brings together public health research, creative expression, music, faith, and a commitment to helping other voices be heard.

What’s in it for you: Inspiration to bring your different interests together and create meaningful connections through the things you love.

Meet Ral Joseph

🌸 And yes, I tell my own stories, too!

Not every post is an interview.

Sometimes I wander into my own memories, observations, and everyday experiences.

Like these reader favorites:

The Little Old Lady in Me Has Finally Arrived

On becoming Aunty, Puna, and discovering that aging sometimes means growing more comfortably into the person you’ve always been.

The Jetsons Were Right (Well… Mostly)

A humorous look at technology, Tokyo, and how the future we imagined as children is becoming part of everyday life.

Stinking Thinking

A reflection on recovery and the ways our thinking patterns can follow us long after our circumstances change.

You’ll find personal reflections, occasional detours, memories, humor, and the kinds of things that make me stop and say, “I need to talk story about this!”

🌺 The heart of it all: Come Talk Story

One of my favorite things about this publication is our written interview series.

I call it Come Talk Story.

And the idea is beautifully simple.

I invite people to answer seven questions about who they are, what matters to them, what brings them joy, and what they’re still figuring out.

I call them the Signature Seven.

No live cameras.

No fancy production.

No pressure to deliver the perfect answer.

Just thoughtful questions and authentic responses, shared in the guest’s own words.

And here’s my favorite part.

🌸 Passing the lei

At the end of each interview, I invite my guest to recognize another person whose voice deserves more attention.

We call it passing the lei.

One writer introduces another.

One conversation opens the door to another.

One person’s story becomes an invitation to discover someone new.

Because I believe community grows when we make room for one another, not when we compete for attention.

It’s not about collecting followers.

It’s about cultivating relationships.

And that’s aloha in action.

💌 Why subscribe?

Because good conversations have a way of staying with us.

When you subscribe to Melin Talks Story, you’ll receive new stories and interviews in your inbox.

You’ll discover interesting people, encounter different perspectives, and find opportunities to join conversations about the things that make us human.

You might find a writer you love.

A perspective that challenges your assumptions.

A story that makes you feel understood.

Or a new friend you didn’t know you needed.

And you can participate as much or as little as you’d like.

Read quietly.

Leave a comment.

Share a story.

Introduce someone whose work deserves attention.

There is no attendance requirement. This is not another meeting you have to prepare for. 😂

Subscribe to Melin Talks Story

Come for a good story. Stay for the people.

🌺 Want to be part of Come Talk Story?

I’d love that!

You don’t need to be famous.

You don’t need thousands of subscribers.

You don’t need a bestselling book, an impressive résumé, or some extraordinary accomplishment.

You simply need a willingness to share a little of yourself.

Because I believe everyone has a story worth hearing.

If you’re a writer or creator who would like to participate, leave a comment or send me a direct message.

We’ll start with the Signature Seven.

And we’ll see where the conversation takes us.

💜 This is our community.

One thing I’ve come to appreciate about Substack is that the best part isn’t necessarily publishing.

It’s the people.

The thoughtful comments.

The unexpected friendships.

The encouragement from someone halfway around the world.

The way a stranger’s story can suddenly make us feel less alone.

That’s the community I hope we’re building here.

A place where we listen with curiosity.

Share generously.

Respect differences.

Celebrate one another.

And remember that behind every profile picture is a human being with a whole life we know only a little about.

I don’t want to simply grow an audience. I want us to grow a community.

One conversation at a time.

🌸 Before you go, let’s talk story!

Here’s a little icebreaker.

If we were sitting together on the lānai with our favorite drinks and absolutely no agenda, what could you talk story about for hours? 😂

Family?

Music?

Books?

Your pets?

The mysteries of human behavior?

Or something wonderfully random that nobody ever thinks to ask you about?

Tell me in the comments!

I’ll bring the curiosity.

You bring the story.

And together, we’ll see where the conversation takes us.

Aloha, Melin 🌺

Melin Talks Story

Living Aloha Collective

People | Perspectives | Possibility

My stories, ideas, and voice come from me. AI helps me gather my thoughts, polish my words, and bring my visuals to life.

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

We have so many places where we’re expected to speak well. Where do we get to practice being heard?

That question stayed with me as I read Dr. Bormeister’s responses.

A professor and rhetoric coach, Dr. Bormeister spends much of life thinking about communication. But this conversation also takes us into the forests of Brandenburg, the comfort of cooking dinner, and the delight of holding a tiny piece of jewelry that has survived nearly two centuries.

There’s room for a big party and a quiet walk. Research papers and novels. Professional expertise and questions we may never answer.

Oh, I appreciate a person who makes room for both/and.

For anyone who has ever held back a thought while searching for the perfect words, there’s something here for you. An invitation to practice, to listen, and to let yourself be heard while you’re still figuring things out.

Pull up a chair, Dr. Bormeister. Come talk story. 🌺

Our guest’s responses are shared in their own words. The experiences and perspectives expressed belong to our guest.

🌺 The Signature Seven

1. Before we talk about what you do, who are you when nobody is asking for your résumé?

Dr. Bormeister:

I love dancing, painting, and disappearing into a good novel, although all three happen far less often than I’d like.

What I do manage to make room for is movement. I do strength training, very occasionally ballet, and on weekends my partner and I often walk 10–15 kilometers — about 6–9 miles — through Brandenburg, roughly an hour and a half north of Berlin.

It’s a landscape of forests, lakes, tiny villages, and a lot of sky. That’s where I recharge.

And when I don’t manage to read novels, I read research papers. Which sounds suspiciously like work, but I genuinely enjoy it.

2. Give me two things in your life that might look completely unrelated to someone else but are absolutely connected in your mind. Connect the dots for us.

Dr. Bormeister:

My doctoral supervisor once told me that in Western cultures, we tend to be socialized into an either/or way of thinking, while many Eastern traditions are more comfortable with both/and.

That stayed with me.

I think my life contains quite a few both/ands.

During the week, I live in Berlin, right in the middle of things. On weekends, we escape to the middle of nowhere.

I’m employed as a professor, and I’m self-employed as a rhetoric coach.

I love a big party, but I’m equally happy in the woods with my partner or at a spa with a good friend.

Maybe I’m simply a both/and person.

3. What does taking care of yourself look like in actual practice, not the Instagram version?

Dr. Bormeister:

Walking. Strength training. Cooking.

I’d love to say that I cook wonderfully creative meals every evening. I don’t.

But we eat home-cooked food almost every day, and there is something deeply grounding about making your own dinner after spending a day thinking, teaching, talking, and working with people.

4. What’s one ridiculously small thing that brings you an unreasonable amount of joy?

Dr. Bormeister:

Antique jewelry.

Especially pieces from the Biedermeier period in the early 19th century.

I can get ridiculously excited about tiny old earrings or ring that has somehow survived for nearly two hundred years and ended up in my hand.

5. Of everything you’ve written, created, built, or contributed to, what’s ONE thing you wish more people had seen? Why this one?

Dr. Bormeister:

The Rehearsal Room. It’s a small live gathering I started for people who want to practice speaking in front of other human beings. No recording. No performance. No need to arrive polished.

Someone speaks. The rest of us listen. And then we talk about what happened.

I created it because I think we have many places where people are expected to perform well, and surprisingly few places where they are allowed to practice being heard.

I’m still discovering what the Rehearsal Room wants to become. But I think that’s precisely why I care about it.

🌺 Explore The Rehearsal Room

6. Who is doing work you think more people should know about? Who are they, and why are you passing the lei to them?

Dr. Bormeister:

I’m going to cheat and pass the lei to two women.

Savitree Kaur and Dr. Heidi Lescanec are doing very different work, but there is something I admire in both of them: an extraordinary sense of calm, clarity, and professionalism.

Heidi is a naturopathic doctor with a background in cultural anthropology. She is fascinated by what she calls “The Pink Zones” — the conditions that allow women to thrive as they age. I love the shift in perspective: not simply asking how we age, but what helps us thrive while doing it.

Savitree works with exhausted high-achievers who want to regain their energy and clarity. Her approach, “Food as Medicine,” can begin with something as wonderfully simple as one warm lunch. I love that, too: big questions about how we live, brought back to something tangible we can actually do.

They approach wellbeing from very different directions, but both make me think differently about what it means to take good care of ourself.

🌺 Meet Savitree Kaur
🌺 Meet Dr. Heidi Lescanec

And since I’m already cheating, I’d like to add one more person: you, Melin.

I admire how warm-hearted, generous, and supportive you are — and how naturally you seem to bring people together and lift up other people’s work.

You don’t just live on a sunny island. To me, you carry sunshine in your heart and on your tongue.

And I think quite a few people feel a little warmer because of it.

7. What’s something about being human you’re still figuring out?

Dr. Bormeister:

What happens when we die.

I don’t think I’m getting particularly close to figuring that one out.

But there’s another question inside it that connects very directly to my work:

How do we communicate when there is almost no time left?

What do we say to someone we love in the last hours or minutes? What suddenly becomes unnecessary? What becomes essential? And what happens when words are no longer enough?

I spend much of my professional life thinking about communication — how we find the right words, how voice changes meaning, how we listen, how we make ourselves understood.

Perhaps the very end of life is where all of those questions become their simplest and their hardest.

I’m still figuring that out.

A Little Aloha Before We Go 🌺

I keep returning to the idea of a place where we can practice being heard.

For someone like me, who found a voice in writing long before feeling comfortable speaking aloud, that means something.

Having something to say and feeling ready to say it can be two very different experiences.

The Rehearsal Room makes space for that unfinished place. Someone speaks. Others listen. Together, they learn.

What a caring thing to make room for.

And that final answer touches a tender place for me, with my mama in hospice. I don’t have an answer to what happens when we die. But the questions about what becomes essential, and how we connect when words aren’t enough, feel very close.

They also leave me wondering what I could say now, while there is time.

A thank-you. An honest feeling. A simple “I love you.”

Dr. Bormeister, mahalo for bringing your curiosity, humor, and willingness to sit with unanswered questions.

And for passing the lei back to me so unexpectedly. I receive your kindness with gratitude. Clearly, this lei has room for a few more flowers. 💜

Who in your life makes it easier for you to speak before you have all the words?

Leave a comment

Share

DM Melin if you’d like to participate in this written interview series.

Yesterday, I noticed something extraordinary.

I wasn’t hurting.

After the pain I felt during and after Joshua Tree, the relief was remarkable. I had energy. I could move more freely. The heaviness seemed to have loosened its grip.

I sent a message to our retreat group celebrating the news. My body, including my butt, had been through quite a lot.

Apparently, “girding my loins” had become a full-body occupation.

Humor aside, that ease brought me such gratitude. When pain has taken up so much room, being able to move without it feels like getting a little more of your life back.

And it brought me back to something I have been learning for six years.

I came to healing wanting to be better for the people I love. Somewhere along the way, I began to understand that I was worth healing for, too.

For much of my life, my energy flowed outward.

Toward family. Toward work. Toward understanding what someone else needed and figuring out how to offer it. Connection has always mattered deeply to me.

Some of that came from love. Some came from a longing to belong. And some, I am learning, came from trying to stay safe.

Being agreeable. Being useful. Keeping the peace. Reading the room before checking in with myself.

I could be deeply connected to everyone else and still be far away from me.

Over these past six years, therapy, Mindful Forgiveness, healthy boundaries, and a growing understanding of my fawning response have helped me notice that distance.

They have also helped me begin to close it.

My recent Joshua Tree retreat with Molly Davis Moon and Dr. Ingrid Clayton became another meaningful place in that journey. A liminal space. That tender in-between where familiar ways of being begin to loosen, even while the next way is still taking shape.

I went there with my history. My hope. My grief.

And my body came with me.

That may sound obvious. But I have spent a great deal of my life expecting my body to carry me while I paid attention to everything else.

For much of the past forty years, caring for it has fallen behind other responsibilities. A back injury twenty-three years ago complicated that relationship. Pain made movement harder, and my life became increasingly sedentary.

I can acknowledge that without turning it into another reason to scold myself.

I was living. Working. Caring. Coping.

Now, I am learning to care for the person who was doing all of that.

At Joshua Tree, the emotional work was also a physical experience. During some of the reflection and writing, I noticed my body reacting before I had words for what was happening.

Old grief. Loss. Grievances. Experiences I had spoken about before, yet still felt so deeply.

I experienced the heaviness as connected to what I was processing. I cannot neatly separate old injury, travel, tension, and emotion, or say exactly what caused the pain or its easing.

But I can describe what it felt like.

I felt braced. As though so much of me was holding tight.

And yesterday, I felt a loosening.

