True North

The Truth in Pictures

It has been an incredibly tough past few days. I think often about how the version of life you see on blogs - both mine and others' - isn't the whole, complex, messy truth. As a reader, it's so easy to get lost in the labyrinth of comparing your life to how (it seems) others are living. Personally, I get caught up in this more often than I'd like to admit! But I don't think there's anything wrong with presenting the best, or loveliest, or most X of yourself online; after all, blogs aren't actually personal diaries - they're more akin to a curated exhibition. All this was on my mind as I uploaded recent pictures off my camera and scrolled through them, finding - from the midst of the "tough" week - so much color and happiness. It helped me remember that my emotional narrative of what's been going on isn't the whole truth either. There really has been color. And happiness. And concentrating on those parts, either in what you tell the world or what tell yourself, isn't necessarily a lie. It's a choice.

Hope your week is a happy one.

Bouquets

Taking a quick break from the all out paint-a-thon I'm doing here to get ready for this coming weekend's Studio Tour. (Official website here.) Unfortunately I have no studio to call my own (yet) but I've wrangled myself a spot on the tour anyway, hanging a few new paintings at The Purple Crayon Center in Hastings. It'll be the first time I ever show my personal, non-comissioned work in a public space to people I don't know. A little bit hair raising! So I'm spending the next few days touching up the older pieces and finishing the new ones. That's a nice, calm way of saying the truth, which is that I am neurotically questing for impossible perfection, and not even trying to fight it.

But hey, at least it's fun!...

Spring Break

My girls are off from school this week, and we've been chilling. Climbing on the playground. Baking muffins and cookies. Admiring (actually, dancing for joy is more like it) the first dishwasher we've had in six years AND our brand new refrigerator--both long-promised gifts from generous family members that we couldn't have until we upgraded our house's electrical service, which was finally finished last month. Making forts out of the giant boxes those appliances came in. Cooking big dinners. Reading Little House in the Big Woods. Eating ice cream. Sleeping in.

Tomorrow we head to the American Girl store in NYC with my mother-in-law, an outing so thrill-inducing that Stella and Maeve might pass out from excitement before we even get there. We also have big plans to finish out the week with a movie night with Daddy to see Mirror Mirror, and brunch this weekend with my closest cousin, who lives in England and so has never met the kids.

I remember reading a blog a few years ago where the writer was describing summer vacation with her two kids, how relaxing and fun it was to be together in the house with everyone drifting around, doing their own thing for a while, then coming together for an activity... At the time, I was in the midst of a summer with one preschooler and one infant, and the days dragged on in this monotonous kind of hell. I read that post and felt like it was written in another language. I couldn't imagine a time when I'd be happy for day after day of unstructured time with the kiddos. And yet now here I am writing this post. It's good to be reminded that however difficult or repetitive parenting can feel, it's actually changing, changing, changing all the time.

Hope those of you also on spring break are having a lovely time. What are you up to this week?

xoxo, Alison

A year ago we were at the beach in South Carolina with my family. So lucky. That post, with lots of pictures plus more ruminating about the importance of doing nothing much, here.

Flower Walk

Last week, on an extraordinarily warm, almost summery day, Maeve and I took a walk through our neighborhood to look for flowers. They had all just bloomed, and the sudden extravagance of color was breathtaking. Maeve would spot a bright new blossom up ahead and literally shriek with joy. And I loved that her eye was just drawn to color, without any judgement about whether it was a carefully cultivated hyacinth in someone's yard or a scrappy little weed growing in the cracks of the sidewalk. We took pictures of them all...

Past springs here on the blog: Pretty (2011), Walk in the Woods and Melancholy (2010), and (going waaayy back to my 2nd post EVER!) Beginnings (2008)

Have you been on any flower walks lately? What are some of your favorite ways to enjoy the springtime? Share in the comments below!

Everyday

Between doing some renovations on our house (hallelujah!) and working like a madwoman to finish the playground murals as well as some new paintings to show on the Studio Tour, I've been feeling like all I do is swing from one project to another. Which is wonderful, in some ways. It's good to be busy, especially with projects you're excited about. But. It also ends up feeling like every minute is accounted for before it happens, like there is no space in between just to loaf around and soak up your surroundings. I don't want to burn out, or end each day wondering how it flew by so quickly.

