Sunlight
[Sun streaming through two orchids :: Taken in North Carolina in 2007.]
This just in! A new interview is up over at the Get Inspired! Project.
And now, today's entry ~
I feel like I am waking up from a period of hibernation, easing back into the world slowly, mindfully, and with an awareness of how easy it is for me to slide into a mindset of trying to do and be so much to so many people that, before I know it, I have migraines every week. It took me many months and many migraines before I realized, "Hey, this is a migraine!", all the while thinking it was just a "really bad headache". I am now grateful for those migraines, grateful for the message they gave me. The message was simple: Too much going out, not enough going in.
Thanksgiving weekend around here was an exuberantly quiet affair. My husband and I broke tradition, and instead of letting it be known that our table had room for everyone, we closed our doors. Every year our Thanksgiving plans have come together last minute, where the week before we're not sure who will be with us, but by the day before we have a guest list of at least ten. It's always festive, loud, cozy and fun. Candles, turkey, stuffing – the works. This year we knew weeks ago what we would be doing: Nothing. We enjoyed our Thanksgiving dinner the night before at one of our favorite restaurants, and the next day, when so many kitchens were a flurry of activity, we went on a bicycle ride, read our books, played music and enjoyed a succulent, mouth-watering pizza. We felt giddy, like we were two rebellious teenagers, like we were playing hooky from adulthood.
Every year my husband writes me a letter for my birthday. This idea was mine, and I always have to remind him to do it, but I love them all the same – single page capsules of a year of our life. This year my husband wrote about the main story lines we have written together over the past twelve months, and it is quite a list. The one that stood out for me is the one I have chronicled most right here in this blog – the story of our home, and how many people have set up camp here since last spring. I do not look back at any of those experiences with any regret, and I know ours will always be a house of activity – of family and friends, of gatherings and dinner parties. It is who we are, it is what we are good at, and we get a lot of joy out of providing a safe haven for those we love. This will not ever go away, and I would not want it to.
I don't want to follow those statements up with a "but", so I will say this – that as much as our social proclivities make up the fabric of who we are, we learned this year that we have to be careful to take care of ourselves – of our marriage – in the same way we strive to take care of those we love. It was so easy to lose ourselves in the midst of friends needing a home or a place to stay and events like a wedding, all on top of our own work and personal responsibilities. It wasn't until our house cleared out and we stood facing each other that we realized our relationship was in desperate need of the care and attention we had given so many others over the past many months, and this was why we kept our entire Thanksgiving weekend to ourselves. We had to get to know each other again; in a way, I felt like we were dating.
One repeating cycle of our weekend – of our every day, in fact – that has been bringing all of this into sharp focus has been our morning routine. I come downstairs, fill the kettle with water and occupy myself with various mundane tasks as it heats up for a french press I fill with fresh coffee. I empty the dishwasher, get the newspapers from out front, grab dishes we might have left in our family room the night before and hang up coats. It is the time of year when the sun streams through two of our kitchen windows with special intensity, so when my husband sits down at our kitchen table it casts a bright, golden glow on his face. The water boils, I fill the coffee pot, a few minutes later I pour him a cup of coffee and heat up a small pot of milk for mine. When I sit down, we read the paper quietly, sharing articles and editorials of interest, enjoying the silence, the sun, and each other. We begin our day quietly, and it looks pretty much the same every morning, but over the past few weeks I have been taking a moment to stand still and soak it all in, to enjoy the sight of my husband at our table, to be grateful that we found each other and now share a beautiful home that has so much love in every crack and crevice.
So I am waking up right now to a different approach, a slightly adjusted mindset that understands while there is no limit to the love I can let into my life, there are limits to time and energy, and I will be in the best service of that love if I do a better job at balancing what I send outward with what I pull inward. It has been a slightly uncomfortable experience to sit still with no big goals, projects or trips to focus on. It has been a challenge to wake up each day and create the smallest to do list as possible rather than the most ambitious, the most comprehensive. My life has become an exercise in doing less, in simplifying in every possible place, in taking care of myself as well as I strive to take care of so many others. And in the midst of all that, there are my mornings, where there are no requirements beyond making coffee, feeling the warmth of the sun through my windows, and telling my husband I love him.
