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On happier note, some dreamy images of Europe under snow over at Pia's blog.  Glad that there are some who are enjoying the wintry wonderland.  (Still soliciting good thoughts for my sister's situation!)

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Sadly, when you are in graduate school, enjoying the winter holidays usually gets chucked out because there's about a million and one loose ends to finish up before the semester is over.  This year is much better for me than past years, but still I'm racing to finish.  In the meantime, we did manage to get a mini tree up (with lights), plus a poinsetta, wreath, and paperwhites. I'm listening to my favorite holiday music, and I'm sticking to my vow to try and decorate the inside Scandi-style, using lots of greens and bright candles to soak up the darkness that has fallen across the northern hemisphere.

I'm the kind of body that really gets affected by the darkness these days.  What do you guys do to brighten your days as the solstice approaches?  top: Maria JC; middle: (my fav) Abby Powell; bottom: Sarah Ryhanen.

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ditte isager

Have you guys heard about Noma?  It's a Copenhagen kitchen considered by many to be the best restaurant in the world.  This new book, with photographs by Ditte Isager, looks amazing.  

A new poem about Sylvia Plath's death by Ted Hughes was discovered in London.  Fascinating and heartbreaking.

I'm digging this new to me label: Chianti and Parker -- via Olivet. 

This "Why We Travel" photo contest has me mulling over the possibilities of my next trip.  Currently at the top of my list?  Mozambique.  

A fascinating listen on the elusiveness of memory, from the boys at Radiolab.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

have a sparkly weekend!

photos taken by me

Hope you can get outside and enjoy this beautiful change in seasons, wherever you are.  I am planning to do a little play (yay!) and a little work (boo!).  Also, here are two things that I read or listened to this week that are worth sharing:  

-an interview from Paper Magazine with Sally Singer (former editor at Vogue and new editor-in-chief of T Magazine) 

-a truly incredible Radiolab show "Words" (the writer in me was beyond fascinated) which includes a segment about a woman who lost language after a stroke, and in the process found a kind of inner peace.

on fear.

me, freefalling
by my cousin Molly

My little brother, Jake, is afraid of heights.  Like, really afraid.  When Alex and I lived in Colorado, we climbed Gothic Mountain with him.  Three quarters of the way to the top Jake was nervously sweating, his face had gone white, and then he starting crawling on all fours because he couldn’t bear looking down.  In all my time living in the mountains, I had never seen anyone react like that to heights.

Last week, when my whole family was at my parents’ home for our annual summer vacation, Jake decided that he was going to voluntarily jump out of a plane at 14,000 feet.  He had been thinking about it all summer.  Now who was with him?  Alex was a yes.  So was my cousin Brendan.  My brother-in-law, Steve, was interested, but his kids were having a “need their daddy” kind of day.  They needed a fourth.  Three faces filled with a particular mixture of thrill and fear turned to look at me.  Honora?

I spent the next few hours thinking.  About myself, about fear.  About how I already know from my years in the backcountry that I am not an adrenaline junkie.  I thought and thought.  About how I’m about to turn thirty and feel like I’m in an emotional rut.  About how life doesn’t turn out how you think it will.  About how lately I’ve felt like I’ve stopped being the protagonist in the novel that is my own life.  About how typically writerish of me it was to think that jumping out of a plane could be a spiritual experience.  Who was I trying to be, anyway?

And then a funny thing happened.  Just as I was about to tell the guys no, sorry, I’m not coming with you, my mouth opened and it said yes. 

I would be lying if I said that jumping into terminal velocity wasn’t f*&king terrifying.  It’s nearly impossible to describe the sensation of going from 0 to 120 miles per hour in seconds.  There is so much less gravity at 14,000 feet, the air is cold and thin, and I barely could tell which was up and which was down.  All I knew was that I had just voluntarily launched myself out of a moving aircraft and now I felt like I was going to die.  I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t open my eyes, and my stomach felt like it had been left on the plane. 

And then I did what I always try to do when I’m scared or in pain: I remembered to try and breathe.  A big, juicy, freezing gulp of thin air.  I remembered the position I was supposed to put my legs and arms in, remembered that I was strapped to my nice Brazilian instructor, and I looked down.  There was my house!  There was my backyard and my Dad’s boat and our little beach.  There was my favorite running route.  There was the pond where I learned how to swim.  There was the lighthouse, there was Monomoy, there was the new ocean cut.  There was the airport, there was Alex below me landing to safety, there was my family, hands waving and cheering!  There was my Mom, nervous and frightened and happy to see her children doing such amazing things.  There was everyone and every thing that I loved.

Since that day I’ve had moments where I haven’t felt so hot.  I’ve closed my eyes and remembered that feeling of fear -- the air rushing by me, my arms spread wide, my body falling openly, freely, looking down at the world below and just how magnificent it all really is.

on making lemonade.

by Lieke Romeijn

How to begin? 

