Lisa Ray Instagram – My muse and precious friend @tishanidoshi has a collection of her sharp, exquisite, oh-so vital poetry coming out in a book called #GirlsAreComingOutoftheWoods. Tish and I met in Goa, in a place called #Elsewhere. I was immediately awash with nostalgia – though we’d never met before – and visions of tea and jam stained kitchen tables, where I imagined longer conversations. I think I felt like a scientist discovering the particle everyone denied, but you knew existed behind other forms. Here was a beautiful creature of no fixed identity with no fixed address, who travelled those invisible currents that most deny exist. She worked with words, she worked with her body, and most of all, with the grace that comes from opening to the tough questions of existence, struggling and holding emotions tenderly and close. Tish and I have made guest appearances in each other’s lives- she made it to my wedding with her lovely husband to be @carlopizzati – but perhaps unbeknownst to her, she’s actually always played a starring role in my inner life. She feels like a sister spirit and often writes the things I feel most deeply. I know she’ll keep producing beautiful work, and we’ll all be better for reading it. And quite naturally- her very being encourages me to get a move on following my own creative life in words. Let’s see how that goes.