Delicate and wee and in the silver shop now!
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Friday, September 12, 2008
Perfect
Receiving my package from Sue yesterday was a miracle. Receiving this amazing pencil holder that I ordered from
http://www.jessicajane.etsy.com --
amazing! What's in the mail tomorrow, a cloud complete with a real live singing angel perched on it?
Yikes, I feel lucky.
It is overcast here in Los Angeles today. I bought cupcakes for Anthony and I (dessert!) and hand-washed my car ( my favorite way of doing it ) and I am about to make an amazing-sounding sweet potato and chicken stew in the slow cooker while I make my bee necklaces and begin the final phase of a luscious bag that will be in the leather shop tomorrow or Sunday. I am also brushing up on my reading.
I have much to learn ;)
I am wishing you all the coziest Friday.
http://www.jessicajane.etsy.com --
amazing! What's in the mail tomorrow, a cloud complete with a real live singing angel perched on it?
Yikes, I feel lucky.
It is overcast here in Los Angeles today. I bought cupcakes for Anthony and I (dessert!) and hand-washed my car ( my favorite way of doing it ) and I am about to make an amazing-sounding sweet potato and chicken stew in the slow cooker while I make my bee necklaces and begin the final phase of a luscious bag that will be in the leather shop tomorrow or Sunday. I am also brushing up on my reading.
I have much to learn ;)
I am wishing you all the coziest Friday.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
You Couldn't Have Come at a Better Time
A Luka Bloom song is the title for this post, and it pertains to the package from my Queen of Scotland and her royal family, whose arrival beats back the bleakness of this day and the hazy memories it brings back.
Have you any idea, my dearest friend, that the gifts you give are far bigger than you could ever imagine? As Anthony and I were going over our books of 'Don'ts' for Husbands and Wives he looked at me, paused and said, "If we ever go to Scotland, these are the people we would need to see". Indeed. I truly love you.
On this day I am looking back over my time in NYC ( I moved here from there! ) reverently, remembering the opportunities I had to swing dance madly at Windows on the World and my many trips through the concourse under the towers, spraying Crabtree & Evelyn's Sandalwood cologne on my wrist for the journey back on the Path Train to New Jersey where I was staying that August... I was too poor to buy it, but I wore it every day.
On September 9th on my way into Manhattan in the evening I came above ground on the last Jersey stop and looked at the south tip of the island and watched the colorful sky reflecting in the mirror of the Towers and thought, "How lucky am I to live here?." It was a massive struggle: I temped and auditioned for plays and made tremendous memories of early hungry twenties with my friends in diners over breakfast specials because we couldn't afford the dinner plates -- but I DID IT. Life in New York for me was a circus of victories and defeats.
My mother called at 8:45 that morning, a time when I should have been on the Path train to transfer at WTC to the 1/9 to the Upper West Side: I had found out that I won a role in Florida the night before and I was to move my things in to our new Midtown (!) apartment on the morning of the 11th so I called my friend Emily with whom I was working briefly to say, "Can I be late tomorrow?" Nothing seemed as luxurious as the idea of sleeping in a little and moving to Times Square!
I turned on the TV at my mother's words. My stomach fell into my feet.
My boyfriend and I watched it all. We drive into Manhattan that evening with our rental car full of our things past guard posts and people wearing gas masks and the heavy smell of chemical burn, the air around the south tip still a veil of smoke.
We unpacked. We all looked at each other in the streets those next few weeks, with the candles and pictures resting undisturbed in doorways and shop entrances. There was a reverence to the city I had never known: a gentleness, a grieving.
Everyone lost someone: people gathered around listening to stories of miraculous survivors and people who just happened to sleep in or miss their train... Grand Central with its walls of the missing, a sudden hush under everything noisy....
There is no more sting for me about it all, just a heap of memories that will become antiquated stories when I am old - that I 'should' have been there is what haunts my mother - that I saw New York brought to its knees for months to come is what haunts me still and makes me miss it with all my heart.
In my mind today I will live in Astoria as I did for my last year there.
I will walk past my aging neighbors on their milk crate chairs and nod and smile. I will buy fruits and veggies on that market down 31st and then I will cook something delicious in my kitchen with the window open to hear the pigeons cooing and flapping their wings. Come evening I'll sit out on my stoop and read since these are the last days of warm evenings.
That is the place that makes my heart ache with love -- even if it's only one day out of the year that I must remember.
Have you any idea, my dearest friend, that the gifts you give are far bigger than you could ever imagine? As Anthony and I were going over our books of 'Don'ts' for Husbands and Wives he looked at me, paused and said, "If we ever go to Scotland, these are the people we would need to see". Indeed. I truly love you.
