Ephemeral spring

Warm days, warm hearts, it's finally summer and everything is in bloom and the faeries are out dancing. I'm really excited for the coming months and have a lot of plans and changes in store. I've been working on taking more and better photographs, moving, crafting, making, exploring and spending as much time outside amongst the fresh flowers and trees. I'm often suffering from intense bouts of identity crisis but I'm really trying to get over it and really hoping the new season will help.

I took these photos, a little while ago, under the blooming magnolias and caught a bit of the lilacs as well. Both now are mostly faded and their ephemeral lives are such a fascinating things. How can there be so much beauty and scent for merely a few weeks in a year? I often feel like I am waiting patiently for the lilacs to grow everywhere and when they do, their short lives come and go so swiftly, it never feels enough for me. (Especially when I want to use their petals in food recipes and before I get around to it, they're gone!)

In old folklore tradition, if you walked through a field of blue bells, you'd have bad luck for the rest of the year because you would be disturbing the faeries and the spells they weaved in the flowers. I went for a long hike that same day and took some pictures in the forest and I'm not too sure what happened in this picture but I like to believe that those little dots of fuzzy light are the faeries casting spellings along the forest floor :)

Hello February. You're much too cold.

It's been a long and cold winter, the kind that leaves tears in your eyes and numbness in your hands and although I love the snow and seeing my own breath when I exhale and even that sharp sting in your lungs when you breath in too deeply all the air, this deep freeze has taken a bit of a toll on me.

I did, however, get to miss a portion of the iciness when I had the opportunity to go to Florida in December for a bit of a vacation, and as temperatures here continue to be as low at -18 degrees Celsius, I guess you can say I've been recently reminiscing a lot about it. Beautiful wildflowers, shading trees, warm breezes and being able to wear sun dresses 24/7--that is what I long for, that is what I want right now. But since that's not going happen mid-February in Canada any time soon, I'm going to live through some of the photos I took during my trip and like a good solider patiently wait out the frost.  Perhaps they will send warm vibes to anyone else sick of the cold too.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to snap too many pictures (these were all taken in the Sunken Gardens in St. Petersburg and at Ford's Estate in Ft. Meyers) because my camera battery died mid-way through my trip (and I've still yet to get a replacement!!!) which was a bit a of a let down as I wanted to document Florida's abundant array of kitschy retro signs that tend to have some of the best vintage fonts and colours. Luckily, I did get one on my phone and I do think it's kinda perfect.

A new year

The cynic in me always feels that new years is completely arbitrary but often there's something about a symbolic new beginning that is soothing on the mind. A promise for better things I wrote down in my notebook before 2013 ended. A cliche surely but it felt good. I'm hopeful for the coming year. 2013 in retrospect was a lot about realizations and letting go. We're more replaceable then we think. Real care is hard to come by. How do we swim around useless epiphanies and not fall apart? I've always loved the idea of becoming a phoenix and undoing your power while reclaiming it (as Sylvia Plath said: "Out of the ash I rise with my red hair and I eat men like air.") 2013, for me, was a lot about burning that last part of your own tail and finally turning into ashes. 2014, I'm hoping to start as a new bird.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope it's a good one for us all with nothing but glittery stardust, pretty lipstick and good drinks because what else do you really need in life but those three? x