This summer has dealt me some lemons in the guise of personal challenges.  To say that I never saw these things coming would be quite the understatement.  And I’m usually pretty darn good at seeing things from miles away.  I’ve always sort of sensed that in the blog world we all present a projection of ourselves, and because I haven’t necessarily felt like my best self, I’ve been silent for a while.  No one wants to be inundated with someone else’s garbage.  No one wants to hear about how much you’ve cried, or listen to a constant stream of negativity. 

With the silence came a contemplation about what to do with this space.  While one of the things that I love most about reading blogs is getting a chance to look at beautiful and inspiring things for a little while each day, I’ve never felt totally comfortable with how much my own lens seems to be about things that I Want.  I Want that dress.  I Want this house.  I Want to look/act/dress/be like this person, then my life would really be it.

In the past few months though, I’ve come to see that finding beauty in each an every day needs to be something internal, not external; not found elsewhere, but found right here.  I’m not exactly sure what this will look like quite yet - I'm thinking a little more art based.  More contemplative.  More writing.  More honesty.

But if you want to come along, you know where to find me.

the world at your fingertips

via the blog tulips & flight suits

I have got to get my hands on one of these rad hand-drawn world maps. (Even if they are sort of crazily expensive.) In case it hasn't been made patently clear by now, I am obsessed with travel. I guess that's what happens when a little girl loses her first tooth on a plane to Bali--that little girl grows up to become me.

I Like Science!

And here's why: dome jellyfish at the Academy of Sciences. I seriously adore that museum.

Signs of spring are around every corner. I'm always reminded of the last stanza of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem Inversnaid. It's one my of my favorites.

What would the world be, once bereft

Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,

O let them be left, wildness and wet;

Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

Toast Holiday

Some pretty, pretty images from the Toast Catalogue. They're getting me excited for bundling up and for the Holidays! (Can they really be on their way already?)

Yumminess is...

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Eating dinner with friends. Doing anything in the sunshine. Wine. Looking at Jen Gotch's dreamy polaroids...

Colour by Numbers

I'm sure a lot of you guys have seen this already, but in case you haven't these photos of random stuff grouped by colour are ahhmazing! I especially like the green one with that gorgeous palm frond. -Via Oh Happy Day!-

I love this town!

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Hope you are all having a great holiday weekend! We are staying put, in the city, and I couldn't be happier about it. I love my new town! Enjoy yourselves, wherever you are. xo H

And It Happens Just Like That...

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It happens just like that, and before you know it summer is over; today was the first day of my graduate program in creative writing. But I really can't complain since I'm coming off one of the best vacations of my life in which I got to hike, run, swim and play with some of my favorite people in the world. In bare feet, without makeup, wearing my bathing suit all day. It broke my heart to leave home yesterday, and I sort of feel jet-lagged and confused, but nevertheless, here's to new schools, to new friends, to new beginnings.

Moonwalker

Happy Man on the Moon Anniversary! Let's keep on dreaming big...

Shabby Chic, For Reals

Last weekend my lovely friend, Kielly, sent me the link to this awesome article from the New York Times. It's about a couple who, having been priced out of New York City, decided to buy their first home on the cheapity cheap upstate whilst still renting in Brooklyn. Inspiring and amazing! They did almost all of the refurbishing work themselves, and bought almost all of their furniture at thrift stores or on Craigslist. My mind is now swimming with possibilites, people. Seriously, those white mismatched chairs had me at hello. (P.S. - Thanks KD!)

Paint it White

photos

This is why I want to paint everything in my new house white. Right now everything -- i.e. the walls, the decorative trim which abounds in this 100 year old Victorian -- is painted a dusty mauve color. To me, it makes the walls look older and dirtier than they are. The problem is that painting our new place is going to be a mother of a job. We rent, but have permission to paint. But with all the trim and doors, I'm not sure that it is a DIY job. Any advice out there about tackling everything from the doorknobs to the window sashes?

White on White

Some beautiful white interiors today, over on Desire to Inspire. Oh yes, I'm inspired indeed.

From Atlanta Bartlett:

And Dave Coote Design:

A Summer Fête

These pictures of a beautiful outdoor fête make me want to throw a big party outside on a summer night. {via Sophie Cuvelier}

Literary Lions -- Virginia Woolf

"Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword. On one side all is correct, definite, orderly; the paths are straight, the trees regular, the sun shaded; escorted by gentlemen, protected by policemen, wedded and buried by clergymen, she has only to walk demurely from cradle to grave and no one will touch a hair of her head. But on the other side all is confusion. Nothing follows to a regular course. The paths wind between bogs and precipices; the trees roar and rock and fall in ruin."

-Virginia Woolf, "Harriette Wilson", Collected Essays

Let's embrace the confusion, then, shall we?