winterwell
we didn’t get rained on – yay!
i did, however, freeze my unmentionables off every night. i’ve never missed jonno more…
exciting, informative, snarky, and very likely fabricated tales of life as an american expat in london
Like this postfingers crossed
not the church,
not the state,
women must decide their fate!
our bodies,
our lives,
our right to decide!
edited to add: hurrah!!
happy mother’s day
for all the wonderful mothers i know, but most especially the ones i’m lucky enough to have in my family. happy mother’s day.
the sun is arisin’, most definitely
there’s been both a lot, and yet nothing happening this week. i’m in a bit of limbo at the moment, so i’ve felt the need for some quietude.
but i woke up today to the first truly warm sunrise of the coming summer, and this breathtaking show of early morning jewels, balanced perfectly to dance in the light.
it felt like a sign. of what, i’m not yet sure – but i’ll let you know as soon as i do.
From dewy dreams, my soul, arise,
From love’s deep slumber and from death,
For lo! the trees are full of sighs
Whose leaves the morn admonisheth.
Eastward the gradual dawn prevails
Where softly-burning fires appear,
Making to tremble all those veils
Of grey and golden gossamer.
While sweetly, gently, secretly,
The flowery bells of morn are stirred
And the wise choirs of faery
Begin (innumerous!) to be heard.
“from dewy dreams” – james joyce
tommy james & the shondells – crystal blue persuasion
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i’m sitting in the middle of this ecstasy
“such beauty exists in this world as my eyes would not have believed, and it restores me – heals the damage of neglect like a balm, smoothes the thin patches and fills up the careworn gaps of my soul.”
it’s earth day.
i know the tendency is to roll one’s eyes at yeat another “designated liberal cause day” – but the longer i live in major cities, the more i appreciate nature. i *need* that place to escape to. i need to know that there’s somewhere i can go and stand amongst trees, or at the edge of the sea and be still, and have stillness echo back. someplace where the air is so pure, it hurts to breathe a little. it touches a deep primordial chord in me.
as a kid, my parents bought some land out in western massachusetts. it was only 12 acres or so, but it was ours. to camp on. to build imaginary forts in. to share with woodland creatures. those memories – leaving berries on our giant rock for the birds, naming our giant tree, playing with newts and toads, peeling off chunks of moss and bark for decoration – gave us a sense, not of ownership, but of stewardship. a discarded beercan or evidence of an old campfire felt like a personal transgression. it was our patch of land and we loved it fiercely, as only kids with bare feet, pine needles and wild imagination could.
but besides just our land, we camped a lot as kids. all across the u.s. and back, twice. we were fortunate enough to see most of the major national parks in the u.s. and much of canada. we saw geysers and sequoias and canyons and bison and deserts. we went on innumerable park ranger hikes, exploring the minutia of nature’s miracles up close, and gazing out at stunning expanses of vista. seems like everywhere we went was tied into nature somehow – mom was always identifying plants and birds, dad was always building log cabins and wooden boats. we were always sailing, or biking or hiking somewhere.
and as an adult, i’ve been privileged to see some of the great natural wonders of the world. places so beautiful, they knocked the wind out of me. places of such intense beauty, it overwhelmed the senses. from dramatic exotica to quiet pastures.
i have been so terribly lucky in this lifetime – that i know what it’s like to play with pinecones, to toast marshmallows under the stars, to glide down a glassy bend of river in a canoe, to stand at the foot of a mountain looking up at the peak.
but my favourite place will always be that little patch of woods where i grew up. that little plot, with its pedestrian rocks and trees and toads, is just as important to me as the most majestic of mountains. that’s what i think of when i think about protecting the earth. it’s what taught me the importance of stewardship, and it scares me to think about a future where that kind of childhood is no longer possible.
donavon frankenreiter – wondering where the lions are (bruce cockburn cover)
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the glow of sunny friday afternoon rooftops
Poets may praise a wattle thatch
Doubtfully waterproof;
Let me uplift my lowly latch
Beneath a rose-tiled roof.
Let it be gay and rich in hue,
Soft bleached by burning days,
Where skies ineffably are blue,
And seas a golden glaze.
