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.

Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss: A Melody for the Stars

The first time I heard Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss, I didn’t just listen I felt it. It was the kind of song that made me want to pull over on the side of the road, throw my arms in the air, and run through an open field like I could lift off if I moved fast enough. At seventeen, that feeling meant everything.

Built to Spill had already settled into my bloodstream long before I got my hands on Ancient Melodies of the Future. My brother had made sure of that, slipping albums into my world, soundtracking my coming-of-age years with Doug’s voice, those tangled guitars, that raw and perfect imperfection. But this album this song hit me so much differently.

There was something untamed about it. The way the guitar slurred and lurched, the way the drums felt like they could fall apart at any moment but never did. It was soulful, wild, and free. And I was at an age where I wanted to be all of those things.

So I played it on repeat. I let it move through me, let it push me forward, let it become the sound of a summer where I wasn’t quite a kid but wasn’t yet an adult. I wasn’t sure what came next, but I knew how this song made me feel like I was already flying.

But that summer faded, and by the time fall settled in, I kind of felt more like I was free falling.

I was standing at the edge of adulthood, unsure of what I was supposed to do next. The certainty I had felt in music, in movement, in the wild rush of summer had started to slip away. I didn’t have the answers, and I didn’t have much in the way of guidance either. Just the people I had chosen as my family, friends who kept me grounded when I felt like I was spinning out.

That’s how I found myself one evening in a house that wasn’t mine, surrounded by people who felt like home. It was Carl’s kid’s house his ex-wife Melissa’s (to be exact). I was there with Jessie and Becky, two of Carl’s daughters, along with their niece, Emily and her mother Brandy.

Emily was still a baby then, maybe ten months old. I didn’t have much experience with babies just enough to know they were fragile, breakable things. I was still nervous around them, afraid I’d do something wrong, that I wasn’t careful enough or gentle enough. But that day, Brandy let me hold her.

And I remember feeling overwhelmed by that.

Like it was an honor. Like she trusted me with something precious.

I held her carefully at first, adjusting to her small weight in my arms. And then I started swaying. Rocking back and forth, finding an easy rhythm. Without thinking, I started to hum. And then I was singing, soft at first, just for her—

“Fly around my pretty little miss, why don’t you fly around my pretty little miss?”

I don’t know why that song came out of me in that moment. Maybe because it had been there all along, nestled somewhere deep in my bones. Maybe because I had spent months feeling like I was spinning out, and now, holding her, I felt suddenly and completely still.

There, in that living room, in the middle of all my uncertainty, something inside me settled. I looked at Emily Carl’s granddaughter, Billy’s baby and for the first time in what felt like forever, I understood something.

This.

This was what life was about.

Love. Family. Connection.

The generations that come and go. The lives we shape. The legacies we leave behind.

I kept singing. Kept swaying. Kept holding on.

But life, like music, keeps moving.

Time doesn’t wait. Babies grow, songs fade into the background until you find yourself singing them again, arms wrapped around a new little life.

Emily is no longer a baby. She’s a young woman now, one of those rare, bright lights that the world is lucky to have. And me? I have three children of my own. Two beautiful daughters that I have held in my arms at the same age, singing to them softly, the same way I did to Emily all those years ago.

And each time, I have felt that same grounding presence. That same overwhelming gratitude. That same knowing this is what life is about.

The song never faded.

Even now, twenty years later, it pulses through me the same way it did when I was seventeen. It still makes me want to pull over, run through a field, throw my arms in the air, and sing at the top of my lungs.

And maybe that’s the point.

“Open up your window just in case

You’re a radar built to scan the deeps of outer space.”

Maybe we’re all searching for something...some sign in the stars, some connection, some proof that we’re exactly where we’re meant to be.

“And if you recognize subtle patterns in the sky,

Don’t take it as a sign unless it eases your mind.”

But music does ease my mind.

And I do take it as a sign.

A sign that I was here. That I am here.

A sign to keep moving, to keep singing, to keep my arms open to the wind.

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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