it's a funny thing that we have to learn to be present in our own lives. and humbling how difficult it is to remember. jeremy and i are doing a really good job this year at kicking the winter blues in the nards and it's definately thanks in part to my concentrated efforts in staying presently aware.
this is easier now that i exercise, and exercise is easier now that's it habit, and healthy habits are easier to apply to everything else (food, drinking) when you see their obvious benefits seeping across all aspects of your being like a pleasant, pervasive ooze. maybe more like a fruit smoothie spill.
i do ballet, we do yoga, i walk 10 kilometres every day. i lift weights, i run full tilt for short distances, i dance modern interpretive numbers in the living room. if a day goes by and i don't do any assortment of these things i can actually feel the difference in my body. my head longs to be upside down and my legs long to be stretched forward and backward in some combined motion of dance and circus performance. movement, i think, is one of the secrets of the good life.
stillness is harder but the pathway might be the same. isn't that the point of yoga? inner calm through body connection? something like that? you could say that anything that engages your body and your mind together is something endangered in this life and wholly good and important. i saw pina with jessica on wednesday, that film about the modern dance composer pina bausch, and thought what a worthwhile and noble challenge - to express one's self fully through dance. i can close my eyes and recall the viewing experience, still.
when we aren't pumping iron or practicing our shoulder stand, we're listening to new ideas on TED talks or radiolab. we like our CBC app for iPad - quirks and quarks, stuart mclean, canada reads. classical music on radio 2 because julie nesrallah makes the experience approachable and enjoyable even if you understand only shining bits of what she's saying. mountains of books from the library - right now on our learning table we have a van gogh picture book, walton ford's pancha tantra and the stargazers galaxy atlas.
we paint and sculpt and look for truths in non-fiction books, we write down big ideas on big paper and the chalk door in the kitchen. we're learning the art of massage.
last night we watched mary and max and i highly recommend that you do the same. the story of a young australian girl and her middle aged new york city pen pal balances whimsy with deeply dark truthfulness. that's my favourite blend. i cried in jeremy's lap as the credits rolled and thought about how my tears of sadness carried chemicals of release from my body. leaving me both lighter and heavier with emotion and truth.
that's right, you won.
it's good to pretend you're winning some races!
this is actually a dramatic reenactment, the first time i won jeremy was busy photographing nature.
a worthy distraction, to be sure.
citrus stills in sunshine
unbeknownst to each other we both managed to photograph the oranges this morning.
good thing we're together! good thing for oranges too!
getting their glamour shots taken and all.
learnings and findings
lately we’ve been interested in art. i got jeremy acrylic paints for christmas and it turned out to be a gift for both of us as our new favourite weekend activity is sitting side by each in the art room, trying out different paint techniques. jeremy likes the group of seven or their modern day contemporaries like david grieve. i like impressionism and fauvism and especially the bright bold colours of kees van dongen.
coco chanel is a fascinating character. the particularly juicy bits are her humble beginnings and her love affairs with boy capel and igor stravinsky. although there is something unsettling about her willingness to engage in relationships with married men, the times she lived in were different, her lack of family status a very real obstacle to marriage, and marriage itself much more of a social convention than the standard of equality and partnership it is today. she loved, she created, she lived – and all outside of what society had in store for women of that time period. plus hello beautiful clothing!
in our outdoor adventures we’ve been taking weekend hikes in corruthers woods. it’s a section of the don valley that is directly behind our apartment and can entertain one (or two!) for hours with its meandering trails and riverside ambles. it’s really remarkable how much green space toronto has and how easily accessible it is from so many places in the city. this weekend we’re doing a hike from the lakeshore, all the way up to the brick works on the lower don trail. we're meeting mel and alan in the distillery district then we'll hop on the trail from the lakeshore, meandering our way slowly north, stopping to sight-see and share sandwiches.
wheatberries are a remarkable grain. they have an almost ground-meat-like texture which jeremy noticed and i capitalized on by suggesting we season them with spices and use them for veggie tacos - delicious! we've also used them to make stuffing (wheatberry and cranberry) and to add a little crunch to our salads. they're used to make an eastern european porridge called kutya by cooking them slowly over a period of days. how alluring is something that takes that much time? in a world where everything is instant or quicker? very i'd say. i'd like to fill my bowl up with slowness please and savour every. single. drop.
coco chanel is a fascinating character. the particularly juicy bits are her humble beginnings and her love affairs with boy capel and igor stravinsky. although there is something unsettling about her willingness to engage in relationships with married men, the times she lived in were different, her lack of family status a very real obstacle to marriage, and marriage itself much more of a social convention than the standard of equality and partnership it is today. she loved, she created, she lived – and all outside of what society had in store for women of that time period. plus hello beautiful clothing!
in our outdoor adventures we’ve been taking weekend hikes in corruthers woods. it’s a section of the don valley that is directly behind our apartment and can entertain one (or two!) for hours with its meandering trails and riverside ambles. it’s really remarkable how much green space toronto has and how easily accessible it is from so many places in the city. this weekend we’re doing a hike from the lakeshore, all the way up to the brick works on the lower don trail. we're meeting mel and alan in the distillery district then we'll hop on the trail from the lakeshore, meandering our way slowly north, stopping to sight-see and share sandwiches.
