> Open Hearts, Open Doors <

Let me preface this post by saying that today, I wanted to get personal.  It's been too long since I cracked my heart open like a chestnut and shared some feelings with you.  Truth is, I haven't needed to.  Things have been going well– so well!– and I'd almost forgotten to acknowledge my blessings and show thanks for them.  But these past few days, I've remembered; this post is an offering of thanks and a small representation of my psyche.  I wish I could say it better, but for now this will have to do.

You know that part in Pride and Prejudice when Elizabeth realizes that she's the one who's been too proud, too prejudiced, and too blinded by her own stubborn judgements and vanity to see the goodness that stood directly before her?  Well, you guys, I am Elizabeth, and it turns out that Tunbridge Wells is my Mr. Darcy.

Since hanging up my freelance saddle at the beginning of the year and promising myself that I'd live in the present and experience all this town has to offer, I've been overwhelmed by the diversity, creativity, and kindness of the people I've met.  I've been touched by their helpfulness, flattered by their curiosity, and so encouraged by their spirited discussions and visions for the future.  Already, I have friends I cherish and places in which I know I'll feel welcome.  More than once, I've been moved to tears by the richness of this town and the goodness of its people.  Slowly, I'm finding my tribe, and my only regret is that that I let my spirit be clouded by hasty judgements and fear for all those months before.

As I look back on these first eight months (nine, almost nine), I wanted to implore you to remember that an open heart opens doors and an open mind is keen to grow.  This world is a beautiful place, dear reader, but sometimes we need to stop squinting to see this to be true.  I don't know where these coming months will lead me, but for once I don't feel troubled by uncertainty.  I'm happy here.  Happy to learn, happy to grow, happy to meet new friends and have adventures.  And oh, what a wonderful adventure this is!

Thank you for being here (there), dear reader, thank you for putting up with me, and thank you for reading.  xx 

>   A Captive Audience? by David Reekie, 2000.  Photo taken at the Victoria & Albert museum.  <

On the White Cliffs of Dover

You'd think these Minnesotan bones would be comfortable in the cold, would welcome it, even.  You'd think I'd know to always carry a pair of warm gloves and remember to regularly waterproof my leather boots.  You may assume that a functional coat with roomy pockets would be a go-to in my closet and I'd have a pair of earmuffs somewhere in my house, but no.  No, no, no.  I'm afraid I'm terribly unprepared for this wet and rainy winter.  Luckily, I'm still enough of a Midwesterner to be tough and though the wind blew mightily and the rain came down cold and fast, I still made the trek along the White Cliffs in Dover. 

Call me insane, but prior to our arrival, I assumed the walk along the cliffs would be leisurely, picturesque and enchanting.  I imagined David and I walking arm-in-arm under our red umbrella, pausing to take pictures as gulls called overhead.  I was spot on with the cliffs being picturesque and enchanting, but leisurely our day was not.  My lipstick, springtime brights and freshly done hair didn't prepare me for the mud, sleet, and wind, my ankle boots and pocketless coat did not protect me from the elements.  My coat collar is stained red from the uncountable times it blew into my lips, my hair was matted and torn by the wind (I'm still getting used to this long hair business), and my beautiful H by Hudson boots were almost ruined by the waterlogged earth.  But we survived, dear reader, with raw skin and dirty hands, with muddy feet and dripping wet coats.  We survived!  And we have some nice pictures to prove it.  

After the traipsing and trudging was over and our skin was beginning to warm, we stopped at a pub for a warm meal next to an open fire; a glass of wine was a happy sight, indeed!

> Photos & Scene < Dunorlan Park

At first, she didn't want to go.  The sky was grey and the world was waterlogged after weeks of rain.  "It'll be fun," her husband promised as they pulled on wellies and buttoned their coats.  "The dog will love it.  You'll love it."

The park was close and they walked the path around the pond with the dog between them, behind them, then pulling them forward, tugging against the restraint of the lead.  When the dog wandered off the pavement and ran along to investigate a scent, her paws kicked up bits of turf and left small imprints in the mud.  "We'll have to put her in the shower," the wife said.  "The towels will need bleaching again."

The fog was heavy and trees loomed through the mist like ghosts.  "I love how green the world looks against a grey sky," he said, sidestepping a puddle but staying in step with his wife.  "It's like they're glowing almost, illuminated from within.  You can feel the energy of the green."

"The energy of the green," she repeated. She picked a leaf from a nearby plant, traced the veins with her finger and cut through the greenness with her fingernail. 

