Elizabeth Gilbert on the burdens of creativity

where in the world was emily?

I was searching for a little French paper inspiration this afternoon, and stumbled across some fuzzy, abbreviated slices of my 2009 wanderings. The nostalgia set in. But my writer's block was cured.

Where was I?

Wild Geese

by Mary Oliver.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

aujourd'hui j'aime...

LA BLOGOTHEQUE : A French website with links to intimate, impromptu concerts by amazing musicians. You don't have to speak French to navigate it, just type in the name of the band you seek to see if any recordings have been uploaded. This one, featuring Andrew Bird, gives me the chills right around 9:35. He plays all the parts. He is a brilliant man. And all of those lucky Parisians get to sit on the floor at his striped, socked feet and witness it first hand.




T.ruffles : A happy little blog by Karey Mackin and Mary Ruffle. Twice a day, Mary posts a photo and Karey follows it later with a charming subtitle. Comme ceci:



via wide open spaces

red tights and peacock prints

Obsessing over these looks at Nadinoo.

Holiday fashion aspirations:
1. pull off a pair of red tights.
2. acquire something peacock printed.
3. Do it all while still looking graceful.

Comme ceci:


Let the games begin!
via Greedy Girl

My Parents Were Awesome

My Parents Were Awesome is a website where people can upload pictures of their parents from back in the day. I'll have to rummage around the next time I'm home. My mom could slink into a pair of bell bottoms like it was nobodies business and my dad had Michael Kelso hair. What a sexy couple;)






via A CUP OF JO

peace.

Is there anything better than receiving a handwritten letter? I think the best way I've heard it described most recently is that it just "makes you feel all sparkley for the rest of the day."

I can't tell you how many times I have been complimented on my pretty notebooks and my pretty handwriting by people who take notes on laptops and text compulsively under their desks. There is nothing personal about a text; in fact, I think our generation has reached a pretty frightening threshold at which basic thought isn't even required for communication (if you would go so far as to call it communication.) Our thumbs are clicking away independent of our minds, and we push send before we've even thought it through. But when I imagine someone actually taking the time to sit, ponder what they intend to say, sip their wine, coffee, or tea, and write me a letter, well, it just makes me feel sparkley.

To the author of these little treasures which keep finding their way into my mailbox:


via freya @ etsy

les cheveux parisiens

Voila! The secret to a perfectly messy, perfectly parisian bun.


(I tend to find that I spend more time trying to make my hair look "effortlessly" chic than actually just going through my normal routine. But this morning, I am up with the sun and ready to wrestle with this curly blonde mop.)






while listening to this:



written instructions via Experience PARISIENNE
(I have a feeling that her secret is the homemade texturizing spray)

Inspiration

Love After Love
By Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

This poem hangs on my bathroom mirror and reminds me to treat myself well every morning before the beginning of another day.