wheatberries are a remarkable grain. they have an almost ground-meat-like texture which jeremy noticed and i capitalized on by suggesting we season them with spices and use them for veggie tacos - delicious! we've also used them to make stuffing (wheatberry and cranberry) and to add a little crunch to our salads. they're used to make an eastern european porridge called kutya by cooking them slowly over a period of days. how alluring is something that takes that much time? in a world where everything is instant or quicker? very i'd say. i'd like to fill my bowl up with slowness please and savour every. single. drop.
pretty things
"the dress must not hang on the body but follow its lines. it must accompany its wearer and when a woman smiles the dress must smile with her."
madeleine vionnet
"the best accessory for any frock, is jeremy and a lip lock."
jennifer sorrell
skeleton
i wish there was a way to know my own bones. to observe their unique valleys and curves and ask them philosophical questions about the roles that strength and silence have played on their success. i wonder if they’ll feel lonely, in the end, without the weight of the rest of me – layers of tissues and ribbons of complex tubes – all gone and melted back to some organic state.
or if they’ll feel light and oddly free. as you do in that moment when you’ve longed for silence and finally it’s come and instead of feeling alone, you feel at one with almost everything.
or if they’ll feel light and oddly free. as you do in that moment when you’ve longed for silence and finally it’s come and instead of feeling alone, you feel at one with almost everything.
my husband, the artist.
so jeremy sorrell is a big time artiste. he's the last guy to admit it too which makes him an adorable genius and me the luckiest wife ever on christmas morning. he made me SO many cool things this year.
like this moss terrarium. he called it 'christmas in the cretaceous' and it's a mini ecosystem complete with soil and plant matter and the tiniest snails you ever did see. also velociraptors and a brontosaurus.
and this taxidermy style nature plate on which he's made all the bugs out of various leaves, seeds, pods and twigs. collected from our many out of door walks and shoved in his pockets quickly, so i wouldn't notice.
this is a golem and jeremy made him out of clay. the mystical symbols he carved in his body bring the golem to life. he'll spend his short life serving his master, (me) before his clay body crumbles and his glowing heart fades. until then he's lovely to look at, lit up with tea-lights on the window ledge.
i love his heavy, curled hands. and that i've never heard of a golem before jeremy made me one. and that i'm married to jeremy.
and lastly there's this! the pièce de résistance! i actually don't have a favourite thing but i love this one a lot and i love using that term so there you have it.
this is the moon, complete with its proper craters and ridges, and a sky full of stars and a little house looking on.
it's plasticine on canvas and jeremy said it's our house in the future in the winter. presently it hangs in our bedroom where i can look at it in the moments before i fall asleep and think about the moon and the ground and the space in between.
amazing, eh?! i am amazed. i am blessed and i am amazed and i am selling tickets in advance to jeremy's first show.
extended holiday
merry christmas!!
is everyone still enjoying themselves? feeling festive? gorging on clementines and assorted nuts?
jerry seinfeld once likened people snapping out of the christmas spirit to people coming out of a drunken stupor. boxing day is still pretty christmasy (unless you go to the mall) and you can potentially negotiate the entire week between christmas and new years as one big holiday but i know what he means. it's all this big work up to this amazing day of love and turkey and then WHAM. the bus schedule resumes to normal and people are getting angry at each other in the parking lot at best buy.
it doesn't have to be that way though, you know. in fact it's our new years resolution in the sorrell household to stay (figuratively) in the drunken stupor all year long. and why the heck not? it's still winter and it's still the end of one year and the start of the next and there's still so much to be thankful for and so many reasons to slow down and take stock of them.
also we have champagne left.
it doesn't have to be that way though, you know. in fact it's our new years resolution in the sorrell household to stay (figuratively) in the drunken stupor all year long. and why the heck not? it's still winter and it's still the end of one year and the start of the next and there's still so much to be thankful for and so many reasons to slow down and take stock of them.
also we have champagne left.
it's this moment right here
i'm sitting at home watching love actually. the wrapping is done and the fridge is full. when jeremy gets home we're going out to get the christmas hens and share an assortment of pastries over giant mugs of something hot.
later we're making ginger molasses cookies. later still we're listening to a holiday special on the cbc.
this is the sweet spot of christmas, isn't it? when all the preparations come together and you relax into the season that has taken on a tempo of its own. you enjoy. you eat. you drink. you sing. your home is brimming with warmth and food and presents waiting for their shining moment.
these are all shining moments. sparkling little collective gems of joy and peace, i think of everyone celebrating something and am filled with nostalgia and hope and milky sweet tea.
merry merry.
later we're making ginger molasses cookies. later still we're listening to a holiday special on the cbc.
this is the sweet spot of christmas, isn't it? when all the preparations come together and you relax into the season that has taken on a tempo of its own. you enjoy. you eat. you drink. you sing. your home is brimming with warmth and food and presents waiting for their shining moment.
these are all shining moments. sparkling little collective gems of joy and peace, i think of everyone celebrating something and am filled with nostalgia and hope and milky sweet tea.
merry merry.
baby barn owl with scarf
this little pip is a custom order. i wrapped her scarf twice for fashion and the late december wind.
she doesn't have a name yet. she needs some time to develop traits and a fine personality.
the holidays are here!! even though i have a holiday cold, i'll take one of those with jeremy and some tea over any other option out there.
reading and writing (an affair)
"how does the reading feed into the writing, and vice versa? continually, continuously, promiscuously, in a million ways.”
philip pullman
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