So to counter this, I've been making an effort to retrain my eye back to little beauties around me, as I used to do much more in the beginning of writing this blog. I'm pulling out the camera more often, not to document the progress of some project or another, but to capture funny/beautiful little moments or scenes that I notice. I've started putting these pictures up on Flickr, on a set I made called "Everyday Life," which you can see here. I invite YOU to join in! It feels so good to practice looking at your life as if it is already beautiful, as opposed to mentally cataloguing the things you need to change or fix or upgrade, the way I think we all so often do. If you have your own everyday life photos up on the internet somewhere, leave a link in the comments - I'd love to see them!

Resolving

Aaahh, NOW I realize why I let myself be so busy all December. I was avoiding winter. Avoiding cold and darkness and the hopelessness that follows. Now that it's January, I'm facing down a long line of winter weeks ahead. Last year, I made a point of appreciating and taking photos of winter's own stark natural beauty and sharing them here in Thank you, Winter posts. I think that plan will have to make a comeback, and perhaps the photo above can count as the first one of the new year: the wintertime view from our bedroom window of the moment between sunset and twilight. The rest of the year, when the trees have their leaves, this view is predominantly of foliage. But in the winter, when the sun sets, it casts a bronze glow on the windows of the houses you can finally see between the trees, whose leafless black branches reach up alongside the church steeple into the purple sky...

I have tons of goals and plans for 2012, but if I have any resolutions, per se, they are all about keeping my momentum going through the next three months, about being healthy in all the ways I need to be to keep the winter blues away. Resolutions like eating well, not skipping meals, and taking my vitamins (boring, but crucial). Like walking more, even when it's cold, especially when it's cold and sunny, and reaping the rewards of all the exercise endorphins and sunshine vitamin D. Like weekly nights out on the town with friends, even if it's just one quick drink after the kids are in bed (every mama needs some upcoming adult fun to look forward to at all times, I believe). And like DAILY time at the easel to work on the pieces I'm doing just for me -- painting is the best time I spend with myself, and this winter it is no longer ok to prioritize it below laundry, groceries, work, cleaning, bills, kiddo homework, family obligations, etc, etc. My creative life is just as important as everything else on that list and deserves to be treated as such.

What about you? Any cherished resolutions for the new year - creativity-protecting, sanity-preserving, or otherwise? Do comment and tell me.

Watching

Some inspiring videos for post-turkey, lazy weekend watching...

 

First, artist Shea Hembrey's hilarious, fantastic TED talk:

 

The Sartorialist's Scott Schuman shooting pictures in Tokyo:

 

And this incredibly beautiful video of a Lubinje bride in Kosovo being prepared for her wedding day:

Nusja Jone-Our Bride from Kosovo 2.0 on Vimeo.

 

Hope you enjoy as much as I did!

Our Summer Days

One week at the beach and a few adventures in the city later, plus some outside painting fun, weekly trips to the pool, red tomatoes finally coming in from the garden, new Gillian Welch in heavy rotation, nightly pre-dinner Pimm's cups with strawberries cucumber and mint, and Maeve's innaugural trip to the movie theater for the new Winnie the Pooh ... and I think I'm finally getting the hang of this summer thing.

P.S. If your childhood self was as obsessed with making friendship bracelets as mine was, then you'll find it's just like riding a bike to pick it up again. If you need a refresher, or you never learned, there are plenty of tutorials on the internet - just google friendship bracelets. I'm loving how effortlessly cool they look, especially worn mixed in with actual grown-up bracelets.

Summertime

It's really summer! And not just because I finally changed my header... ;)  The girls are home from school, we're eating corn on the cob every night, the strawberries we planted for the first time this year are ripening to ruby red, and we are ending the days in a state of dirty stickiness that is only acceptable in summer. Chris started a new job last week (that was what that phone call we were waiting for in the last post was about) and while it's basically a form of boot camp right now, he is coming home happy and excited like I've never seen him be about work. Things are good.