Halfway around the pond, they stopped at a bench and let the dog off the lead.  Together, they sat in a contented silence and watched; children ran through puddles, their laughter muted by the breeze and the backs of their jackets flecked with bits of mud.   Men cast their fishing lines into the brown water and ducks clambered over one another, fighting for the bits of bread being tossed into the water by two boys on the bridge.  The husband laughed as their dog chased a black and white spaniel around an evergreen and the wife kept an eye on the pit bull that was running laps around its owner in the field on their right.  Inhaling, they could smell the heaviness of mud, the wetness of the leaves and the rubber from their boots.  The greens in the park were vivid- so vivid- and the world felt very much alive around them.

At two-thirty, the husband checked his watch and then called for the dog.  The three of them began their walk home, the dog running here and there, her fur muddy, her tongue lolling out the side of her mouth, her nose wet.  Naturally, they fell into step with one another and, as they walked along the path toward home, they both felt glad.
                                                                                               

Photos taken yesterday at Dunorlan Park. 

New Year

This year, let's make the world a more beautiful place.

xox

Cereal

Today, dear reader, I would like to introduce you to my newest must-read, the completely gorgeous quarterly magazine, Cereal.  Full of captivating imagery, interesting articles, and even a few mouth-watering recipes (and, might I add, no ads) the magazine has me flipping through the pages time and time again.

The magazine's strap-line says it all, almost: "In pursuit of food and travel," but also, I think, in pursuit of community.  Intellectual community, creative community, and a vibrant global community united through the shared love of food, travel, craftsmanship and beauty.  Editor Rosa Park brings focus to the world around us, highlighting delicious details like those found in the simple, yet lovely, multi-purpose handkerchiefs by -Cheif or those being uncovered by the team of diverse food enthusiasts at the Nordic Food Lab.  Articles teach us about the many varieties of carrots and take us on a walk through one of the most cherished arboretums in all the world.  The magazine is truly a delight for the senses and is a publication that deserves a prime spot on any coffee table or bookshelf.  I cannot recommend it enough.

For those of you scrambling for last-minute gifts, a subscription to Cereal would charm most any reader interested in food, travel, and thoughtful design, and at £35 for four issues, I feel a winning gift is but a click away.

If you're of the ilk who would prefer to purchase your copy in the flesh, I bought mine at the gift-haven, Magma Books, in Clerkenwell (seriously, there's a book or magazine for anyone and everyone there), but if London isn't convenient, you can check out their other stockists located here and there throughout the globe, too.

xoxo

I hate to hate, but I hate.

Everything I've tried to write since Friday sounds clunky and inconsequential.  Either too trivial or not enough- not strong enough, poignant enough, insightful enough.  I'm angry, too, and as everyone who's ever written anything out of anger knows, angry words lack the clarity they need to open minds and warm hearts.

I hate what happened in Newtown.  I hate that it's more difficult to get a driver's license than it is to get a gun in the States.  I hate that children have another reason to dislike school and that safe places cannot be guaranteed.  I hate that the technology available to us and our cultural lust for never-ending content, rather than quality, has sullied facts, rushed reports, and damaged additional lives.  But most of all, I just really hate that this happened.
My thoughts and prayers go out to the nation and my votes will be with law-makers who support stricter gun control, advocate for the health and care of the mentally ill and don't want to fight violence with more guns, more violence.

I don't bring up political issues often in this space (though I find this particular case to be a human issue rather than a political one) but my silence on the topic isn't because I don't care and tomorrow, when I go back to posting about other things- less important things- it's not because I've forgotten.   I will never forget.  Promise that you'll never forget, too. 

Let's make this world a more beautiful place, a safer place, a better place. 

Read Books [shop local]

Two things before we all embark a weekend of holiday shopping and merriment-making:

ONE:  I read this article about Karen Hayes and Ann Patchett's indie-bookstore and, you guys, I cried. Happy tears, wet face, shoulders shaking, all that.  The bookstore is called Parnassus Books and if you're ever in Nashville, you should check it out.  If you're somewhere else in the States and want to buy a book for someone, please buy through your local independent, which you find find here. 

If you're in the UK and have any great independent bookstore recommendations, I'd be delighted to hear them!  I've found a couple small, specialty shops but I'd love to find others, too!  Hobbit Town, sadly, doesn't have an independent bookstore.  Alas...

TWO: I'm off to London in a few hours to spend the evening with my friend Jill and while I'm in the city, I'm going to purchase the first issue of the new- and totally gorgeous!- Cereal Magazine.  I have this sneaking suspicion that I'm going to love it. 

And for all my Boston friends, if you're interested in getting your hands on a copy of Cereal, too, my friends at Olives & Grace are stockists.  They're in the South End.  Check them out.


