wish jars + imaginary lives

thank you dear friends! I feel very full of good wishes and sparkly love and abundant gratefulness. it's been a lovely, lovely year.

so. the list.

been thinking about the list.

I appreciate the direction and organization that a list provides. and that this particular list provided a simple reminder to do something fun and good and then that really weird tingly feeling when I was able to cross something off.

but there was some pressure too. some pressure to do something that maybe I wasn't quite as interested in ten months after writing it down. my mind was saying, "no big deal, no pressure.", but my brain was saying, "it's on the list. do it." wishes become chores. not good.

thinking maybe I'm not such a list person after all. I need something even more visual, yet broader and more supple.

this year I was introduced to the concept of imaginary lives. I've been searching all morning to try and find the book this was in to give credit. I can't locate the exact source, but I believe it is the joy diet. the gist is that we try on different lives we think we may want to live: walk the walk, talk the talk, dress the part, do the things...you get the picture. I rejected this idea at first because it felt a wee bit inauthentic and a whole lot wannabe. then I realized that this could be {and is} a really fun way to explore different roles and be creative and expansive and avoid sameness and boredom and atrophy. sounds like a great method of planning a really interesting year, right?

I also like the notion of using wish jars to hold ideas and dreams...it's imaginative yet concrete {more list-like} at the same time. since little slips of random paper all mungled up in a single jar together makes me a little crazy, how about fusing the ideas of imaginary lives and wish jars? a jar for each role filled with things to do, create, become. multiple jars representing the areas in my life I want to explore. okay, now we're getting closer...

how many imaginary lives is too many? should we start with only one or have an entire shelf full? what are your imaginary lives?

beatlemania, courtney love and me

we're forty-five!!!!

that's a lot of candles people. a lot.

blue december

my junior high art teacher did this exercise beginning with, "what color is...?"; she would name off everyday things and ideas and the class would have a discussion about which color or colors best fit. I love this exercise because it helped our elastic adolescent minds stretch beyond what was obvious and concrete, training our imaginations and engaging our minds in higher level abstract thought. inevitably the discussion would evolve to include the qualities and personalities and energies of colors. sometimes we would assign shapes too.

some of these associations stay with me. when I'm trying to think of ideas, there is a rolling field of brilliant yellow before me. the sky is clear and mutable, a vessel for unassigned color in the world. and december is colored shades of blue and purple, with a dash of green.

to honor her, to thank her for showing me that color is not merely a tool, my december will be curiously colored in these wintry tones.

and this one too

milling about

most saturday mornings you will find me in the kitchen drinking coffee and stirring irish oatmeal as it slowly cooks. yesterday the light was so beautiful streaming through the kitchen window, I snapped a few scenes of my cooking and dining area.

it's funny that you can become so familiar with your surroundings that they almost become invisible. while processing the images, I was pleasantly surprised to see the depth and variety of colors and shapes; that our home is coming together to truly represent who we are.

even the mix of color above the stovetop is so me. curious if I unconsciously choose paprika that will add a design element to the spice shelf...

{ processing images also makes you realize that your wood floors are in need of a really good cleaning.}

in other news:

• gratitude week helped me truly understand the depth of beauty and love in my life. I am grateful for gratitude. at the end the week, I realized that I could go on and on and on. I'll pick up a gratitude week every so often on the blog and hope you will join me. my heart feels full.

• my man gives good date: yesterday post-oatmeal, we strolled vintage shops {scored a polaroid camera for $9}, saw an education {brilliant!} and dined on mole poblano and cheap mexican beer. more reasons to love him.

• being introduced to a photographer whose work literally makes my heart beat faster.

grateful for

• a true partner who is solidly on my team
• the calm center in the middle of the storm that is me
• a man more interested in theatre, literature, photography and art than noisy violent sports
• the voice that reads to me in bed at night
• being kissed goodnight even though I've already fallen asleep
• personality characteristics like my dad {those I admire and none that would creep me out}
• always bringing a book to read when we go to anthropologie and sitting patiently while I shop
• being smarter than me and never making me feel like it
• hands that can build and create
• hands that can instantly ground me when gently placed at the small of my back
• just as much love for my darker side

grateful for

• my muppet luca
• and simon
• and roxy
• and milo, who I miss every day
• for sam, my first canine love
• and for every dog that has ever been a friend to me
• for being uncomplicated friends, just there to elicit a smile or laugh or hug
• for being court jesters
• for your naughtiness and shenanigans
• for standing by
• for nudging me awake via a cold wet nose pressed against my cheek

grateful for

• farmers, growers, merchants and cooks who celebrate organic local food
• food that nourishes, that makes my body strong and my skin glow
• food that doesn't poison children
• never having to go to bed hungry
• food that transports me {to another land or another time}
• the art and craft of creating a meal
• and especially for avocados, fish tacos, steak au poivre, tortilla soup

happy thanksgiving friends! feast away!

