weekenders | Everything's Embarrassing

This song has been here and there since October-ish, but on Wednesday morning the sun was coming out and I was questioning whether I'd need my parka. Maybe if you let me be your lover came out of the speakers and it was suddenly just so irresistible  

I felt like a little green bud just bursting open to that synthy, snappy beat. Spring is the season of dance pop!

weekend reading | the art of becoming

• the NYT Magazine profile on Anne Carson is so complex and a brilliant piece of journalism: "i realize all this sounds both chaotic and dishonest and probably that is the case. contradiction is the test of reality..." 
• shocking pink camellias! missing them most about spring in Portland.
• I love pictures - like this one of Bill Murray and Hunter S. Thompson - where seemingly unrelated famous people are hanging out together. (Also, apparently he is neighbors with one of my favorite photographers in Charleston?!)
• painter Kimia Kline on memory and the creative process.
• In Defense of Marnie. I related to this way too much.

(listen) Everything's Embarassing - Sky Ferreira (photo) cherry blossoms and window steam at Frankies in Brooklyn (p.s) thanks for all of your toe-tapping recommendations!

an index | Water Ways

epically restless the last few weeks and possessed with need to see the ocean.
these four photos will transport you to clear coastal waters and summer sun.

1.  Miami, Margaret Durow | 2.  New Zealand, The Make Believe Sea

3. Brazil, Massimo Vitali for the NYT Magazine | 4. Turkey, Camilla Leila

show + tell | Best Coffee Cup, Ever.

I'm not an expert on my many things, but ... coffee cups? I know coffee cups. And, the "large mug" from Heath Ceramics is the absolute best. The smooth egg-shell texture of earthenware! The warmth! The perfect size for your hands! 

Everything from Heath is made in the original factory in Sausalito, California (an especially meaningful place for me) But, I first found out about these mugs from the restaurant I worked in after college. We had a cruddy set of "employee" mugs, but every morning I would snag one off our breakfast tables, fill it with piping-hot coffee, and take it up to the hostess stand to ward off a days-worth of cold gusts from the door.  

I'd been coveting them ever since, so my sister gave me two mugs in a deep blue glaze called "moonstone" for my 24th birthday. These mugs are sturdy (I mean, my regular ole kitchen can't even compare to a restaurant dish-pit!) and it's wonderful to be able to use something so special every day

Apparently, the only thing they can't survive is being shipped across the country by the US Postal Service. When I unpacked my boxes after moving, almost all of mugs had been shattered - including one of my two from Heath (I may or may not have cried.) So, now I'm gollam-status carrying around the lone survivor every morning. My precious moonstone mug.  

(photo) on film with Pentax K1000 | bright winter morning on my porch in Northampton

(p.s) two more pictures of winter blue | and summer in Sausalito

portrait sesh | Tahmures and Family

I've always thought I'd want a little girl (someday in the far, far future). But spending the day with Tahmures changed my mind. My friend, Rachel and her husband have raised just the sweetest little boy I've ever met. It's so obvious, even in the first moments of meeting them, what love and gentleness do for a home and for a child. Oh, and those big eyes? and that clever mouth? Absolutely undeniable.

This year I vowed to take more pictures of people, so connecting with Rachel (who is a brilliant photographer in her own right) was such a blessing. I learned a lot from these four rolls of film! Babies are squirmy and hard to catch in low-light with a slow shutter. But, I love them so much since they haven't developed a "camera face" yet. Candids every time!! That's probably why I like this one so much. Oh babies, such divas ... 

(photos) on Kodak Portra with Pentax K1000 | want your picture taken too? send me an e-mail!

weekend song | Of The Mother Again

This song has a shimmering sweetness to it - an openness to the way things go. Nothing ever stays the same for too long.  Sometimes change can be just what we needed ... especially if that change is spring.

weekend reading | the nature of things

• weirdly into trees lately. Do you know about Pando? It's a grove of Quaking Aspen that is the heaviest and oldest living organism on the planet (the root system is 80,000 years old!!)
• also: Joshua Trees are pretty dope.
• a video inspired by these words from Jack Kerouac: "listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot. It is all one vast awakened thing."
• Jocelyn Catterson's photos of national parks make me want to get out my backpack. 
• the National Geographic archive has a Tumblr.  The one of a woman riding an ostrich is cray-zay!

(listen) Jim James - Of The Mother Again (photo) on 120 film with Diana F+ | Yellowstone National Park

loud + clear | Snow Fall(ing)

Today I'm so excited to be sharing my collaboration with The Equals Record! The column is called Loud & Clear, a title inspired by old radio calls. To say "you're coming in loud and clear" means "I'm receiving your message" or "I understand".  Every two weeks, on Tuesday, I'll share with you a story about an outward - and inward - adventure. The column focuses on exploration and the messages that can be found in new places, if we only take the time to listen. (You know this girl loves her nature metaphors!)

