Hello, March! You bring us a slow awakening of the earth this month as we prepare for spring. There are already signs that the world around is starting to stir with daffodils and snowdrops blossoming and the few nests we have stumbled upon in the beginnings of being built with twigs and thread and bits of hair.
We’re ready for the days to slowly get a little longer, one by one, inching along. We’re ready for walks through the woods where treasures await to be discovered and our forest friends come out of their homes after a winter’s nap. We’re ready for more hiking adventures and the possibility of a picnic in the glen.
We’re ready to wear the green and celebrate St. Patrick’s day, to slowly move through this season of Lent with time for reflection and to celebrate life in the moment and all that it has to offer. So, here’s to seeing the sunrise on our morning walk, dinners by candlelight, music, dancing around the house and the joy of taking in and being aware of the world around us and the beauty that it has to offer if we only look.
Hello, February! This month you usher in a birthday for one of my most cherished loved ones. You bring us Valentine’s Day and all the red, pink and white love and fun that goes with giving sweet surprises to family and friends. I’m ready for heart shaped desserts and more dinners by candlelight and steaming cups of hot chocolate with a stack of pancakes.
I’m ready for more music and dancing around the kitchen while we make dinner. I’m ready for a week off from school for winter break. I’m ready to still relish in winter, itself! I’m not wishing it away yet. I like these quieter moments. It’s a time to reflect, to be still, to recover from the hectic start to the year and to prepare for more of the year ahead.
So, February, we are ready for you and all that you hold and it would be even better if you could kiss us with snow! At least once! đź’™
We are definitely moving into sweater weather around these parts. The mornings and nights have been chilly. It rained a fair amount over the weekend, which was the perfect excuse to stay curled up, under a blanket, with a book.
I finished the fourth novel in the Earthsea series in two days. And now, I’ve moved on to a long awaited treat! This was a surprise from Mr. Michie, the fifth novel in The Seven Sisters series by Lucinda Riley. I’ve devoured the previous ones and The Moon Sister is no different. I’m completely transported to another world within those pages and I feel as if I know these women. It’s like visiting an old friend.
The gift of a good book is a true treasure. As the nights close in sooner and the candles are lit earlier, reading a book with a cup of tea by my side is one of my favourite past times.
The month has gotten away from me! We’ve been too busy feasting on heirloom tomatoes, sandwiched between homemade bread with salty potato chips on the side. We’ve baked pies and ate our weight in summer cherries and vanilla ice cream. We’ve hiked and planted flowers in new flower pots and danced around the house to whatever was playing and generally let the day steer our direction. We’ve been soaking up the sun and just enjoying the art of being before school begins anew. But, I’ll be back soon with lots to share.
{Image Janet Hill, Julie’s Marvelous New Swim Cap // Pinned HERE}
Out of the one hundred or so houses on our street, there are only seven houses left with Christmas lights still up. Not everyone on our street decorates their house, but enough do, to make our little street feel festive. As I walked to meet Mr. Michie after work last night, the street felt so very dreary. Those seven houses were a welcoming glow in the dark.
Our little house still has twinkle lights up and the decorations are still hanging. They will come down soon, but I’m soaking every last drop out of them that I can. January is such a dark month, it feels that we need all the twinkle and glow that we can get.
Once the decorations do come down and the house is thoroughly cleaned, there will be more candles out and some tiny twinkle lights still tucked here and there. It in this sparseness of winter that I feel the most need to fill our home with light. It is something that I always notice when we are in Denmark. Candles lit in restaurants and coffee shops all day; peering in through windows as we wind our way back to our little nest for the evening and spying rooms a glow with candlelight. Even one little candle shines with a warmth and hue that makes even the darkest spaces feel cozy and inviting.
If my weather checker is correct it appears that snow is on the horizon for us near the end of the month and I’m keeping my fingers crossed for at least one good snow day. A day with no school and the streets are quiet and the sounds of sledding can be heard and inside there is candles, music, laughter, homemade tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches and movie watching underneath a pile of blankets.
Reading through various blogs and scrolling through Instagram, oohing and aaahing at people’s photos of snow, which I’m still keeping my fingers crossed for, I’ve seen many people who have discussed their dislike for this time between Christmas and New Year’s. The general feeling is that we are in a holding pattern, just circling, waiting for the next year to begin. That these are the wasted days before the next big hoorah.
I don’t feel that way at all during this “in-between” time. I think this is the chance to truly relax, to enjoy the season. For the world is quieter around you and you can take it all in. There is a natural slowness to our rhythms at this time and I savour that pace.
