The Yukon Theatre rewired my brain in the ’80s and ’90s with films like Edward Scissorhands, Alive, My Girl, Forrest Gump, Romeo + Juliet, and Seven (just to name a few).
Photo credit: Ken Wuschke, Aug 2025
A couple weeks ago I mentioned that I started a course called Lovergirl, led by poet and creative catalyst kitty knorr. The idea is to stop chasing romantic love, and start seducing our creative lives instead. I thought I was flirting with a short film idea, a weird reimagining of Flashdance. (You can read that essay here). But then another idea showed up quietly: a coming-of-age story—mine.
Set in the 90s. In the Yukon. And it’s asking to be more than just a project. It’s something deeper. A book, maybe. A collection of essays. Possibly a film. Possibly both. But first, words, on a page. Set inside a girl who is trying to understand who she was while everything around her kept shifting.
This idea has been tapping me on the shoulder for a long time. But recently, while journaling, it came into sharper focus. It’s rooted in memory, and rich with northern texture: teenagers sneaking out their bedroom windows at midnight, biking down to a creek under the northern sun to drink warm Bacardi; heartbreak and awkward firsts; Romeo and Juliet and Dazed and Confused soundtracks on repeat; losing friends far too young; being eleven and moving to a Tlingit town of 450 people; being a white girl suddenly immersed in a First Nations community, trying to make sense of privilege and pain and guilt and grief.
It’s the kind of project that makes me feel vulnerable, yet pulls me in.
We don’t always choose our creative projects. Sometimes they choose us. Not with a shout, but a whisper: flickers, images, memories we’d forgotten.
These thoughts had been flickering for a while, but they began to open more fully after I went home for a friend’s funeral. A month has passed, and his death has left a weight in my body that will never lift. Since then, I’ve found myself in quiet conversations with friends who left this world far too soon. Grief has a way of hitching itself to other grief; traveling and echoing, connecting across time like invisible threads.
My friends have become my guides; offering direction, courage, and support as I navigate terrains I’ve never entered. They never had the chance to make this journey, and I want to honour their lives by taking it.
For a long time, I didn’t just struggle with writer’s block. I struggled with being able to locate my own experience. I felt like I was living inside something I couldn’t fully describe. I couldn’t pin it to the page. Now, I’m starting to see that some stories are too big to force. They come when they’re ready. And maybe our job isn’t to write them perfectly. Our job is just to say: I’m here. I’m listening.
That’s what this feels like. A slow but deliberate conversation with something beyond me. The Great Mystery of the Universe. Or what I sometimes imagine as a creative intelligence, some benevolent force that sends ideas like sacred telegrams.
But like I said, they don’t shout. They whisper. And when you respond, you honour them, and as a reaction – the line stays open. It’s a relationship. And the more you show up for it, the more it shows up for you.
I made a video about the Muse using the metaphor of my dog chasing a ball.
Every creative endeavour carries obstacles that feel impossible to overcome—each one custom-built for the exact growth the artist needs to evolve beyond their current self.
This project— whatever it becomes—is already leading me somewhere unknown, into a part of myself that isn’t quite formed yet. It’s showing me parts of myself I must strengthen. Each step forward feels like a step into blackness. My foot stretches out feeling for its footing. It makes contact. I see an image coming into focus ahead. That image is attached to a story.
I will start there. Write what I see and feel.
The heartbeat that pulses beneath every moment
It’s premature to know what the story is, but if I could see into the future of this narrative, it would be this: the longing to belong and connect deeply with others, while needing to find total independent expression of myself. That’s the tension I’ve lived with for as long as I can remember. And the deeper message, the one that keeps rising like mist from this work, is about having the courage to open myself up to deep presence, daily—before I vanish into the unknown.
Our lives are a brief northern sun. We’re here, and then gone. And I’ve already wasted so many years being afraid to live fully expressed. I don’t have it all figured out. But I’m trying to pay attention to the little clues, the breadcrumbs. I’m trying to write the story that wants to be written. Some of it I’ll save for therapy. Some of it I’ll share. But all of it, I hope, will be in service to help liberate others to share theirs.
I’ll ask my friends for courage.
And then I’ll get to it. Sit my butt down and write a first, horrible, cliché, messy draft.
Beginning this week…
(I made another video this week. A little creative pep talk. Check it out).
And now I want to invite you into this process with me. Below is a writing prompt I created while working on this project. If you're exploring a creative path of your own (or even just reflecting on your life) maybe it will stir something in you:
Writing Prompts
* If you knew you only had one year to live, what story is still inside you waiting to be told? And who would it be for?
* Extra: if your life were a feature film (yes, you are the main character), what’s one dominant challenge your story would explore? What message would you want to leave behind for others?
Question for the Comments: If you want to share any of your prompt responses in the comments, I’d love to hear.
Thank you for spending this time with me, and for letting these words spark reflections on your own life. <3
Ashley