Something Molly shared during the retreat has stayed with me. What I took from it was that growth can involve staying present with some discomfort, allowing ourselves to feel rather than immediately retreating from the feeling.

For me, the important part is learning the difference between gently making room for an uncomfortable emotion and overriding my own limits.

I have plenty of experience with overriding myself.

This practice asks something different of me: to notice, listen, and remain in relationship with myself. Sometimes that means staying with a feeling a little longer. Sometimes it means resting, asking for support, or stopping.

There is no prize for how much I can endure.

I am learning that my needs can help guide what happens next.

That lesson followed me home from the desert. It showed up in asking for help while traveling. In receiving care without apologizing for needing it. In recognizing that finding my voice also means listening to my own answer.

And now, in allowing myself to enjoy this unexpected ease.

The relief feels like a sloughing off of heaviness. I feel lighter. More energized. More able to move.

I hope it stays.

I also want to remember that if pain returns, it will not erase this moment or mean I have failed at healing.

My body does not have to prove my progress by being pain-free.

What is changing is the relationship.

When I speak about mind, body, and spirit becoming more aligned, this is what I mean: making room for all of me. Letting what I feel, what I need, and how I care for myself belong in the same conversation.

Perhaps you recognize something of yourself here.

Perhaps you have become so practiced at tending relationships that your relationship with yourself gets whatever energy remains.

Perhaps caring for yourself still feels easier to justify when you can explain how it will benefit someone else.

I understand.

I am learning to let my own well-being be reason enough.

I still want to love my people well. I still value connection, community, and the care we offer one another.

And I want to be present in that circle of care.

The belonging I have spent so much of my life seeking also includes belonging to myself.

Today, I am grateful for movement that feels easier. For the people who held space with me in Joshua Tree. For the woman who keeps showing up to this work, even when it is uncomfortable and unfinished.

And for a body I am finally learning to meet with more aloha.

If this meets you where you are, perhaps sit with this question gently:

What would caring for myself look like if I did not have to justify it by what I could give afterward?

Aloha self. Aloha others.

There is room for us, too.

Aloha,
Melin

Comment

Share

Subscribe

Public health research. Digital magazines. Church life. Classical music. And a good television series enjoyed under the duvet.

Meet Faith Joseph, also known as , whose life makes room for all of these.

What caught my attention is how naturally Ral connects scientific curiosity with creative expression. Research, storytelling, and bringing people together all have a place.

And when asked what deserves more attention, Ral points toward a community where other writers and creators can be seen.

That speaks to my heart.

Because making room for someone else’s voice is one way we put aloha into practice.

Pull up a chair, Ral. Come talk story. 🌺

Ral’s responses appear below in their own words, with paragraph breaks for readability and publication links added. The perspectives shared belong to our guest.

🌺 The Signature Seven

1. Before we talk about what you do, who are you when nobody is asking for your résumé?

Ral:

I’m Faith Joseph, who also goes by the name Ral Joseph, and I’m a creative and curious spirit. When I’m not diving into public health research or editing my digital publications, you’ll likely find me immersed in epic worlds on screen or deeply involved in my duties at church.

My downtime is often filled with action-packed series like Game of Thrones or The Witcher, and I have a deep love for beautiful orchestral music, symphonies, and classical pieces for piano and violin, with artists like Pachelbel and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields often playing in the background.

2. Give me two things in your life that might look completely unrelated to someone else but are absolutely connected in your mind. Connect the dots for us.

Ral:

At first glance, my life might seem divided between two different worlds: the scientific and the creative. On one side, I’m deeply involved in public health and scientific research, driven by a passion for health and discovery.

On the other hand, I’m immersed in the world of creative technology through my digital publications on Substack. I bring stories to life—writing zines, magazines, and essays, while designing visual assets and curating a collaborative community.

While these paths appear unrelated, they are perfectly connected in my mind, each fueling my spark and shaping who I am.

3. What does taking care of yourself look like in actual practice, not the Instagram version?

Ral:

In reality, self-care is about finding comfort in the quiet, simple moments at the end of a long day. It means having coffee at home, bringing a warm cup of it to bed, pulling up the duvet, and streaming movies or series while catching up on Instagram.

It’s also about exploring beautiful places like art galleries and lush gardens—taking short video clips to archive the experience and letting the beauty of those surroundings bring genuine joy, paired with a really good meal.

4. What’s one ridiculously small thing that brings you an unreasonable amount of joy?

Ral:

One ridiculously small thing that brings me an unreasonable amount of joy is simply getting lost in a TV series that I deeply connect with, allowing myself to be completely pulled into its world.

5. Of everything you’ve written, created, or built, what feels most like you—and why?

Ral:

The work that feels most like me is the creative community I’m building through my digital publications. It brings together so many parts of who I am: writing, visual storytelling, research, design, and my love of creating spaces where people can share their ideas.

I enjoy shaping a publication from the first spark of an idea to the finished piece. There is something deeply satisfying about choosing the theme, developing the stories, creating the visual assets, and inviting other writers and creators into the process.

It feels like me because it is both thoughtful and imaginative. It gives me room to explore, but it also gives others room to be seen.

Link for Planet Ral⁠

6. What are you learning right now—about your work, your creativity, or yourself?

Ral:

I’m learning that creativity does not always have to be rushed into a finished product. Sometimes an idea needs time to grow, and sometimes the most important part of the process is simply paying attention.

I’m also learning to trust the connection between my different interests. Public health, storytelling, design, faith, music, and community may seem like separate subjects, but they all teach me something about people and the ways we make meaning.

Most of all, I’m learning that building something meaningful takes patience. It is not only about producing more. It is about creating with intention and making sure the work reflects the values behind it.

7. What do you hope people feel when they encounter your work—and what kind of community are you hoping to help build?

Ral:

I hope people feel welcomed, inspired, and curious when they encounter my work. I want them to feel that there is room for their perspective, whether they are established writers or just beginning to explore their creative voice.

The community I hope to build is one where writers, artists, researchers, and thoughtful people can connect without feeling pressured to fit into one narrow definition of creativity. I want it to be a space where people can share ideas, collaborate, encourage one another, and discover work they might not have found otherwise.

There are so many talented people whose voices deserve more attention. If my publications can help create a little more visibility, connection, and confidence for those creators, then that would mean a great deal to me.

I believe we often have to build the kind of community we wish existed. For me, that means creating a space rooted in curiosity, generosity, and genuine appreciation for the people who show up and share what they have made.

Link to Black Coffee Creative⁠.

A Written Interview Series from the Living Aloha Collective

Some people introduce themselves with impressive titles and accomplishments.

Allegra?

She introduces herself in pajamas, fuzzy slippers tucked beneath her desk, a cup of tea nearby, and an ear tuned to the hummingbirds buzzing outside her window.

Oh, I like her already. 😂

There’s something wonderfully inviting about that picture.

A woman who has spent much of her life caring for others, now finding her way back to the things that make her feel most alive.

Writing.

Photography.

Nature.

And the simple pleasure of a morning fig picked straight from her tree.

But beneath those lovely details is a story with considerable depth.

Allegra spent four years caring for her father through dementia. During that time, she began documenting their experiences through photography, knowing that one day she would write about them.

She was simultaneously living a story and preserving it.

As someone who understands how caregiving can reshape our lives, I found that especially moving.

And now, after years of showing up for others, Allegra is learning something that sounds simple but isn’t always easy to practice.

Her life counts, too.

She’s writing memoir, experimenting with audio storytelling, and dreaming about seeing her work adapted for television.

Late bloomer?

Maybe.

But who decided our dreams have an expiration date?

Allegra, pull up a chair.

Come talk story. 🌺

1. Before we talk about what you do, who are you when nobody is asking for your résumé?

Allegra:

When nobody is asking for my résumé, I’m sitting, pajama-clad, in front of my computer writing memoir.

My fuzzy slippers will be propped up under my desk, and I’ll be drinking tea, keeping an ear out for hummingbird buzzing at the window behind my screen.

When I get tired, I watch a biography on TV.

Before breakfast, before the heat gets into the day, I walk two miles in the woods.

Days like this feel like a well-worn sweater.

2. Give me two things in your life that might look completely unrelated to someone else but are absolutely connected in your mind. Connect the dots for us.

Allegra:

Caregiving and photography.

During the four years I cared for my dad through dementia, I used photography as a kind of visual journal.

I documented what was happening because I already knew I would eventually write a memoir about it.

I was living the story and gathering the pieces of it at the same time.

Now all I have to do is look at the photos and I’m back in the scene.

This is my process for writing memoir.

3. What does taking care of yourself look like in actual practice, not the Instagram version?

Allegra:

After spending so much of my life taking care of other people, taking care of myself now looks like saying no so I have more time to say yes to myself.

Sometimes I still feel guilty, but not for long.

I remember that my life counts, too.

4. What’s one ridiculously small thing that brings you an unreasonable amount of joy?

Allegra:

Cool ocean air on my face and eating a fig off my tree in the morning.

5. Of everything you’ve written, created, built, or contributed to, what’s ONE thing you wish more people had seen? Why this one?

Allegra:

I wish more people had heard the audio version of Adventures in Dementia Care.

It’s the only essay I’ve produced that’s more than a straight reading.

I recorded it with music and sound effects, and put a ridiculous amount of time into making and editing it.

I wanted it to feel like an experience, not just an essay.

My secret, wildly improbable goal, is that my memoir will be a TV series one day.

🎧 Experience Allegra’s Story

Listen to Adventures in Dementia Care

Allegra has created an audio experience that brings together her writing, music, and sound effects.

And that dream of a television series?

I’m not dismissing it as wildly improbable.

I’m calling it a possibility worth nurturing. 🌺

6. Who is doing work you think more people should know about? Who are they, and why are you passing the lei to them?

Allegra:

I am passing the lei to a Substacker I discovered recently: Penelope Jane Art.

Not only are her paintings incredible and based on what she experiences in nature, but she seems transparent and funny.

All things I adore.

🌺 Passing the Lei to Penelope Jane Art

Meet Penelope Jane Art

A creator whose nature-inspired paintings, humor, and openness caught Allegra’s attention.

And I love that connection.

One storyteller who uses photographs to preserve lived experiences introduces us to another artist who interprets her experiences in nature through painting.

Different mediums.

A shared appreciation for noticing, creating, and expressing.

And the lei keeps moving. 🌺

7. What’s something about being human you’re still figuring out?

Allegra:

I am still trying to figure out how to relax more and let go.

I’m incredibly driven and have big dreams and goals that have only started to manifest recently.

I guess I’m a late bloomer when it comes to prioritizing my own projects.

A Little Aloha Before We Go 🌺

There’s a sentence in Allegra’s interview that I keep returning to.

“I remember that my life counts, too.”

Six little words.

A whole lot of meaning.

Especially for those of us who have spent years, sometimes decades, caring for other people.

Caregiving can be an extraordinary expression of love.

It can also ask more of us than we ever imagined we had to give.

Our time.

Our attention.

Our energy.

Sometimes even the space we once reserved for our own dreams.

And because we love the people we’re caring for, it can be difficult to acknowledge what that experience costs us.

Both things can be true.

We can love deeply and still need room for ourselves.

That’s not a contradiction.

That’s being human.

🌿 The Stories We Carry

Something about Allegra’s relationship with photography especially touched me.

While caring for her father through dementia, she was also documenting their experiences.

Not because she was detached from what was happening.

Quite the opposite.

She was living it.

And somewhere within that experience, she recognized that there was a story worth preserving.

Photographs became her visual journal.

Now those images help her return to moments she wants to understand and share through memoir.

I find that profoundly meaningful.

Because caregiving changes us.

And when dementia enters a family, memory itself can become an especially tender subject.

Allegra’s photographs don’t simply illustrate her writing.

They help her revisit the experiences that shaped it.

Sometimes our stories need time before we’re ready to tell them.

And sometimes creativity gives us another way to approach what words alone cannot yet hold.

💜 Saying No Can Be an Act of Aloha

I also appreciated Allegra’s answer about self-care.

No elaborate routine.

No expensive wellness retreat.

No perfectly curated morning ritual.

Just a growing willingness to say no.

So she can say yes to herself.

Oof.

That one deserves a moment.

For people accustomed to caring for everyone else, boundaries can feel uncomfortable.

Guilt may show up.

Old expectations may start whispering.

But Allegra has discovered something important.

The guilt doesn’t have to make the decision for her.

She can acknowledge it and still honor her needs.

Aloha for others doesn’t require abandoning aloha for ourselves.

That’s a lesson worth practicing, again and again.

🦋 Late Bloomer? Or Right on Time?

