A Love Letter to Beauty (and Why I’m Writing This)

Come closer.

Beauty has followed me for as long as I can remember.
Not in the way people usually mean.
Not the Instagram kind. Not even the contouring one’s face kind.

The kind that shows up unannounced—like the way the morning light pools on a hotel terrace in Oaxaca. Or the way an old woman in Paris ties her scarf. Or how strangers lean in a little closer when the music’s just right.

This Substack is a cabinet of curiosities. A place to archive the moments I never want to forget—and the questions I’m still living into.

I’ve spent the over a decade moving—cities, countries, hotel lobbies, careers.
Nomadic by nature, and by necessity.

A few in my passport: New York. Rio. Mexico City. Antigua. Miami.
In my work: luxury hotels, private clubs, artist studios, after-hours salons.
I’ve designed member experiences, built communities from scratch, hosted dinners for strangers, and stood in far too many meetings asking, But how does it make people feel?

Because feeling—real feeling—is the thread.

And beauty?
Beauty is the compass. The way home.

I don’t mean beauty as decoration.
I mean beauty as devotion.
As attention.
As a way of staying human in a world that keeps asking us to perform.

I’m writing here to make sense of the life I’ve lived and the one I’m still designing.
To share the practices and philosophies that have held me: ritual, travel, storytelling, self-belief, sensuality, spirit.
To gather the bits and pieces scattered across my journals, my WhatsApp threads, my hotel key drawers.

This is a love letter to the invisible architecture behind beautiful experiences.
To what no one sees but everyone feels.

It’s for those of us who build belonging wherever we go—then wonder where home is.
For those who’ve felt like a shapeshifter, a host, a mirror, a muse.
For the ones who love too much, feel too much, and still show up with elegance.

So yes, this is a newsletter.
But it’s also an altar. A practice. A room of one’s own.

I hope you’ll stay.
There’s more coming.

Love,
Cara

---