A few lovely things for today, when I’m packing up to head back to AZ and planning a few stops along the way.
A few lovely things for today, when I’m packing up to head back to AZ and planning a few stops along the way.
I came across a poem by Nayirrah Waheed last weekend, and immediately set out to ready everything she had ever written. I ordered her book of poetry, Salt, and I can’t wait for it to get here.
A few of my favourite lines:
i have always been the woman of my dreams
i am mine before i am ever anyone else’s
my mother was my first country, the first place i ever lived
what can i do when the night comes out and i break into stars
stay is a sensitive word we wear who stayed and who left in our skin forever
A few lovely things for a beautiful sunny day in Phoenix. I have a mango for breakfast, and absolutely no weekend commitments for the first time in 2016.
A few lovely things for today, when I’m snuggling up under the covers and dreaming of Christmas in Mazatlan. Wake me up when December ends.
Lately I’ve feeling a little bit unsure of what’s next for me. There are a few things I’ve been working towards, but everything I want to do suddenly feels daunting and impossible, and I don’t really know why or what changed.
Last night I went to yoga on the roof of the W in Scottsdale, and at the end of class, our instructor played excerpts from this speech. It was exactly what I needed to hear.
A few lovely things for today, when I’m back in Arizona for 11 days in a row, the longest unbroken stretch since May.
A few weeks ago I was sitting in a salon waiting to get my hair done, and I absentmindedly picked up a book to flip through while I waited. I was immediately captivated by the imagery in the book, which turned out to be A Year of Mornings.
The book is based on this blog, where two women who had never met in person decided to collaborate to share one image of their lives, every morning.
I am guilty sometimes of thinking that it’s only the big things in life that are worth sharing, but this book, and the images inside, immediately struck me as so beautiful and powerful, even though they were of nothing more exciting than the normal, every day struggle to get a family up, and fed, and off to meet the day. It might take a little bit more creativity and imagination, but that’s the point anyway, isn’t it?
It only took me about 15 minutes to flip through from start to finish, but I had ordered the book before I even left the salon. I had been staying with my parents in Montana the week before, and spending a lot of time with my mom, who paints in her spare time. We had talked about working on paintings together while I was there, but I couldn’t think of anything that I really wanted to paint.
The colours and composition of the images in A Year of Mornings were so inspiring that I texted my mom immediately to let her know that I had found my subject.
I’m sometimes hesitant to buy books anymore, I try to live as minimally as possible (just don’t look in my closet), and I have SO many books in Canada still that I haven’t been able to bring with me (I have my own library, basically. It’s a sickness.) but I know this book will serve as a source of inspiration for years to come.
A few lovely things for today, when I’m enjoying my gypsy summer (currently back in California), but also trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.
I just finished reading The Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank.
It was beautifully written, following a girl, and in some cases, peripheral strangers to her life, through different stages from childhood, through adolescence, and into adulthood. Each chapter focuses on a different time in her life.
My favourite thing about this book was that it didn’t offer everything right up front. There is a lot you don’t know about the main character, even by the end of the book. It doesn’t go into minute detail about everything that’s ever happened to her. Every chapter is a little glimpse into her life, sort of like creeping on the Facebook page of a random stranger.
Some of my favourite quotes from the book:
“I opened the blue box, and there was a velvet one inside, and I opened that. I looked at the ring. It was platinum with one diamond. It was just the ring I would’ve wanted, if I’d wanted a ring from him.”
“We are all children until our fathers die.”
“‘You can’t really blame him for that,’ Henry says. He tells me that the best man I will ever find will be attracted to other women. I hear this as another fact I am too old not to know. More proof of how unprepared I am to love anyone.”
“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”
You can find the book here.
A few lovely things for today, when I am working from Kauai, and counting down the sleeps until I get to visit the Na Pali Coast (3 more days!).