The first installment is all about snow flurries and the first feelings of love.
You can read it here!

I could (and have) gone on and on about how lucky I am to be working with the creative team, Miya and Elisabeth. Their vision and guidance reminds me me why I take out my camera, instead of just holing up in my study to read Judith Butler for the next 5-7 years.

p.s. fall writings on The Equals Record

stonebarns + coming full circle

moving to massachusetts + redefinition

fog + being alone

(photo) Loud + Clear header design by Miya Hirabayashi

digging out.

Perhaps you've noticed it's been quiet around this corner of the internet. Or, when it isn't quiet, I've been a little like Eeyore (which I am not apologizing for. We don't have to be happy on the internet all the time, right?? right.)

This is for two reasons: 1. I've been in a bit of a funk (yuck!) and 2. I've been busily-working elsewhere on a couple other projects (yay!)  ... and then there's that whole, you know, getting my masters thing.

Tomorrow I'll share with you one of those "elsewhere" projects, but for now I found these day-after-Nemo photos fitting. I feel like I'm "digging out" on a personal level today. Credit for that goes to some time off and a change of scenery. Hello from the Amtrak "Vermonter" train! Next stop: New York City. 

(photos) with my iphone | Northampton after Nemo

frost + former flowers.

queen anne's in summer  |  queen anne's in fall

(photos) on film with Pentax K1000 at Harmony Jack Farms in Scio, Or. 

weekend reading:

I'm fresh outta weekend songs. What do you recommend? I need some new tunes! 

weekend reading | things that made me laugh + cry (not in that order)

• one minute of silence with a former lover. 
• "She hoped we would lead the kind of lives where we did stuff big enough to occasionally say, “Wow, I wish Mom was around for this." - Jacob Bernstein on losing his mother, Nora Ephron. 
• little moments of daily love ... this looks familiar!
• My ideal man is the LL Bean Boyfriend. But, really. 
• this 88 year old dancing lady reminded me to lighten-up! 

(photo) on film with pentax k1000 | Lily and bridesmaids, looking out over Seattle. 

on expectations + exploration.

Unless you count mosquitos or deer bones, that little tiny antelope was the honest-to-god only piece of wildlife we saw in the backwoods of Yellowstone. I thought I was going to be on a walking safari, and there I was. Five days. Thirty-two miles. One animal. 

When it comes to big events, I imagine every detail in advance. Disappointment is bound to come from having expectations like that. Because true adventures are unpredictable. Otherwise, they wouldn't really be adventures.

I had a lot of expectations about what graduate school would be like (cough Wonder Boys cough). And, it's been a challenge to adapt to the realities. I've been thinking a lot about one of my favorite quotes from buddhist monk Pema Chödrön:

"The trick is to keep exploring and not bail out, even when we find out that something is not what we thought. That's what we're going to discover again and again and again. Nothing is what we thought."

She's right, isn't she? In Montana, I learned the most from moments that were strange and wonder-filled. Moments that were unlike anything I could have anticipated.  The trick was to keep exploring and let this place surprise me. Only then could I surprise myself. 

(photos) on 120 mm film with Diana F+ 

in pioneer magazine | The Dream Away Lodge

Dream Away Lodge is an eclectic hideaway tucked into the Berkshires, forty-miles away from Northampton on a winding two-lane road. 

Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Allen Ginsberg spent some time there on tour as the Rolling Thunder Review (see this Photo in Vanity Fair).  Their photos hang on the walls, over dream catchers and guitars. Not props, but pieces of the life still lived by locals and visitors to The Dream Away. It's hard to make nostalgia feel authentic, but this place does it. The warmth and energy are real. 

(photos) on Kodak Portra 800 film with Leica CL | for the March issue of Pioneer Magazine, on newstands through-out the Pioneer Valley! more on Flickr. (p.s) The Dream Away in Oprah Magazine.

weekend song | Blue Eyes

This song sounds like summer, fading daylight at eight o'clock and ice-clinking in a mason jar. When I was walking to the bus this morning, there were the faintest strings of fog. It was only left low-down around the tree trunks and the blue sky had already burned through. The day felt on it's way to heating up ... and on it's way to June.

weekend reading | our stories, our selves. 

• I went to see Gloria Steinem speak at Smith college a few weekends ago. In her keynote address she said "when we save our stories we save ourselves". That really resonated with me about the importance of authentic internet spaces - like blogs - where women can tell their stories. 
• so funny! the anatomy of an ex-husband's apartment.
• "When The One I Wanted Did Not Want Me" a poem by Warsan Shire
• finding the formerly unknown street photographer Vivian Maier, through the 100,000 negatives found in an attic.
• in-camera double exposures: incredibly beautiful, yes. But better yet, complex and conflicted.

(listen) Middle Brother - Blue Eyes (photo) on film with Leica CL | garage door shadows, Summer 2012