A little something pretty

Just a little something pretty for the middle of your weekend.

The Glory Days of Summer

Okay, let's face it: the weather here in Edmonton hasn't exactly been spectacularly summery lately. I love rain and so for the most part haven't had any complaints about the large amounts of water falling from the heavens (except when it catches me unprepared, that is never fun). But the copious number of rainy days has made me appreciate the sun all that much more. We're headed into August, and I always think of these as the glory days of summer. I'm really a fall girl so August is full of the anticipation of September, which brings with it autumn and school. But August has merits all its own. For instance, I think August provides the best summer light around. It's the month where the light starts to shift from the bright yellow sunshine of July to the warm golden sunlight of September. Even though August is going to be absolutely mad for me, what with a wedding to go to, finishing my research job, packing, actually moving across the country, unpacking and getting myself sorted and settled...it's going to be insane. Nonetheless I'm hoping to enjoy a few golden moments in these glory days.

Dear Sunglasses

Dear Sunglasses,

Thanks for instantly making me feel like a rockstar every time I put you on. I can't think of any other accessory I own that has that effect. It doesn't matter what I'm wearing or what state my hair is in, you always make me feel way cooler than I actually am. You put a swagger in my step that isn't normally there and I like it. Thanks for also being a really effective way to hide the dark eye circles of sleep deprivation, the red puffy eyes of crying, and the eyes without makeup of lazy days, hot days, and late days. You are like the superhero of accessories.

Keep up the awesome work,

Bree


*full disclosure: format of this post totally inspired by thxthxthx

A man consumed by wanderlust

wanderlust noun [mass noun]
a strong desire to travel: a man consumed by wanderlust
- ORIGIN late 19th cent.: German, literally 'wander year'.


I think wanderlust is one of my favourite words in the English language. It is just so perfect. It describes the longing to travel, to be elsewhere, in the most particular way. It's not a complicated word. It only has one meaning. But the connotations whisper of Romance and adventure to be found. It's quite delightful. I've been rather afflicted with this particular ailment for years now, but like many illnesses it flares up more strongly every so often. The past six months or so have been particularly bad for me. That longing to go somewhere and experience something new has been so strong. I'm trying to think of moving as the ultimate fulfillment of this desire; in fact, I think that my perpetual wanderlust is what has made me choose a school so far away. And when I'm successful in considering the move as a grand adventure it becomes far more exciting than it is terrifying.

Harry Potter

I just got back from (finally!) seeing the last instalment of the Harry Potter films. So good. So so so good. At the risk of sounding like a total nerd, I am sad that they are done. Perhaps I will have to go see it again.

I know that this photo has pretty much nothing to do with Harry Potter, but it is a castle. Blarney Castle to be specific. And one of the things that I've always loved about Harry Potter, again, at the risk of sounding like a total nerd, is imagining that such a world does exist, all full of magic and amazing things. I mean, come on, how cool would it be to go to school in a castle?

Hold me fast 'cause I'm a hopeless wanderer

Hopeless Wanderer
Mumford and Sons

Hear my voice
I came out of the woods by choice
The shelter also gave us shade
And in the dark I have no name

So leave that click in my head
And I will remember the words that you said
Left a clouded mind and a heavy heart
But I am sure we will see a new start

So when your hope's on fire
But you know your desire
Don't hold a glass over the flame
Don't let your heart grow cold
I will call you by name
I will share your road

Wrestle long with my youth
We try so hard to live in the truth
But do not sell me your respite
When I lose my head I lose my spine

So leave that click in my head
And I must remember the words that you said
You brought me out from the cold
Now how I long, how I long to grow old

So when your hope's on fire
But you know your desire
Don't hold a glass over the flame
Don't let your heart grow cold
I will call you by name
I will share your road