Unlike others I’ve seen who took down their decorations on the 26th, ours are still going strong and they will continue to do so until Epiphany (January 6th) and to be honest, maybe a little longer than that. Then the twinkle lights shall be replaced by more candles and a handful of spring blooms. But we are still in winter and I don’t wish away these days. I like to revel and appreciate the season that I’m within.
These “in-between” days also hold another kind of magic for us, as today one of the inhabitants of this little cottage celebrates a birthday. So there is a cake cooling on the counter, dough rising on the stove and a birthday meal soon to be prepared as per the birthday boy’s wishes.
But, everything is still being done at a languid pace as we continue to enjoy the last drops that this year has to offer. And I think that is how it should be.
I forgot to put my shoes out last night, so only Mr. Michie got a surprise. It was a pretty big Christmas chocolate bar that was wedged in his shoe though, so I’m hoping he’ll share a piece with me later.
A few months ago, Mr. Michie surprised me with tickets to the Frida Kahlo exhibition at the V&A, Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up. She has long been one of my favourite artists and someone that I feel an unexplainable deep connection to. Our tickets were for an early morning entry, which was perfect. It was busy, but not too busy; so you had the luxury of lingering over a piece without the worry you were in someone else’s way.
The show was beautifully presented and laid out in manner that represented and reflected significant stages in her life. There were photographs taken by her father I had never seen before as well as some of her earlier sketches and drawings. There was film footage of her and Diego Rivera at their home, La Casa Azul in Mexico. The Kodachrome colours of the film gave it such a vibrant and dreamy hue.
Upon Kahlo’s death in 1954, her husband placed many of her personal belongings inside a bathroom in their home and locked them away. La Casa Azul later became a museum to Kahlo’s life. Shortly before his death in 1957, Rivera made a request to a close friend, Dolores Olmedo, that this room containing Kahlo’s intimate belongings should remain locked for the next fifteen years. Olmedo, seriously took Diego Rivera’s request to heart and decided to keep the room sealed until her death in 2002. It was only after Dolores Olmedo’s death that the museum was able to gain access to the sealed bathroom and then began the process of cataloguing the hundreds of items that had been placed within those walls and frozen in time. As a curator and art historian, that would have been a dream job to have been a part of.
As you moved into the last two rooms of the exhibition, her personal possessions were front and center. The six cases that held some of her most intimate things were laid out in two rows of three. It gave the impression of being within a dormitory as the display cases themselves were beds; replicas of her bed. The irony was not lost on me that her bed was a place that she spent a good deal of time within due to her injuries and multiple surgeries and now her possessions were laid out on a “mattress” between the four posters of these faux beds. The outer walls of this room were lined with photographs and personal letters.
Just to name a few things, displayed within those cases were her Revlon nail polish bottles, lipstick, sunglasses, Pond’s cold cream, shoes, her plaster corsets that she painted, her prosthetic leg, crutches, and perfume bottles. It was extraordinary to me that these things still existed and the condition they were in, was astounding! If you are very, very lucky an artist’s palette or a few bits of paint that they used might still exist, but never in my wildest dreams would I imagine someone’s make-up still being in existence.
The final room of the exhibition contained a huge case in the center of the room, displaying her clothes, with self-portraits, jewellery and other objects along the outer walls. To see so many items of her clothing in person that she had been photographed wearing was phenomenal. To have stared at photographs of her for most of my life and then to see that very outfit in front of my eyes was almost beyond belief.
One thing that struck me in this room was a necklace that had been created out of different sized pieces of jade. At the center hung a carved jade hand that was formed into a fist. It was quite large and I wondered if the weight of that around her neck ever bothered her? Anything that would have put pressure on her spine must have been uncomfortable, but yet she wore the necklace any way.
In a way she curated her own life and her pain through not only her artwork, but her clothing. Each item carefully chosen, colourful lipstick and nail polish carefully applied. Her hair braided in a very specific way with ribbons worked into it. There was an intimacy to this show, it almost bordered at times on being too intimate, like I had snuck into a place I shouldn’t be and opened the dresser drawers and rifled through them. It was an incredibly unique perspective on a woman that I have long admired and in a strange way, seeing so many of her personal belongings almost made her more mythical than not.
*As I enter exhibitions it is sometimes difficult to take off my curator/art historian “hat”, in the back of my mind I’m always considering the layout, I watch how others interact with the displays, or move around the exhibition, I pay attention to signage and font usage… One thing I was fascinated by within this show were the mannequins that were dressed with her clothes. The video below is a captivating look into how the V&A created them. Enjoy!