On this day I am looking back over my time in NYC ( I moved here from there! ) reverently, remembering the opportunities I had to swing dance madly at Windows on the World and my many trips through the concourse under the towers, spraying Crabtree & Evelyn's Sandalwood cologne on my wrist for the journey back on the Path Train to New Jersey where I was staying that August... I was too poor to buy it, but I wore it every day.
On September 9th on my way into Manhattan in the evening I came above ground on the last Jersey stop and looked at the south tip of the island and watched the colorful sky reflecting in the mirror of the Towers and thought, "How lucky am I to live here?." It was a massive struggle: I temped and auditioned for plays and made tremendous memories of early hungry twenties with my friends in diners over breakfast specials because we couldn't afford the dinner plates -- but I DID IT. Life in New York for me was a circus of victories and defeats.
My mother called at 8:45 that morning, a time when I should have been on the Path train to transfer at WTC to the 1/9 to the Upper West Side: I had found out that I won a role in Florida the night before and I was to move my things in to our new Midtown (!) apartment on the morning of the 11th so I called my friend Emily with whom I was working briefly to say, "Can I be late tomorrow?" Nothing seemed as luxurious as the idea of sleeping in a little and moving to Times Square!
I turned on the TV at my mother's words. My stomach fell into my feet.
My boyfriend and I watched it all. We drive into Manhattan that evening with our rental car full of our things past guard posts and people wearing gas masks and the heavy smell of chemical burn, the air around the south tip still a veil of smoke.
We unpacked. We all looked at each other in the streets those next few weeks, with the candles and pictures resting undisturbed in doorways and shop entrances. There was a reverence to the city I had never known: a gentleness, a grieving.
Everyone lost someone: people gathered around listening to stories of miraculous survivors and people who just happened to sleep in or miss their train... Grand Central with its walls of the missing, a sudden hush under everything noisy....
There is no more sting for me about it all, just a heap of memories that will become antiquated stories when I am old - that I 'should' have been there is what haunts my mother - that I saw New York brought to its knees for months to come is what haunts me still and makes me miss it with all my heart.
In my mind today I will live in Astoria as I did for my last year there.
I will walk past my aging neighbors on their milk crate chairs and nod and smile. I will buy fruits and veggies on that market down 31st and then I will cook something delicious in my kitchen with the window open to hear the pigeons cooing and flapping their wings. Come evening I'll sit out on my stoop and read since these are the last days of warm evenings.
That is the place that makes my heart ache with love -- even if it's only one day out of the year that I must remember.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Things once Useful
Are Useful again.
When we first moved into our condo on the busy busy boulevard I thought surely nothing ever lives here that is wild, surely everything has been beaten back by the noise of the cars and people and the crisp thromming R&B that whistles from passing SUVs, but there was a tiny bird building a nest in the tree outside our front door, and hummingbirds feeding in the giant sappy birds of paradise that we look out on, as though in a dense tropical forest and not an urban thoroughfare.
Every day I went out and saw the nest and the vigilant bird sitting on her three blue eggs, looking so close to being hatched... days passed without event and one morning I went down to find the nest barren and ripped on one side.
Eggless. Motherless.
Knowing that something sad had transpired I saved the nest I had watched with such happy expectation and tucked it into a lightless corner of my shelf.
Today I took it out and placed in it my newest reminder necklace and it fit, delicate and so strong, just like the message, "Be Still". What once housed the promise of life now held the fruits of my labor and I felt somehow less lonely knowing that what was built to protect is still with me, wrapping around something still tender as I fumble through the creative life.
When we first moved into our condo on the busy busy boulevard I thought surely nothing ever lives here that is wild, surely everything has been beaten back by the noise of the cars and people and the crisp thromming R&B that whistles from passing SUVs, but there was a tiny bird building a nest in the tree outside our front door, and hummingbirds feeding in the giant sappy birds of paradise that we look out on, as though in a dense tropical forest and not an urban thoroughfare.
Every day I went out and saw the nest and the vigilant bird sitting on her three blue eggs, looking so close to being hatched... days passed without event and one morning I went down to find the nest barren and ripped on one side.
Eggless. Motherless.
Knowing that something sad had transpired I saved the nest I had watched with such happy expectation and tucked it into a lightless corner of my shelf.
Today I took it out and placed in it my newest reminder necklace and it fit, delicate and so strong, just like the message, "Be Still". What once housed the promise of life now held the fruits of my labor and I felt somehow less lonely knowing that what was built to protect is still with me, wrapping around something still tender as I fumble through the creative life.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Peacock Feather Bag on Sale!!!
There is something about putting an item on sale that makes my heart swell in a really happy way, probably because I am constantly trolling websites for sales and when an item I adore goes down I get crazy excited!!!!
The peacock bag is 20% off now in the leather shop!!