Hold me fast
Hold me fast
'Cause I'm a hopeless wanderer

Hold me fast
Hold me fast
'Cause I'm a hopeless wanderer

And I will learn
I will learn
To love the the skies I wander

I will learn
I will learn
To love the skies I wander
The skies I wander


Thanks to Alaina over at Live Creating Yourself I have discovered that Mumford and Sons has been playing some of the new stuff off of their next album at their live shows. I am now totally obsessed with this song. I love Mumford and Sons and am super stoked for their next album to come out. This song has captivated me. I've probably listened to it a good 20 times in the last 24 hours. And that's with a full workday, time at the gym and a coffee date with a friend in there. This is everything that I love about Mumford and Sons. The instruments, the vocals (oh the vocals! I am literally temporarily paralyzed whenever they break into harmony.), the incredible lyrics. It is so so so good. Seriously. Take a listen. You won't regret it.

The Places We Have Lived

Phantom Limbs
Anne Michaels

                "The face of the city changes more quickly, alas! than the mortal
                heart."
                                                     - CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

So much of the city
is our bodies. Places in us
old light still slants through to.
Places that no longer exist but are full of feeling,
like phantom limbs.

Even the city carries ruins in its heart.
Longs to be touched in places
only it remembers.

Through the yellow hooves
of the ginkgo, parchment light;
in that apartment where I first
touched your shoulders under your sweater,
that October afternoon you left keys
in the fridge, milk on the table.
The yard - our moonlight motel -
where we slept summer's hottest nights,
on grass so cold it felt wet.
Behind us, freight trains crossed the city,
a steel banner, a noisy wall.
Now the hollow diad
floats behind glass
in office towers also haunted
by our voices.

Few buildings, few lives
are built so well
even their ruins are beautiful.
But we loved the abandoned distillery:
stone floors cracking under empty vats,
wooden floors half rotted into dirt,
stairs leading nowhere, high rooms
run through with swords of dusty light.
A place the rain still loved, its silver paint
on rusted things that had stopped moving it seemed, for us.
Closed rooms open only to weather,
pungent with soot and molasses,
scent-stung. A place
where everything too big to take apart
had been left behind.


I'm moving across the country in three weeks. This is both exciting and terrifying. I'm excited because I'm headed to a province I dearly love and find exceptionally beautiful. I'm terrified because I am moving somewhere that I know no one and am leaving behind the people who are dearest to me in the world.

It's funny how places retain the people who inhabit them. How a location can bring back a flood of memories. How going somewhere can make you remember someone who is long gone or who you haven't thought about in a long time. We leave impressions on places it seems; sometimes they are visible and sometimes they are invisible. We literally leave our mark on places with buildings and possessions, the kinds of things that archeologist uncover, but we leave a less tangible mark on a place. And a place leaves a mark on us. It's such a strange thing to ponder, but it's something I think about often, and all the more often as I wrench myself out of the place I grew up in.

Kinfolk

Last Friday, Kinfolk Magazine, a new online and print magazine that is focused on the art of entertaining in small gatherings, launched it's inaugural issue, and it is safe to say that I am completely head over heels for it. What a beautifully constructed collection of photographs, articles, and videos. Beautiful simplicity reigns supreme throughout the publication from the physical layout of the magazine - articles in a gorgeous typeface and surrounded by enough white space to make me blissfully happy - to the gatherings described and depicted. In fact, their manifesto states that "Every element of Kinfolk – the features, photography, and general aesthetics – are consistent with the way we feel entertaining should be: simple, uncomplicated, and less contrived." The publication certainly lives up to this standard. What's more, the creative minds behind this publication are just that: creative minds. Kinfolk is written, photographed, compiled, edited, etc. by an international community of artists, and this creative energy saturates every element of the magazine. It is more than simply visually pleasing; it is enchanting and enticing, drawing readers in not with flashy layouts or brilliant colours but with restful, calming palettes that I could gaze at all day long. Extolling the virtues of small gatherings - beginning with time spent alone - Kinfolk has arrived at what is a rather appropriate time in my life. As I get older I am constantly struck by the importance of spending time with your dearest friends and have gradually come to recognize that perhaps this is not always a large group, but that a small group can be all the more enjoyable.  What's more, I'm at a point in life where friends are beginning to scatter far and wide as we graduate, get married, or move across the country and the importance of gatherings is becoming increasingly apparent, particularly the importance of simple gatherings where the focus is on the companionship and not the event. The idea of seeing time alone as an event is also beautiful and interesting as I begin to value my personal space and time more and more. Finally, I've consistently been learning the beauty and importance of simplicity in my life - whether it is in clothing or decor or taking joy in small things - and this is something captured and praised by Kinfolk. I am not sure that there is any other publication that could capture all of these things in such a beautiful package. If you haven't yet, go and check out the online edition. It's a must-read in my books.