…
For oh the South’s a bonny clime
And sunshine is its life;
So there I’ll finish up my time
A stranger unto strife.
And smoke my pipe and sit aloof
From care by miles and miles,
Sagaciously beneath a roof,
Geranium-gay and panic proof,
Of ruby tinted tiles.
“red-tiled roof” – robert william service
vampire weekend – mansard roof
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somebunny loves me
…and is trying to look out for my dental health!
i have the bestest sister evah.
what we have here, is a failure to communicate
in retrospect, i should have known within the first few minutes it wasn’t going to have a happy ending. as she sat me down in the chair and asked, “so what are we doing today?”, she was visibly distracted as i was trying to describe what i wanted. quite long in front, i said, pointing to an inch below my collarbone, and to the base of my neck in back. ultra short, choppy fringe in front. layered a tiny bit at the ends so it swings under and has some movement. she nodded absentmindedly as she looked around for a shampooist. red flag #1.
back in the chair after the requisite shampoo, i sat staring into the mirror, suddenly realising her own hair didn’t look that great. it was kind of haphazard and a little dowdy, with lots of salt and pepper in it – the “too busy to really do my hair in the mornings much less care about dying it” look. red flag #2. she wielded the comb awkwardly, pinning the lengths of my hair in front of my eyes.
and before i knew it, i could see that it wasn’t what i’d asked for. the front was too short, the back too long. i was getting the matron’s version of a bob, but there was nothing more i could so about it – the hair was already gone.
i was looking for dramatic, and she kept trying to give me the anna wintour pageboy.
i have *very specific* ideas about what i want when it comes to my hair, and my short fringe is my trademark – some people hate it, but i love it. it’s the one thing that makes me feel slightly edgy as i advance further into my 30s. and i know i’ve found a good hairdresser when they listen to my explanation and do exactly as i ask.
she dried my hair and set up her next client before she began on the fringe. at this point i knew she wouldn’t take my short fringe request seriously. she tried to convince me to leave it very conservatively long. red flag #3. i insisted she take it shorter and then shorter again. i pointed to the line of demarcation – the prominent wrinkle across the middle of my forehead. i asked for her to chop into the ends to soften it, and instead she began adding feathery bits, so i stopped her, realising in my mind i’d have to do it myself when i got home. when you’re already planning the corrections you’ll make in front of your own sink with a pair of nail scissors, that’s red flag #4. she couldn’t have made it clearer that she didn’t like the looks of it, but by that point i was just desperate to get out from under her scissors.
when i’d made the appointment, i’d initially asked for my regular stylist, but he was on leave for another two weeks. dying for a cut, against my better judgement i agreed to an appointment with carole instead.
never again. it’s not the worst haircut i’ve ever had (that honour is reserved for the one that made me cry before i’d even left the salon chair). it’s not even horrible. but it’s not what I wanted at all. not by a long shot.
scissors for lefty – lay down your weapons
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i sight the aprils
Spring comes on the World –
I sight the Aprils –
Hueless to me until thou come
As, till the Bee
Blossoms stand negative,
Touched to Conditions
By a Hum.
– “spring comes on the world”, emily dickinson
unlikely spring
three months late, but just when i need it most… my christmas cactus is rioting.
failsafe
courtesy of my mother, if this doesn’t improve my disposition, nothing will:
that’s a seriously hefty amount of candy – and i didn’t even manage to get the chocolate covered pretzles and sugar packets (yes, my family sends me sugar packets!) in the photo.
sugar – if i can’t change your mind
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forever and ever
four years ago today, i went to a bar to meet up with a guy i’d met at a christmas party, who i only vaguely remembered as being “cute”. it wasn’t the best first date i’d ever had. (in particular, i had bronchitis and had to excuse myself for several coughing/gagging fits, then topped it off with a classic jen-plant by tripping over my own feet – how sexy was *i*??!) i had no idea my life was changing that night.
three years ago, we stood on a beach with the sun setting and promised to stick together like glue. promised that no matter what this crazy world throws at us, we’ve got each other, and nothing else matters. then we tested that by travelling around this crazy world.
happy anniversary, babe. i love you more than you could ever know.
