Sunday Edition: Where the Quiet Lives

this is a Kacey Musgraves stan account

The Sunday Edition is Tuesday’s little sister—off-the-cuff updates I’d bring up over a coffee catch-up with a friend.

📖 We Could Be Rats by Emily Austin: I’m halfway through We Could Be Rats, and it’s already shaping up to be one of the most moving reads I’ve picked up recently. The honest and raw storytelling is incredibly refreshing, painting an intimate portrait of two very different sisters. The narrative beautifully balances Sigrid’s chaotic, emotionally raw journey with Margit’s frustration and attempts to bridge the gap between them.

What stands out most is how the author weaves a love letter to childhood, growing up, and the enduring power of imagination amid the stark realities of their small-town struggles. The exploration of loss, family bonds, and personal growth is both heartbreaking and hopeful, and the writing carries a unique mix of tenderness and grit. Available, Tuesday, 2/28.

📺 “Severance, Season 2” on Apple TV+: It’s fine, we’ve only been waiting three years (!) to resolve the biggest cliff-hanger ever. Luckily, Ben Stiller delivered with the first episode of the second season, out last Friday, generating even more questions in this series about four coworkers who had a procedure to sever their memories between their work and lives outside. This season is expected to expand well beyond the first, and already has me hooked. Why is Helly lying? Where is Mark’s wife? I need to know!! (I haven’t listened to it yet, but there’s an accompanying podcast for anyone interested in the behind-the-scenes of the show!)

🎥 ‘The Last Showgirl,’ in theaters: I never felt an urge to go to Vegas, but when I wentlike 2 years ago I found myself fascinated by the places where the facade fell away to reveal a darker underside (like when I exited a casino out the back door to avoid the Strip—not my best or safest call). Gia Coppola compassionately examines the reality beneath the bejeweled surface in this movie starring Pamela Anderson as Shelly, a showgirl who has performed in Vegas for decades. Like Anderson herself, there is much more to Shelly than meets the surface, as Coppola artfully peels back each layer. A must-see.

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The Deeper Well

This week’s newsletter is brought to you by two women who, on paper, couldn’t be more different, Kacey Musgraves and Pamela Anderson. One is a Grammy-winning country artist with a twang and a telescope for soul work, the other a cultural icon who's traded her red swimsuit for bare skin and deep self-acceptance. But lately, they’ve both been pulling me toward the same thing: a deeper well.

Let me back up.

Like many of you (I’m guessing!), I’ve had Deeper Well on repeat since it dropped. Kacey has always had this way of bottling big feelings into plainspoken lines that sneak up on you. But when she sings, “I’ve gotten older now / I know how to take care of myself / I found a deeper well,” I felt it land somewhere tender. I hit pause, sat in my driveway, and let the words echo.

Maybe it’s because we’ve grown alongside her—through heartbreak and self-doubt, glow-ups and letdowns. Or maybe it’s because that lyric captures something I’ve been quietly chasing too. A deeper source. A steadier root. A place inside myself that isn’t pulled by trends or timelines, expectations or edits.

Kacey later said in an NPR interview that she sees the “well” as a metaphor for the inner source we all need access to in order to live, love, and know ourselves. Her words? “It’s an ode to removing resistance to growth.”

Yes. Chills.

And then—because the universe loves a theme—Pamela Anderson showed up in my inbox a few days later with this line in her weekly newsletter:
“Originality is unexpected, darling… Live to your own beat. Embrace and accept yourself fully—your personality, body, feelings, and experiences.”

Pamela’s been on my mind a lot these days. Not for the reasons the early 2000s might have predicted, but because she’s redefining what it looks like to age and evolve publicly. No glam. No filter. No explanation. Just a woman moving through life on her own terms—and looking luminous doing it.

What struck me is that both women are talking about the same thing, in different ways. The deeper well. The space inside ourselves that isn’t dictated by outside noise. That lets us trust our pace. That says: you can evolve, soften, strengthen, unravel, rebuild—without having to apologize for any of it.

So that’s what I’m sitting with this week. What would it look like to live from that deeper place? To root ourselves not in other people’s projections or the stories we’re told about beauty, success, womanhood, worth—but in the quiet knowing we carry?

Where’s your deeper well?
Maybe it’s your morning routine that nobody sees but you. Maybe it’s your journal. Your art. A walk. A whisper. A wild idea you haven’t spoken out loud yet. Maybe it’s the version of you that existed before you started editing.

That’s where I’m headed. Sometimes I’m swimming, sometimes just floating and figuring it out. But I’ll meet you there, if you’re up for it.

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