home from the road

We walked over tree roots and fallen leaves, we stood beside the sound of waterfalls and silent creek beds. I watched pebbles roll down from the cliff side and I made sure not to trip as the fall would be long and not worth the trouble. I survived again and I will see my hair grow longer and my heart grow deeper as nature encourages this kind of resolution. I will see more days. I am here. I will listen to nature's endless symphony, which you can hear no matter where you are standing. I will cry. I will laugh. I will have moments of cursing the air for not making me feel like I belong and I will have moments where a grin forms with the knowledge that I do belong. An otter here, a seal there, barking dogs, waves chanting at the moonlight, you, I, everything. It is such a pleasure to be alive today. And if I die tomorrow, tell the world I lived. I lived. I lived & I lived some more as the blue sea sings its song for those who want to hear it. 

It rained all through the night but the sun has returned for early morning how are you's. I laid in my bed as the soft sound pitter pattered against the grain of the roof and it felt like I was being rocked to sleep in a cradle. Something about the sea makes me feel less worried, less closed, less concerned about the way earth can feel at the bottom of my feet. I simply exist. And sometimes, that is all we can hope to gain in a day, the knowing of how we are existing, living and pumping blood through our roots. I don't have ego here. I don't have riddles running through the brain. I have nothing to solve. I have nowhere to be. The sea calls to me like a friend to say "This is it. This is it. You are here. Glad to have you."

The morning view from the porch where we stayed.

Frozen yogurt by the sea, no place else I'd rather be.

The mountainside in Alberta - on our way to beautiful British Columbia.

We returned home safely after a week on the road and by the sea. I have so many photographs and stories to share with you, but for now, I'll leave you with a few snippets of our days spent traveling to Vancouver Island and visiting the sea like it was where we were born, the truest home for us, the place where our troubles attach to balloon strings and float away into the sky.

I'll be seeing you soon.

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and then there was autumn.

Tomorrow, we leave for the sea. You can't be blue as a berry when a road trip is ahead of you. I can almost feel the sea waves tangling my hair and the early morning rising with an extra spring in my step. I know it will be beautiful, especially at this time of year. There will be trees dressed in fox-like colors and their leaves will look electric as if tiny soft televisions are falling from the sky. I won't have any need to gulp my coffee as if it were water and I was thirsty. No, instead, I will drink slowly as I wander by beaches and beach glass and sea birds flying high.

And then there was Autumn and it invited the sea,

my favorite place to be.

If you'd like to follow along on my adventure, visit my instagram.

outfit details: winners sweater, topshop hat, montana tackstore boots

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lassoing the sun

This is a post about trying and failing to lasso the summer season. I'm not yet ready for sweaters, wool socks and warm chocolate milk, perhaps I will never be ready for such things. I want the freedom that comes with barefoot sleeps and running to the yard where a bramble is full of edible berries. I coo and caw like a crying child — soft white clouds, don't you leave me. Sun shaped shadows along the grass, don't you disappear.  Flowers twisting and turning like cotton dresses in the wind, don't you stop brightening the day ahead of me. I belong to the shade of a tall apple tree where the hourglass of living comes to a pause. I am not myself in the hands of another season, but I try. I try, try, and then I try again.

It's all I can do.

I shouldn't cry out like this because instead of lassoing the sun, I will be traveling to the ocean and a week will be spent there with my family come September 14th. It has been over a year since I last squished my toes against the sand and let the salty air sing "you are home" to me. I know I will be filling my belly with all sorts of chowders and fresh from the vine island produce. I know I will sleep like a baby as the sound of sea waves roll me over like a loving mama. I need this. To trade the hum for hush and unplug myself from the wall that is worries and wondering, to stand in my own solitude next to the sea again. I don't know about you, but the sea to me is a place where buds of trouble stop from blooming and all you're left with is a generous helping of everything will be okay.

If only we could all find a place like the sea in our hometowns — a place we can go to when we're searching for the quiet parts inside ourselves that no one ever hears.

outfit details: a vintage affair dress, bait footwear shoes

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the wilderness

 One day, we will all walk into the wilderness. We know not when, we know not why. It is something that will happen whether we ask for it, whether we live good lives and do good deeds, whether we drink green smoothies, run great miles or sit on the sofa drinking ginger beer out of a tall can. The end of a season, the end of a love, the end of a life, it is all just a matter of clock spins and what we choose to do within them. I say this because I watch the world around me and I see a small army of ruthlessness and hurt that makes my own eyes fill with salt. Why do we have to always be 'experts' on everything? Why do we make friends only to talk over them? Why don't we ask more questions? Why is "how are you" considered small talk? When will we rise in the morning and discover the bees need our help, the girls need our love and taking a second out of our day to think of somebody else and not for them is beautiful like flowers in the spring or dogs putting their heads on our laps. We spend so much time wanting our hearts to be like mountains — the bravest, the tallest, the least footprints on it. We want better, always better and we don't want others to know that we too can fill our bathwater with tears.

I know the world has its greatness. I write those stories all of the time. I know the clouds will part to reveal hazy sunshine and happy children running home to a warm supper, but sometimes, the floorboards snap beneath my feet and I become air - floating and falling while my heart beats on. I overhear somebody say "she's just a girl" or "look at me, look at me!" When this happens, I can feel myself walking closer to the wilderness and then I have to pause to remember the times when I saw something treasured - like people being themselves or the sea whispering in and out by the sand where I built my castle. I have to remember for every crooked moment, there was a hummingbird buzzing or a mother being kissed on the cheek. Yes the opposite is also true, for every awing moment, there was somebody breaking glass or bruising a heart, but I can't afford a life where I am haunted by what could be dressed in the darkness of night.

I don't want to live in a world where I forget what is beautiful and what bandages the broken skin, but I also don't want to live in a world where I turn my head away from the crying and only look for the days dressed by sunshine. It is a trying balance and it leaves me tired. Who will mend this suffering? Who will keep the poetry alive? Who will allow us to marry or not? Who will turn to the girls and say "you can do this." 

You can do this.

We are learning and we will always be learning until the day when we leave for the wilderness

 and

 we

 don't

 come back.

outfit details: all thrifted

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how to be me

Sometimes, the sun leaves out compromise and summertime boards a train sooner than you'd want it to. It's like having a whole bag of dill pickle chips waiting at home for you and when you get there, somebody else ate them. I want to always be aware of how lucky it is to be here, to be living on this planet, to be me, but sometimes, all I can do is let images run through my mind like moving pictures on a little screen. What do I see? A garden, a beanstalk towering over me, barefooted on the sand, waves rolling in and out, smiling dogs, an endless summer being drank like a sweet juice that leaves no cavity. It is in these images I have come to know who I am and what I dream for, but it's not always easy to watch summer leave you while you're living in your head.

On December 13th, in the wintertime, I was born. I have spent every waking hour since then traveling between what is and what ifs. I want to slow down — to follow my own advice, dying is a guarantee, live for today, don't waste your wishes, be yourself, and fight for your solitude. Even I, the woman who pens the ends of poems and stories with messages about saying c'est la vie to the fear and the doubt can cry over small things. Even I can let my coop be ruled by somebody who hurt my feelings or the way the world looks when I'm watching the news. A gust of wind can roll into town and suddenly, my day is teeter tottering between sad and downright angry.

I want to land among the stars.

I want to always have guts, hope and moving pictures.

I want to know how to love in every season — even the ones where flowers don't grow.

I am still learning how

to

be

me

outfit details: chicwish dress, crown & glory floral crown

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