𓍯𓂃𓂃𓂃

a daily ramble of sorts.

and here she was….

a maiden in the thick of her life. with little to do, but write daily in hopes that the heat in her heart settles down.

do enjoy.

precious things

So I’ve learned a bit about ‘collecting’ things throughout my life. There has come this surrender in me, this clear acceptance that I am a ‘collector’. Perhaps there is this deeper meaning to it, that I form connections through tiny and seemingly trivial things. Is this materialistic of me? Surely by other people’s definition, it could be. But I feel as if these small things contribute to my life significantly.

Almost as if tethering me to moments, people, places—the list goes on. I can hold a coin and vividly recount its journey. Or smell an old perfume I haven’t worn in a while and let this nostalgia wash over me. I think I have a hard time letting go. I used to say that I was not ‘sentimental’ or that I get ‘attached’ to things easily.

Why did I lie about that? And why did I lie about it for so long?

Was it this fear of seeming clingy? Or perhaps even silly? Who gets emotional over a wooden button?

Ah, yes—that would be…me. I do not know why I hid my fragility away, especially in a world where I was already minimized by so many ‘other’ attributes. In time, I’ve garnered that bravery to be sentimental. To fall in love with moments and little, tiny precious things. Coins, lockets, keys—books, paper receipts, and old creaky things. These are pieces of me. Pieces of people and pieces of life. It may not be breathing, but it lives. It really does, through the colorful memories in my head. When I touch them—when it touches me.

Precious is truly the right word for these items I’ve come to hold so dear to me.

Here is the secret to precious things: it can be whatever you want. Truly! A comb, a kisslock coin purse, some ratty socks.

It’s what you feel that makes it precious. Obviously I do not have an attachment to everything. But when I do, it is because something so moving brings me to it. For example; the way a comb fits into the meat of my palms. How it’s handle curves into my flesh—how it runs through damp curls and catches stray hairs that I pluck out of it. This gentle reminder of when my grandmother would sit me down so early in the morning. Watching something on a fatback TV—static color. The taut of the pigtails and snapping of rubber bands with strawberry flavored plastic (because oddly everything in the late 90s to early 2000s was flavored for some reason).

That memory reminds me of home. This simple comb can bring me back to a time when being a girl did not hurt and being little did not mean being ‘small’.

Ideally you want your precious items to last long. Though this shouldn’t mean it has to be expensive or costly. I’ve recently gotten into collecting some of nature’s treasures. Shells, rocks, and pressed flowers. Or even bugs (though I feel more guilty about this, imagine plucking an innocent beetle and freezing it).

These feel profoundly precious. Special because this is something that encapsulates nature and sometimes we need reminders to ourselves to be kind to our earth. This costs nothing to collect–perhaps a jar to keep them or a notebook to press them. I believe stepping outside and allowing the world to touch you is so important to the nervous system. It does something that absolutely nothing else can do.

It makes me feel alive in this raw way, but I’ve always felt so indebted to the earth. So that could be me romanticizing something like this.

Anyways, if you have any pondering thoughts about how you can create a precious repertory of things. A physical manifesto! Here are some tips that can perhaps inspire you.

1. try finding something metal. This could be a carabiner, locket, compact mirror, or even a key. Get it engraved with a favorite quote, a name, or even date. This feels more personal and whenever you glance at it—this can instantly bring a slew of emotions to the forefront of your mind.

2. pick a season. Summer holds many memories for me and living on an island—seashells have always been a staple momento to many who visit here. So gathering items from that particular season can aide to immortalizing memories of such a time. Going to a beach and pondering. Finding out a revelation in a forest. Well, a rock or shell can certainly remind you of that sliver of brilliance. And I like the vagueness of it too—sometimes I like to guess why I even have the rock in the first place.

3. mundane things. As I’ve mentioned before, my comb(s) have become a precious thing to me. Often linked to my childhood and even a way to stay connected to that little girl inside me. Taking the everyday and holding it dear to our hearts is something else entirely. Sometimes getting caught up in fast moving wants can take away from the everyday things that could possibly bring us joy. If we just stop wanting things all the damn time, maybe we’d realize that these small things have a place in our hearts. Maybe it is a mug, maybe it is a paperclip that works particularly well. Or even a business card from those really lovely diners. A spoon—literally anything!

Anything is precious. Because that is the power you hold. So subtle, so beautiful. This little collection of yourself. Keep them and treasure them.

And don’t forget them. Remember them for as long as you can.

Goodbye for now my maidens.

a fragile home

There is this lovely little secret about being home. It’s that delicate moment where everything is so quiet and you forget the time or the hour. Something about your bones stops aching
and oddly enough, there is this quietness that does not feel like the soundless leap before dread.