crowded house – fall at your feet
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happy day
congratulations to my brother and newest member of the crazy ragtag collection that we call “family”… his fiancee! dave and ave are engaged to be married – aren’t they the cutest? ave’s been rather like a fourth sister for a while now, so it’s nice to make it official.
couldn’t happen to two better people 
sending all our love and big kisses across the ocean,
j & j
vancouver photos
so in an effort to stay awake, i’ve gone through most all the photos… which are now here. beware – lots and lots of mountain pics.
a few faves:
he was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf
yes, zeke has taken to curling up in cardboard boxes like a common hobo-cat… and yes, he has his own stocking
LITTLE tree
little silent Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower
who found you in the green forest
and were you very sorry to come away?
see i will comfort you
because you smell so sweetly
i will kiss your cool bark
and hug you safe and tight
just as your mother would,
only don’t be afraid
look the spangles
that sleep all the year in a dark box
dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,
the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,
put up your little arms
and i’ll give them all to you to hold
every finger shall have its ring
and there won’t be a single place dark or unhappy
then when you’re quite dressed
you’ll stand in the window for everyone to see
and how they’ll stare!
oh but you’ll be very proud
and my little sister and i will take hands
and looking up at our beautiful tree
we’ll dance and sing
“Noel Noel”
“little tree” – e.e. cummings
the night before christmas (by clement clarke moore, read by harry humphrey)
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christmas sky
And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.
from “christmas” – John Betjeman
you swore the spirit couldn’t be found
one of the first things i brought over when i knew i would be living in the u.k. long-term, was my collection of christmas ornaments. i’ve collected them ever since i was a little girl – i can trace the history of my childhood christmases through them. when i got old enough to earn an allowance, i would buy an ornament for the family tree each year – one of those metal plated ones that you get engraved in wonky script, the surname always spelled wrong. decorating the tree every year was a trip down memory lane, with the emergence of each ornament from the box – heavy plaster of paris handprints done in school, pasted paper and foil angels made in church, hand knitted decorations a gift from grandma. each one given a year marker, each one given a special place on the tree. it’s a tradition i have carried on for myself since buying my own first tree.
which basically means poor little “woodstock” is about to topple over from the weight of them.
eels – everything’s gonna be cool this christmas
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the night is old, my restless soul
it’s december. it’s the month when the incursion of darkness reaches oppressive fullness, before finally, mercifully, beginning its slow retreat into light. the month when the totality of the previous 364 days is totted up, weighed and measured against the frayed dreams of a previous year, before ticking over a fresh new page of hope. it’s the month when old things die and new things are born into being. it’s the month when i shed one number and turn to meet the next – last year’s version is no more and the new me is not, in fact, newer, but rather older.
new into old into new is an improbably miraculous sort of alchemy – and yet it happens every year.
but like an unexpected bloom in winter, it never fails to take my breath away.
loney, dear – warm, dark, comforting night
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winter strangers no more
met yet another interesting person from the interwebs today – amity and i hooked up for a sunday brunch with amy, whom we first became acquainted with via an expats forum we belong to.
this is the fascinating bit about the internet – it would be all too easy to allow electronic interaction to substitute for real world experience, to hide behind the anonymity or the computer, to retreat to the safety of carefully considered words and managed, crafted persona. but technology is at its best when it enables you to enrich your actual life and relationships – allows you to expand your boundaries and worldview by meeting people you might never have otherwise had the chance to meet, because the physical limitations of geography and time no longer apply.
it’s a point that’s been driven home time and again for me, and reinforced once more this afternoon – the internet is a wonderful place. it was great to meet you amy!
coming out of hibernation
as someone who tends to go into hibernation mode as the temperature drops, yesterday was a pretty busy day for me.
the march went well – we started in trafalgar square and headed straight down tottenham court road. amusing to see all the tourists taking photos of the demonstration, as if it was another london attraction. there was even a bit of an impromptu sit-in in front of a strip club we passed on the route – good to see some passion amongst the next generation of younger women.
after the march, i headed over to the always delightful nicole’s house for her thanksgiving get together – which quickly descended into drunken boardgame madness, as such gatherings are wont to do 
more amusingly tipsy photos here
even more activity today as i head off for an afternoon sunday brunch with friends. all this is interaction is a real shock to the system! more later today…