And then there’s Allegra’s admission that she’s still figuring out how to relax.

She’s driven.

Ambitious.

Full of dreams.

And those dreams are only beginning to take shape.

She calls herself a late bloomer.

I wonder whether there’s another way to look at it.

Perhaps she spent many years tending to other people’s gardens.

Now she’s finally making room to cultivate her own.

And look what’s growing.

A memoir.

An audio production.

A dream of a television series.

A creative life that includes morning walks, hummingbirds, and fuzzy slippers.

I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a pretty wonderful new chapter.

And maybe the challenge isn’t choosing between ambition and relaxation.

Maybe it’s learning how to make room for both.

We can pursue meaningful dreams without forgetting to enjoy the life we’re living along the way.

🌺 And the Lei Keeps Moving

Allegra passes the lei to Penelope Jane Art, whose nature-inspired artwork and sense of humor have caught her eye.

And isn’t that what Come Talk Story is all about?

One person notices something beautiful in another person’s work.

They make an introduction.

A new connection becomes possible.

No complicated networking strategy.

No transaction required.

Just genuine appreciation and curiosity.

People. Perspectives. Possibility.

One conversation at a time.

Mahalo nui loa, Allegra.

For sharing your experience as a caregiver.

For reminding us that our lives count, even when we’ve spent so much of them attending to the needs of others.

For showing us how photography and storytelling can help preserve the moments that shape us.

And for giving us that lovely image of a woman in fuzzy slippers, writing her next chapter while hummingbirds visit the window.

I hope your memoir finds its readers.

I hope your audio storytelling reaches new listeners.

And who knows?

Maybe one day we’ll be watching your story unfold on television.

But until then, I hope you’ll keep enjoying those morning walks, that ocean air, and the figs from your tree.

Because the dreams matter.

And so does the life happening while we pursue them.

Allegra, the lei has officially been passed. 🌺

Who will we meet next?

Explore Allegra’s work: Cape Not Included

Listen to her featured essay: Adventures in Dementia Care

Discover her lei recipient: Penelope Jane Art

Aloha,
Melin 🌺

Living Aloha Collective | Come Talk Story

People | Perspectives | Possibility

When I started Come Talk Story, I had one simple intention.

Create a space where people feel seen, heard, and valued for who they are, not just what they do.

Thirteen interviews later, something beautiful is unfolding.

Different backgrounds. Different generations. Different experiences. And yet, familiar threads keep emerging.

Relationships. Belonging. Healing. Purpose. Connection.

I decided to organize our first 13 conversations into four themes so you can explore the stories that speak to where you are in life.

Because sometimes someone else’s story helps us better understand our own.

And that’s the magic of talking story. 💜

💜 1. Relationships & Belonging

The connections that shape us, the love we give, and the places where we feel seen.

🌺 Mina Yang | Learning to love others without losing yourself.

🌺 Rick Ely | Fatherhood, family, and discovering what matters most.

🌺 Jay | Identity, adoption, and finding belonging.

For you: A reminder that meaningful relationships begin with connection, including the relationship we have with ourselves.

🌱 2. Healing, Resilience & Self-Trust

Finding our footing, honoring our experiences, and learning to care for ourselves.

🌺 Nabanita | Finding humor, courage, and hope through life’s challenges.

🌺 LaNiedra Chaney | Resilience, self-discovery, and reclaiming your life.

🌺 Shah Huzaifa | Friendship, letting go, and personal growth.

🌺 Dido Torchi | Vulnerability, authenticity, and finding purpose.

For you: Proof that healing isn’t always linear, growth takes many forms, and we can begin again as often as we need.

🦋 3. Reinvention, Purpose & Possibility

Navigating transitions, questioning expectations, and making room for new chapters.

🌺 Ilka Sommer | The courage to reinvent yourself and embrace new beginnings.

🌺 Alex Hutchins | Curiosity, meaning, and embracing life’s contradictions.

🌺 Jess the Creator | Freedom, ambition, and defining success on your own terms.

For you: Permission to evolve, change direction, and discover possibilities you may not have imagined.

☀️ 4. Creativity, Connection & Everyday Wonder

Slowing down, noticing life’s gifts, and reconnecting with what brings us alive.

🌺 Alex Searle | Creativity, curiosity, and the art of paying attention.

🌺 April Gough | Imagination, family, and appreciating the present.

🌺 Belinda | Nature, reflection, and reconnecting with ourselves.

For you: An invitation to notice the extraordinary hiding in ordinary moments.

🌺 And the Lei Keeps Moving!

Thirteen conversations. Four themes.

One beautiful reminder: We belong to one another.

Of course, these themes overlap. Our lives aren’t neatly divided into categories.

Everything is connected. No, really! 😉

And here’s what I especially love about Come Talk Story.

Each guest passes the lei to another creator whose voice deserves to be discovered.

One introduction becomes another.

One relationship opens the door to another.

That’s how we cultivate belonging. Not by collecting followers, but by nurturing relationships.

And we’re just getting started!

More interviews are coming. More voices. More perspectives. More opportunities to connect.

💌 Want to Be Interviewed?

There’s a chair waiting for you, too!

I’m inviting fellow Substack writers and creators to participate in Come Talk Story.

It’s simple. Seven written questions, answered in your own words, at your own pace.

No cameras. No live interviews. No fancy résumé required.

And definitely no need for thousands of followers.

Just bring yourself and your story.

Because you don’t have to be famous to have a story worth sharing.

Interested? Leave a comment or send me a DM. I’d love to talk story with you!

And to everyone reading:

Which of these four themes speaks to where you are in life right now?

Follow your curiosity. Click a conversation. Discover a new voice. Leave a little aloha.

Mahalo nui loa to our first 13 guests for sharing their stories and helping build this growing community.

Relationships over transactions. Belonging over popularity. Aloha in action.

That’s the heart of Melin Talks Story.

Pull up a chair. There’s always room for one more. 🌺

Aloha,
Melin 🌺

Melin Talks Story | Living Aloha Collective
People | Perspectives | Possibility

A Written Interview Series from the Living Aloha Collective

Some people come to Come Talk Story with a carefully crafted description of who they are.

Rick Ely?

Well, Rick starts by telling me he isn’t selling anything.

Then remembers he wrote a book.

And occasionally captains fishing charters.

And happens to have a yacht he’s selling.

😂

I like him already.

But beneath that wonderfully meandering introduction is something that made me stop and pay attention.

Rick has stepped away from his professional life to be a father and support his wife Chastell’s career.

They’ve been married for 27 years and have raised three children who, as Rick reminds us, aren’t children anymore.

And now?

He’s standing in that interesting space between what has been and what might come next.

Not quite retired. Not quite certain. Still curious. Still dreaming.

There’s something familiar about that season of life.

When the roles we’ve occupied for decades begin to shift, we sometimes find ourselves asking a question we haven’t had much time to consider:

Who am I becoming now?

Rick doesn’t pretend to know the answer.

And perhaps that’s what I appreciate most.

He also has something to say about the things that matter.

Family.

A son’s embrace.

Walking the dogs.

Cooking.

Writing poetry.

And apparently, remaining the biggest kid in the family.

Somehow, I suspect these things are connected.

Rick, pull up a chair.

Come talk story. 🌺

I’m glad you’re here.

1. Before we talk about what you do, who are you when nobody is asking for your résumé?

Rick:

No one’s asking for my résumé because I’m not trying to sell anything.

And perhaps that’s why I’m here.

I don’t have anything to sell.

Ohhh wait, I did write a book, that’s for sale, though I often give it away.

I do captain fishing charters from time to time. But I’m selling the yacht as well.

The truth is I’ve taken myself out of circulation professionally to be Dad and support my wife’s career goals.

But if I’m being honest with myself, I’m way too young to retire from life, from living, from dreaming and being.

I just don’t know what’s next yet. And that’s okay too.

So who am I?

I’m most proud of my family, my wife Chastell of 27 years and our three children, who are no longer children.

Family is everything to me.

2. Give me two things in your life that might look completely unrelated to someone else but are absolutely connected in your mind. Connect the dots for us.

Rick:

I’m drawing a blank.

For me everything is connected.

Perhaps with some context words may form.

3. What does taking care of yourself look like in actual practice, not the Instagram version?

Rick:

Taking care of myself feels like cooking for my family, walking around the lake with our dogs.

A yoga practice that no one else sees.

Traveling, exploring, reading and writing poetry or self-reflecting.

4. What’s one ridiculously small thing that brings you an unreasonable amount of joy?

Rick:

It’s not a small thing, it’s actually an anchor that I use to transition states.

But the image and feeling of my son as he is now hugging me and not wanting to let go.

He’s a big man, not a little boy anymore.

That alone dissolves inferior states.

5. Of everything you’ve written, created, built, or contributed to, what’s ONE thing you wish more people had seen? Why this one?

Rick:

I’m just getting started as a published author and Perception is Projection (Creating Your World from Within) was my first book.

I’ll send you an e-book.

📖 The Book Rick Wants to Share

Perception is Projection: Creating Your World from Within

Rick’s first published book.

[INSERT BOOK LINK WHEN RICK PROVIDES IT]

Rick has also generously offered to share an e-book with me.

6. Who is doing work you think more people should know about? Who are they, and why are you passing the lei to them?

Rick:

I read a lot and the content fluctuates but there are a few here on Substack with whom I don’t have a deep relationship but, I enjoy their writing.

I’m getting in the habit of ordering books from my new friends on Substack.

🌺 Passing the Lei

Rick is still gathering the names and links of the creators whose work inspires him.

And I rather like something he mentioned.

He’s buying books written by his new Substack friends.

That’s a tangible way to support another creator.

Not just a like.

Not just a comment.

But making room for someone’s work on your bookshelf.

[INSERT RICK’S RECOMMENDED CREATORS AND LINKS]

The lei is waiting for its next destination. 🌺

7. What’s something about being human you’re still figuring out?

Rick:

I’m still learning, still growing.

I guess I’m curious why I’m still the biggest kid in my family.

So, perhaps growing up, I haven’t figured that out yet.

A Little Aloha Before We Go 🌺

There’s a sentence Rick offered almost casually that I keep coming back to.

“I’m way too young to retire from life, from living, from dreaming and being.”

Aha.

There’s something worth sitting with.

Because sometimes we confuse retiring from a role with retiring from our possibilities.

We spend decades being somebody.

A professional.

A parent raising young children.

A provider.

A partner.

A person whose days are filled with responsibilities and expectations.

Then something shifts.

The children grow up.

Our partners pursue new opportunities.

The work that once defined our calendars no longer occupies the same space.

And suddenly, there’s room.

Sometimes that room feels like freedom.

Sometimes it feels like uncertainty.

And sometimes?

We don’t quite know what to do with it.

I know something about navigating changing roles and identities.

And what I’ve been learning is that the absence of a clear next step doesn’t necessarily mean we’re standing still.

Sometimes we’re simply between chapters.

We don’t have to rush to give the next one a title.

🌿 The Things We Don’t Put on Our Résumés

Something else caught my attention.

When Rick described taking care of himself, he didn’t give us a complicated wellness regimen.

He cooks.

Walks the dogs.

Practices yoga privately.

Travels.

Reads.

Writes poetry.

Reflects.

And when I asked about something small that brings him joy, he didn’t choose a possession or an accomplishment.

He chose his son’s embrace.

Not the memory of holding his son as a little boy.

But the experience of being hugged by the grown man his son has become.

A hug that lasts.

One neither person is rushing to end.

Oh, Rick.

You got me with that one.

Because so much of parenting involves learning how to love our children through all their different seasons.

The little hands that once reached for ours become adult hands.

The relationships change.

But sometimes the simplest gesture reminds us that the connection is still there.

And maybe that’s one of the most meaningful measures of a life well lived.

Not what we’ve accumulated.

But the relationships we’ve nurtured.

The people who still want to hold on.

🌊 Everything Is Connected. No, Really.

I had to laugh at Rick’s answer to question two.

I asked him to connect two seemingly unrelated things.

His response?

“For me everything is connected.”

Well, Rick.

You’re preaching to the choir. 😂

But here’s what I found interesting.

Even without a detailed answer, his other responses offer a few connections worth pondering.

The man who captains a yacht is also learning to navigate a season without a clear destination.

The author of Perception is Projection is reflecting on how he understands his own identity.

The father who stepped away from professional life to support his family is now considering what he might want for himself.

And the grown man who wonders why he’s still the biggest kid in the family might be holding on to something we could all use a little more of.

Wonder.

Playfulness.

Curiosity.

The willingness to keep exploring.

Maybe growing up doesn’t have to mean growing out of those things.

