maira kalman

more gorgeous photography

corey arnold is working two jobs at once - he's both an alaskan crab fisherman and a photographer. though some of his photographs are gruesome, most are just bizarrely beautiful.

i miss summertime.

from sabrina ward harrison's new photography shop

chaos.

after my yoga class last night i went to a bar on u street for a crime prevention meeting. this past weekend there were six murders in dc; two of them were in my neighborhood. two weeks ago a seventeen-year-old girl was murdered in a club just a few blocks from my house.

i grew up in iowa. miles and miles of stretching cornfields. we kept our doors unlocked. i often ran alone at night - even when it was pitch-black. we were scared of drunk drivers, meth trailers, and perverts who hung out by the swimming pool. in college we left our doors open (literally open, as well as not locked) and my brother sometimes slept on the porch in a hammock. not once did it ever worry me that someone might hold me at gunpoint - steal my belongings, rape me, stab me, shoot me.

i still don't think about it very often. i trust my neighbors. i smile at people on the street. naive midwestener? maybe. i don't walk home past nine by myself. i don't wear headphones or talk on my phone when it's dark. i lock my doors. i watch out for my neighbors. i don't want to become cold, guarded, and scared. but after the meeting last night i'm scared. i walk the eight blocks from my yoga studio home with my keys out, my body tensed, my heart beating like a hummingbird trapped in a mason jar. walking home the other night i saw a huge display of graffiti across the side of a yellow house. the owner was outside, a tall black man with curly brown hair. "i'm really sorry that happened to your house,"i said to him as i passed. he laughed and thanked me, but responded, "if i wanted a gated community that's where i'd live. this is the city. this is living."

sometimes i miss those midnight runs on a country road, but then i curl into the window of a cafe on a busy street, and i know this is where i'm supposed to be. i'm learning to unclench my fists.

the weekend in retrospect.

the eastern market from dcist

the red room bar at the black cat/black & blue beer/these united states/sleeping in/skipping yoga and not feeling guilty/soy chai at busboys & poets/bead shopping in dupont/"has anyone ever told you look like drew barrymore?" um, yessss./laughing with amelia/making dinner and drinking wine with my roommates/cabbing to susanne's birthday party/cuban drummers/lots of dancing/caprihanas/salsa dancing with my new friend from lima

it was a beautiful one.

i had to share this beautiful apartment from san fran's apartment therapy. it's my dream place. see more.

an excerpt from my ever-so-wonderful soul friend, marie, who is living in the mississippi delta for two years with her boyfriend doing teach for america. i had to share it though i didn't ask. it's too beautiful to sit in my email storehouse.

a delta-driving update:
this afternoon i determined to find a back-roads country drive home. i was a bit scared i'd end up in alabama, not knowing back-roads at all, but i needed it. here's what i found: a yellow airplane in it's own hangar, five chestnut horses grazing a field glowing green, a long and narrow swamp of black trees grey water silver light-shadows. the crowning moment was a red painted-wood shed with a wooden chair and desk just inside the 6-paned window, waiting for a writer.

mis favoritos: marie, christina & i at our RED PARTY

robert frost wrote, "the best way out is through."

since i was fifteen, i've scribbled that quote on notebooks but never really understood it. to me in meant, trudging through things to get through them. i think i even had it next to my yearbook photograph my senior year. (how teenage-angtsy of me.) i think this is part of getting older. knowing that you have to go through something deeply, painfully, like squeezing a washcloth until all of the water is out, until you are able to heal. losing - whether it's a death, a breakup, a fire - is a the most fragile feeling in the world. the past few months i've felt like i have two clenched fists (or fifty) and i'm just now able to uncurl my fingers.

i was reading an article that talked about "hooking." how we are always looking for something new to hook us and spin us in another direction, away from where we are now. i have definitely done that in the past, knowing that the only thing that could quiet my mind was to be somewhere equally loud. i don't feel that anymore. i don't feel that desperate feeling to find something else. things begin from the inside out, rather than the other way around.

"life is cyclical- we pass through different moods, we live through seasons, we have times of rich harvests and times of bleak winter. life uses cycles to create newness. we move from the old to the new only as we pass through the cycle of chaos. we need to let go of the old (which always feels terrible,) before new life and capacity can arise. instead of fleeing from the fearful place of chaos, or trying to rescue people from it. leaders need to help people stay with the chaos, help them walk through it together, and look for the new insights and capacities that can emerge."

margaret j. wheatley

brilliant!

so the thought of plain white walls in a studio apartment was seriously scaring me. sure i could add a few paintings here at there, maybe a few scarves to hang from a doorway, but i liked the idea of some sort of design or paint.

enter blik! while checking out apartmenttherapy i found these beauties.