But my brain is still on school-year overdrive, like a hamster wheel that's still spinning from its old momentum even after the hamster has gotten off. It's hard to detox from the mode of "must get this to-do list done," isn't it? And I do still have work, both the regular variety and the Big Project kind (more on that this week.) But I am determined (you know, in a relaxed kind of way) to chill out this summer. Despite my best intentions after our vacation back in April, I let myself go a little crazy this spring: all hopped up on caffeine and adrenaline, trying to do It All. I talk a good line about putting yourself on the priority list as a mother, about being "good enough" and all that. And I really do believe that stuff. Yet the pull to try to be perfect - to be everywhere, do everything, and not let anyone down - is insanely strong and I definitely have not been walking my talk lately. And look, how interesting, I haven't been posting here much... Because, of course, I haven't been making much... Because stress is the antidote to creativity, at least for me. So: enter summertime. Even if I have to make a stupid plan to do it, I WILL relax and enjoy myself, and refocus on my creative life. Again.

So here's the plan, at least as much as I have. I figure I'll make the rest up as I go along. Or just not really do any of it. You know, whatever. (She said, in a summery sort of way.)

1. Summer Reading List:

I've been building up a little pile of books. Books I've had for a while and been meaning to read, or that I've borrowed from my mom - books I'm excited about reading, all together in one place so I can't get away with complaining that I have nothing to read. Some smart chick lit, a couple of memoirs, a little witchiness, and two classics. I love Isherwood and have been moderately obsessed with him ever since I watched the beautiful documentary Chris and Don: A Love Story, about his long-term relationship with (much younger) portrait artist Don Bachardy. A fascinating and utterly moving movie. Anyway, it's lovely to read his older stuff. He's an amazing writer.

2. Go out (without the kiddos) for some pure entertainment:

Roller Derby. Um, enough said. So excited!

3. Get outside and play more, and celebrate the season in our home, too:

Summer altar, with assorted pretty things.

(I love this gorgeous vase that was my grandma's.)

4. Sew myself a sundress:

Part of this weekend, I tucked myself into a corner of the dining room - on the floor behind the table where the kids could at least partially forget about me - and started on the Trapeze Dress from Heather Ross' Weekend Sewing. I've had good luck with this book (see here), and I really love this wild fabric I'm using, so I'm looking forward to seeing how this comes together. Will certainly report back!

5. Rock a bright manicure as often as possible:

I make no apologies for loving the girly stuff. Painted nails just make me happy, and this summer I want to go all-out. Neon green is next.

6. Play more Candy Land:

This one's symbolic. I DO hope to get in some good games of Candy Land this summer, but what this really means is say yes to the girls more. I've been getting confused lately about what exactly I'm supposed to be teaching them. "Act more like a stressed-out grown-up" seems to have been the dominant message. It's got to change. I hope to put myself in their hands more, let them dictate the pace and silliness level of our days. This one is maybe the hardest of all, because my god is it hard to just sit and be with them, play with them, when the siren songs of Computer, Dishes, Laundry, and Phone are calling my name. But it's summertime. And kids just intrinsically know how to do summer, don't they? We may have forgotten how to relax, but they don't even know what relaxing is - they call it FUN.

(Maeve with her first-ever sparkler yesterday evening, feeling very BIG and very lucky.)

(Amazement and joy watching the fireworks.)

So that's the overarching project of the next two months. Do less. Have more fun. Further suggestions are always welcome. What are YOU most excited about doing/not-doing this summer?

Botanical Gardens

On a recent trip to the New York Botanical Gardens with my kids and my mom, I had the chance to soak in all the gorgeous color, especially in the rose garden. Oh my goodness. Nature is a bold dresser, no? She's not afraid of wearing the most extravagent accessories...

These were translucent and glowed, despite being brilliantly colored. It was like they were made of some kind of different matter than other flowers, like they were just made of light...

Love how the natural color of these evoked some vintage, faded photograph.

Wild color combinations.

See the bumblebee?

Flowers are such an easy and pleasurable subject for photographs. They don't move much, for one thing -- unlike children. And they're so beautiful. So unbelievably beautiful.