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.

Do You Realize: A Quiet Spell

I was probably wearing pajama pants. The kind with stars or moons on them.

The living room was dim except for the flicker of the TV and the soft hum of central air kicking on and off. I was at my dad’s house in Lake Charles, Louisiana curled up on the couch, watching Charmed.

We both liked that show, though probably for different reasons. I loved the magic, the drama, the sisters and their powers. He loved the sci-fi twists, the time travel episodes and, let’s be honest, thought the witches were cute. I’d watch it with him, or on my own when I needed something comforting and a little otherworldly.

That night, the band played live at P3—The Flaming Lips. I didn’t know them at the time, but I remember leaning forward as the music started. Do you realize that you have the most beautiful face… The sound was dreamy, almost underwater, but the words "everyone you know someday will die" cut through everything.

It was one of the first songs I remember hearing that made me feel like time just stopped.

I remember that line landing like a quiet truth I’d already memorized. Everyone you know someday will die. It didn’t shock me. It didn’t scare me. It felt… familiar. Like someone had finally said out loud what I’d been carrying around for years.

By 2002, I had already lost more people than most kids my age could understand. Travis. Tommy. Trey. My nanny. Names that still held warmth, still echoed in photos and birthday parties and bike rides, but were gone. Each loss had carved something permanent in me like tree rings, like scars, like slow blooming galaxies of grief.

So when The Flaming Lips sang it, they weren’t telling me something new. They were joining me in it. Saying, “Yeah. We know. We feel it too.” And somehow, that made it hurt a little less.

I didn’t cry. I didn’t even move. I just sat there on that couch, beside my dad, with the TV glowing and this strange, beautiful band floating on a fake club stage and I felt understood in a way I didn’t have language for yet.

I didn’t write the song down or look it up right away. But it stayed with me. Tucked itself into the folds of memory like a quiet spell soft, glimmering, patient. Years later, after graduation, I got my first laptop and started burning mix CDs like it was a sacred ritual. That song made the cut every time.

By then, it wasn’t just a song from Charmed. It was mine. Something I turned to when I wanted to feel a little more awake, a little more in love with being alive even if just for a minute.

The Flaming Lips pulled me in from there. Their sound was strange and bright and human in the weirdest, most wonderful ways. It was like music for dreamers who had been through some shit but still believed in magic. Still hoped. Still laughed.

And that one line "everyone you know someday will die" it never stopped meaning something. It didn’t get heavier. It didn’t get easier. It just got more… real. With time, with loss, with the quiet ache of growing older and watching the people you love fade in and out of your life. Some forever. Some just for a while.

Now, as a parent, it’s a truth I’ve had to explain. Sometimes through tears, sometimes through metaphor, sometimes just by being quiet and holding space. We’re all here for a little while. And while we are, we dream, we love, we build things. We make mix CDs and write stories and leave trails behind.

I don’t know if this song has brought me closer to my dad since he passed, but it always makes me miss him. Not in the sharp, breathless way. More like a soft pull a hand on my shoulder, a memory folding open.

He was my best friend. The one I watched Charmed with on quiet nights in Lake Charles. The one who told me the truth, even when it hurt, and made me laugh when I didn’t think I could. I wish I had more time. I always will. But I’m so grateful for the time we had... for the love, the hugs, the weird inside jokes, the science fiction, the way he looked at the world and tried to make it better.

Maybe the song is a kind of spell.

Not the flashy kind no sparks, no glowing orbs just a soft charm whispered into your life when you’re ready to hear it.

It doesn’t grant wishes.

It just opens your eyes.

To this moment.

To the people still beside you.

To the way love stretches across time like sunlight through trees.

"Instead of saying all of your goodbyes,

let them know you realize—

life goes fast.

It’s hard to make the good things last."

That part used to make me ache.

Now it makes me nod.

Because it’s true.

The good things slip through our fingers no matter how tightly we try to hold them.

So we love them while we can.

We stay present.

We keep the music playing.

I don’t need forever.

I just want to realize what I have, while I have it.

And I do.

More and more, every day.

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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