What is Searching for Stars?

It's a multimedia memoir — part book, part mixtape, part constellation of memory. Think of it as stories pixelated through sound, image, and nostalgia — a place where music and memory echo together. Imagine getting to know a new friend through her mixtape of memories, each story another piece of a constellation slowly taking shape, like sitting together in a fireside chat beneath the stars.

What does "musical echolalia" mean?

Echolalia is when words or sounds repeat — like echoes that return without being invited. Musical echolalia is how songs and lyrics loop in memory, shaping how we feel, remember, and even communicate. It's the heartbeat of this project.

Is this a book, a blog, or something else?

It's all three, and none at once. Searching for Stars is a living memoir told in fragments — part website, part audio archive, part retro dream. Imagine a mixtape that keeps unfolding into chapters.

Who is this project for?

For readers. For music lovers. Nostalgia chasers. For kids of the 80s, 90s, and 2000s — and for anyone who's ever pressed rewind on a memory. It's for seekers of light in the dark, and for those who feel music deep within their soul. It's for the little girl inside me who dreamed of being a writer, who thought in music video formation and remembered in lyrics long before she had words to explain it. It's for anyone who carries loops of sound and story in their mind and is still searching for ways to make sense of them. It's for my children — the living record of my life and the love story their father and I have built — so they will always know who I was, and how they inspired me to finally share my voice.

The pixel art style was inspired by our kids' love of old-school Nintendo and Sega games — a love my husband and I were proud to pass on to them. Memory itself often feels pixelated — fragments, pieces, little glowing squares that come together into something whole. Vivid sensory-filled memories, retro games, mixed CDs, VHS tapes, and the texture of nostalgia. I usually start with real photos from my life or family albums, then run them through tools like ChatGPT, Canva, and PicsArt, cropping, layering, remixing, and refining until it feels right. The visual art helps bring the stories to life like a pixelated scrapbook.

Can I listen as well as read?

Yes — the site weaves together audio narration, Spotify soundtracks, and pixel art. Each story has its own soundtrack, so you can hear the memory as you read it. You can also listen to the project in its entirety on Spotify, or hear the Searching for Stars soundtrack.

Where should I start?

Anywhere. That's the beauty. The project is a constellation, and you can enter from any star. It never happens in order — it comes in bursts, like shooting stars revealing their story one streak at a time. Certain images throughout the site are clickable, leading you to other pieces that share similar characters, themes, memory vibes, or synced timelines. Small bridges between stories that hum with the same rhythm.

Will this become a book?

That's the dream. Searching for Stars is being built as a digital-first memoir, but its fragments are already shaping into a printed constellation. Someday, you'll hold it in your hands like a mixtape for the soul.

How can I support the project?

Read. Listen. Share. Tell a friend who loves music. Post your favorite piece, or just press play. Every echo helps keep the stars alive.

What inspired Searching for Stars?

It was born from a lifelong love of music, memory, and storytelling — from mixtapes passed between friends, to songs that became soundtracks for entire chapters of my life. It's both a personal archive and an invitation for others to remember alongside me.

Is this project autobiographical?

Yes — it's my story, but told through music, movies, and memory loops that connect to something bigger. While it's personal, it's also universal, because the songs that shaped me are the same songs that have carried so many others, too.

Be Excellent to Each Other: A Tribute to Rufus, Rock and Roll, and the Porcelain Fish of Time

ACT I: SAN DIMAS, VHS, AND THE GOSPEL OF SO-CRATES

We were somewhere between the couch and the cosmos—probably a Friday night, definitely the early ’90s. The TV buzzed like it always did, casting soft static light on the living room walls like a time machine warming up.

I was around seven.

My dad and my brother were beside me, forming our original “Wyld Stallyns” trio—minus the band, plus popcorn.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure wasn’t just funny. It was freeing. A movie where two well-meaning goofballs could flunk their way into saving the entire future—just by being loyal, kind, and mildly competent with a phone booth. It felt like prophecy for weird kids with big hearts and zero plans.

We weren’t just watching history get hijacked we were witnessing destiny get dumbed down to divine levels. And it worked.

“So-crates.”

“Party on, dudes.”

“Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.”

All of it landed like scripture whispered through air guitar.

And then there was Rufus.

Cool. Quiet. Dressed in black.

He didn’t yell.

He didn’t rush.

He just showed up exactly when he was needed.

The time-traveling mentor from the future, with George Carlin’s soul tucked behind his shades.

At that age, I didn’t know who Carlin really was. Not yet. I hadn’t heard the sacred rage, the Seven Dirty Words, the sermons disguised as stand-up. But I felt something. Like there was something bigger inside him. Something true.

