The Lights Are Back On

Hello, you. It's been a while.

Empirical went quiet while I rebuilt my entire myempiricallife.com — website, print shop and mail engine — with my own two hands and one very patient AI. I’d tried with humans over the last few years, but my perfectionism, indecisiveness and pickiness drove everyone, including me, absolutely bonkers, and cost me a small fortune in wasted money. In typical stubborn Aries fashion, I decided that if it couldn’t look the way I wanted, I wouldn’t do it at all. I dug my heels in — until I realised the stalling might also be a fear of being seen. Once I turned it into a dare, it didn’t matter how many gruelling weeks and technical nightmares it took. I’m so proud of how it has turned out.

There is much to share with you about the last few years. You know about the melancholy of my cancellation — but I haven’t shared the other side of the polarity coin: rediscovering love, joy and faith amidst the chaos.

What matters today: Empirical is coming back to life, this time with a spine and a schedule. Starting next week, you’ll get at least one essay a week from one of three rooms — the cultural heresies everyone thinks but no one says, wellness claims run through the studies and my own empirical experience, plus the memoir I’ve been circling for years: war, runways, New York, trauma and healing, peppered with beauty, fashion and the occasional piece of relationship advice.

The first essay lands next Friday. It’s for the woman who’s tired of doing everything right and still spinning her wheels.

More soon. Properly soon, this time.

— Tanja

P.S. — The image above is "Eternal Flame," photographed on the Croatian coast in the minutes after sunset. One of my limited editions — fifty signed prints, ever. It lives here.