Monday, September 8, 2008
Better and excited
Dearest Readers,
I missed posting this weekend: my in-laws are in town and we have spent several days traveling around Los Angeles, and I even got some lovely pictures of what our wedding location looks like: it's lovely :) Did I mention loveliness?
I even had time to make a custom order for my Auntie ' Raine on behalf of my mother: a lovely boulder opal whose blue is so undeniable and deep.
I got beautiful stationery and intend to do a bit of letter writing this week, so I'll surprise my intended recipients just in case they happen to read this bog :)
I have a new bag design that's on its way this week along with some bee necklaces and peacock feathers. I'll be a very busy bee myself!
So much love,
Allison
I missed posting this weekend: my in-laws are in town and we have spent several days traveling around Los Angeles, and I even got some lovely pictures of what our wedding location looks like: it's lovely :) Did I mention loveliness?
I even had time to make a custom order for my Auntie ' Raine on behalf of my mother: a lovely boulder opal whose blue is so undeniable and deep.
I got beautiful stationery and intend to do a bit of letter writing this week, so I'll surprise my intended recipients just in case they happen to read this bog :)
I have a new bag design that's on its way this week along with some bee necklaces and peacock feathers. I'll be a very busy bee myself!
So much love,
Allison
Friday, September 5, 2008
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Oh Geez
Heart palpitations.
In full force, and so I am in reduced mode, with a doctor's appointment pending -- would you believe my primary care physician didn't have an appointment available until October? Welcome to Los Angeles!!!
Work will be a little sporadic in the next few days and likely posting, too. Every time I put my hand over my heart to ask what's going on in there I cry the way we all do when we're grieving: I think there are some things to process, old things: memories flood my mind of childhood autumns -- perhaps what all the cleaning was for was for me to make a bunch of massive new discoveries and grow.
There are far worse things to have to be quiet and still for :)
So much love to you all,
Allison (Sunny)
In full force, and so I am in reduced mode, with a doctor's appointment pending -- would you believe my primary care physician didn't have an appointment available until October? Welcome to Los Angeles!!!
Work will be a little sporadic in the next few days and likely posting, too. Every time I put my hand over my heart to ask what's going on in there I cry the way we all do when we're grieving: I think there are some things to process, old things: memories flood my mind of childhood autumns -- perhaps what all the cleaning was for was for me to make a bunch of massive new discoveries and grow.
There are far worse things to have to be quiet and still for :)
So much love to you all,
Allison (Sunny)
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Accomplishment
This is the face of joy right now, complete with fresh clean wet hair and time to reflect on an amazing feat, though not amazing to some:
I finally took bootcamp this morning.
You see, I have been working at a Pilates/yoga/bootcamp/dance fusion studio for nearly ten months: I work Monday thru Thursday from 5 PM to 8PM. It's my link to the world: without the studio I would go through my days lonely. The women who are involved in the classes and the women who teach them are inspiring and good in every way a woman can be, and they have become such dear friends of mine.
I have learned that a job ( however small ) can be a joy if you find the little doorway we so often miss on our way to dissatisfaction. I have ample opportunity to take Pilates classes and I take all the chances I can get, yes I do!! Bootcamp, however, has been this far away dream as I am not a runner and I don't like sweating very much -- but after all these chances untaken I just had to try this morning.
It was awful: we ran forever and did abs for five minutes straight and lunges all the way down the street. I sweated in places I didn't know had glands!! My face was tomato red even for an hour afterwards!!!
Will I be back on Friday morning? You bet your sweet buns I will!!! And my buns will be incredibly sweet for doing so!
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
There are 4 bags in this picture...
But as of right now they are all the unbeveled, untooled, unconnected leather in the proper shapes.
I decided to nip it in the bud and cut out the shapes for these bags in one day, which actually takes quite some time, and then I got to cleaning house. Tidying. Polishing -- I like when our condo gleams!!
I am readying for something big. I can feel something coming and I have to get 'neat' for it: I have no idea whether it is a huge idea coming through, a rather large new inspiration or something different, but those things require not only meditation and concentration -- for me they require cleaning out the cupboards and going through my clothing to see what should go to Goodwill: paring down allows me to think up.
Isn't that exciting Jones?
Er, Jane??????
Well!!! Apparently I am the only busybody in the house today!
I decided to nip it in the bud and cut out the shapes for these bags in one day, which actually takes quite some time, and then I got to cleaning house. Tidying. Polishing -- I like when our condo gleams!!
I am readying for something big. I can feel something coming and I have to get 'neat' for it: I have no idea whether it is a huge idea coming through, a rather large new inspiration or something different, but those things require not only meditation and concentration -- for me they require cleaning out the cupboards and going through my clothing to see what should go to Goodwill: paring down allows me to think up.
Isn't that exciting Jones?
Er, Jane??????
Well!!! Apparently I am the only busybody in the house today!
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