windowsill

girl detective

i went to the market today, and this little elderly lady took my hand and said, "such a beautiful girl!"

then she said, "i can't see anything. can you help me find the orange juice?"

yes i can.

two paths

thoughts from today:

robert frost's crooked line.

pippi longstocking's house.

true artists don't erase.

i'm reading why we draw.

in grade one i drew a picture of pippi longstocking's ramshackle house, like lots of kids. only i had to - had to - use a ruler to do it. i insisted, and my teacher thought this was a bit strange and mentioned it to my mom, who thought it was no big deal. but i have another memory that goes hand in hand with this one, of my mom telling me that true artists don't need to erase. i think she was just trying to prevent me from making erasing shavings and making a mess, but it has stayed with me. sometimes i find myself pausing in the moment before making a mark, overwhelmed by expectation and for grace in the lines, and i feel like i'm drowning, like whatever sure footing i had is gone. i'm drawing in straight lines once again. i'm not seeing but only to blindly editing myself to make it perfect.

robert frost said, 'we enjoy the straight crookedness of a good walking stick.' i once understood exactly what he meant by that, but i have to pursue that understanding, again and again, everyday. the feel of the wood rubbed smooth in your hands, the strengths of curves and knots that make their way to the ground, the weaving rhythm of my limbs with the stick as we walk. these are not perfection but so much more. understand this and i trust what i see is enough. and most importantly, i am in the world while i draw.

did you see the words

listening to animal collective, which is very good music to create to, and making some locket shadow boxes from my recent thrift excursions, to hopefully add to my shop tomorrow.

i've been thinking about inspiration lately - what it means, how it comes, who 'claims' it. can you nudge it into existence? how?

i've also been reading emerson's essays, which i had to read years ago for school, but haven't looked at for a long time. it's so striking that lines i underlined with such importance then seem so prophetic now, and worded with convictions that have only held fast, only i didn't realize it. his words once felt like something i thought were true, but i struggled to live by them. now they feel like something i have lived through and know to be true. i had forgotten that i found his words so reassuring:

'though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.'

'once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.'

'it is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.'

day of hearts

an afternoon of skating, hot chocolate, blankets, and a nap with two demanding but undeniable cats.

inner thrift

sometimes it feels like something's calling me, a little voice that knows what i must do next, even if i can't think of a practical reason why. even though i knew i should down to the library, maybe check a few vintage shops nearby, i felt a tug, pulling at my sleeve to go the other way. to shops i haven't been to for a while because i find them overpriced - more 'antique shop' than second-hand store.

this tug happens to me a lot. sometimes i think it's silly, sometimes i think it's OCD, but sometimes it's so persistent, i listen to it. today i listened. and i found what i was looking for, and more.

mati mail

a package from the lovely miss mati and her suspect shoppe. i love the print she sent! and a cd of mati music, including one of my favourites, the decemberists' 'the bachelor and the bride' (though right now i keep playing sufjan stevens' 'holland'), some origami paper, and a little bit of the lace from her print that's given me some ideas.

thank you mati! i love it all!

find the lovely

sometimes i find myself looking at the beads i've gathered and want to just collect them, as they are, without making them 'into' anything. lately i've been finding vintage beads in places i wouldn't think to look, like a used bookstore just down the street; the owner had a bowl (from his wife's closet!) to sort through on his front desk. i love it when you stumble upon something you didn't even know you were looking for.

a long day, with a disgruntled camera. i am sipping some tea now, and have more things i want to make, but i should watch some the movies we have from the library - some of them have been on hold for a few months, but they seem to have all come at once. i love that they're free - you have to be patient but it's worth it. last week we watched junebug, which i loved. so perfectly true. i know small towns just like that, and amy adams broke my heart, just a little bit. it stayed with me afterwards, and sometimes i still find myself thinking about it, the way love can cause people to draw lines, to keep others out, protective, to hold others in. and the way his family found their love uncomfortable, reflecting their own distances back to them. "she's not a stranger, she's family." "well, she's still... strange." i loved it.

foxes

i love these illustrations by julie morstad - they're for neko case's new album, fox confessor brings the flood, which i am so excited about. i remember the first time i heard her voice - it was 'furnace room lullaby' and i was spellstruck rooted to the ground. when i found out she was playing at the hillside festival a few months later, the very weekend i was going home, i had to go. fourth row we lay on the grass on our backs and i looked up into the sky as she played and her voice was such a force she barely needed the microphone. it felt like they could hear her on the other side of the island. i think she only played five songs, but it was enough. i didn't even care about the constantines, who played into the evening, as tara and i talked about what we wanted for our lives. it was one of those perfect days.

this has been playing on the ipod all week, and i love it more each time:

neko case - 'star witness'

and one more because i love them both too much to choose between them:

neko case - 'hold on, hold on'

winter: spring

a new space, just for me, to see if it feels like home. i feel a sense of spring coming on, even though it is far off still, too far, but i feel it just the same. a sense of greens and blues, of that way the wind smells when it's warm enough to open your windows for the first time that year. god, i can't wait for that smell. i'm not sure i understand how i can exist in two spaces at once, walking down the sidewalk in love with scarves and snow and breathing in crispened air, and at the same time restless for the greens and blues. i don't mind, though. i love this about the weather, the seasons - their very changefulness makes them a joy in the moment and in the anticipation of what's to come.

i feel this way within, too. part of me is full of a flurry of spring cleaning ambition, wanting to sweep the clutter from every corner, even within. and another part of me - the part that takes over most of my day, these days - is exhausted and just wants a long hibernation, to sleep and sleep and sleep. and not even wake up for snacks. i've mostly been dealing with this by stubbornly trying to work long past what is possible, like a little kid who insists he's not tired so he can stay up to watch the movie, only to fall asleep before it's even half over.