That knowing came later on nights I couldn’t sleep, curled next to my mom, as she rubbed my back and laughed quietly at his specials on TV.

It’s funny how someone like Carlin becomes a bookmark in your childhood—not because of what he said, but because of how it felt when he was speaking. Like even the grownups were still trying to understand the world.

And laughing about it was okay.

Back then, though, I just knew Rufus mattered.

He wasn’t just helping Bill and Ted pass history.

He was helping them believe they mattered.

That music mattered.

That being excellent to each other could actually change the world.

ACT II: DEATH, DESTINY, AND THE PORCELAIN FISH

Bogus Journey came next.

Still Bill. Still Ted. But this time it got weird.

They died.

Played Twister with Death.

Went to Hell.

Met Evil Robot Versions of themselves.

Built their own Good Guy Robots to fight back.

If Excellent Adventure was a joyful trip through history class on caffeine, Bogus Journey was a fever dream dipped in existential dread.

I watched it younger than I probably should’ve, with my brother and some of his friends. I was little. The kind of little where nightmares still hang around the corners of your room after the credits roll.

And yeah—Death himself showed up in full cloak and scowl. But he wasn’t the part that haunted me.

It was those scenes where they had to face themselves.

The younger, scarred versions.

The shadowed corners of their own minds.

That part gets under your skin somehow.

It was silly, sure.

But it was also real in that quiet way movies sometimes are when you’re too young to explain what they awaken in you.

The real journey wasn’t saving the world it was facing yourself.

And choosing who you’re going to be.

But even then,even in death the movie never stopped being fun.

They jammed with Death.

They made friends with him.

They let the scariest thing imaginable become a bandmate.

Like grief… that dances.

Loss with rhythm.

Years later, in the middle of my own version of a bogus journey… a hospital, a surgery, the sharp and aching silence that comes after a life ends before it begins—I was deep in the dark. Resting. Reeling. I didn’t want to move.

And that’s when Rufus showed up again.

This time on four legs.

A stray dog.

Uninvited, unexplained, and somehow right on time.

My dad pulled me out of bed to see him.

“You gotta come see this dog.”

And this dog wasn’t ordinary.

He came bearing offerings like some mythical postman of fate:

A kid’s shoe.

A broken sandal.

A somehow-still-unbroken porcelain fish.

I kept the fish. Cleaned it. Painted it blue.

It still sits on my shelf like a relic, my own Circuits of Time artifact.

Somehow unbroken.

Somehow still here.

The dog had faint shadows on his shoulders like light had tried to paint angel wings, but gave up halfway.

My dad named him Rufus, like it was obvious.

Because of course he did.

That’s what Rufus was.

The one who shows up when the light’s gone strange.

When the world feels broken, scary or dark.

When you’re stuck in Hell and can’t quite remember who you were supposed to be.

Bill and Ted didn’t just teach you how to pass history.

They taught you how to show up for the future.

How to believe in people.

How to stay in the band even after death.

The truth was always louder than the plot:

Music saves.

Not just the world, but the person.

The soul.

The moment.

The VHS kid with popcorn on her fingers.

The grown woman trying to stand back up.

I didn’t need a band that could shred

I just needed a reason to keep playing.

God Gave Rock and Roll to You wasn’t just a final act anthem.

It was a statement of faith, dressed in denim and distortion.

A holy thing passed down through speakers and scenes.

He gave it to everyone.

To the weirdos.

To the dropouts.

To the grievers.

To the garage-band prophets.

To the girls who write about ghosts and feel everything twice as hard.

The song wasn’t asking permission.

It was handing out purpose.

ACT III: THEY DO GET BETTER

We passed through San Dimas not long ago.

It was quick just a stretch of highway, a flicker in the memory grid, but something in me woke up.

I sat up straighter.

And suddenly, I was there.

And then.

All at once.

It wasn’t even where they filmed it just the place that inspired the name.

But it didn’t matter.

It felt like sacred ground.

I smiled. The kind of smile that’s been quietly loading in the background for decades…like a memory still syncing.

Because somewhere in me, a little girl with a VHS tape and a head full of time-travel logic was still believing.

Still carrying that message home:

“Be excellent to each other.

And party on, dudes.”

It sounds dumb if you say it fast.

But if you sit with it—if you really hear it—it’s enough to build a life on.

Because it’s not just about air guitars and slackers.

It’s about grace.

About letting people grow.

Letting yourself grow.

It’s about knowing the past is a mess,

the present is confusing,

and the future is… unwritten.

But still?

You matter.

Your friends matter.

Your music matters.

Even the dumb parts.

Especially the dumb parts.

Some dogs are angels.