grateful for

• the strength, beauty and discipline of yoga
• my teacher nancy {shown here} who has this lovely way about her: all full of humor, grace, muscle and prayer at the same time
• every other yoga teacher in the world: your work is a blessing
• the challenge of moving from plank to chaturanga; every time it rolls around, I say to myself, "what the eff are you thinking?!"...and then when I do it {just do it!}, there is this immense feeling of accomplishment and power and possibility that just blows me away
• practicing in a beautiful old georgian mansion
• savasana
  

grateful for

• a home that is safe and warm
• that is totally accepting of my incessant need to experiment and change things up {like a little brother that gets dolled up in girls' frocks}
• that carries the juxtaposition of bold color and comfort so well
• that holds the scents of my life...fig, balsam, honey, coffee...
• that speaks to me via creaky wood floors and the various soft hums of its many mechanisms
• that seems to want to be just what I want it to be: an artist's house, a place to nurture a soul
  

gratitude week*

grateful for

• a good education
• the love of learning
• the craft of exploration
• a beautiful open mind.
  

{*a week of things to be thankful for.}

unfurl

{and glow.}

dear third week of november

thank you for your light, muted and misty and swirling with the alchemy of chimney smoke and leftover rain. thank you for your softness, your opening, for giving a flighty girl a safe place to land.

dear monday

let's try and behave a bit more like sunday, shall we?

bijou

saturday afternoon I was patiently taught the art of making the french macaron at one of my favorite places in the world. while I have to admit I signed up for the photo ops, I now understand the love affair that so many have with this little jewel. I am so not a baker {the necessary preciseness makes me crazy} and macarons are about as far as you can travel from my slice-and-bake cookie philosophy, but I sit here this morning utterly seduced. and committed to creating them again and again.

I realize that the quirky macaron is very much like the kind of people I'm drawn to: colorful, unique, engaging of the senses and capable of igniting flashes of imagination. its sugary-almond {-lemon, -chocolate, -raspberry, -violet, -pistachio....} scent pulls me in; its bite is both crackly eggshell fragile and gooey soft at once. and oh. my. stars. the taste. {somehow I imagined the taste would be a disappointment...I mean really, how can one little cookie deliver on all fronts?} the taste is unbelievably delicious and instantly transformative {see me: standing alone in saint-germain-des-prés having l'expérience française total}. I am in love.

thank you kathleen for introducing us, for teaching me, for your humor and energy and encouragement and bottles of wine and celebration of even the wonky lemon macaron.

...insomnia...

...is easier with a beautiful dream world of images to wander through...

{please visit here for flickr credits.}

t is for tea

lately I find that I'm sipping as much {and sometimes more} tea as coffee. here's a weird emotional association: coffee makes me feel like a badass; tea makes me feel like a hippie. not sure where those connections came from but clearly the hippie vibe is mine.

mosaic monday

feeling all wishy over here...here's my linky bday/holiday list for 2009.

1. peace slippers
2. double gorgeousness
3. love this baby {like a more sophisticated love's baby soft}
4. modern classics; the entire penguin collection of cloth-covered stories designed by coralie bickford-smith
5. fuji instant photos
6. a yoga mat with one of my photos printed on it! {I'm thinking tiny b...}
7. this beauty belongs with me
8. on the bigger list this year: a yoga class with seane corn
9. and this is so me

here's to wishes coming true, loves. happy monday!

more happy

it's the little things:

• the fifth straight day of crisp brilliant sunshine
• being set loose in the most beautiful shop to photograph its complete and total loveliness
• playing with the images {am now crushing on design}
• honeycrisp apples with almond butter
• the scent of burning leaves
• man shops globe
  

feeling sunny

after a quiet boring week at work (actually two in a row, almost unheard of in the child protection field), I'm feeling very upbeat and balanced. it's amazing what a week absent the stress and frustration that is normal in my work can do for a girl's outlook.

I took a new yoga class this week and it kicked my ass; pilates repaired me. yesterday I shopped for art supplies for a new class where I plan to make a ginormous colorful mess. and I think I just may have bought a magic pair of boots, folks. I swear when I wear my cowgirl boots, it's like nothing can stop me.

happy friday friends! here's hoping your weekends are filled with a little bit of silence, some movement, messy art and magic boots. and lots of sunshine.

