let life begin again

Lately, the brush I use to paint my life seems frozen or without paint. I can forget this when the sun is warm and may flowers are swinging like a trapeze in the breeze, but if you took a magnifying glass and placed my moods in red ink on a map, you would see that I am utterly lost. I have fingers that work for stirring tea leaves. I have somebody to love. I have more friends than two hands could hold. I have wolves in my banjo and birds in my guitar. You would think this could be enough to fill the holes in a heart or to make a canvas rich in color, but as of late - it's not.

I want something else — something stranger. I want to quit feeling like I am forgotten luggage meant for the departure wing of an airport. I deserve more than this, not for any other reason than the fact that I am a human being with only so many days left for breathing. Most of the time, I am at peace with a cup of coffee and a window seat leading to the backyard where I watch whistling songbirds fly from their perch and let life begin again. Most of the time, being alive is enough for me. I don't need to be kissed, to be warmed by a fire or to travel to a new country. I don't need to fit into the boxes society tells me to or change who I am to fit somebody else's plans, but lately, I keep putting a question mark at the end of every "I am who I am." 

I have become one of those women you either are or you hear about — we are muses, we stay in the shadows even if we are destined for the light, we give and we give until we are bones. Nobody is telling me to be this way, and sometimes, I'm perfectly happy, but other times, it's only natural for women like this to stop and gasp at how little we take for ourselves. I spend all of my spare time worrying about somebody else and I let the seconds in a day slip away like it's only sand from an hourglass, but this is it, this is my life — wild, strange, wonderful, and slip slip slipping away.

 

I want to run like I am running to, not running from. I want to remember what it felt like to be in love with the world even when the sun was hiding and the day had no light. I am bored and yet I am fully aware of how life for me is intrinsically rewarding, more so than many lives who follow the path well trodden, but I have settled for what is as if I must drink tea leaves out of the same cup for the rest of my life.

I keep waiting for somebody to swoop in and bring purpose and paint into my life. I dine on the glow of morning and continue doing what I have always done. Yes, there is poetry. Yes, there is music. Yes, there is love from the floorboard all the way to the roof. It is not an absence of love or wonder I hold in my wrath, it is a lack of something new, something different, something that scares me and spurs me into growing.

It is not yet time for waiting. It is now where I must run into a new set of woods and find in myself a way of stepping out from under the shadow and into the sunshine. Unless my heart removes its beat or my lungs refuse to work, I will always have my reasons to run.

outfit details: everything was found at a thrift store
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a dream of swimming in the sea

 I don't remember the first time I went swimming in the sea. I was young and unaware of the hold sea waves could have on me. When my mother and father brought me to the sand, they knew only of how the sea made them feel. How could they be certain that every day after, I would spend my quiet hours looking for its symphony in seashells, postcards and moon colored dreams.

I belong to the sea the way a bee belongs to the flower, it is necessary if I am to find food and peace in my life. In the spirit of recognizing what makes life better, I dream of the sea. I dream of the sea not because it is pretty or safe, I dream of it because it is bold, wild, frightening, and yet no matter how strange or terrified swimming in the grasp of a wave can make me feel, I go on swimming and dreaming of it anyhow. Sometimes, I'll wonder if I was made for this world, but then the sea calls me and I'll know I belong somewhere.
I wish to live beside the sea, to walk my dog across the sands, to bring my children to it when they are young and unaware like I once was. I wish to wear my swimming suit and run freely into the place that feels like home to me - to feel the saltwater sugar on my skin. Today, I may live on the prairies, but I'll never stop listening for the roar of the sea.

outfit details: lime ricki swimming suit
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It is springtime, hallelujah

The birds are circling in the bluest sky above us, they know what is happening to the trees and the dirt. It is springtime, hallelujah, and all I can hope to do is spend my waking hours being nestled by the sun. As you know, if you often read these posts, I turn into a child the day before summer vacation when the first sign of spring occurs. I run into the grass like an entire graveyard full of the dead suddenly came back to life and returned to their homes where loved ones were missing them. I know it can't always be springtime, so I welcome it with an embrace so warm, even the truest of love would blush.

I don't want to work unless I'm in the garden. I don't want to sit where four walls keep me from the sun. I don't want to travel by train to summer — I want to take my time. This is it. This is the season where time's cruel ability to take things away goes unnoticed because we're too busy being alive with the bees. 

It is springtime warm air, rosy glow, birds are singing, digging trenches for the seeds, life has begun again, springtime. Hallelujah.

 outfit details: Chicwish dress, oasap shoes, thrifted sunhat & scarf
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Banff, Alberta, Canada

When I rise in the mountains, I turn from wallflower to wildflower, from opaque cloud to sunbeam shower, from a jar of jam that's almost gone to the sound of a strawberry jam lid when it's opened. I become less empty, more enhanced. Less cotton, more skin. Less I wish, more I am. It is here where I rise like a mountain myself until only the wind and pine groves remain.

How brave, how heavenly, as the pin-shaped leaves blow across Lake Minnewanka. I could have stayed in town and listened to the footsteps, instead I rolled to where the sun brews the most forgiving air. Nobody else was around at first, just my mum and I. We stood at the jagged edge and heard the wings of birds in the blue sky above us. We kept our distance as a herd of big horn sheep meandered by.  It was all too pleasant with the mountains as our backdrop until a school bus of loud tourists pulled in. I came to the mountains to run from the noise, and here I was, suddenly surrounded by the kind of people who feed wild animals and yell when they should whisper. I looked at them with scowling eyes, but nothing in me could stop them from startling the sheep and putting shadows where sunshine ought to be. How is it that even in the most forgiving parts of the world, all it takes is one selfish person to shrink the mountain's size? 

They eventually left and we were once again humming in mountain time. We stayed for three days, two nights, ate as much as we laughed, and found in ourselves an endless desire to return again. That is what they do to you, like a reaching grasp from a loved one's hand, these mountains are my home.

 outfit details: Free People sweater, skirt & socks, Montana lace up boots
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early april

The month of April is here and the Chinook winds stomp their way through the city, causing our hair to look wild and our braids to fall from their knot. I will always care for the warm air as it invites birds to return home and gardeners to start plotting their gardens, but sometimes it can be stubborn like a tree stump as it breaks the fence and keeps me from being able to run outside without my own hair whipping me in the face. I know spring is here because the sky is bluer and tiny electric buds are beginning to show on the May trees. I can survive the wind because it reminds me of the day before a big date  — sometimes, anticipation of the day after makes our present time seem warm and fuzzy. Soon, spring will bring bright blossoms and soft glows to the cheeks of winter denizens.

Come Thursday, I'll be heading out to the mountains for three days. Every hour leading up to a visit in the mountains feels like a full day. I am building the butterflies in my belly by dreaming of waking up to the quietness of a mountaintop. If only I could always belong to the mountains, I would sing my songs by bird chatter instead of city buses.

See you soon!

 outfit details: Boutique Onze dress, Value Village blouse, Free People boots
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