Anyway, I must dash.  Have a pretty & literary weekend, friends. xo

Holly Hoarding

I awoke early on Wednesday to snow, or at least that's what they call it here.  Where I come from, we'd laugh at this.  "Just wait 'til winter comes and the snow's so high you can't open the front door.  You've got to shovel yourself out, sometimes more than once in a day.  That's snow.  This?  This is nothing." That's what my people would say, but here there was pandemonium.  Our room was cold.  I got up to feed the cat and put on the heater and then went back to bed.

When it came time to rise, the snow had stopped and frost clung to the grass, holding fast against the warming rays of the sun that intermittently came through the clouds.  Bits of snow still lay clumped and wet in beds of frozen leaves, but mostly it was gone.  I pulled on my boots, tied a red scarf around my neck, and shrugged on a green wool coat.  I packed a canvas bag with my camera and a pair of kitchen scissors and began my walk to the wood.

The path was muddy and slick with decaying leaves which forced me to plan each step carefully.  Where I was going was the small wood near the park.  To enter, one must walk through a field which is quiet except on warm days when the sound of children playing nearby is carried by the wind. Before stepping into the wood, I looked to make sure I was alone.  A woman was walking with her dog at the other side of the field, whistling for him to stay close, her breath escaping in a white cloud.  Truth be told, I wasn't sure if what I was planning to do was legal, per se, and I was feeling the need for secrecy.  I felt a surge of adrenaline as I walked between the naked trees and found the thing I sought: a thicket of wild holly.

The air was still.  I could hear the woman with the dog coming closer as I took the scissors from my bag and carefully reached through the barbed leaves to cut sprigs that I found pleasing.  I paused as she and the dog walked along the edge of the wood.  Her boots broke small twigs with a soft snap and water dripped from the trees and bushes with a sound like spring.  The woman passed; I continued cutting.

When I'd finished, my bag was full of holly. I came into the clearing and saw that I was alone.  Walking carefully up the muddy path toward home, I passed a man hauling large branches toward the edge of the wood.  I assumed he must be employed by the city to tend to the common land and surely he would know what I'd done when he saw my bag.  I said hello and walked quickly away, half expecting him to call after me and make me confess my crime.  A sprig of holly poked through my leggings, making my skin itch and burn.  The man did not call after me.

Along the sidewalk grew more holly.  A different species, perhaps, with smaller, darker leaves and bright red berries.  I slowed my walk and when the road was free of cars, I again extracted my scissors, my heart beating excitedly as I whistled a tune.  Fa la la la la, la la la la.
                                                                                              

With the help of my (maybe) illegal holly gathering as well as my favorite shade of red lipstick, I'm feeling a little more festive now than I was at the beginning of the week.  Cox Quarters could use a little more decorating before it truly exudes the spirit of the season and I'm thinking about doing some kind of birch display instead of a tree.  Another trip to the wood is in order, but this time I might need a bigger bag...

Bigger, Better

As an entrepreneur, you cycle through a great number of big ideas.  Big ideas about products, big ideas about operations, and big ideas about how your little company is going to change the industry, nay, the world! forever and ever.  It's important to embrace big ideas and to confront them with big thinking, but it's most important to know how to edit.

In many ways, growing a business is like working on a piece of fiction.  You start with a sentence, something bold and true that strikes fire in your heart and moves your hands to action.  From there, you build.  Sentences become paragraphs which become pages and then chapters; like so many bricks in a house, your words become something substantial.  And it's in this moment of having something, something with weight and structure, that you must begin the most difficult task: editing.  Knock down walls, rip up floors and bury bits of what you've created.  Do not look back; edit what needs to be taken out.  And then start building again.

Sometimes, it will feel as if the fruit of your brainstorm sessions and the hours you spent creative thinking and building plans is all for naught.  Lord knows I've had hundreds of big ideas that I've laid to rest- some out of laziness, others out of fear, and some because they just didn't fit with the rest of the story.  I don't regret having these ideas, but I would regret not thinking them at all.  When you give up on big thinking, you give up on yourself, entirely.  When you stop having dreams, you're not just asleep, you're dead.

Right now, I'm working closely with David as we bring his big idea to fruition.  We're thinking big, dreaming bigger, and, for every triumphant step forward, we shrink back an inch or two.  It's fun, but it's a lot of work.  Additionally, I'm working on some writing that I'm really persevering on.  It's an old big idea that I'd set aside ages ago to pursue another idea that I just couldn't commit to, but I've recently adopted it again with fresh eyes and a better perspective.  While I'm excited by the challenges and scope of both these projects- David's and my own- I'm not excited about the editing, but that, my friends, is truly the most important part.

