breeeeeeathe, i am breathing sighs of relief...saturdays are like a circus for me, and now i am home on my back porch, listening to lauryn hill and my neighbor's lawn mower and the birdies chirping and my dog laughing...so sweet...the espresso machine at my job faces a big picture window which is right on the street, so there is always something interesting to look at and today, my oh my, i saw a wonderfully stylish female walking past...as im steaming milk i see my camera on the shelf above my bed (and other things i left at home this morning...sorry dad) and frown a little...

this isnt even close to what she had worn, but when i consulted my crystal ball asking for inspiration from what i had seen today, this appeared before my eyes and i remembered...sure, she may have been wearing an oversized white tee shirt cinched around the waist with a south american style woven belt in those oh-so-beautiful-colors and a simple black skirt with her hair all dreamy and mussed...i remembered that in some way we all inspire each other to (hopefully) live our lives a little bit more groovily, a little bit more stylishly...

                                    :...:.....ooohlala.....:...:

...its true... 

...

                                               ............:::............

youve seen them maybe in the flesh maybe in print ads maybe in your dreams; i see them everywhere and sometimes i shake my head and think cha because i see the absence of the soul they being born of a need to be bought, sold...thats not how we do, cha...

no, not even a little bit... 

in my crystal-ball-cigar-box i saw a room lined in deep velvet with pillows and soft blankets everywhere and we were all laughing in antique silver feathers and brass bones

heres to the soul

heres to the dream

heres to love

heres to style

spring!! and paper people

my first crocus.  wow.  right? and spring, my friends, has sprung... just ask my crocus.  and my beautiful friend amethyst who was wearing sandals today!  can you imagine?   thats the thing about this thing... a perfectly groovy opportunity presented itself (beautiful friend wearing flips) and instead of breaking out my camera we hugged and kissed and separately went out into this most amazing day!  so im getting

 used to this... camera toting... slowly...

im really not one for graphic t-shirts, but i found this one (when i totally should not be shopping) at a resale shop so so so close to my job... anyway... i love the image.  and if i were adept at taking pictures of myself (im pretty sure my camera has a timer on it, i just have no idea where)  i would show you that i am wearing the shirt with these amazing couch-upholstery pants and killer shoes in one, fluid photograph:

yeah, the picture is upside down... but like the image on the t (sort of) this is a growing process through the pains of trial and error... take this, for example:

here's me thinking i'd found the timer... but i kinda like the picture, and the black and white, while unintended, is pretty cool too id say... so anyway, i recently read a very wonderful book.  its called The People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia.  please, give yourself the pleasure of reading this book, your heartmindsoul will thank you for it.  and i think i read it at the most perfect moment, winter transitioning to spring, coming through the gates of what im certain was my saturn returning and loving everything that is all the more for it... mmm hmm, breath it in... the beautiful challenges of living... some of which bring out such vile ugliness, some of which bring out that inner hand shake, that damn-self-you-are-a-damn-fine-self, and some of which leave you breathless at your ability to survive... accepting all of it, taking it like medicine and evolving, walking into truth and accepting humanness... style.  and ooooh wee, do i count myself lucky for the stylish humans i have the pleasure of knowing and loving.  anyway, let me present to you a quote from The People of Paper now before the relevance becomes obscured:

But there are forces that don't let you turn back and undo things, because to do so would be to deny what is already in motion, to unwrite and erase passages, to shorten the arc of a story you don't own.

it struck me when i read it.  i hope it strikes you.  i hope you read it.  onward.  i like your style.

so i was sitting in my backyard looking at the apples growing in the trees and all the apples on 

the ground and i was struck by three thoughts:

how cool

what to do with all these apples?

nature is brilliant, no, so very very stylish

to be honest, i dont know that much about gardening, or the life cycles of plants.  i tend to 

notice that certain things are in season, especially here in the northwest come berry season.

but i do love it, the mystery, that for me, is its making.

so i got to thinking about our role in nature, not so much what we do to destroy it, but

rather how we adorn ourselves in it...

i have always had a courtship with shoes though lately its become something of an affair...

and sitting out here in my backyard i thought of a few pairs in particular with such tenderness

and i wondered how they would look in the wild...

i think they look bold, daring, coy even...

so...what? 

if we love things, we care about them more... hopefully thats obvious

how about loving things for everything that is their making absolutely-and-completely- 

one-hundred-percent independently of us...

what i mean is this:  i take my dog for walks around the neighborhood, pick sprigs of 

rosemary from neighboring bushes and am so amazed

the sound of my shoes on the pavement

the crows perched on wires

the apples

my dog

the leaves turning

wearing a scarf

my favorite earrings

we are living in crazy tilted times, people are falling off and we are all struggling to hold on

but stop

check it all out, wherever you are

to very loosely quote my man carl sagan, everything, every little atom and fragment

is in such exactly perfect placement for all of this to be here...

hows that for style?

another roadside attraction

have you read it? i have a feeling tom robbins loved amanda most of all... or maybe its just that i do... page 12, about halfway down the page:

    "The most important thing in life is style.  That is, the style of one's existence--the characteristic mode of one's actions--is basically, ultimately what matters.  For if man defines himself by doing, then style is doubly definitive because style describes the doing."

....

    After nearly an hour's monologue, she summed up by remarking,  "It is content, or rather the consciousness of content that fills the void.  But the mere presence of content is not enough.  It is style that gives content the capacity to absorb us, to move us; it is style that makes us care."

its been a while since ive cited a work of literature, so while im sure i could look up the mla guidelines, i hope mr robbins (or his publishers) wont be too upset at my referencing amanda, because it is only out of love,  deep and undying love of the unique, that drives me...

there are those out there who are truly stylish... like they couldnt be anything but... and you know when you see them because you cant look away and you cant stop smiling...

i like your style