Maybe maturity and playfulness aren’t opposites at all.

📖 Go Explore Rick’s First Book

Rick has entered another chapter of his life as a published author.

His first book is titled:

Perception is Projection: Creating Your World from Within

https://www.amazon.com/Perception-Projection-Creating-World-Within/dp/1456677160

Use the promo code FISHON123 for the ebook and it’s free

Even the title invites an interesting question.

How much of what we experience is shaped by the way we interpret the world around us?

And what happens when those interpretations change?

I’m looking forward to learning more about Rick’s perspective through his writing.

[BOOK LINK]

🌺 And the Lei Keeps Moving

Rick has already shared something that speaks to the spirit of Come Talk Story.

He’s reading the work of people he meets here.

And purchasing their books.

I love that.

Because supporting another creator doesn’t always require a big audience or an elaborate promotional strategy.

Sometimes it looks like reading their work.

Buying their book.

Leaving a thoughtful comment.

Or simply saying:

“I see what you’re creating, and I want to support it.”

Rick’s lei recipients

https://substack.com/@heloisatmoura

https://substack.com/@vedicsoul1

https://substack.com/@howardfalco

https://substack.com/@antoniocastellaneta

And the lei keeps moving. 🌺

Mahalo, Rick.

For reminding us that not knowing what’s next doesn’t mean we’ve stopped living.

For the poetry.

The walks around the lake.

The quiet yoga practice.

For supporting Chastell’s dreams while continuing to make room for your own.

For the courage to admit that the next chapter hasn’t revealed itself yet.

And especially for that image of a father and his grown son holding each other a little longer.

Sometimes the most important things in our lives are the ones that never make it onto a résumé.

Family. Connection. Love. Presence.

And maybe the freedom to remain a big kid, even when the world expects us to have everything figured out.

Rick, I hope you never completely grow out of that curiosity.

Because perhaps the question isn’t whether you’re ready to retire.

Perhaps it’s what you still want to discover.

And you don’t have to know the answer today.

The next chapter will come.

For now, there’s a whole lot of living still to do.

Rick, the lei is waiting for you to pass it. 🌺

Who will we meet next?

Aloha,
Melin 🌺

Living Aloha Collective

People | Perspectives | Possibility

Me ke aloha pumehana, aloha, Melin 🌺

Sometimes “I’m fine” is the quickest way to get through a conversation when we don’t have the words for how we really feel.

I know. I’ve said it, too.

Today is World Mental Health Day. As a social worker and someone who has lived with anxiety and depression, this is personal. Knowing how to care for others doesn’t mean I always remember to extend that same care to myself.

Still learning over here.

Across the Living Aloha Collective, there is a thread running through everything I share: living with aloha includes how we treat ourselves.

It’s in the boundaries we practice. The connections we notice. The stories we tell that make someone else feel a little less alone.

We can love our people deeply and still need quiet. We can feel grateful and still struggle. We can be the person others lean on and need someone to lean on ourselves.

There is room for all of that.

For me, mālama pono is a loving reminder to take good care. To tend to ourselves and one another with attention, kindness, and love.

Some days, that means resting before we’ve finished the list. Some days, it means making the appointment or telling someone we trust, “Actually, I’m having a hard time.”

And sometimes aloha looks like checking in, then staying long enough to listen to the answer.

You don’t have to explain everything perfectly to deserve support. You don’t have to earn care by first reaching the end of yourself.

Today, let’s offer a little gentleness to someone who may be carrying more than we can see.

And include ourselves in that circle of care.

Mālama pono, friends. You matter on the hard days, too.

Aloha,
Melin 🌺

A Written Interview Series from the Living Aloha Collective

There are people who resist being put into one box.

Jess is definitely one of them.

She’s a nurse.

A writer.

A stock trader.

A fitness and nature lover.

A dog person.

And a devoted chaser of sunrises and sunsets.

At first glance, those things might seem like completely separate pieces of a life. But when I read Jess’s answers, I saw the connection.

Freedom.

The security of a profession she can rely on.

The financial knowledge to create income beyond a job.

The writing that belongs to her simply because she loves it.

And ultimately, the freedom to decide how she spends something none of us can earn more of:

our time.

But Jess is also wrestling with a tension I recognize.

How do we keep reaching for more without allowing “more” to convince us that what we already have isn’t enough?

Aha.

There’s our conversation.

Jess, pull up a chair.

Come talk story. 🌺

I’m glad you’re here.

1. Before we talk about what you do, who are you when nobody is asking for your résumé?

Jess:

When no one is asking for my résumé, I’m still a nurse no matter what until I die.

But I’m Jessica. I’m a writer no matter what as well.

I enjoy working out, being in nature, hanging out with my dogs, being a verified stock picker, and chasing sunrises and sunsets.

2. Give me two things in your life that might look completely unrelated to someone else but are absolutely connected in your mind. Connect the dots for us.

Jess:

The fact that I’m a nurse, a stock trader, and a writer.

As a nurse, I will always have a job.

As a stock trader, I will always have my high-income skills.

And as a writer, I’ll always do something I love that no one can take from me.

I can make money outside of a job from writing, put money and profits into the stock market, and invest it.

It’s all connected.

3. What does taking care of yourself look like in actual practice, not the Instagram version?

Jess:

Taking care of myself looks like doing a morning yoga flow as soon as I wake up, working out daily, Epsom salt baths, and sauna seshes.

4. What’s one ridiculously small thing that brings you an unreasonable amount of joy?

Jess:

Sunrises and sunsets.

Every single day.

5. Of everything you’ve written, created, built, or contributed to, what’s ONE thing you wish more people had seen? Why this one?

Jess:

My piece about overcoming disappointment.

Because I’m already intrigued by her choice:

Overcoming disappointment.

Especially when we get to her final answer.

Sometimes the piece a writer most wants us to see tells us something about what they themselves are still learning.

6. Who is doing work you think more people should know about? Who are they, and why are you passing the lei to them? 🌺

Jess:

Chris B Writes.

Because he is awesome, and his son Bray Bray’s voice needs to be heard and his light needs to continue to shine on the world and create a massive ripple effect.

🌺 Passing the Lei

Chris B Writes

[INSERT CHRIS B WRITES LINK]

I love that Jess didn’t frame this only around the creator.

She pointed toward the why behind the work.

Bray Bray’s voice.

His light.

And the ripple effect that can happen when one person’s story reaches another person.

That’s what passing the lei is supposed to do.

7. What’s something about being human you’re still figuring out?

Jess:

How to find peace and balance being happy with what I currently have versus what I currently strive for.

I want to achieve financial freedom and build relationship wealth, to be free and in control of my own time, and to be able to help people.

A Little Aloha Before We Go 🌺

There it is.

The through-line I kept seeing in Jess’s answers:

Freedom.

Not freedom as in doing nothing.

Actually, Jess sounds like someone who does quite a lot. 😂

Nursing.

Writing.

Trading.

Investing.

Working out.

Learning.

Building.

Dreaming.

What she’s reaching toward is something different:

Ownership of her time.

That made me think.

We talk a lot about financial freedom.

But Jess slipped another kind of wealth into her answer that I don’t want us to miss:

Relationship wealth.

Aha.

Because what good is having complete control of our time if we’ve built a life with nobody we want to spend it with?

What good is financial wealth if obtaining it costs us our health, relationships, purpose, or ability to notice a sunset?

Maybe wealth needs a bigger definition.

Money, yes.

But also:

Time.

Health.

Purpose.

Relationships.

Choice.

And enough spaciousness in our lives to notice when the sky puts on a show.

🌅 And Then There Are the Sunrises and Sunsets

I smiled when Jess answered the “ridiculously small thing” question.

She didn’t choose anything complicated.

Sunrises and sunsets. Every single day.

There’s something almost mischievous about that.

Because while we’re busy building the future…

Nature keeps offering us something extraordinary right now.

Free of charge.

No subscription.

No premium tier.

No portfolio required.

Just look up.

And maybe that’s part of the answer to the question Jess is still figuring out.

Perhaps being grateful for what we have and striving for something more aren’t opposites.

We can build tomorrow without refusing to inhabit today.

Ambition and contentment can sit at the same table.

🌺 And the Lei Keeps Moving

Jess passes the lei to Chris B Writes.

But she also tells us exactly why.

Because she wants Bray Bray’s voice and light to continue creating ripples in the world.

That matters.

Because Come Talk Story isn’t really about handing somebody a little digital spotlight and moving on.

It’s about connection.

One person says:

You should know this person.

So we pull up another chair.

We listen.

We follow the thread.

And the circle grows.

That’s the ripple effect.

🌺 The lei keeps moving.

Mahalo, Jess, for reminding us that a person doesn’t have to be only one thing.

You can be the nurse and the writer.

The trader and the sunrise chaser.

You can build wealth while recognizing that wealth itself needs a much bigger definition.

You can want more for your future without declaring your present inadequate.

Maybe that’s the balance.

Not extinguishing ambition.

Not pretending money doesn’t matter.

Not forcing ourselves to be satisfied when something inside us knows we’re capable of building something different.

But every once in a while…

looking away from the numbers long enough to watch the sun come up.

Because financial freedom may buy us greater control over our time.

But the sunrise?

That was already ours.

Jess, the lei is officially yours to pass. 🌺

Who will we meet next?

Aloha,
Melin 🌺

Living Aloha Collective

People | Perspectives | Possibility

A Written Interview Series from the Living Aloha Collective

There is a difference between starting over and returning to yourself.

LaNiedra Chaney knows something about both.

She is a mother of two adult daughters. A woman who has worked in biotech and medical-device manufacturing. A lover of jewelry, fashion, beautiful food, music, dancing, solitude, and the occasional bubble bath.

She is also someone who has experienced homelessness.

What struck me about LaNiedra’s answers is that she doesn’t turn that chapter into the entirety of her story.

It taught her something about people.

It taught her something about survival.

And eventually, looking backward, it showed her something about herself:

Resilience and perseverance.

But this conversation isn’t simply about surviving difficult seasons.

It’s about knowing yourself well enough to decide how you want to live the next one.

And maybe even reclaiming some of the woman who existed before all the roles, responsibilities, expectations, and things life asked her to become.

So LaNiedra, pull up a chair.

Come talk story. 🌺

I’m glad you’re here.

1. Before we talk about what you do, who are you when nobody is asking for your résumé?

LaNiedra:

Hmmmm... this is a very good question.

I had to marinate with my thoughts for a minute and think about how I wanted to answer this question.

So many thoughts ran through my mind on lessons learned and personal experiences that shaped me into the woman I am today.

In this very moment, I am a single Black woman and mother. I have two adult daughters who have grown into beautiful women. Watching them grow up has been one of my greatest life moments.

In this current season, I am simply trying to navigate life to the best of my ability on my own terms.

There was a period where I experienced homelessness.

During this season, I learned a lot about myself and the people closest to me. Being homeless showed me people’s actions, true colors, and characteristics I never knew existed.

Being displaced taught me resilience and perseverance.

I didn’t recognize it in real time. I was more focused on getting through each day and trying to figure out how to move forward.

As I reflected on how I overcame that transition, I realized just how powerful those two words really are.

Every milestone has brought me challenges, different experiences, and many lessons learned along the way.

Knowing who I am, what I value, and the things I stand for is very important to me.

I continue to discover more of myself each and every day.

I don’t have everything all figured out.

But I know myself better today than I did in previous years.

I am comfortable with continuing to grow, evolve, and navigate my life on my terms.

2. Give me two things in your life that might look completely unrelated to someone else but are absolutely connected in your mind. Connect the dots for us.

LaNiedra:

I worked for five years in biotech in medical-device manufacturing.

My background in manufacturing taught me to pay attention to materials, quality, details, sourcing, and how products are made.

That same attention became part of how I approached jewelry.

I don’t see just a pretty necklace.

I want to know how it was made and how it’s finished. The materials behind each product are very important to me.

Is a product actually worth wearing?

And does it complement and bring individuality to each person’s style?

3. What does taking care of yourself look like in actual practice, not the Instagram version?

LaNiedra:

I don’t have an Instagram lifestyle.

Actually, I’m a private person, and Instagram has never really been my cup of tea. However, I think it’s a great social media platform for promoting your business, products, or services.

I don’t need to share parts of my life online with people I personally do not know.

I genuinely love spending time alone.

Solitude helps me stay humble and grounded. It gives me the space to reflect, understand myself on a deeper level, and be honest about where I am in life.

One of my favorite ways to unwind is taking a hot bubble bath and allowing my body to regroup in the water.

There’s something about soaking in a warm bath that helps me release the tension from a stressful day and simply slow down.