I think I’ve equated this feeling with: existing.

This has become the central theme of my life lately. A pull and push between the thoughts of what exactly is my purpose here. Was I designed to work. Or sleep away in a princess bed stacked high with charity shop pillows and the money I pulled together to buy a comforter that was made to last. I’ve teetered on this concept for so long, but its rise to prominence was probably brought on by me turning thirty this year.

But I tend to try and think of ‘big things’ in little pockets. Because the world is already too much for me and there is only so much room in my chest for these things and the need for oxygen. So. Today is just about existing.

And maybe I will not try to understand it, but to allow myself to become it. In this little space where time feels the same as morning or night or the afternoon. I can see the dust settle and a warm haze claim the kitchen as I sit there. Sit and sit and sit. As if the tea isn’t running cold and there isn’t a mountain of worries that sits next to me like a roommate. I tap the wood of the kitchen table. Bare feet padding across the tiled floor like a roaming beat. I glance at cutlery and the ceramics that had taken me centuries of curating.

I really love this place, I think loudly. It’s a boom admits the nothingness of this fragile moment. I love this place because its half of me and half of you. And maybe if I was a lucky woman, we would return here. And would be half of our children, if not, then all for them.

Thoughts turn into vibrant smells of cooking, humming to the track of Joni Mitchell’s Blue album. There was the scratchy meows of four rambunctious cats. And the truck pulling into the drive way. I can hear the key turning in the lock and maybe we’ve fought here, in this kitchen, a thousand times about finances and if you still ‘love me’.

But a home is not perfect isn’t it? It is so terrifyingly delicate. Because we care so much about it. So much that we pour everything into keeping it safe.

I let my fingers run against the surfaces where you used to take your coffee and your yogurt. I miss you, that much is true. And I am a scared woman because we have this beautiful home. But what if one of these days, all we have is this distance?

I wonder about those things when I drive to work. Or when my thoughts are particularly chaotic and mean.

But even when you aren’t here—you are everywhere. In the light that catches into shadows, into the shape of you. Or when I see your old sneakers next to my cowboy boots. I still keep your pillow next to mine. And when I laugh, I can hear yours too.

Is this the beauty of a home? That it doesn’t just house our things or where we take our food. But it carries all these memories that explode on the tip of my tongue and behind the roll of my eyes.

Can a home miss its people? If for one silly and ridiculous moment, let’s say a home could….I think it would be missing you terribly.

until next time, let’s talk again my maidens.

with the full moon

And there I was. Beneath the moon as if I had never seen it before. Perhaps I’ve been so lost. Drowned and downed as if I were some cat plucked from a sewer. Shaking under the winking moon. Wind holding my curls—which feel like spider legs on my skin—hostage. I could hear the trees and they speak, I know they do. And I know they heard me cry in my car earlier that day. It is strange to know that the earth carries on with or without you. It does not bend to your anxieties nor favours your will. The earth will keep spinning, simple as that. Was this a nihilistic thought? Or a very deep comfort to know that bad days don’t exist in nature?

Outside of my head and all my problems, there is a world uncaring of me. Of my strife and the heat in my chest. The trees have heard thousands of screams and laughs and cries. The moon has been the same for all we’ve known. And that wind—it will blow or it will not. I’ve half the mind to think I was so important. But it was in this simple moment of my utter smallness that I’ve realized; that it was such a privilege to make it another day. To have these problems, to cry in my car, to feel as if I am about to explode in on myself. To be beneath the moon with the wind and standing with these trees.

How many have walked this same path? I wondered. How many have arrived at this point? To think the same as I?

I had so many questions, but thankfully it did not come with the profound fear of being overwhelmed. It remained as a slow curiosity. An unhurriedness to figuring my own life out. This is a work in progress, I told myself. I have lived through every horrid experience of my life, while I am so bone achingly tired. I have not given up. And that must mean something.


Oddly enough I’ve come up with three very distinct things within my ‘full moon’ realizations:

1. i love him more than my will to remain un-embarrassed in the face of my problems.

2. i need therapy because i have residual hang ups that paralyze me in my everyday life.

3. no matter how you spin it, life is not easy to live.

And you know what? I took the longest look at the full moon. Took an even longer breath in and out. Got into my car—drove off to get groceries and felt lighter. I had learn that in the major arcana of tarot cards, that the moon was to represent a reflection of our flaws and fear. But it was also a card, when drawn, could provide some clarity and pondering.

Perhaps there was more than ‘some’ truth to that.

anyways, happy full moon my maidens.