Think big, dear reader, and dream big, too.  And then edit.  It hurts at first, but it's worth it in the end.  I hope...

Hands & Hearts, Things & Stuff

"I don't know how to use my hands anymore", she said quietly, looking down at her ten thin fingers lazily spread on the table before her.  "I use them when I talk and I use them to write, I can dress myself with these hands and I can show love with them, too, but other than that I don't know what to do with them.  Sometimes I wake in the night and my body feels like it's shrinking.  Like the growing pains of childhood, but instead of lengthening, things are shriveling and it's even more painful.  This isn't supposed to be happening yet, is it?" 

She paused briefly and tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear.  She absently traced the lines in the table with her index finger and continued.  "It's like my body is telling me to work, to move, to push it harder.  I don't mean it wants to spend time in the gym or on a yoga mat, no.  It wants action.  It wants to remember the feeling of running barefoot in the woods, wants to hold strong against the wind as my limbs cling to the rough branches of a tree.  My body wants bruises and scars, pain and strength.

"My hands quake sometimes.  They don't want to cup computer mice and dance across keyboards, they want to build things and become calloused.  But they're clumsy and don't  know how to do these things and I mentally cannot imagine in what capacity I'd be able to step off the concrete and fall into grasses or where I'd find a wood in which to get lost.

"How does one learn to use one's hands?  How does one begin a new kind of life?"   She looked up at me, inquiring, but I didn't know, either.
                                                                                          

'Tis the season of want.  The season of stuff, of things; the season celebrating greed and luxury instead of kindness and joy.  My inbox has been flooded with sad attempts at trying to make wanting sentimental, as if the savings in your pocketbook and piles of gifts you're able to purchase mean more than the minutes you'll spend with your loved ones in conversation and laughter.

This Christmas, let's forget the stuff and the things.  Let us remember instead the comfort of a strong embrace, the glow of a smile, and the way a chorus of laughter can heat a home better than any furnace.  Let us remember to make with our hands, give with our hearts, and accept each day with a smile.

Photos taken a week or so ago in Cheltenham.  Beautiful, no? 

DIY: whackjob

 

I caught my reflection in the window of a train on Friday and had to do a double take.  My hair was long and limp, hanging well below my shoulders in broken strands that made my face blur into that of any other tired woman commuting home on the 5:00 PM train.

It made me frantic, to see myself this way, and I walked quickly from the train station to my home,  my breath escaping in rushed puffs as I climbed the hill through town.  After pushing my keys through the lock and flinging off my jacket, I located my craft scissors and headed to the bathroom. In a moment of total clarity, I started cutting.

Holding a pair or scissors in my hand does not scare me and I stood before the mirror filling the sink with rough, dead hair, coarse like straw and dull as dirt.  I wanted my hair asymmetrical and full of imperfections because my life is asymmetrical and I am full of imperfections.  I needed it to be attractive, but true, and I wanted it to capture the variety of life that hangs heavy around our necks and makes each morning spark with the electricity of the unknown.

David helped me with the back, his face full of nervous concentration but his hands steady and sure.  In the end he agreed that we did a pretty good job and when I look in the mirror I'm happy because I don't mistake myself for anyone else.

"I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life."

- The Great Gatsby

Running For The {Tuscan} Hills

I'm having one of those days where I'm just like, I need to move to Italy right now! I mean, Italians don't have problems, right?  They just enjoy life and hang out whilst being chic as hell (proof here, here, here and here) and eating the most delicious food on earth, right?  Right!

Maybe it's just the time of year, or perhaps I'm having postpartum-reading depression after finishing Under The Tuscan Sun, but I cannot stop nostalgically thinking of Italy.  I want to eat fresh figs and look out from the terrace over acres and acres of Tuscan vineyards.  I want to work with my hands and spend my vacations on the rocky beaches of Cinque Terre.  I want to hear the quiet as it spreads through the valley, disturbed only by an occasional dog bark or motorbike, and I want to wake up to the sun.  

One day, I will move to Italy.  I will learn to talk with my hands and master the art of making fresh pasta.  David will wander around the garden and I will write in my study with a window overlooking the valley, long-lost secrets buried beneath the soil.  Family and friends will always be visiting and we won't be shy about putting them to work; together we'll harvest olives which we'll have pressed into beautiful oils, we'll weed the gardens, the bounty of which will fill our stomachs, and tend to the trees in the orchard.  We'll barter at the markets and drink wine at night under the stars.  That is what I want right now for one day.  

(Photos of badass old guys taken in Cinque Terre in September, 2011.)