Although it’s been a while, I also miss going to the gym. I used to be a hardcore gym girlie. Getting back into fitness is definitely something I want to incorporate into this next chapter of my life.

I like taking walks. Sometimes I need that quiet time to get away and reconnect with my inner thoughts.

For me, self-care isn’t always about doing something elaborate.

Sometimes it’s simply giving myself enough space to hear my own thoughts.

4. What’s one ridiculously small thing that brings you an unreasonable amount of joy?

LaNiedra:

Food.

Specifically, creating an elegant charcuterie board with a well-balanced mixture of meats, fruits, cheeses, and gourmet add-ons.

A nice pairing with a glass of white wine is chef’s kiss. This is one of my favorite go-to finger foods.

I also enjoy dancing.

On a random Friday night, I might turn on some music and start dancing around my apartment.

I get lost in my own little world, being playful, standing in the mirror doing old-school dances, and feeling the sound of music with every beat.

There is nothing like having a good time enjoying your own company.

Listening to music, pampering myself with a good home-cooked meal, and creating an environment as if I’m eating at a fine-dining restaurant.

5. Of everything you’ve written, created, built, or contributed to, what’s ONE thing you wish more people had seen? Why this one?

LaNiedra:

My article A Moment That Belongs to You is about returning to yourself.

I’ve observed how easily women can lose pieces of themselves as life changes.

Motherhood, careers, marriage, education, and other responsibilities can become such a big part of who we are that we can forget the woman we were prior to those roles we’ve become.

The essay is a reminder to make a little time for yourself.

I believe it’s important to reconnect to moments that make you feel alive again.

A special occasion or asking permission is not a requirement to take care of yourself.

🌿 Read the Piece LaNiedra Wishes More People Had Seen

A Moment That Belongs to You

Read LaNiedra’s essay on Substack

6. Who is doing work you think more people should know about? Who are they, and why are you passing the lei to them? 🌺

LaNiedra:

Becoming with Tiniki, Jennifer Hein, and Ani Chisom.

All three of these ladies bring different perspectives within their writing.

Tiniki talks about becoming a new version of herself. She shares personal stories about her life, family, and the woman she has grown to be.

Discover Becoming with Tiniki

Jennifer Hein is a fashion psychologist. I love her publication The Style MYᴺᴰ Edit because she’s a fantastic fashion storyteller.

She dissects the hidden misogyny in fairytale stories and explains what style and wearing clothes really mean.

Discover The Style MYᴺᴰ Edit

Ani Chisom is a brand strategist who believes the strongest brands start with truth.

She helps brands turn their worldview into a story people connect with, and followers into communities that genuinely care, engage, and want to belong.

Discover Ani Chisom

🌺 Passing the Lei

Well, apparently Belinda started something.

I asked LaNiedra to pass the lei.

Singular.

She handed me three. 😂

And once again, I’m allowing it.

Because I noticed something connecting the three women LaNiedra chose.

Becoming. Expression. Truth.

Tiniki writes about the woman she is becoming.

Jennifer explores what clothing and style communicate about who we are.

Ani helps people find the truth beneath the brand and build from there.

Three different kinds of work.

But perhaps they’re all asking versions of the same question:

Who are you underneath everything you’ve been told you’re supposed to be?

That feels very much at home in this conversation.

7. What’s something about being human you’re still figuring out?

LaNiedra:

As a human being, I’m still learning how to navigate life.

I believe it’s a continuous process. As the years go by, you experience a different battle in life and each season teaches you something new.

There is always a lesson to be learned.

One thing I’m trying to understand is why the world is in constant chaos.

What has happened to humanity?

With the rise in the cost of living, I often question why the world always seems to be in constant chaos. Why does it feel as though people living in today’s world seem to care less about one another, and morals and values are pushed aside?

I remember growing up, neighbors looked out for each other. The children could play outside and there was a sense that the adults were watching out for them.

Fast forward to today, we have to be mindful of our surroundings because you never know what could transpire.

I used to wonder why life seemed a little harder as I’ve gotten older. Now I understand that what society is currently experiencing is connected to the economy and the rise in the cost of living.

There is something deeper that I still struggle to understand.

This may be totally off topic, but my mind can pull from different directions when it comes to the human species.

The one question that can never escape my mind is:

Why do humans have to pay to exist on Earth when none of us created this planet?

But that is for a different topic at another time.

These are things that I’m still learning about being human.

We spend so much of our daily lives trying to understand how to survive, how to provide, how to protect the people we love, and how to find our place in a world that can feel increasingly complicated.

I don’t have all the answers.

I’m still navigating life, one season at a time.

A Little Aloha Before We Go 🌺

There’s a phrase LaNiedra used that kept following me through her answers:

On my own terms.

That can sound simple.

It isn’t.

Because before we can live on our own terms, we have to know what those terms actually are.

And life has a way of layering identities onto us.

Mother.

Employee.

Partner.

Caretaker.

Professional.

Survivor.

The responsible one.

The strong one.

Sometimes those roles are deeply meaningful.

Sometimes they are necessary.

Sometimes we love them.

But somewhere underneath all of them is still a person.

I think that’s why LaNiedra’s choice for the piece she wishes more people had seen fits her story so beautifully.

A Moment That Belongs to You.

Not your children.

Not your employer.

Not your partner.

Not the algorithm.

You.

And after reading about LaNiedra’s experience of homelessness, those words carry even more weight for me.

Because there are seasons when survival doesn’t leave much room for pondering who we’re becoming.

You’re trying to get through today.

Then tomorrow.

Then the next one.

Sometimes resilience isn’t recognizable while we’re living it.

We name it afterward.

Maybe returning to ourselves works that way, too.

Little by little.

A walk.

A bubble bath.

Music playing in the apartment.

An absurdly beautiful charcuterie board made for no special occasion whatsoever.

Dancing in the mirror.

Not because somebody is watching.

Precisely because nobody is.

🌿 Go Read the Piece LaNiedra Wishes More People Had Seen

LaNiedra’s essay is about something I suspect many women understand:

We can become so busy fulfilling our roles that somewhere along the way we lose touch with the person inhabiting them.

Her reminder is wonderfully uncomplicated:

You don’t need permission or a special occasion to make room for yourself.

Read A Moment That Belongs to You

Maybe after you read it, create a moment that belongs only to you.

🌺 And the Lei Keeps Moving

Or should I say...

the lei(s).

LaNiedra points us toward three women whose work explores identity from very different directions:

Tiniki reminds us that becoming never really ends.

Jennifer Hein examines style and the stories we tell through what we wear.

And Ani Chisom asks what happens when we build from truth rather than performance.

Go meet them.

Read something.

Leave a thoughtful comment.

Tell them LaNiedra sent you.

Because Come Talk Story isn’t simply about meeting the person in this week’s chair.

It’s about seeing where they point us next.

And the circle keeps widening. 🌺

Mahalo, LaNiedra, for trusting us with more than the polished parts.

For motherhood.

For survival.

For rebuilding.

For the lessons learned when people showed you who they were.

For the manufacturing eye that can apparently inspect a necklace with an entirely different level of scrutiny than the rest of us.

For solitude.

For bubble baths.

For dancing around the apartment when nobody is watching.

And especially for this:

“I don’t have everything all figured out.”

None of us do.

Maybe we aren’t supposed to.

Perhaps the work is simply to know ourselves a little better than we did before, carry forward what the last season taught us, and keep becoming.

On our own terms.

LaNiedra, the lei is officially yours to pass. 🌺

Although, like Belinda before you, you apparently needed three.

I’m beginning to lose control of this lei situation.

And I kind of love it.

Who will we meet next?

Aloha,
Melin 🌺

Living Aloha Collective

People | Perspectives | Possibility

A Written Interview Series from the Living Aloha Collective

There’s something said in his answers that feels like the heart of this conversation:

“Vulnerability is weakness” is the misconception.

Dido is a coach whose work focuses on preventing burnout, but his story isn’t really about optimizing productivity.

It’s about learning how to build a life spacious enough to hold all of ourselves.

Work and rest.

Purpose and play.

Strength and sensitivity.

Joy and disappointment.

Even the parts we would rather hurry through.

Dido and I have supported each other during our Substack journeys, and I smiled when he mentioned that in his answers. Because Come Talk Story itself grew from that same belief: that this place becomes more meaningful when we stop simply broadcasting at one another and begin seeing, supporting, and connecting with one another.

Dido doesn’t pretend he has everything figured out either.

Especially when effort doesn’t produce the results he hoped for.

I appreciate that.

So Dido, pull up a chair.

Come talk story. 🌺

I’m glad you’re here.

1. Before we talk about what you do, who are you when nobody is asking for your résumé?

Dido:

I’m so happy you asked this question because sometimes I get tired of talking about only my work, which is only a small part of my identity. 😂

So I guess I’ll start away from there.

I think life is best lived holistically, so that is how I try to live my life. Leaving room for work, play, laughter, awe, relationships, rest, and even the negative stuff, whether it’s anger, resentment, or melancholy.

If you embrace both the good and bad, my belief is that things will all work out in the end.

I have a strong commitment to my purpose and I am loyal to the people that have good energy and also want to do good in the world. It’s actually why Melin and I have been strong supporters of each other during our Substack journeys.

Having deep conversations with these people is what keeps me going, and being able to be a source of inspiration for others who are struggling is my life mission.

2. Give me two things in your life that might look completely unrelated to someone else but are absolutely connected in your mind. Connect the dots for us.

Dido:

I think the biggest two things that someone would notice might look contradictory is that I am open and vulnerable but also strong.

I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve and due to my sensitivity, I feel emotions pretty deeply.

But at the same time, I have been able to accomplish a lot of great things by using those emotions and steering them in a positive direction within my coaching work.

I think that’s the misconception in and of itself.

That vulnerability is weakness.

When in reality, it proves you have the courage to be authentic in a world that constantly demands output instead of emotional resonance.

My experience proves that it doesn’t have to be this way, although I will say it is not easy navigating this life this way.

But worth it nonetheless!

3. What does taking care of yourself look like in actual practice, not the Instagram version?

Dido:

This is an interesting question, as my work as a coach that prevents burnout intersects a lot with it.

I think there are two categories of things you should do to take care of yourself.

The first bucket is the one that most people know of, which is rest, watching a movie, talking to a loved one. These are things that should be a normal part of your life regardless of how much work you are doing.

I wasn’t always doing these things, but I eventually made them a part of my life.

But another part that isn’t talked about as much is designing a life that complements your own strengths, values, and purpose.

When you love what you do and focus on your impact on other people, it gives you a very big reason to get through the hard days.

And if you believe in good karma, it will come back to you as you do right by yourself and others.

That’s why I chose to switch careers and start up the coaching business, and I couldn’t be happier with that decision!

4. What’s one ridiculously small thing that brings you an unreasonable amount of joy?

Dido:

There’s this one road close to my gym that I pass through every morning, and every now and then, there is a family of geese that cross the road and all the cars stop for them.

It always makes my day better when I see them, and furthers my appreciation and love for life in general.

5. Of everything you’ve written, created, built, or contributed to, what’s ONE thing you wish more people had seen? Why this one?

Dido:

I would say a throwback to Torch #6 would be my most important and personal article.

It went into my 14-mile walk in the rain that completely transformed my mindset and allowed me to finally accept my pain during my quarter-life crisis.

It was a turning point that I needed in order to keep going at that low point.

🌿 Read the Piece Dido Wishes More People Had Seen

Torch #6: Once You Go Into the Unknown

Read Torch #6 on Dido's Substack⁠

6. Who is doing work you think more people should know about? Who are they, and why are you passing the lei to them? 🌺

Dido:

Of all the people I’ve met on Substack, the most authentic of all of them goes to my good friend .

He’s been writing on Substack for two straight years now, and that included a 52-week interview series for all of 2025 that was titled Sunday Spirit.

He is a class act, one of the hardest working people I know, and he recently got married too!

He definitely deserves more subs, and the weekly reflections that he writes come straight from the heart.

🌺 Passing the Lei

Chase Haltiner

Discover Chase Haltiner on Substack⁠

7. What’s something about being human you’re still figuring out?

Dido:

I am still figuring out how to deal with not having control.

I think my frustration with my slow Substack growth is a good example of exactly that.

I’ve stayed at 200 subs for five months despite doing Notes, posts, collabs, and LIVEs.

Even though I am still intrinsically motivated to stay on Substack, I LOVE the people here!, it still hurts a lot to not see results stem from your work.

Anyways, I’m slowly and slowly getting better at accepting that the numbers are out of my control, and trying to ground myself back into my direct impact with the subscribers that are already here.

