The Tea
Opening Notes from Traciana
I’ve been thinking of what Josephine Baker would say to me. I have been thinking of how she would say it—in that mock pride and glee she carried so perfectly. In my mind’s eye, I can see her clearly: “Chérie, took you long enough to come back home to yourself.”
She’s right, of course. She always is.
Growing up between Harlem and Paris, her story was my story. I was raised on the legend of this woman who danced her way across continents, who turned stages into sanctuaries, who transformed exile into liberation. She didn’t just travel; she moved through the world as if every place held the possibility of reinvention. Her voice has been with me for years—sometimes a whisper, sometimes a roar, always exactly what I needed to hear.
Then I hear her continue, that knowing smile in her voice: “And what took you so long to realize you needed not just one podcast—Hustle Detox—but a second one, Thrive Abroad Society, and even a whole community?”
She’s chiding me because she knows what I know: that people who live between worlds, who find home in movement, who use creativity as a compass—we need each other. We need spaces to explore not just how to recover from hustle culture, but how to thrive while living globally, thinking expansively, moving freely. She knew I couldn’t serve this community with just one platform.
She wouldn’t let me off that easy: “This Arts & Travel diary collection should have been your first pillar, your first collection.”
Of course it should have been. Before I learned to ground through food, before I reclaimed beauty, before I understood well-being—I was already finding myself through movement and creativity. I was already using galleries as sanctuaries and train rides as moving meditations. This was always the foundation. And then, the truth that cuts deepest: “I’ve been waiting for you to remember that movement and creativity aren’t just part of your story—they ARE your story.“
And there it is. The truth I’ve been dancing around for years. Welcome to the Arts & Travel Diary Collection—where I’m finally coming home to what Josephine knew all along. I’ll be adding to this collection regularly as these discoveries unfold.
—Traciana
P.S, Join Letters from Traciana — my weekly offering crafted with care and sent every Sunday to help you reset, reconnect, and rise into your next chapter. It’s where I share the deeper insights and travel reflections that don’t make it anywhere else.
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