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.

Car: There’s Nothing Wrong with Dreams

Some songs start like background noise,

and end up scoring your whole life.

Sitting in the car with my brother Bobby.

Sunset bleeding through the windows,

cold outside, but almost spring.

I was about fourteen.

Too young to know who I’d become,

old enough to feel the ache of wanting something more.

We didn’t say much. We didn’t need to.

The engine was off, the radio was on.

“You get the car, I’ll get the night off…”

It played like it knew us. Like it knew what it meant to feel stuck in a small town,

but still carry a head full of big ideas and late-night dreams.

Bobby had always been the cool one.

The one who knew the good music before it became good to everyone else.

He didn’t explain why songs mattered he just let you feel it.

And that day, I did.

I didn’t know exactly what the lyrics meant,

but I knew how they made me feel

like maybe everything I was hoping for wasn’t so far away after all.

I didn’t know it then, but Car was already carving a space inside me.

That quiet moment with Bobby, the cold air, the half-promise of spring

it was just the beginning.

The song would follow me.

Through every version of myself.

I kept singing it.

In my room. In the car.

Under my breath when I felt lost.

Loudly when I felt found.

I’d sing it to Jamie, when we were first falling in love.

Eyes closed, fist in the air, singing with all my soul like the universe could hear me.

Like the song already knew what we were becoming.

And then I had babies—

these tiny, perfect souls that somehow cracked me open in the best way.

And without even thinking, I found myself singing to them,

“I wanna see movies of my dreams…”

as if those dreams were theirs now, too.

“I wanna see it when you find out what comets, moons, and stars are all about…”

And I meant it with every cell in my body.

I meant it in a way I didn’t even understand when I was fourteen.

That line became a kind of lullaby.

Not the soft, sleepy kind but the cosmic kind.

The kind that says:

“You are made of magic, little one. And I want to be here for all of it.”

The house would be quiet, the kind of quiet that only happens in those

newborn hours when the rest of the world feels like it’s sleeping off its noise.

I’d step onto the Total Gym, easing into slow, gentle squats—

the rhythm rocking him closer to sleep.

And I’d sing.

Built to Spill.

Sometimes Big Dipper but mostly Car.

“I wanna see movies of my dreams…”

At fourteen, those lyrics felt like escape.

A call to the stars.

A promise that there was more out there...more to feel, more to find,

more waiting in the midst of this weird, beautiful life.

Now they feel like a wish.

Not for myself, but for them.

For Jaxon. For Maggie. For Gracie.

I want them to see it all their dreams, their comets, their moons, their stars.

I want to be there when they do.

It’s funny how a song about longing becomes a song about love.

How something that once felt like yours alone becomes a gift you hand down.

Bobby gave me the song without even realizing what he was doing.

We were just sitting in the car, letting the stereo do the talking.

But somehow, that moment planted something.

A seed that grew into a soundtrack.

He didn’t know it’d become a lullaby.

Didn’t know it would echo through dimly lit rooms,

through early mornings and midnight feedings,

through soft rocking and starlit promises.

But it did.

And every time I sing it now,

I go right back to that car,

right back to the sunset,

right back to the part of me

that still believes music is magic written in the stars.

The best songs don’t shout. They linger.

You don’t notice at first

then one day, you realize it’s your memory’s favorite soundtrack

< Older Post

Newer Post >

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