It is a work in progress, and hopefully I can achieve serenity eventually.

A Little Aloha Before We Go 🌺

There’s a word I kept thinking about while reading Dido’s answers:

Enough.

When have we worked enough?

Rested enough?

Helped enough?

Grown enough?

And, for those of us who create things and put them into the world, perhaps the especially uncomfortable one:

When are the numbers enough?

I understand that tension.

We can say numbers don’t matter.

Then refresh the dashboard.

We can believe deeply in the work and still wonder why more people aren’t finding it.

We can appreciate the people already sitting at our table while simultaneously wishing the table were a little bigger.

Those things can coexist.

What struck me about Dido’s answer wasn’t that he has somehow transcended wanting growth.

He hasn’t.

He’s learning to live with what he cannot control while returning his attention to what he can:

The person already here.

The conversation already happening.

The life already being affected.

Maybe that connects to what Dido said about vulnerability, too.

Strength isn’t pretending disappointment doesn’t hurt.

Strength can be letting it hurt without allowing it to decide the value of what we’re doing.

Aha.

There’s something in there for me, too.

🌿 Go Read the Piece Dido Wishes More People Had Seen

Fourteen miles.

In the rain.

During a quarter-life crisis.

Dido chose Torch #6 because it captures a turning point when he stopped trying to outrun his pain and began accepting it.

And maybe that’s why this piece belongs in this conversation.

Sometimes the way forward isn’t figuring out how to make the rain stop.

Sometimes you walk through it.

Read Torch #6: Once You Go Into the Unknown⁠

🌺 And the Lei Keeps Moving

Dido passes the lei to Chase Haltiner.

And once again, I notice what our Come Talk Story guests tend to value when they choose someone.

Not just the writing.

The human behind it.

Dido describes Chase as authentic, hardworking, generous, and someone whose reflections come straight from the heart.

That matters here.

Because this experiment has never been simply about helping someone collect another subscriber.

It’s about people introducing us to people they believe are worth knowing.

Go meet Chase Haltiner⁠

Read something.

Leave a thoughtful comment.

Say hello.

Tell him Dido sent you.

One creator points toward another.

One community meets another.

And the lei keeps moving. 🌺

Mahalo, Dido.

For your openness.

For talking about vulnerability without turning it into weakness.

For acknowledging that purpose doesn’t eliminate disappointment.

For the fourteen miles in the rain.

For the geese stopping traffic.

And for saying out loud something many creators probably feel but don’t always admit:

It hurts when we work hard and the numbers don’t move.

Maybe serenity isn’t finally getting control over all of it.

Maybe it’s learning where our control ends, then putting our energy back into the relationships, choices, and impact that are actually ours to tend.

And perhaps remembering that 200 people aren’t merely a number.

They’re people.

Dido, the lei is officially yours to pass. 🌺

Who will we meet next?

Aloha,
Melin 🌺

Living Aloha Collective

People | Perspectives | Possibility

In Hawaiʻi, that sentence can send everybody to the store for toilet paper, bottled water, and enough rice to feed a family reunion nobody planned.

I’ve done the inventory. Checked the batteries. Looked at the sky like I’m on speaking terms with the clouds.

Then I went back inside and ate the emergency snacks.

What? They were right there.

Storm prep is serious business. So is knowing which supplies need replenishing because you already “tested” them.

What’s the first thing you stock up on when a storm is coming? And what never makes it to the storm?

Aloha,
Melin

When a regular walked into Diners Drive-In, I didn’t always see their face first.

I saw their plate.

Teri beef, sauce over rice, two scoops of macaroni salad.

Spaghetti with a side order of fries.

Stuffed cabbage, extra rice.

Hamburger steak, gravy over everything.

There they were, standing right in front of me, and my brain had already sent their order to the kitchen. I wondered if anyone else had this gift. Or if five years at a drive-in had simply turned me into a human menu.

In Part One, I wrote about the things that job taught me. How to mop a floor properly. How to wrap a hamburger. How much patience it takes to teach a teenager who doesn’t know what she doesn’t know.

But the regulars taught me something else.

I knew some people by the food they ordered so often that the plate became a picture in my head. I can laugh about that now. Honestly, I laughed about it then.

And I wonder what it felt like on their side of the counter.

Maybe it was nice to walk in after a long day and hear, “The usual?” To know someone remembered the extra rice, or exactly where you wanted the gravy, without having to explain yourself again.

Of course, people are more than their orders. I didn’t know everything going on in their lives. I was a teenager working a shift, trying to keep the plates straight.

Still, I knew that small thing about them. And in a busy place, a small thing remembered can feel good.

Funny what stays with us. I can’t picture every face from those years, but I can still see the plates.

Now I’m curious: if you worked in a diner, drive-in, or restaurant, did you see the order before you saw the regular too? And if you were the regular, what was your “usual”?

Mine was the fried saimin noodles, yum 😋

Come talk story.

Aloha,
Melin

A Written Interview Series from the Living Aloha Collective

Some people go into nature to escape the world.

Belinda goes there to understand how deeply we belong to it.

She is a certified Nature and Forest Therapy Guide and a Midlife Career Development Strategist. At first glance, those might sound like two very different paths.

Listen to Belinda for a while, though, and the connection becomes clear.

The forest is always changing, but it doesn’t stop being the forest.

There are seasons for growth. Seasons for release. Seasons for standing still long enough to notice what is trying to emerge.

And perhaps there is something there for those of us navigating our own transitions.

Belinda’s answers move from birds and seeds to career development, grief, intuition, discernment, ecosystems, guacamole, coffee, music, and the complicated stories we humans tell ourselves.

Which feels very Come Talk Story to me.

So Belinda, pull up a chair.

Come talk story. 🌺

I’m glad you’re here.

1. Before we talk about what you do, who are you when nobody is asking for your résumé?

Belinda:

I tend to plants that sustain birds and wildlife, facilitating the natural dispersal of seeds.

I spend time in the forest, listening, observing, and releasing harmful narratives.

I read, I write, I paint, I connect with others, and I strive to really listen. I capture moments in nature through photography and videography.

I sing while cooking, warmly and playfully engage with our four-legged companions, and cheer on genuine people wherever possible.

I love listening to a wide variety of music, enjoy a good comedy, and must admit that I can get sucked into watching a bad series until the last episode just to find out the ending.

2. Give me two things in your life that might look completely unrelated to someone else but are absolutely connected in your mind. Connect the dots for us.

Belinda:

On the surface, people may not see how my role as a certified Nature and Forest Therapy Guide and Midlife Career Development Strategist align, but they do!

Nature and forest guiding can offer a living mirror for career development: the forest is always moving, and in its rhythms, we find permission to grow at our own pace while remaining deeply rooted.

Walking among trees invites a somatic awareness that quiets the noise of external expectations, allowing space to listen to what truly matters: our values, strengths, and the quiet callings that often surface when we slow down.

Just as a forest adapts to seasonal shifts, midlife becomes a natural unfolding, where wisdom gathered over decades informs choices with clarity and compassion.

In this grounded presence, intentional alignment happens, and we can take congruent steps between who we are, what we offer, and where we are meant to go.

3. What does taking care of yourself look like in actual practice, not the Instagram version?

Belinda:

This is such a great question!

For me, self-care is an ongoing conversation, beginning before my feet touch the floor each day.

This involves noticing what “is,” inviting what is desired, and making space for the “in-between” with self-compassion.

It is inviting myself to pause when I want to rush and valuing whispers of intuition that always offer valuable insight.

Self-care is choosing movement when my body feels tight, and softness when grief and overwhelm are upon me.

It is witnessing the joy of growing a head of lettuce, which tastes so much better than anything from a store shelf, and committing to a single, daily quiet cup of coffee before the world awakes or the day begins.

It involves welcoming the gift of play through a practice of gratitude and noticing where my focus most consistently lies.

It is standing in the ocean, walking on the sand, and listening to the leaves rustling in the wind.

For me, self-care daily involves deepening my understanding of my position as part of a species in an ecosystem and consciously choosing to promote planetary well-being.

It may sound complicated, but it can be quite straightforward.

4. What’s one ridiculously small thing that brings you an unreasonable amount of joy?

Belinda:

It is incredibly difficult to narrow it down to just one.

Seeing wildlife and marine life.

Spotting birds I’ve never seen before.

Driving on an open road and a favorite song comes on the radio.

Or finding superb guacamole or coffee.

All these instantly fill me with a sense of childlike wonder, joy, and enthusiasm.

5. Of everything you’ve written, created, built, or contributed to, what’s ONE thing you wish more people had seen? Why this one?

Belinda:

What We Bury The Forest Holds.

This piece required deep research to understand why we so easily buy into false narratives and why accurately recalling past events is so challenging.

It allowed me grace in understanding our human nature, reminding me that our biological hard-wiring was suited for past environments and doesn’t always serve us today.

It reinforced that the core of my practice and Evergreen Essence Forest, discernment, is one of the most vital life skills we need to survive and flourish as a species.

It challenged me to write it in a way that would allow others to experience safety in reading it.

🌿 The Piece Belinda Wishes More People Had Seen

What We Bury The Forest Holds

Evergreen Essence Forest

What We Bury the Forest Holds

Have you ever noticed how easily a story can be revised to a version where we were wronged? Or to some version that allows us to sleep better? This happens so often and effortlessly that most of soci…

Read more

3 months ago · 15 likes · 14 comments · Evergreen Essence Forest

6. Who is doing work you think more people should know about? Who are they, and why are you passing the lei to them? 🌺

Belinda:

There are so many, really!

As people already know you, Melin, I am torn between Skott Jones of Between the Notes, who writes fully about the human experience; Rose Wollf, whose insights about rewilding, grief, and tree magic will lull you back to your ancestral roots; and Lorraine Schuchart, who is one of the most authentic, brilliant brand strategists that you will ever happen upon, and who is always giving exceptional resources and information!

🌺 Passing the Lei

Okay, Belinda.

I see what you did there.

I asked for one person.

She gave us three.

And you know what?

I’m letting it stand.

Because perhaps abundance is very on-brand for someone who spends her time thinking about forests and ecosystems.

One tree doesn’t make a forest.

And apparently one lei wasn’t enough either. 🌺

So this time, the lei branches in three directions:

🌿 Skott Jones | Between the Notes
Writing fully about the human experience.

https://substack.com/@skottjones

🌿 Rose Wollf
Rewilding, grief, tree magic, and a pathway toward ancestral roots.

https://substack.com/@nicolarosewolfe

🌿 Lorraine Schuchart
Authentic brand strategy, generous resources, and practical wisdom.

https://substack.com/@lorraineschuchart

Three people for our community to discover.

I think we’ll allow it.

7. What’s something about being human you’re still figuring out?

Belinda:

I continue to learn about Nature and its effects as a determinant of health at individual, group, community, and planetary levels.

I am also continually exploring the psychological conditions that support us, as humans, in being open to conversations that deepen perspectives, foster collaboration, and inspire healthier ways forward as a collective species.

I am mystified by how people can view humans as being separate from the natural world we inhabit, or so quickly come to see species, habitats, and ecosystems as isolated entities that we can manipulate for specific results.

We are not separate biological organisms with the power to dominate all others.

While studying habitats and species-related behaviours deepens our understanding, we must also recognize that we are members of larger ecosystems, bioregions, and the living Earth, all of which function as one interconnected organism.

We are invited to move beyond a focus on survival and competition and toward embracing the power that arises through living interactions.

A Little Aloha Before We Go 🌺

Well.

You had me at everything is interconnected.

There is a word that kept surfacing for me as I read Belinda’s answers:

Relationship.

The relationship between the tree and the bird.

Between the seed and wherever it eventually lands.

Between our bodies and the environments we inhabit.

Between who we’ve been and who we’re becoming.

Between the stories we’ve inherited and the discernment required to decide whether those stories still deserve to guide us.

Even the two seemingly different strands of Belinda’s work, forest therapy and midlife career development, come back to relationship.

Who am I now?

What matters to me now?

What season am I in?

And what wants to grow from here?

I appreciate Belinda’s reminder that nature doesn’t demand that every living thing bloom at the same time.

A forest would be pretty strange if it did.

There is growth.

Dormancy.

Decay.

Regeneration.

Things taking root where we never planted them.

Things we carefully tended that don’t survive.

And through all of it, relationship.

Maybe that’s part of what we forget when we become overly focused on individual achievement.

Nothing alive becomes itself entirely by itself.

🌿 Go Read the Piece Belinda Wishes More People Had Seen

One of my favorite Come Talk Story questions isn’t about a creator’s most popular work.

It’s about the work they wish more people had found.

Belinda chose:

What We Bury The Forest Holds

The title alone made me pause.