Little Obsessions

I'm one of those people that kind of becomes obsessed with things. When I find a song I love, I play it over and over and over. When I find a food I enjoy, I eat it way more often than I should. When I find a book I love, I will often read it twice in a row. When I am enchanted by a film, I'll watch it more than once in a two week span. It's just how I roll. I think this is okay though as long as whatever I'm obsessed with isn't injurious to my person. It's all part of my commitment to surrounding myself with beauty. I find these small things that make me happy, so why not spread them throughout my life liberally. So, despite the fact that last week was a bizarre roller coaster of emotions, here are a few of my newest little obsessions.

1. Taking the book jackets off of hard covers. I always used to hate buying books in hard cover. Most of this had to do with the dust jacket, which would never stay put while I was reading. Well, I've bought a few different hard cover books this summer and have discovered that if I take the dust jacket off there is a beautiful book waiting underneath (like the one pictured above). I suddenly love hard cover books. They are simple and elegant and make me feel fancy.
2. Hummus on sandwiches. I pretty much can't eat any condiments, nor can I have cheese, and this makes sandwiches pretty much the most boring food around. (With the exception of fried egg sandwiches, which are another one of my obsessions, although much less recent). I love hummus though, and so recently my mother and I decided that it would make an excellent addition to my sandwiches. Let me tell you, it is so delicious that I actually crave sandwiches now.
3. Bio-pic kinds of films. I've been deep in these kinds of films lately. I've always enjoyed them, it's just that I've been watching them all the time lately. Here's a few I would especially recommend: The Young Victoria, Coco Avant Chanel, Julie & Julia, Sylvia, Bright Star, Eat Pray Love. If anyone has any other recommendations, please send them my way.
4. Online magazines. Seriously in love with Matchbook and Kinfolk. So much inspiration for life is found on these (digital) pages.

Does anybody else ever find themselves obsessing over things? What are some things that have been making you happy lately?

What Language Can't Reach

What Language Can't Reach
Patrick Lane

And the only way I know how to do that is to stand far off
as if on a low hill under a moon
watching a passenger train stopped
at a siding in the distance of a prairie night in winter.
In the snow and watching. That far away. That sure.


Sometimes things happen in life that leave you feeling ways that just can't be explained. No chance. Don't even try. Sometimes these already rather inexplicable events collide and suddenly you are left speechless. That has been my last few days. So the silence on here was simply a reflection of my general inability to really capture everything. This will have to do. And I think it does just beautifully.

Letters from...

A little over a year ago I watched The Young Victoria for the first time and fell in love with the film. I just watched it again last night and couldn't help but be struck by the romance of letter-writing. Because Victoria and Albert were living in two different countries during what I suppose would be considered their courtship, and they lived well before the age of email, facebook, and texting, they kept up their correspondence through letters. The film does a beautiful job of capturing the anticipation and joy of letters. Waiting for the envelope containing news and greetings, running to check the mail, snatching ones with your name on the front in a familiar script...it's all just so delightful.

I adore getting and sending snail mail. I know that it is probably the least efficient means of communication in this day and age. I realize that by the time whoever I am writing to actually reading the letter it is probably old news. But regardless of this there is nothing like getting a letter or card in the mail. Knowing that the person took the time to sit down and craft a note, or a novel-length epistle, to you adds a whole new layer of meaning to a letter that simply doesn't exist with email or facebook. Writing a letter requires a prolonged consideration of the other person. You can fire off an email in less than half an hour, even if it's long, but a letter takes time. You have to select paper and pen. You have to carefully arrange and phrase your anecdotes and thoughts. And then, after you have taken the time to actually write the letter, you have to remember to take it with you and find a mail box and actually send it.

