Read the latest Letter to YVYNYL

Manett wrote to me about her life growing up in Guam. Seems as though people who are raised in such remote places have an ongoing love/hate relationship with their roots. People feeling comfortable remaining put in a gorgeous natural place may feel suffocated by it’s smallness. Guam is a distant land, many time zones away from the rest of earth, and that separation feels palpable every day being a kid growing up there. She has music to help her understand it, and here’s what she wrote me about how these thoughts effect her songs.

Dear Mark, 

…It was a big deal when a sibling would leave the island for college in the mainland U.S. We’d see them go through the airport gate and vanish for months. Phone calls were long-distance back then, and the enormous time zone difference, not to mention the impending culture shock, made it easier to simply let go of any expectation of contact…

(read to the whole piece while listening to her music here on my Medium)