Some things in life—like porcelain fish don’t break when they’re meant for you.

Rufus was never just a character.

Carlin was never just a comic.

The people we lose.

The pets we keep.

The tapes we rewind.

The lines we remember by heart.

They’re all part of the same massive mixtape.

Stitched together by memory, grief, joy, and the divine comedy of it all.

And when we hit play again—

when we roll through San Dimas

or sit beside our kids

or pass a blue-painted relic on a shelf

we remember:

They do get better.

And sometimes, the ones who save the world

are the ones nobody expected to.

Sometimes they’re just two kids in a garage band.

Or a dog on your porch.

Or a father pulling you back into the light.

Or a girl, now grown, still hearing George Carlin’s voice

like a whisper from the stars.

Not gone.

Just traveling through time.

God gave rock and roll to you—

and it lights the way.

A cassette tape on fire.

A torch that won’t go out.

You don’t need a time machine when you’ve got a great mixtape.

And if you’re gonna face yourself in Hell, bring your band.

Light it up. Play it loud. The future’s listening.

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Searching For Stars

She Gave Me a Beautiful Window Back to My Soul: Healthy Is the New Skinny (A letter of light and gratitude for Katie Willcox)

By Lauren Nixon-Matney • February 2, 2026

I don’t remember deciding to look in the mirror. I was already there, half-awake, the house finally quiet in that fragile way it gets after a feeding. Same bathroom. Same light. A body that no longer belonged only to me, still learning its new outline. I tilted my head, not with panic, not even sadness just habit. Like checking a bruise you already know is there. Like waiting for an apology that isn’t coming. What annoyed me wasn’t what I saw. It was how quickly my brain tried to narrate it. The subtle inventory. The mental before-and-after photos. The unspoken timeline of when I was supposed to “feel like myself again.” I remember thinking, with a tired little laugh, Wow. I just made a human. And I’m still doing this. Still scanning. Still measuring. Still standing here as if my body hadn’t just done something borderline miraculous. And the most unsettling part wasn’t the criticism it was how normal it all felt. Like this was just part of motherhood. Like this quiet self-surveillance was simply another thing you were supposed to carry. I didn’t necessarily feel it all at once. There was no dramatic breaking point. It was more like a quiet irritation that refused to go away. The kind that taps you on the shoulder while you’re trying to move on. I remember standing there thinking how strange it was that my body could do something as massive as bringing a whole person into the world and somehow still be treated like a problem to solve. How quickly the conversation had shifted from look what you did to okay, now fix it. I hadn’t failed at anything. And yet, the language in my head sounded like I had. That’s when something finally clicked not so much with anger or rage, but with clarity. This wasn’t intuition. This wasn’t health. This wasn’t even coming from me. It was inheritance. Passed down quietly. Polished to sound responsible. Framed as care. And once I saw that, I couldn’t unsee it. Katie this is where you enter the story… Someone who said the thing out loud that I had only felt in pieces. Someone who named the difference between discipline and disconnection. Between health and harm. Healthy Is the New Skinny didn’t tell me what to do with my body. It asked a better question altogether: What if the problem was never your body in the first place? That question rearranged everything. You gave me language where there had only been pressure. You replaced noise with permission. You handed me tools not commandments and trusted me enough to use them. And that trust mattered. Because the moment I stopped fighting my body, I started listening to it. And the moment I started listening, I realized how long it had been trying to take care of me. It felt like getting this beautiful window. Not to change myself or crawl through but to finally see clearly. I kept thinking about how these things actually get passed down. Not through lectures. Not through rules. But through the tiny stuff. The comments made in passing. The jokes you barely even realize are jokes. The way you talk to yourself when you think no one is listening. Especially kids. Especially daughters. It hit me one night, sitting on the edge of the bed, that someday they wouldn’t need me to explain any of this to them. They would just pick it up. The same way I did. The same way most of us did. Quietly. Without consent. That realization felt clarifying. Not heavy. Just honest. Some patterns don’t need a big exit. They just don’t get invited into the next room. And because of you, Katie, I found the strength to stop fighting myself. To stop trying to fit my body into some mold it was never meant to belong in the first place. To me, you are truly one of the most beautiful women and souls in this universe! Beautiful is the woman who breaks cycles. Beautiful is the voice that replaces shame with truth. Beautiful is someone whose work doesn’t just inspire it liberates. Thank you for changing how I live inside my body. Thank you for changing how I mother. Thank you for helping me choose health over punishment, presence over performance, and confidence that doesn’t ask permission. You saved me in ways you may never know. Thank you so much for opening the window. I’m raising the next generation with it wide open to limitless views of beauty! Lauren