Belinda describes the piece as an exploration of memory, false narratives, our biological wiring, and perhaps most importantly, discernment.

That word feels especially important.

Because the stories we carry aren’t always true simply because we’ve carried them for a long time.

Sometimes we need somewhere safe enough to put them down.

Maybe the forest can hold them for a while.

🌺 And the Lei Keeps Moving

This time, apparently, it grows branches.

Belinda couldn’t choose one creator.

So she didn’t.

And I’m smiling because perhaps that is the most Evergreen Essence Forest answer possible.

A forest doesn’t thrive because of one magnificent tree.

It thrives because of relationship, diversity, reciprocity, and connection.

So go meet Skott.

Go meet Rose.

Go meet Lorraine.

Read something you wouldn’t normally read.

Leave a thoughtful comment.

Follow a new voice.

Tell them Belinda sent you.

Because Come Talk Story was never meant to end with the person sitting in this week’s chair.

The whole point is to widen the circle.

One story leads to another.

One person introduces us to another.

One lei becomes three.

And somehow, the forest gets a little bigger. 🌿

Mahalo, Belinda, for bringing us into your forest.

For the birds.

The ocean.

The morning coffee.

The homegrown lettuce.

The grief and the play.

The superb guacamole.

And especially for reminding us that perhaps the question isn’t simply how we can flourish as individuals.

It’s how we learn to flourish in relationship with everything else that is alive.

That sounds a lot like aloha to me.

And Belinda, the lei is officially yours to pass. 🌺

Although technically…

you passed three.

I’ll allow it. 😉

Who will we meet next?

Aloha,
Melin 🌺

Living Aloha Collective

People | Perspectives | Possibility

Some people introduce themselves with a résumé.

introduces himself with a road.

A bumpy one. Uphill. Potholes. Jagged edges. Even a few washed-out bridges.

And maybe that tells us more about a person anyway.

In this edition of Come Talk Story, Jay talks about adoption, growing up as an only child, learning to put on his own oxygen mask, the pure joy of a baby’s giggle, and the mysterious way his writing sometimes seems to arrive before he knows where it is taking him.

Underneath it all is a question much bigger than writing:

What does it mean to be human?

Come sit with us awhile.

1. Before we talk about what you do, who are you when nobody is asking for your résumé?

I am Jay, an older man who had life guide him on a bumpy road, uphill, with potholes and jagged edges and even a few washed-out bridges to cross.

It taught me well…

Mostly.

2. Give me two things in your life that might look completely unrelated to someone else but are absolutely connected in your mind. Connect the dots for us.

Adoption as an infant or young child, and being an only child.

Interestingly enough, there are two dates associated with my adoption.

These things may appear unrelated in their impact, but they are multiple forces focusing on a single point:

Me.

There are events that occur, observations in a moment, that more dramatically impact us than we think.

There was a time when adoption carried a real stigma in society. You could be made to feel like you were unwanted, a castoff, a mistake. Growing up in a conservative area like the Deep South made that particularly difficult.

Not having my own family, my own blood relations, always left things feeling unsecured.

And being an only child meant I didn’t have a big brother or sister to depend on.

So these two things are absolutely related to my being driven to have close family.

Close friends are helpful.

But they’re not family.

3. What is something life taught you that you wish you had learned sooner?

Making time for me first.

I flew a lot early in my career and heard the flight attendants announce the instructions for the emergency oxygen masks.

I always thought it strange when they said that, if those masks dropped down, mothers with small children should put the mask on their own face first.

Now I understand.

Mom needs to stay awake to save the child.

Eventually I realized that applies to me as an adult, too.

I need to make time for what makes me tick, whether it’s a sport like golf, meditation, or writing.

I need to take care of me, too.

4. What is one ordinary thing that never fails to bring you joy?

A child’s laugh.

Especially a baby’s real giggle when you know they have simply lost it!

5. Is there something you’ve written that feels especially close to you? Tell us the story behind it.

The Platform series.

There are many articles, so I can’t provide a single link.

When this writing started, it came in the middle of something else I was writing. It was just kind of… there.

It came out, and I wrote it.

I didn’t edit or reread. I just wrote it.

The Platform has a life of its own for me.

Since I started writing it, I’ve learned that some people call this kind of writing “channeled.” It comes out when it wants to, not at my beck and call.

I often sit down to do something else or write something completely different, and another article in the story gets written.

Many people I’ve spoken with also feel that a change is coming. Not a little change. Not simply the changing of the seasons, but something more.

When I look at the evolution of humans as a species, I notice that we find evidence of tools, new technologies like metalworking, and longer survival rates according to archaeologists.

But sometimes we don’t know exactly how we got from one step to another.

What comes to me is that it’s a little like climbing stairs.

We gather knowledge.

Then we apply it and somehow take another step upward.

Life changes.

Something gets easier.

That exploration is part of what keeps showing up in The Platform.

6. Who is someone whose story or work has influenced you?

There are so many people I think are worthy.

I’m heavily influenced by their stories on a personal level.

So I need to take a little time with this one.

7. Finish this sentence: I keep coming back to…

Being human.

I believe there is a purpose for things.

If I step back and look at all of this, I wonder:

What is our purpose for being aware that we are here in the first place?

I know what I think we are here for, and that is showing up in The Platform.

I think perhaps I was consciously evolving into a place where I could receive The Platform.

Not the other way around.

Meaning, I didn’t simply decide to write it.

Somehow, I became ready for it.

Passing the Lei 🌺

And now we come to one of my favorite parts of Come Talk Story.

Who gets the lei next?

Jay admitted this wasn’t an easy choice.

There are so many writers whose stories have touched him and so many people he believes are deserving.

But the lei has to travel.

So Jay is passing it to

Entrepreneur. Baker. Mischief maker. Someone who traded the boardroom for the mixing bowl and writes about everything in between.

And just like that, another connection is made.

That’s what I love about passing the lei.

It isn’t about declaring someone the best writer in the room.

It’s one person saying to another:

I see something in you. Come sit with us. Tell us your story.

Jay arrived here talking about a road filled with potholes, jagged edges, and washed-out bridges.

He leaves us with something much simpler.

Being human.

Maybe that is the thread running underneath this whole conversation.

We spend our lives looking for belonging.

Learning when to care for others and when to put on our own oxygen mask.

Trying to understand what shaped us.

Listening for whatever wants to emerge next.

And somewhere along the way, if we’re lucky, we turn around and make room for somebody else.

The lei keeps moving.

Thank you, Jay, for coming to talk story.

And Muffs to Muffins, the lei is coming your way. 🌺

Aloha,
Melin

Come Talk Story is a written interview series from Melin Talks Story. Guests’ experiences, beliefs, and perspectives are their own. Their answers are shared in their voice, with light editing for clarity and readability while preserving their meaning.

Can we please retire the idea that there’s an expiration date on becoming someone new?

I listened to a podcast about the fear that we’re “too late,” and it landed somewhere deep.

At 62, I had to laugh a little.

Because I’m still beginning.

Still learning.

Still changing my mind.

Still finding parts of myself I apparently misplaced somewhere pre-pandemic. 😂

And I’m still asking:

“Oooooh. What happens if I try THIS?”

There are things I understand now that younger me couldn’t have—not because she wasn’t smart enough, but because she hadn’t lived enough yet.

Age gave me stories.

Mistakes.

Loss.

Humor.

Discernment.

A much lower tolerance for nonsense.

And enough perspective to know this:

Starting late is still STARTING.

Maybe we’re asking the wrong question.

Instead of:

“Am I too old?”

Try:

“Do I still want to?”

Because if the answer is yes, that isn’t a problem.

It’s a clue.

An invitation.

Your life asking you to take the next step.

So tell me:

What are you beginning now that you once thought you were too old to try?

Maybe you’re changing careers, making art, falling in love, setting a boundary, learning something new, or finally admitting what you want.

Share what’s calling you in the comments. I’d love to hear your story, and I have a feeling someone else may need the courage your words offer.

Aloha,
Melin

A Written Interview Series from the Living Aloha Collective

Some people seem to contain several worlds at once.

April Gough is one of them.

She is a writer, mother, homeschooler, explorer, documentary watcher, science and history lover, mountain-and-forest person, and someone perfectly content to retreat to her garage to think, read and write.

And then there is the world she is creating.

April’s Threads of Shadow and Magic began in poetry and is growing into something much bigger: a fantasy world through which she can explore some decidedly real questions about darkness, hope, humanity and whether we can make this world a little better. Her published work describes it as a world woven from “wonder, destiny, and the unseen threads that connect all things.”

But underneath April’s answers, I noticed another story.

She knows where she wants to go next.

She just isn’t there yet.

And instead of rushing past the life in front of her, she’s wrestling with something many of us understand: How do I honor the season I’m in while still longing for the one that’s coming?

So April, pull up a chair.

Come talk story. 🌺

I’m glad you’re here.

1. Before we talk about what you do, who are you when nobody is asking for your résumé?

April:

I’m a girl that loves to learn. I watch documentary after documentary. Science and history lover.

What I do when I’m not out being all the things is sit in my garage, think, read, and write, while being the pothead that I am.

I’m an explorer and adventurer. If I could travel for a living, I would.

I’m someone that thinks deeply, and loves even deeper.

I used to be an extroverted introvert, and now I’m just the introvert. The more I learn about the world and humans, the more I want to stay in my own little bubble.

I love the mountains, and being in the forest.

2. Give me two things in your life that might look completely unrelated to someone else but are absolutely connected in your mind. Connect the dots for us.

April:

Technology and the horrible behavior of our youth.

I’m sure a lot of people do see it, but unfortunately not enough see it.

I do let my kids use some technology. I use it, so why wouldn’t I let them? But I limit them.

We don’t have many game consoles. We have PlayStation 2, Wii, WiiU, Nintendo Switch, and an Oculus. The PlayStation 2 is only used to watch DVDs.

We only have two TVs in our house, one in our main hangout area, and one in the downstairs kids’ hangout area.

My daughter is limited to how much and for how long she can watch TV or use a phone/tablet. She mostly plays with her toys or goes outside.

Even with our homeschooling, we do most of it through writing and books.

The violent games, and the things our youth are seeing at such a young and impressionable age, will destroy this world.

There are shows, documentaries and movies about how technology destroys people, yet not enough people of influence are doing anything to stop it from happening.

Until then we will continue to see more violence and hatred.

3. What does taking care of yourself look like in actual practice, not the Instagram version?

April:

Taking care of oneself, both mentally and physically.

I go to Burn Boot Camp five to six days a week at 6/7 am. I’m currently on Weight Watchers. I’ve been doing it almost two weeks now and I FEEL so much better.

I used to be a sugarholic. I gained 40 pounds in six months. Because I smoke, when I do I would go straight to the sweets, and if you have ever smoked weed you know that it’s hard to stop eating once you start, and it’s hard to resist.

But I had a long talk with a friend and she told me about her WW journey, and I decided that I needed to buckle down.

I was gaining weight at a fast rate and I felt like shit all the time.

So I have been really strict with myself, and after less than two weeks I truly feel so much better.

I have been eating a lot of fruits/veggies, chicken and turkey. Instead of going for the sweets now, I go for these delicious rice cake treats that are low in points and they help with the sweet tooth.

I also smoke weed regularly and it keeps me calm and level headed.

Writing is my biggest thing. When I feel stressed, I write. It helps me think things through and calm down.

I’ve been drinking more water since I have been on WW because it helps you keep track of that as well.

I’m nowhere near where I want to be yet, but I am getting there, and I feel it.

It feels great.

4. What’s one ridiculously small thing that brings you an unreasonable amount of joy?

April:

Now that fall is right around the corner I can start enjoying the outdoors again.

One thing I love to do is sit outside, on a cool fall day, when there are cumulus clouds in the sky and make things out of them.

Sun shining on my skin.

It’s even better when my daughter does it with me.

Those moments bring me an immense amount of joy.

5. Of everything you’ve written, created, built, or contributed to, what’s ONE thing you wish more people had seen? Why this one?

April:

My Threads of Shadow and Magic series.

This will be my life’s work here. I plan on continuing this and making an entire series about it.

I have already completed the poem series. Now it’s time to add more detail to it.

I’m not using any AI on my books, except to edit it and make pictures for it, so it’s going to take me a long time to finish it all with how busy my life is.

But this book means so much to me.

It’s how I feel about what’s happening to the world, and how we can fix it.

But in a fun, fantasy way.

🌿 Enter

Threads of Shadow and Magic

April’s Chapter 1 begins the longer-form fantasy story, while The Magic I Meant to Be introduces the accompanying poem series.

