today i read

 

{sara benincasa for human parts at medium}

* stick around

find the thing that helps you stick around. flowers. trees. when things are okay, the list can be a million times longer, but when things are not okay, a list of one or two... it can be enough. it could be.

recently i added: books. if one option is to not be here, and another option is to quit everything and read books in bed for the rest of forever, forsaking all other things (except, of course, flowers, dogs)... i'm just saying... it is an idea.

dust in the spotlight

{from my tumblr, but really from here}

 

i want so much to tell you not to die. i know it is a useless and mostly meaningless thing to say. but i'd like to say it all the same.

i am sure you have people who actually know you, who are there, who are telling you not to die. and i know that even those people can barely create a pull, really, when the sinking begins. and i am only a girl on the internet.

i do not understand suicide. but i do understand that my lack of understanding is largely luck. my moods have not got that far in. not yet. hopefully, maybe, they never will. but also one of the many medications i take or will take might maybe tick just so. and that side effect they tell you might maybe happen will happen. i understand that my not understanding is a fragile thing. i am susceptible to that side effect, of course, too. if the nauseous and the fatigue and the headaches and the reflux and the trouble swallowing and the fitful sleeping that leads to foggy, unfocused days... if those, then the others, too, are possible.

so i understand that telling you not to die is not helpful. asking that you not die is unkind. i can feel people wanting to ask me not to die, and i want so much to promise them forever and ever i won't. i want to laugh at the absurdity of the thought because it is, for me, so far, a completely absurd one. hopefully forever and ever.

(and now, in the weeks since i wrote this, you have seemed so good. so safe and so fine. in the way that you may never be entirely fine but you are fine for now fine. and it doesn't seem so pressing that i tell you not to die. but really i don't know a single thing.)

off and back.

i spent years feeling unsettled... always working towards a something. i don't remember when it started exactly. university? just after? i am not sure. it seems like forever ago. there was always a something. tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow... forever waiting to be living completely.

(probably it is a 20s something. feeling like you are preparing for being a whole thing. (almost out of those. 20s...))

anyways. i wasn't, anymore, for a little while. just for a few months. all of the things stopped being somewhere else and were just being. i loved all of the things right here and right now. i was present and happy and good. job life home friends love city. it's not that before i was unhappy. just not there.

and then: there.

still looking forward and excited and wondering and nervous... but there. here... present.

and now. not, again. waiting. looking. and it is harder to go backwards. it turns out. than to feel behind in the first place. i am sick of looking forward. making choices for then instead of now. i would like to just be here.

i was very happy and very here.

under pressure

givenchy is hangin' out on the same old street, watching the cars and the trucks and the dogs and the light go by. and i same old love it. i especially love the too-long-men'sish-footwear.

*spoiler alert! black and tan is in for (pre...) fall 2013. ding ding ding!

 {prefall givenchy 2013, photos courtesy of givenchy by way of style.com}

skate away

{borrowed from here & here}

  

it is not winter here. not even close. it is barely even fall some days. yesterday? it was 12 degrees.

even though i am calling this city mine, there is still a whole lot of edmonton in my bones that i can't shake out. and those edmonton bits think that it can't be december, it can't be advent, without the cold. the snow. the crinkly-freeze-your-nosehairs-when-you-inhale kind of cold. toronto doesn't understand this cold even a little. which makes it hard for me to understand how toronto can understand christmas at all. i think it does it all wrong.

i can't wait to be home. where christmas is the realest thing. i've been spending time with wintery images to fill the hole in my winter-heart.

