365 | the most ridiculous thing

001/365 | Tuesday 5 November 2019, Prowlandia - It is Day 33 of my cycle. My bleed is imminent, and I am feeling fragile and on edge. Reminding myself to be gentle, to be soft--with myself, with others. A quiet day. A few moments of tears springing to my eyes for no real reason except Day 33-ness.

002/365 | Wednesday 6 November 2019, Prowlandia - Though Mads rides a bike sans training wheels at Grandma's house, he's convinced himself that his Batman bike is too heavy to ride without them. So, when one training wheel rattles off on our morning walk/ride, he is thrown into crisis mode. I tell him: "Look, I know it sucks to be forced to do something before you think you're ready. It so completely sucks. Believe me, I know--that's all adulthood is, bud. You just have to get on your bike and ride. Maybe it will be hard. Maybe it won't." I walk his bike for him and give him some space and time to wail and rant and then, soon enough, he's riding.

003/365 | Thursday 7 November 2019, NCMA - "Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light. Tragedy is the most ridiculous thing." - Frida Kahlo 

004/365 | Friday 8 November 2019, Wake Zone, Apex - A woman approached us before we'd settled at the cafe, and Attie attempted to greet her in the enthusiastic Attie way (i.e. knocking her down to slime her with a film of kisses and love nips). I held her harness tight, foiling her efforts. "She's in training," I told the woman. "Training for what?" she asked. "To be a good girl," I said.

005/365 | Saturday 9 November 2019, Phydeaux, Cary - Grandma asks me out of the blue, "Are you still crazy about your husband?" I feel myself grin and blush. I gush, "Yes! When he walked in the door last night, after a day of not seeing him, I was knocked over by how handsome he is. I couldn't take my eyes off him." Grandma says, "He is handsome, but there's something else..." And I know what she means. It's the something else that counts.

006/365 | Sunday 10 November 2019 - I knew when I prepped November in my daybook (read: bullet journal) that I'd run out of pages before the month was out. Daybook Volume 4 has covered the shortest time span of any daybook yet. I think Ryder Carroll would say I'm doing it right.

365 | a world without men, a world with only birds

Sunday 2 October 2016

Friday 7 October 2016 

Thursday 13 October 2016

Tuesday 18 October 2016

Thursday 20 October 2016

Saturday 22 October 2016

Sunday 23 October 2016

Tuesday 25 October 2016

Sunday 30 October 2016 

Monday 31 October 2016 | Halloween

"Loveskulls," Mariee Sioux & Bonnie Prince Billy

Photo Journal | car je suis à même, à même du présent

"L'antilope," Carla Bruni

365 | do you remember the good old days before the ghost town?

Sunday 4 September 2016 | It's cool enough in the morning to put these beautiful little plaid man shirts I've been collecting for Mads to use (on both kids). 

Monday 5 September 2016, Labor Day | In the last week, Mads has very suddenly taken to potty training, his early resistance completely forgotten. The key seems to be nudity or near-nudity, all day long. I joke with Wolfman that one day, Mads will be an adult man, stripping down completely nude in a public lavatory somewhere, freaking everyone out.

Tuesday 6 September 2016 | Since the arrival of this garden spider at my doorstep, I've decided to work with Spider medicine for the next however long she stays, or however long I need her. I've never made a concentrated effort to bring an animal totem into my life and hold that space. Literally, every time I walk out my door, it is this big, beautiful orb weaver who greets me, as she does every September in recent memory (and this is not my habit toward hyperbole; my sister who lived with me in this house for nearly two years corroborated this fact). This year, I choose to believe she has a message for me.

Wednesday 7 September 2016 | Yesterday, Grandma and I took the kids to the State Farmer's Market, one of my favorite places to spend a morning. I couldn't engage, was not truly present in the moment. I was (mostly) gentle with the children, and Grandma and I had the same good conversation we usually do, but I was preoccupied with dread knowing today I'd be at work, my first training day. Monday I felt a little uncertain when I went in to fill out paper work, and during an afternoon and day off, that uncertainty morphed into full-on unease and disquietude. I don't know if this is the job for me. I want to give the job a chance (the opportunity is, really, a decent one), but, I wonder if it's just a bad fit. Maybe this fear is just new job jitters, cold feet, self-sabotage, or maybe this job is just not me. This morning, to take my mind off my mounting misgivings, I stuck my hands in dirt--repotted a big, twisted jade plant I took off Grandma's hands a year ago. Late last night found me pruning one of my ferns. These plants speak a language I'm not quite fluent in (yet), but I find immersing myself in it therapeutic nonetheless.

Thursday 8 September 2016 | More spider medicine. This jumping spider has taken up residence in our kitchen this week. Mostly, it can be spotted traversing the ceiling, but tonight it ventured onto the stove and counter (where I mistook it for a cookie crumb at first).

Friday 9 September 2016 | Lace.

Sunday 18 September 2016 | I'm trying this new thing, knowing full well that the way I adore and gaze lovingly on my son is the way I once adored and gazed lovingly on my man. Every time I reach out to kiss, caress, hug my child, I'm going to seek out Wolfman and kiss him, caress him, hug him.

Saturday 24 September 2016 | Autumn is here, and in my overgrown side yard, I find spiders' webs draped like dropped lace handkerchiefs.

Sunday 25 September 2016 | Garden Notes: finally broke up and repotted the aloe that used to be in Sierra's bedroom when she lived here. It looked so scraggly, but once I got to work on it, I discovered there was quite a bit of new growth hidden under the lip of the pot. Also, that one little Jade leaf is propagating yet another new plant, and the leaf itself hasn't even shriveled up.

Thursday 29 September 2016 | I took one of the seed pods off the Golden Raintree that borders our property and held it out to Ella. She looked at it for the briefest of moments and then announced, "I don't like that." I was so surprised I didn't ask her to elaborate.

"Ghost Town," The Specials