Read Chapter 1 of Threads of Shadow and Magic⁠

Read The Magic I Meant to Be⁠

6. Who is doing work you think more people should know about? Who are they, and why are you passing the lei to them? 🌺

April:

Well… this is a very difficult one to answer, probably the most difficult of them all.

Because there are so many people I would want to choose, and I don’t want to offend anyone.

But there is one person that keeps popping to the forefront of my mind, and that is Jay Allen Ford.

I love his stories. They are woodland themed and they have good meanings.

He’s an all-around great guy that loves others fiercely.

He reads through others’ work thoroughly and leaves very thoughtful comments.

🌺 Passing the Lei

Jay Allen Ford

Jay describes his work as historical fiction centered on human stories of love, loss, resilience, family, community and place, including Timberline and Tahoma’s Shadow.

Discover Jay Allen Ford on Substack⁠

7. What’s something about being human you’re still figuring out?

April:

I have trouble with being impatient.

I want to be in a different season in my life right now. But my kids are still in school and I need to be there for them.

So I can’t just up and move.

But I want to so badly.

I’m still trying to figure out how to be content in the season I am in without wanting it to speed up.

Life already goes fast enough.

The time will come when I get to leave, but it’s not right now.

Life will not always look like this, no matter how redundant it is right now.

A Little Aloha Before We Go 🌺

There’s a thread I noticed running through April’s answers.

The tension between here and there.

She loves exploring, yet finds comfort inside her own little bubble.

She worries about technology, yet recognizes that it is part of her family’s life.

She is creating an elaborate fantasy world while trying to make sense of this very real one.

And perhaps most poignantly, she knows there is another season waiting for her.

Just not yet.

That last one stayed with me.

Because sometimes we talk about being present as though wanting something different means we’re somehow ungrateful for what we have.

I don’t think those things are mutually exclusive.

We can love the people who need us here and still wonder what waits for us there.

We can honor today’s responsibilities without pretending we don’t have tomorrow’s dreams.

We can look forward without wishing away everything between now and then.

Maybe that’s the practice.

Not forcing ourselves to stop wanting the next season.

Learning not to miss this one while we wait for it.

🌿 Go See the World April Is Building

I love asking Come Talk Story guests what they wish more people had seen because their answer often tells us something different from asking for their most popular work.

April didn’t choose a single successful post.

She chose what she calls her life’s work.

Threads of Shadow and Magic.

Fantasy, yes.

But underneath the magic are questions about the world we’re living in, what is happening to it, and what we might do differently.

April has already begun building that world in both prose and poetry.

Start with Chapter 1⁠

Enter through The Magic I Meant to Be⁠

Pick a doorway.

🌺 And the Lei Keeps Moving

April had trouble choosing just one person.

I kind of love that.

Because passing the lei was never meant to declare somebody the “best” creator in the room.

It simply asks:

Who is someone you’d like us to notice?

April chose Jay Allen Ford.

And what she emphasized wasn’t follower counts or algorithms.

It was the way he writes.

The way he reads.

And the way he shows up for other writers.

That feels exactly right for this little experiment in reciprocity.

Go meet Jay Allen Ford⁠

One creator points toward another.

One community discovers another.

And the lei keeps moving. 🌺

Mahalo, April, for bringing us into your forests, your garage, your imagination, your questions, and the season of life you’re living right now.

For reminding us that we can dream about what comes next without rushing the life that’s happening today.

And maybe next time you’re outside with your daughter, looking up at cumulus clouds and deciding what they resemble, there doesn’t need to be anywhere else to get to.

For that moment, anyway.

That can be enough.

April, the lei is officially yours to pass. 🌺

Who will we meet next?

Aloha,
Melin 🌺

Living Aloha Collective

People | Perspectives | Possibility

A Written Interview Series from the Living Aloha Collective

Some people reinvent themselves with a dramatic leap.

Ilka Sommer’s story is more complicated than that.

She spent twenty years in brand marketing, learning to notice the distance between what something looks like and what it actually is. Eventually, she turned that same instrument toward her own life.

And there it was.

The title. The company. The career that looked right from the outside.

And the growing recognition that perhaps it had been tailored for somebody else.

Today, Ilka writes The Art of New Beginnings from Central Switzerland, where mornings can begin with a swim in the lake, rosemary and sage have apparently taken over the garden, and cats named Lilly and Lucy have strong opinions about where writing should happen.

What I especially appreciate about Ilka’s answers is that she doesn’t romanticize beginning again.

There are bills.

Second attempts.

Uncertainty.

And the surprisingly difficult work of figuring out whether we’re choosing our lives or simply becoming very accomplished at going where life tells us to go.

So Ilka, pull up a chair.

Come talk story. 🌺

I’m glad you’re here.

1. Before we talk about what you do, who are you when nobody is asking for your résumé?

Ilka:

I’m from Bittkau, a village on the Elbe in Sachsen-Anhalt. Flat country, enormous sky, nothing much happening. I spent years thinking of that as something I’d escaped, and now I think it’s most of my temperament.

These days I live above a lake in Central Switzerland and swim in it in the mornings. There’s a garden that has settled on rosemary and sage as its entire ambition. Two cats, Lilly and Lucy, who arrange themselves on top of whatever I’m working on. And someone who doesn’t ask what I’m doing when I’ve been looking at the same paragraph for an hour, which took me a while to recognise as a kind of love rather than an absence of curiosity.

I’m quieter than my job history makes me sound. Dry before I’m warm, though I do get warm.

And I like knowing how things work: the timetable, the tax rule, why the kitchen goes orange in October.

That’s not a hobby.

It’s how I calm down.

2. Give me two things in your life that might look completely unrelated to someone else but are absolutely connected in your mind. Connect the dots for us.

Ilka:

On paper it’s two different people: twenty years in brand marketing, and a newsletter about not knowing what happens next.

One of them makes things look good.

The other one mostly admits things.

But brand work, done honestly, is the study of a single distance: how far apart is what this thing looks like and what it actually is. Baby food, pet food, whatever was on the desk that year. You measure that gap for two decades and you can’t put the instrument down afterwards.

Which is how I ended up looking at my own life and finding the widest one I’d seen.

Good title, good company, and the whole thing fitting like a coat cut for someone taller.

The instrument was working fine.

I’d just never turned it around.

So they aren’t two lives, they’re the same job. The difference is that I used to get paid to close the gap, and now I’d mostly just like people to be able to see their own.

3. What does taking care of yourself look like in actual practice, not the Instagram version?

Ilka:

Boring, mostly.

I swim, I walk, I go to bed at an hour that would embarrass me if I described it.

The one that actually counts is the money.

I sit down with what comes in and what goes out and I go through it line by line and I don’t let myself round anything up.

It isn’t calming. It’s the least calming hour I have.

But it’s the reason I could leave a job that paid me well to stay in it, and it’s the first thing I ask the people I sit with when they tell me they want out: not what do you want, but what do you actually need, per month.

Hardly anyone can answer that.

I couldn’t either, for years.

4. What’s one ridiculously small thing that brings you an unreasonable amount of joy?

Ilka:

Boiled eggs on a mountain.

I’ll walk half a morning with a piece of Zopf, some hard cheese, two eggs and a bottle of water in my bag, and then sit down somewhere with a view I did nothing to earn and eat exactly that.

It’s not good food. It’s bread and eggs.

But I have never been as pleased in a restaurant as I am on a rock at eleven in the morning with egg on my fingers and nowhere I need to be.

5. Of everything you’ve written, created, built, or contributed to, what’s ONE thing you wish more people had seen? Why this one?

Ilka:

The Myth of the Clean Break.

It’s about the two times I tried to leave corporate life and couldn’t.

Not the exit that worked.

The two that didn’t.

I’d have liked more people to find that one, because nearly everything written about leaving is written from afterwards, by someone who made it, and afterwards isn’t the difficult part.

The difficult part is the second attempt.

You go back. You’re good at it. Everyone is relieved to have you.

And the entire time, you know.

Nobody writes that one down, because while you’re in it you still think it’s a private failure of nerve.

It isn’t.

There are a lot of people quietly on their second attempt right now, each of them fairly sure they’re the only one.

🌿 Read the Piece Ilka Wishes More People Had Seen

The Myth of the Clean Break

The art of new beginnings

The Myth of the Clean Break

The cold woodboards of my kitchen floor…

Read more

7 months ago · 85 likes · 25 comments · The Art of New Beginnings

6. Who is doing work you think more people should know about? Who are they, and why are you passing the lei to them? 🌺

Ilka:

Sara Mani.

She is writing for people questioning the life they learned to want and trying to trust themselves enough to choose differently.

We swap essays and readers, and she’s one of the few people I’ll send something to while it’s still bad.

That’s the real measure, isn’t it, not who you’d recommend, but who you’d let see the draft.

🌺 Passing the Lei

Sara Mani | Mindset with Sara

https://substack.com/@mindsetwithsara

7. What’s something about being human you’re still figuring out?

Ilka:

I still can’t reliably tell whether I’m choosing something or just being carried.

I’ve moved twenty-four times.

Not one of those was my own idea. Every single one was required by something. A job, an office relocating, a contract running out.

The first was 1997, straight out of school, an apprenticeship two hundred kilometres from home. I packed, I went, nobody had to talk me into it, and I didn’t ask myself one question about whether I wanted to.

That set the whole pattern: moving is what a responsible person does when something asks it of them.

I’m good at the leaving.

I’ve never really tested whether I’m any good at the wanting.

There’s a start date in November on something I’ve said yes to, and I can’t honestly tell you which of the two it is.

Possibly both.

What I’m working on, slowly, badly, at an age where you’d assume it was sorted, is saying what I want out loud and in advance, to someone who could still say no.

A Little Aloha Before We Go 🌺

There’s a sentence in Ilka’s answers that stopped me:

“I’m good at the leaving. I’ve never really tested whether I’m any good at the wanting.”

Whew.

Because there is a difference between leaving something that no longer fits and knowing what we actually want instead.

We talk a lot about courage when someone leaves.

The job.

The relationship.

The place.

The version of themselves they have outgrown.

But perhaps there’s another kind of courage that comes afterward.

Choosing.

Not choosing what looks responsible.

Not choosing what makes everyone else breathe a sigh of relief.

Not even choosing what we’ve become very good at doing.

Choosing what we want, and saying it out loud while the answer can still be no.

That feels vulnerable in an entirely different way.

And I think Ilka’s metaphor about the coat captures something many of us eventually encounter.

Sometimes a life can be objectively good and still not fit.

The title can be impressive.

The salary can be good.

We can even be very good at the work.

And still find ourselves standing there thinking:

Whose coat am I wearing?

🌿 Go Read the Piece She Wishes More People Had Seen

One reason I ask every Come Talk Story guest this question is because the work that matters most to a writer isn’t necessarily the piece an algorithm decided should travel furthest.

Ilka chose The Myth of the Clean Break.

And I understand why.

We love stories about the brave leap.

We hear fewer stories about the person who leapt, went back, tried again, doubted themselves, and discovered that transformation rarely follows the tidy narrative we give it afterward.

If you’re somewhere in a second attempt of your own, perhaps this one is for you.

Read The Myth of the Clean Break:

The art of new beginnings

The Myth of the Clean Break

The cold woodboards of my kitchen floor…

Read more

7 months ago · 85 likes · 25 comments · The Art of New Beginnings

🌺 And the Lei Keeps Moving

Ilka passes the lei to Sara Mani.

But what caught me wasn’t simply that Ilka recommends Sara’s writing.

It was this:

Sara is someone Ilka trusts with the work while it’s still bad.

Before the polishing.

Before we’ve made ourselves sound clever.

Before we’ve decided whether the thing we’re making deserves to exist.

Those people are precious.

Maybe that’s another kind of community worth building here.

Not simply people willing to applaud the finished work.

People willing to sit beside us while we’re still figuring it out.

🌿 Discover Sara Mani:

https://substack.com/@mindsetwithsara

And the circle gets a little wider. 🌺

Mahalo, Ilka, for bringing us something other than a perfectly packaged reinvention story.

For the corporate exits that didn’t work the first time.

For twenty-four moves.

For rosemary and sage.

For the cats who apparently have no respect for deadlines.

For knowing exactly what you need per month.

And for reminding us that sometimes a new beginning isn’t about becoming fearless enough to leave.

Sometimes it begins with a quieter and perhaps harder question:

What do I actually want?

Then having enough courage to say the answer before we know what happens next.

And Ilka, the lei is officially yours to pass. 🌺

Who will we meet next?

Aloha,
Melin 🌺

Living Aloha Collective

People | Perspectives | Possibility