♥

what I love about photography

it shows the rest of us the beauty of all souls, the individual pure resilient light in a world of fear.

thank you hamish cairns. I think you're brilliant.

home stretch

yeah, that whole list thing from last year is knocking on the back of my head, "excuse me missus..." {my list has a cockney accent}. today marks one month to go. I'm trying not to kick into high pressure mode because I think that kind of defeats the whole purpose, no?

enter my dear friend compromise. instead of a quilt, I will be making a duvet cover from the gloriousness of this kaffe fassett fabric. I believe this fantastically meets the spirit of no. 16.

now, where are those roller skates...

and I'm totally on a "make ___ not war" kick. on the blackboard wall in my kitchen: make tacos not war. true.

el dia

de los muertos is today.

who are you remembering and celebrating? invite him or her or them for a chat.

I want to sit down with my grandma dee in the soft sunlit california grass and hear about being a wild independent soul.

my bionic ears

this week we explored the sense of sound in unravelling further: exploring the senses. I have such a love-hate relationship with sound. it has to do with my weird ears. they are hypertuned and sounds are often over-amplified.

when I would lay my head down on my pillow as a child, an entire world of sounds would emerge from inside my pillow (in actuality, the sounds were in my head, I just thought they were in my pillow). the soundscape consisted of whines, bleeps, whirls, squeeks and other assorted hi- and low-frequency beats. I imagined a tiny village in the pillow just starting their day as I was ending mine. eventually, I made out conversations and music and tempos of the little magical world. (don't worry, I have been advised that this was the sign of a grand imagination and not schizophrenia; plus the tiny folk were kind and interesting and never told me to kill or otherwise do harm. in fact, now that I think of it, they operated as if I was not there.) the whole experience provided much fodder for a rich dream world and future character development (my own and potential fictional expansion).

I am also highly attuned to the sound of everyday mechanical processes. I love the rhythm of operation: the click-whirl of the camera, the metallic clank of the gumball machine door, the clickity-clack purr of the rotary phone dial, the chemical hum of lit neon. these things actually read as music in my head. I cannot not hear them; they are a part of my life.

the acuity of my hearing ebbs and flows. sometimes I can actually hear conversations in the house next door. it is cumbersome when I am in an environment where several conversations are going on at the same time. if you were talking with me during these times, I might appear a bit scattered. I have to put a lot of energy into staying present with the conversation I am in. if there is tv, music, air conditioning, rain, etc. in addition, chances are I'm not picking up our communication in its entirety.

the downside is that some sounds are painful: sopranos kill me, I can't listen to mariah carey or enjoy a movie in the theatre. I'm drawn to down-beats, bass lines, hidden riffs in music, just as in life.

hi punkins

have a fabulous halloween weekend! the thing I love the most about halloween is the oft-heard question: who are you supposed to be?

hey wednesday

let's do it.

sunday sweetness

although the past week was busy and exhausting, I feel strangely revived and ready for more. here are a few sweet treats that helped get me here:

• love the weird feeling of driving to work in the dark, I find it very centering.
• very unlike me, but I've been indulging in sleeping in this weekend (to 7am!!!).
• is it possible that coffee tastes even better when there is a nip in the air?
• a trip to anthro, specifically to dress lola for fall (been saving for this splurge + two sizes smaller this year).
• and some cowgirl boots that look like they've got some experience kicking serious butt.
• found an art center close enough to me to take some weekend classes, so signed up for two.
• and best of all, the technicolor dream forest has arrived in my backyard. I could stare at it all day.

here's to a week of treats and love for all of us!

risk

this week's chapter of the joy diet is all about risk. in most areas of my life (professional, play, adventures, speaking out, style), I am pretty comfortable with risk. the one place I am frozen with fear and mistrust is relationship. I've been working on identifying those connections between my grown-up self in relationships and the attachment style I had as a child with my primary caretaker. it's amazing how the dynamics of that primary relationship shape how I form and maintain (or not) my adult relationships. it's fascinating and eye-opening work.

I am embracing the advice to take at least one risk per day. so far, these have been in relationship. it hasn't been easy. the instinct to protect myself at all costs creeps in so naturally. those things I so casually considered risky before...public speaking, launching photography endeavors, introducing myself to a stranger, creating this blog, getting tattooed, entering a crack-infested gang house to check on a child, etc...all pale next to the true bravery it takes to simply say what I feel to the person who matters most.

wow.

tempest

so in my typical manner, i have overscheduled myself this october with e-courses and book clubs. i am currently enrolled in unravelling further and mondo beyondo and participating in online discussion groups for the joy diet and the artist's way.

it turns out that these four endeavors are serving as howling winds from the north, south, east and west, colliding in a perfect storm of exploration and discovery and work. i find myself turning to the inside and doing some needed soul work and healing. this is not easy for me as i tend to resist emotional processing. what i am discovering is that it is just the season for me to do this work. i'm a little raw on the inside, a vibrant glowing red. ready for change.

i ♥ photoblocks

i love the way they look and i love making them. they've found a home in my little etsy shop.