There really isn't anything like a good hand-written letter.

The Search for Safety

This weekend I had the great good fortune to go to my friends' wedding. It was an absolutely lovely day, ending in a very late hour and a half drive home. I've told you all before how being in a moving vehicle makes me feel rather safe. Well, this was just driven home on Saturday night. Life has been stressful lately. Apartment hunting, everything involved in preparing to move across the country, working two part-time jobs, and trying to maintain a social life has left me feeling like I'm one of those circus performers spinning plates. This isn't to say life hasn't been good. I'm lucky enough to really enjoy my jobs, I have some wonderful friends with whom I've had some grand adventures, and in general have been loving my summer. However, I've been stressed, and worried, and constantly on the verge of tears, especially lately. But for almost all of Saturday I was able to forget about all of that and just enjoy myself. And then about halfway home I realized this. I realized that sitting in the back seat, in the midst of conversations with my travelling companions, I felt totally safe. As if as long as I stayed in the vehicle with these people and we kept driving I had the chance of outrunning my worries. And in that moment I thought to myself, "Don't ever forget this feeling." Because really, that is what I am always looking for. I am constantly searching for people I feel safe with and people who I feel care for me. It was a rare moment for me to feel that way, and to be quite honest I didn't want the drive to end. I didn't want to have to climb out of the car and back into reality. But, alas, all such drives must come to an end. Since then though, whenever I start panicking too much, I try to recall that feeling. It's peaceful and calming, and is helping me cope just a little bit better. So, thank you to my Saturday travelling buddies. I don't think you know how much that trip meant to me. And congratulations to my newly married friends. I am so happy for you both.

This city is full

This whole apartment thing is a nightmare. Every place that I can afford comes with a roommate who is a freak. I mean, look at this, "Wanted: female roommate, non-smoker, non-ugly." Just, there's nothing. This city is full. -- Rachel Greene, Friends, "The One With Ross's Denial"

For those of you who don't know, I'm supposed to be moving across the country in about 5 weeks. I still haven't found an apartment. My hunt hasn't been quite as sitcom-y, but substitute dumpy places for freaky roommates and you have a pretty good summary of my last good chunk of time. I am beginning to feel like I'm on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Apartment hunting is consuming every free moment of my thoughts, and even some moments that aren't supposed to be free. It's hard to focus on anything else. I thought I hated moving - the packing and unpacking has never been something I've enjoyed - but I've discovered I hate apartment hunting even more. This whole apartment thing is a nightmare indeed.

Memory's heavy with the jewellery of rain

Skin Divers
Anne Michaels

Under the big-top
of stars, cows drift
from enclosures, bellies brushing
the high grass, ready for their heavy 
festivities. Lowland gleams like mica
in the rain. Starlight
soaks our shoes.
The seaweed field begs, the same
burlap field that in winter cracks with frost,
is splashed by the black brush
of crows. Frozen sparklers of Queen Anne's lace.

Because the moon feels loved, she lets our eyes
follow her across the field, stepping
from her clothes, strewn silk
glinting in furrows. Feeling loved, the moon loves
to be looked at, swimming
all night across the river.

She calls through screens,
she fingers a white slip in the night hallway,
reaches across the table for a glass.
She holds the dream fort.
Like the moon, I want to touch places
just by looking. To tell 
new things at three in the morning, when we're
awake with rain or any sadness, or slendering through 
reeds of sleep, surfacing to skin. In this room
where so much has happened, where love
is the clink of buttons as your shirt slides
to the floor, the rolling sound of loose change;
a book half open, clothes
half open. Again we feel
how transparent the envelope
of the body, pushed through the door 
of the world. To read what's inside 
we hold each other 
up to the light. We hold
the ones we love or long 
to be free of, carry them 
into every night field, sit with them
while cows slow as ships
barely move in the distance.
Rain dripping from the awning of stars.

