m e o w

After an early-childhood trauma, I spent some time attending both individual and group therapy. The counselors who lead the group sessions stand out in my mind like the hosts of Polkaroo; they were all smiles and friendly encouragement and their sessions seemed more like fun than anything. One day, our group took turns role-playing the members of a family (I realize, in hindsight, to observe how typical our notions of family behaviour were); other children in the group elected to be the 'mom' or the 'dad', 'brother'; etc...wanting no part of that, I asked the leaders if I could be the cat instead.

At the time, I was oblivious, but now, I'm embarrassed.

I wanted to be the family pet. What did those therapists think of me? What does that say about me as a person?

(Despite what I can only imagine must have been uncomfortable reluctance, the leaders let me make my choice and I proceeded to crawl around on the floor and generally avoided participating in their exercise as a normal person).

o h

I've been working on prints lately; getting ready to hand-colour these ladies soon.

n o t h i n g

 Blood by The Middle East - recently on repeat.

This song breaks my heart in a good way.

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I need to, try to, remind myself to step away from worrying about things that I can't physically affect. If there's nothing that I can do about it at that moment, any energy expended in relation to it is wasted; channel thoughts and choices into positive directions, not against metaphorical brick walls.

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In times of personal crisis, I've been attempting to remember past situations which causes me severe stress or anxiety; I visualize the all-consuming nature of those problems at the time and then compare it to their lack of relativity to my current life. Remember: today's disaster is tomorrow's non-issue.

d i s t r a c t e d

w a n d e r

Remembering, forgetting, amnesia, secrets, lies, truths, goals, hopes, dreams, nightmares. 

Time and place, coming and going, drifting away.

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When I was little, I would walk to the wide windows of my bedroom and survey the land beyond; I gazed across the treetops and field and imagined that I was a princess in a tower, on the verge of adventure. 

As children, the capacity to manipulate existence with the mind is magic. Eventually, the world, it's rules and expectations fade those abilities away...but maybe it would be better if we  still allowed ourselves to detach from reality. 

w o r d s

h i g h . h o p e s

i n . b l o o m

My mum loves gardening. While I was still living at home, she would often try to persuade me to come outside and help her tend to her plants; she would (and still does) joke about paying me fifty cents to weed.

Even though I love flowers as a visual concept (as explained here), I was never very keen on the concept of gardening; one (among many) of my most dreaded summer phenomena was the experience of being dragged along to an open air garden centre; the heat and inevitable swarms (or so it seemed to me!) of bees and other bugs were unbearable to me. I was also always nonchalantly adamant that when and if I ever had a garden of my own, I would simply throw hand-fulls of seeds onto the earth and let nature take its course.

It's a mystery to me, but so far this summer I feel like I'm obsessed with plants; I keep pausing when I pass by beautiful gardens in bloom and can't resist capturing them on camera.

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When I was little and we lived out in the county, there was a giant peony bush on the corner of our property; I remember staring in morbid fascination at the lush blossoms swarming with gigantic black ants.

c a k e . d a y !

Today is my birthday! I've always been the kind of person who loves their b-day (as you might have guessed from all of the exclamation marks thus far!). I love the sensation of knowing that on this day, how ever many years ago (it's 24 today) I came into existence; my mum usually calls me at 6:12 am to remind me. I love the feeling of specialness that pervades today; June 28 belongs to me. It's hard to explain, but my birthday feels like a hug, all warm and wonderful.

This birthday feels especially excellent because I know that I'm going to be surrounded by people who love me; I jam packed my weekend to make it so. In the past, I might have felt crushed when people didn't pay attention to me today, or when people that I thought were my friends showed their true colours; as wonderful as birthdays should be, they can sometimes be awfully lonely. This year however, I vow to only surround myself with positivity. I won't place my happiness in the hands of anyone else.

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In preschool, when my mum rented a giant bouncy castle for my friends and I to jump away the afternoon; when I turned 13 and had an co-ed party with spin the bottle (and felt pretty cool for once); in England on my 16th, when my Uncle bought me a selection of mini-cakes; my 19th, when my best friend told me the beach was too lame for a party; my early 20s, spent in Argentina, visiting the zoo and going to midnight movies; last year, when I spent my actual birthday alone, with pizza, Netflix and my cat, Rory (a sad one).

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I am enamored of "baby" pictures lately; see me, below, rockin' a seersucker dress (made by my gramma, who also used to make me amazing birthday cakes) as I swing the summer away on my Cookie Monster swing-set. Be free, little Sam.

f l a s h b a c k . f r i d a y . 2

Lately, it feels like all I think about is the girl in these photos: the versions of myself that existed once, long ago. I imagine them still out there somewhere, preserved on alternate plains of reality; in memory, I jump from self to self as easily as flipping through photographs, remembering.

She is me and I am her, but she's gone forever. I must finally be an adult now, mourning my childhood as if that little girl really did die.

b o n e s

Recently, while browsing through photos of old work, I came across this beautiful specemin. (It was amazing as well to rediscover so many pieces from years past that I had completely fogtten about).

When I was in the second year of my Fine Arts Undergrad, my drawing class was given an assignment to create a piece of work using a bone as a reference. Cool. What made it even better, however, was that we each got to take (and keep!) our reference bone home with us for the two week duration of the project. Some of the bones, as my Prof. explained, were plaster replicas, and some of them were real human bones. While this freaked out a couple of my classmates, I was beyond excited.

(I realize that this makes me sound like a creep).

Overachiever that I am, I wanted to challenge myself and sought out something complicated; I ended up choosing an entire (real, human) foot, with all the little parts held together by wire. I wrapped it up in a scarf and carried it with me everywhere over the duration of the assignment. I couldn't get over the idea of having real bones in my purse; I was in heaven. 

I remember the weight and delicacy of that foot when I held it, studying its contours and design; I remember the incredible way that the parts moved together, tiny pieces of an amazing machine, identical to what was in my own body. It struck me, while I was studying them, how wow the concept of each of us having our own set of bones, hidden away inside, was. I tried to imagine the person who had possessed those bones before I did , what their life was like; it was surprisingly intimate, holding a piece of a stranger in my hand.

Skeletons are hardly secret, but I appreciated my own so much more after that experience. There's something terribly romantic about bones (in the old sense of the word); they belong to the individual, are vital for life and yet remain unseen. They're beautiful and vaguely frightening all at once; they are life and death. 

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Recently, I've been paying more attention to how my body works and trying to better care for it; I've started eating clean and focusing on nurturing muscle growth and optimal digestion. In the past when I've tried to "get healthy", I failed because I didn't understand the mechanics of what was going on inside me. The body is an amazing device and I marvel at how the systems work without explicit commands from "me".  Now I'm focusing on how I feel instead of how I look; I want to be strong and healthy -- not just pretty. 

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I'm a collection of bones and muscle and memories.