windowsill

time is how you spend your love

thank you for all of your sweet comments! i do feel a sense of myself in what i make but there's so much wonderful stuff being created sometimes you have to step back and consider your own direction. lists are good for that. and random lists from the past are such telling little notes to ourselves!

i loved you and me and everyone... it snuck up on me how good it was. it was filled with these odd moments and then they quietly unfolded into something heartbreaking and true. miranda july and john hawkes were amazing. now i want to read this book, the boy from lam kien, from cloverfield press, found at hoping for happy accidents.

and of course rushmore, forever. would you believe the first time i watched it i wanted to like it but didn't fully - i loved the idea of it but it didn't connect. then much later i saw it a second time and fell in love with it, and now every time, it just kills me.

we haven't even watched bonnie & clyde yet... and there were already more movies waiting at the library! ah! has anyone seen a very long engagement? i loved amelie, so i am very excited to see this.

and more and more i feel that it is the small everyday things - what emerson called "the near, the low, and the common," that make up happiness, or at least a kind of contentment with your life, a sense of knowing this is enough, even as you want to try new things (which does feel endless!) - maybe that just adds to the appreciation of the little things. wanting to fully experience them. i want to think about this more...

but today, it's lovely and hot here. i spent the afternoon on the couch in front of the fan, eating cherries and reading zadie smith's on beauty, freshly picked from the library. it's a delicious rush so far. she quotes the most beautiful thought from her husband in her dedication, and so it became the title of this post.

we're going to see the new pornographers tonight...

and i also made magnet sets this weekend! this is my first time making them - now i know why they are so addictive! they'll be in the shop soon...

i hope everyone is enjoying this summery sunday afternoon!

not too categorical

last night we went over to friends' for a simple porchlight picnic of cobb salad with organic romaine from their garden, and chicken and bacon and what else? feta, avocado, with basil bread...it was delicious. we brought the last of the fresh strawberries from a local shopkeepers' garden and homemade creme fraiche made from yogurt for dessert. later we watched me and you and everyone we know which was waiting for us at the library yesterday (along with bonnie & clyde mati!). and finished the day off with a first taste of the new haagen-daz mayan chocolate ice cream. chocolate and cinnamon are a perfect pair.

i've been easing into a return here. thinking a lot lately about my style and what it means to me. what defines me as a maker of things. a few coincidences in the spring were enough to send me spinning, pondering what it is that makes me different, makes me me. we all see and share so much inspiration, but the way we absorb and filter it is different, and our experience with the beauty we love is all our own. have you ever felt that ache when you see a photograph, a collage, a colour, and think this, this is me. like feeling a physical tug toward it that leaves you with a delicious sense of longing, that makes your heart leap and exclaim oh! what is this?? and you feel utterly at home at the same time.

i'm new to many mediums, so sometimes i can get overwhelmed, but it's also because i want to try so many things. i am still learning what i most like to create after years of assigned interest. ever since i left school, i've been thinking a lot about the girl i want to be when i grow up. the spirit in me that school could not contain, and could not squander.

and what i've learned is to take notice of what draws me in. write it down, in the taxonomy of a list (i would love to research the history of lists; why we make them, how they change meaning depending on the gathered elements and their order, how they are so allusive, stretching tendrils of meaning out to many more possibilities). and so, a list, of what i love: old school stationery (lines! ...), handwriting, soft hues of green and blue, t-shirts resewn into pretty ways, sea urchins (oh!!!), shea butter and lavender - together, afternoon sun, lots of texture, pale cream wool rugs - so organic and clean but knowing it's impossible to stay that way, italian hemp twine, drawers just for little treasures, "she's my rushmore, max," my newly found polaroid camera that i can't wait to try and those four boxes of SX-70 film i have in the fridge.

i love the smell of fresh cut grass, light slants and sun flares, moments, pauses, little details...

i like the quiet assurance of everyday things.

all of these things inspire me, make me inexplicably happy.

there are some new charm bracelets in the shop, made up of charms and beads and little vintage pieces that i love. take a peek.