Waterworn, the body remembers
like a floodplain, sentiment-laden,
reclaims itself with every tide.
Memory terraces, soft as green deltas.
Or reefs and cordilleras - 
gathering the world to bone.

The moon touches everything
into meaning, under her blind fingers,
then returns us to cerulean
aluminum dawns. Night,
a road pointing east.
her sister, memory, browses the closet
for clothes carrying someone's shape. 
She wipes her hands on an apron
stained with childhood, familiar smells
in her hair; rattles pots and pans 
in the circadian kitchen.
While in the bedroom of a night field,
the moon undresses; her abandoned peignoir
floats forever down.

Memory drags possessions out on the lawn,
moves slowly through wet grass, weighed down
by moments caught in her night net, in the glistening 
ether of her skirt. The air alive,
memory lifts her head and I nearly
disappear. You lift your head, a look I feel
everywhere, a tongue of a glance,
and love's this dark field, our shadow web 
of voices, the carbon-papter purple
rainy dark. Memory's heavy with the jewellery
of rain, her skirt heavy with beads of mercury
congealing to ice on embroidered branches - 
as she walks we hear the clacking surf
of those beautiful bones. Already love
so far beyond the body, reached only
by way of the body. Time is the alembic
that turns what we know
into mystery. Into air,
into the purple stain of sweetness.
Laburnum, wild iris, birch forest so thick 
it glows at night, smells that reach us
everywhere; the alchemy that keeps us
happy on the ground, even if our arms embrace
nothing, nothing: the withdrawing
trochee of birds. We'll never achieve escape
velocity, might as well sink into wet 
firmament, learn to stay under,
breathing through our skin.
In silver lamella, in rivers
the colour of rain. Under water, under sky;
with transparent ancient wings.

Tonight the moon traipses in bare feet,
silk stockings left behind
like pieces of river.

Our legs and arms, summer-steeped
slapped damp
with mud and weeds.

We roll over the edge into the deep field,
rise from under rain,
from our shapes in wet grass.
Night swimmers, skin divers.


I know it's a long poem (kudos to you if you read the whole thing), but I am struck deeply by the intimate connection she makes between rain and memory and love. It is so beautiful, and holds so much of how I feel about rain. It is supposed to be rather rainy for the next week or so, and I am hoping that despite the insanity of my life I will have some time to simply luxuriate in that nostalgic, beautiful, loving sensation.

The Honey Trees + Moon River

I've written here before about how much I adore the song Moon River. I don't think anyone will ever top the scene in Breakfast at Tiffany's where Audrey Hepburn sings the song. However, I recently discovered The Honey Trees' cover of Moon River and am rather smitten. So much so that I felt the need to dedicate a blog post to it. That, my friends, is very telling. It's just so adorable and sweet. Click the link and take an aural gander. It will put a smile on your face.

Ps. How cool is the mic they are using?

Someone inside me will not get off his tricycle

Insomnia
Billy Collins

Even though the house is deeply silent
and the room, with no moon,
is perfectly dark,
even though the body is a sack of exhaustion
inert on the bed,

someone inside me will not
get off his tricycle,
will not stop tracing the same tight circle
on the same green threadbare carpet.

It makes no difference whether I lie staring at the ceiling
or pace the living-room floor,
he keeps on making his furious rounds,
little pedaler in his frenzy,
my own worst enemy, my oldest friend.

What is there to do but close my eyes
and watch him circling the night,
schoolboy in an ill-fitting jacket,
leaning forward, his cap on backwards,
wringing the handlebars,
maintaining a certain speed?

Does anything exist at this hour
in this nest of dark rooms
but the spectacle of him
and the hope that before dawn
I can lift out some curious detail
that will carry me off to sleep - 
the watch that encircles his pale wrist,
the expandable band,
the tiny hands that keep pointing this way and that.