Five Things
1. I love the frills over at Gaudy Couture.
2. J. Mendocino's modern home goods.
3. Gingerlilly's images are dreamy.
4. Elisita's Papercut Creations.
5. La Bella Carmella – yum!
The Swan
Thank you Anne.
Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music – like the rain pelting the trees – like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?
~Mary Oliver
Burning Man Polaroid Book Project
I went to Burning Man in 2003, and of the gazillions of photos I took, my favorites were with a Polaroid camera. They have since been stored in a tin box, a plastic envelope and a metal drawer, but now they have a home! I was inspired by the Polaroid book Susannah created in the Book in a Day class I taught with Marisa at Squam Art Workshops, and I used one of the sample books I created for the class. This was one of the books I created and then said, "OK, now we know this technique will not work very well!"
[Yours truly in my Burning Man uniform of tutu and pink sunglasses.]
[I took the Polaroid camera out on one afternoon only, so most of my photos are of fellow burners who caught my eye and let me photograph them. I loved this woman's blue dress and wings in the middle of an installation made of blue painted trees in the middle of the Playa.
[The picture is pretty overexposed, but this woman's bright blue eyes and faint freckles were divine!]
[Pink fairy wings? COME ON! Who can resist that?]
[Teeny tiny skirt with pink fluffy tail and unicorn horn with nothing else? One word: Sassy.]
[Fellow camp-mate Gabrielle and I on our bicycles.]
[Cyclist on the Playa.]
[Me on a rotating swing that was attached to the top of a moving truck on the Playa. I had to chase it down and jump on board.]
Five Things :: NYC
1. Our Town at the Barrow Street Theater. All I can say is wow.
2. Robert Frank at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Go see Vermeer's The Milkmaid while you're there.
3. Beautiful holiday gifts are to be found at ABC Home.
4. Jonatha introduced me to Via Quadronno on 73rd Street – a cozy Italian cafe less than a block from Central Park.
5. I missed Fuerza Bruta this time around, but I saw their previous performance, De La Guarda, and it was one of my favorite NYC experiences.
6. While I was away, my latest piece in The Wish Studio went up – on my birthday!
100 Books Project :: Western Australia
[Book #32: Left in Western Australia by Book Fairy Donna Jensen.]
Dispatch from Donna Jensen, Book Fairy for Book #32, which was left at George's Beach in Bluff Point, Geraldton, Australia:
October 23, 2009: "The Book Fairy has left the building!!! It took me a few days to think about this – but in the end i think i got it just right. You'll see in these photos that it looks like an ordinary park bench, and in many ways it really is, but it looks out over the beautiful Indian Ocean. People sit here under the shady Casuarina trees on hot summer days to have their lunch and escape the office, mums bring their children to swim in the secluded, calm waters. Dog-walkers, peace-finders, windsurfers, kite flyers and paddle-boarders all frequent here, but it wasn't the human activity, the serenity, or the view that made me choose this place."
"A few weeks ago the most beautiful wondrous Humpback whale got washed up on this very beach. It was gigantic and awesome and everyone came down to see it. It was a terrible, sad sight to see, and I thought that maybe, just maybe, this gift exchange may help to balance out the universe a little bit. Something taken away, something given back – a loss, and a win. An exchange of gifts, and perhaps – with the loss of that beautiful creature – will come a healing of a soul when they read your story. I can only hope."
"Thank you for giving me this opportunity Christine. Thank you for allowing this stranger to be a part of your gift exchange. Now it has me thinking – what can I do with my gifts to bless others?"
Spirit
[Jessica Seaton's creation from the CORE Show, November 7, 2009]
“Ever since happiness heard your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you.”
~Hafiz
Two Wheels, Two Feet
[Taken in Tokyo earlier this year.]