 {borrowed from here & here}

 {borrowed from here & here & here}

 {borrowed from here & here}

 {borrowed from here & here & here}

{borrowed from here & here}

saved my life

when things are good they are very very good. around here. and things have been good lately. oh toronto, oh fall, oh thanksgiving... yup. goodness and greatness and soooo much leftover stuffing.

last thursday i was lucky enough to get to see jens lekman live. oh man. the emo-jokes! so many of them. it was at the theatre where mel and i saw ingrid michaelson play. my very first week in toronto. so much has happened since that concert, including my feeling that toronto is my city. i am home here. how magical and strange is that? how unexpected? so here's some jens for you on this most glorious holiday monday.



happy thanks, my sweet internets.

moth

 {photo from 'nocturnal moth catching' by daniel jackson. fashion edited by victoria young for love magazine}

with all the spring runways, sometimes i forget that fall is coming. and then i remember and get so excited i could burst. i love the transitional seasons more than anything. i can't imagine living somewhere that was all one-or-the-other without the beautiful in-between smells and colours and layers... my heart is open and ready for the shifting air and all of the crispness. i can't wait. i am scrubbing at this damned summer-skin tan, trying to get myself back to the paleness i love so much.

only to feel a thing

there is something about elizabeth & james that always makes me say the word 'stoic' in my head. over and over until it has completely lost meaning and i'm not sure if it is even a word anymore.

it also tends to make me think of extremely complicated stillness. and a calm sophistication.

make of that what you will.

{elizabeth & james resort 2013, photos courtesy of elizabeth & james by way of style.com}

to a town

june 1st was my two year anniversary with toronto.

and first there was a flood in my office building, shutting down the ttc and forcing me to take a long, unplanned walk in the rain wearing good heels. and then the next day there was a public shooting in my mall.

and i thought 'what gives, toronto? i thought we were happy together!'

but. then yesterday they (they) caught the culprit in the eaton centre shooting, or rather he turned himself in. (and they ALSO caught the crazy foot-mailer man...)
and i went to a grad exhibit for tala (aka kindergarten-friend) and saw her amazing fashion work up close. 
and i went to ballet class and was taught by an old alberta-friend, kate. (different from local, sarnia-kate. ugh. FRIENDS! have different names already!) and her partner turns out to be someone i met once back in calgary, too. and that was great.
and i ran into bryce on the streetcar and we got to catch up quickly.
and i got home to my lovely apartment with sarah and margene to talk to and cuddle (respectively).
all these pieces of home. here.

{on my walk to loblaws : watching baseball in christie pits}

{slutwalk : the path}

and mel moved in to her new house this week.
and stylist-sarah got a new puppy.

and then there were the usual things... the staples delivery-man who is so friendly. the fellow from the office across the hall who i get to chat with sometimes in the elevator. texts and calls from my friends. the subway-man who grins at me, and everyone else, every morning. the security guard at work who lends umbrellas and wears colourful ties. the path. the stylish people. the superintendent at home who is a ninja.

and i think 'yes. this is a very fine life i have. and this is a very fine place i live in.'

i don't know if i ever really believed that toronto could be the place. i don't think i really wanted it to be the place. because it is 'toronto' and blah blah. it isn't perfect. and there are for sure the bad bits of living in a 'big city'.

but i love it. i do. so much. i am so happy here. even when i'm not. this is a good place.

{friday night live dance party at the ROM}

happy two year anniversary, my city. thank you for welcoming me in. 

gently

in a mountain of fashion, this collection by the row is like a lovely little sorbet palette cleanser, with its soft clean lines and creamy colours. quietly, stunningly, elegant.

and hooray to the rectangle panels of fur! thank you for beautifully calming my brain.

{fall the row 2012, photos courtesy of the row by way of style.com}

emily jane

'the night is darkening round me,
the wild winds coldly blow;
but a tyrant spell has bound me,
and i cannot, cannot go.

the giant trees are bending
their bare boughs weighed with snow;
the storm is fast descending,
and yet i cannot go.

clouds beyond clouds above me,
wastes beyond wastes below;
but nothing dear can move me,
i will not, cannot go.' (brontë)

or, you know. anything by edgar allan poe... would do. otherwise, this victor & rolf collection pretty well speaks for itself. i think.

{pre-fall victor & rolf 2012, courtesy of victor & rolf by way of style.com}

around home

some fall-times that happened before at bikini village.

{hey look! three of my favourite creatures!}