the heart of mountain country

Last night I dreamed of a tiny wooden cabin in the heart of mountain country. In this dream, there were windows cracked open to let the sound of bird chatter into the house. A tiny wooden cabin with a door as bright as yellow sunshine and the sound of dishes clinking and clacking in a kitchen. It was inviting in its own delicate way, not a single window or wooden beam looked groomed, broken pallets sat next to a dusty oak shed, tufted hairgrass and baby's breath were growing tall and mighty just like bean stalks do. It looked like a place I could call my home.

The way a sunbeam frolics in my dreams is always hazy and blossomy like a summertime flower. I try to pull at the sun but it stays where it wants to be, high in the sky and healing. I never realize the dream is only a dream until morning comes. My body sleeps in the cotton-covered bed but I live in my minds view of a tiny wooden cabin in the heart of mountain country. When morning is here and the faint scent of coffee rises into the air, I know that my dream was only a dream, but a good dream nonetheless. Some days, I open both eyes at once as if I am in a mad hurry to hear my name. Other days, I settle in and fall back into my pillow for safe keeping. It is only after waking do I realize how I wish these dreams were what I called my life.
This tiny cabin in the mountains with its door as bright as yellow sunshine is a place I've never visited in my waking life. I built the tufted hairgrass and the baby's breath while I slept. Is this dream of a cabin with its dusty oak shed and wildflowers simply a story told to me while I sleep or is this a calling I should listen to? 

Some people ask me what it is about pressed flowers and fruit trees that lure me into a frenzied warble. My answer could only be that life is a melting pot of glum and goodness, but the pressed flowers and fruit trees are here to bring sunbeams closer to the skin. This is my time for turning dreams into days of fruit picking and flower growing. This is me learning how to build a life that leads me to the tiny cabin in the heart of mountain country.

The Outfit
Dress, Blouse & Hat – Thrifted from Value Village
  Bear tights OASAP 
Boots – A Western & Tackle store in Montana

wild oak and pinecone dreams

When I go out walking by woods or by water, I try to keep from staring at my feet or the pebbles beneath me. I want to be wide-eyed while I study the way sunshine bends shapes and turns them into shadows. I want to know where the cooing sound comes from. I want to see every squirrel, bird, blossom, and berry. 

 I have a deep seeded fear, like children do when running up a darkened staircase at night, that one day the woods or I will cease to exist. I never know when the day will come, so I treat the fear like an outcry for me to never take the forest or my senses while wandering through it for granted. I may have seen the mother bird building a nest many times before, but it always feels like the first and last time to me.

I think of my life as if it were a summertime fruit, filled with sweet sugary pulp that must be eaten before it ripens and decays. I take notice of little everyday things that make life a poem worth reading aloud or an epitaph worth smiling over. If I thought of my life and where I wander any differently, the forest and the mother bird building her nest would go unnoticed to me. I could think differently and live simply without a heavy heart but life would be colorless for me. If tomorrow I lay dying, I'll be grateful to have found feelings in a forest and sugar in my everyday life.

To realize the magic of the woods, let the bark of the wild oak tree meet with the bark of the dog. There is something to be learned when you watch a dog sniffing his way through the pebbles and dirt. I love my dogs for always leading me to a place where senses are more important than destinations.
The Outfit
Dress – Oasap
  Hat Scala Hats from Winners

Reasons to keep a journal

Keeping a journal has always been important to me. From a small age, when my hands were still made of baby fat and my eyes knew very few words, I began writing in a journal as a way of entertaining myself. It all started with a fuzzy blue diary complete with lock and key, my mother gave it to me so I could doodle and let my feelings out of my head and onto the paper. I don't think she realized at the time how important this little journal would become for me. It was here where I learned to write stories, understand my emotions, laugh at the world around me and discover what it meant to be Amy. This journal was my home. It taught me about myself and helped me to discover the world I live in.

My journal was my sea in which I swam, my wishbone and my friend. I am forever grateful to the journal makers and journal buyers of the world for giving everybody a voice and a place to tell their own story. Here are my reasons for keeping a journal. Let me know your reasons in the comments!
  
Why you should keep a journal:
  • Journal writing is therapeutic. When you have tear filled eyes after a bad day, you can always count on the pen meeting the empty pages of your journal as a way of making yourself feel better. Writing in your journal is like talking to a friend whom you can trust wholeheartedly.
  • A journal is a place for self reflection. Two years from now, you can look through your journals and see how much you have grown.
  • You learn to write for yourself: not for an audience and not for an applause. In this day and age of instant gratification and social media sharing, we often forget why we began writing or creating art in the first place. Why does one begin writing? We write to express our inner workings and the world we see with words and to delight and entertain ourselves too.
  • You don't have to worry about being judged for your writing. Your journal is a cathedral only you can visit. You can fill it with flowers, pastries, cement, dirt and whatever else comes to your mind while you're writing in it. What matters most is being effortless and comfortable while you write, not how beautiful it would flow for someone else reading it.
  • Some of the best writing I've ever read was the journal writing of poets, ordinary folk, history-makers and authors published posthumously. However which way you look at it, journal writing is the greatest non-fiction ever penned. It tells our story. It tells stories of the world in which we live. It might scare you to think one hundred years from now, your journal could be read by a social history class or your great grandchildren, but it will mean your world and way of seeing it meant something to someone. Don't keep yourself from journal writing because you are afraid of becoming a part of history. Think of Anne Frank, Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath.
  • Journal writing is fun. You can write in lists, in paragraphs, in doodles and in poems. Your journal is your own world.
  • The brain is fickle, you can't rely on it to keep your memories safe. We always remember moments and times in our lives a little differently than how they actually came to be. Your journal is a museum for your memories. It keeps them safe for you.
  • If you're an aspiring writer, journals help you to communicate your thoughts. You can become a better writer with the honesty you put into your journal. If you're a friend, journals give you reasons to be empathetic and more understanding.
  • You don't need to be a writer to benefit from keeping a journal. You just have to be a human being with feelings. When did it become that writing was meant only for those pursuing novels, songs and published works of art? Writing should exist the same way fresh air does: to help us get to where we need to be, to remind ourselves that we are alive and to make this world a better place to belong to.
Happy Journaling!

 
   The Outfit
Skirt – Oasap
  Cardigan Zara (years ago)
 White Sweater Thrifted at Value Village
Journal Indigo bookstore (christmas gift)

a year of photographs

[A post featuring my favorite photographs taken for my life in photographs project in 2014. To see more from the project visit here or follow me on instagram: amyflyingakite] 

 The year of 2015 has officially taken flight but my heart belongs to memories of our past year. 2014 was the year of self discovery, musical growth and lots of pretty flowers. I loved, I laughed, I wept, I had sleepless nights, I had restful ones too, I grew and pressed flowers, I camped in the old growth forest, I nestled by the seaside, I swam in the seawater, I learned to play guitar my way, I sang and played my banjo for a crowd, I felt sadness and I felt triumph. If there ever was a word to describe my year, extraordinary just might do.

In 2015, let there be less weeping, more wandering and let us all find the ability to forgive and forget anything that ever troubles us. This is a beautiful world, let's explore it together.

Hello 2015!