Walking and cycling have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. As a little girl, I spent hours cruising my neighborhoods on a yellow 3-speed; during college and graduate school I got around on foot and the bus. It wasn't until I was in my late twenties that I purchased my first car. I can remember a time in college when the thought of purchasing a car felt like one great big annoyance – paperwork, insurance, maintenance. Even then I saw how owning a car had the potential to dig into time that I could be spending on other things, which, back then, would have been happy hour and art classes. Cars have never held any great allure for me, unlike my husband, who marks each year of his life by the car he was driving. Yes, that means he changes cars like I change hairstyles – just about every year. He remembers the car, the year, the color and can wax poetic about what it was about each car that made him want to own it, drive it and then trade it in.
I've been with my husband for just over eight years now, and during our time together we've gone through a few periods of getting by with one car. Each time we've had well-meaning friends tell us we're crazy and/or gasp in horror, particularly since we've moved to Los Angeles. We are now a few weeks into another one-car episode, and so far things don't feel much different than they did a month ago, except I'm getting in better shape. Am I having to spend more time getting where I need to go? No, because I don't have to deal with the hassle of parking. Am I having to plan my errand routes a bit more carefully? Yes, but so what. Do I have access to a car when I need one? Absolutely, because my husband's office is a whopping two miles away, so it is easy for me to be his chauffeur when I am in need of four wheels instead of two. My car was sold more than two weeks ago, and so far I've only had to do this once, and even then once I was finished I took the car back to his office, parked it and walked home.
I feel lighter without a car and am grateful most of my regular errands are within a fifteen block radius. There is a bit more coordinating to do here and there, but beyond that having one car between us means life, overall, is simpler, and this is what I treasure. I find myself wanting to take the idea of purging and releasing to more expansive levels as time goes on, letting go of as many attachments as possible – material, emotional and everything in between. In releasing, space is created for a wild array of beautiful surprises.
"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." ~Lao Tzu
Five Things
1. KG + AB = Sweet porcelain treasures
2. Rachel Austin paintings and other lovelies.
3. Make everyday abundant with Pecannoot.
4. What would Henry Darger think if he saw this?
5. Vintage postage stamps and how to find them. (Because my drawer-full simply isn't enough.)
Ephemera Journal Project
Now that life has quieted down a bit, I have time to tackle a few personal projects that have been taunting me for weeks on end. One of the first ones involved taking my scattered collection of paper ephemera and compiling everything into one journal. Rather than keep them stored in drawers, boxes, folders and envelopes, I decided to give them a permanent home in one place. Many of these items have been saved for too many months to count; I've hoarded them thinking they'll surely be perfect for some not-yet-thought-of idea. Although they are all glued down to the journal pages, it will be easy enough to scan the pages, or if I'm feeling particularly feisty I can tear pieces and pages out of the book. Now that's power.
[Left: Image from one of my grandma's sewing books. Right: Page from "Our Insect Friends and Foes", copyright 1899.]
[Collage of images from vintage sewing books, processed photo envelopes, vintage wrapping paper, pieces of paper from a package mailed to me long ago, ephemera from Tokyo and a Japanese postage stamp.]
[Collage of Japanese ephemera, a clip from "Our Insect Friends and Foes" and wood veneer sample.]
[Collage of ephemera from Cuba, Argentina, and Japan - including a Tokyo subway ticket - and vintage magazine ads.]
[Collage of vintage and contemporary giftwrap, processed photo envelope, Argentina postage stamp, clips from "Our Insect Friends and Foes" and stamps from a letter sent from New Zealand.]
[Collage of vintage Bingo sheets, air mail stamps, vintage French perfume label, Vintage Valentine, postage stamp & ribbon.]
[Collage of Pantone swatches and ephemera from a photo album documenting a family's 1974 trip to Russia, something I picked up in an antique store in Alexandria, Virginia.]
[Collage of Pantone swatches, Russian photo album ephemera and clips from greeting cards.]
[Pantone!]