The seemingly ever-increasing stress of moving means that I am getting ever-shrinking amounts of sleep. It's a really lovely example of an inverse relationship. Someone should make a math word problem out of it. Billy Collin's image is so delightfully odd and yet so apt. It is a perfect way to capture the insane spinning in circles that my brain does when it ought to be sleeping. Instead of sleeping though it thinks things like, "Call that guy about furniture delivery," and "You need to buy pillows, and sheets...and a mattress," and "How am I going to fit everything into my week?" And I eventually fall asleep thinking these things. I know I fall asleep because my alarm wakes me up, but it doesn't feel like I sleep. Instead it feels like one continuous thought, as if I could fall asleep in the middle of a mental sentence and wake up finishing it.

I think this picture is a kind of bridge between the poem and my mental state for me. Or, perhaps more accurately, it is a photographic representation of how my brain feels while the poem is a literary one and I feel as if the two are connected. These are the wheels of some farm equipment on display at Fort Edmonton. The brightly coloured nature reminded me of the slightly-juvinile characterization of insomnia's persona in Collins' poem. And the simple fact that they are a whole bunch of wheels connects pretty nicely with my always-on brain. Oh sleep, I miss you.

An Unpleasant State of Being

Someone is watching from behind a tree. I stare from my hiding place without moving, until my eyeballs harden, until I'm not longer sure he's seen me. What's he waiting for? In the last possible moment before I have to run, light coming fast, I discover I've been held prisoner half the night by a tree, its dead, dense bole carved by moonlight.

(from Fugitive Pieces, Anne Michaels) 

 Here's today's confession: I am bad at waiting. I am incredibly impatient. I can't function when I'm waiting for something. For me, waiting is akin to the sensation of holding your breath for an extended period of time. I can't accomplish anything substantial because my focus keeps drifting to whatever it is I'm waiting for. It's like part of me is frozen, just standing there, completely useless. And then the other half of me is frantically scrambling around. That's why this quote from Fugitive Pieces came to mind. That complete stillness accompanied by frantic mental scrambling is exactly what I feel like when I'm waiting. Right now I'm waiting for something big and it's like I'm afraid that if I move it will evaporate into thin air. And so here I am, frozen in this, the most unpleasant state of being.

Adventures in Antiquing

Today I took advantage of the fact that I had a four day weekend to do something I had never done before: I went antiquing. My parents and I hit up two antique malls here in the city in a quest for furniture for my new (although still theoretical) apartment. I found an adorable little coffee table and a positively gorgeous hutch. I'm rather excited about them. It's nice to think that I am going to be able to populate my little home with pieces I really love. That's really important to me. Perhaps it has to do with my desire to be surrounded by things I find beautiful, but I desperately want to avoid simply getting things because they are functional. Yes, things need to be functional; as someone who is relatively uninterested in chotchkies (with the exception of old cameras and typewriters, I discovered today) this is an important element of anything I buy. However, I want more than just functionality in what I'm buying; I want to actually find it lovely and enjoy looking at it. This might sound impractical and superficial to some people, but I firmly believe that if you fill your space with things you love, it will have a positive effect on your life. Isn't it so much better to have your gaze fall on something lovely that brings a smile to your face than on something that causes you to curl your lip? I think so. And that is why I enjoyed my antiquing experience. I know the things I found will fulfill this strange set of requirements. Plus, I got to spend an entire day looking at things that ran the gambit from gorgeous to kitschy to strange to amusing to downright ugly. It was a rather visually satisfying day.

This is one of my photos from our Canada Day excursion to the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village. Apparently my weekend had a bit of an antique theme.

O Canada

Happy (Belated) Canada Day!

I had a lovely day with my parents and two of my best friends, Gabby and Sally. Breakfast, a picnic lunch, an afternoon at the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village, barbecued steak dinner and fireworks...what more could you ask for? I had good friends, good food, sunshine, photo opportunities galore (I came back from the afternoon with almost 100 images), and fireworks (which, as a lover of light, I adore). Yup. Pretty great Canada Day. I hope you also had a great day.