Friday, May 7, 2010

Boys and Beauty

A mighty fine mama
Elizabeth Cady Stanton with her daughter Harriot


Shout out to all my mama peeps. You make the world go round. You are the center that holds. I love you.

I also love the William Morris quote, "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."

I must re-focus on this as my house is filled with dog hair and paper. Things functional, but not so beautiful.

To turn our minds to useful beauty, a brief round-up of my recent blog trippin'.

Sweet Paul has a magazine!

Amaretto-baked French Toast with Pecans! Heavens! I'm making the Papaya and Citrus Salad with Maple Syrup Dressing this weekend.

It is all, every inch of it, glorious. I am old school re: electronic readers and eZines, but Paul's magazine is so visually rich, filled with practical, real-life-possible grace notes- I'm sold. I'll forgo the paper and bliss out laptop-wise.

Thank you Sweet Paul for your inspiring, delightful blog and the reminder that beauty and simplicity are at hand every day (and meant to be shared).


photo from HartsFabric.com click to buy

Dear Kaffe Fassett I love you.

I am working on a prototype and need some voile (I say "Vwall" like Toile- chicks at Fabric Depot say "Voyal" like Toil or Soil-so odd). This Orange Jungle Paisley makes me happy. Your magic ways with form and color are a constant inspiration. Besos Kaffe!

Humane writing from Mig. This post came at an important time for me and I return to it again and again: Careers in Science: Balneology.

I was in my crazy tree and it helped me come down. One of the most resonant, beautiful, and kind things I've read in a long while.

Thank you for so many beautiful metaphors, valentine limerick contests, leads on blogs I can't imagine having missed, 10 years of Metamorphosism. When I despair of huMANity, I think of you like a touchstone.


Stephin Merritt
The Magnetic Fields 69 Love Songs is beautiful, hysterical, sad, sweet (gifted to me by my sweet brother ptj). I listened to it non-stop during a long family road trip through Mexico several years ago. I sing to it constantly. "Hey lady day can you my save my life again? My only love has gone away. Will you be my only friend?"

Stephin your voice is big and deep and masculine and fragile all at once.

Sweet Paul, Kaffe Fassett, Mig, Stephin Merritt, and all the creative men that inspire me (especially my lovely brothers who are such fabulous adventurers and collectors and makers and daddies), I wonder what you would say about the inspiration and influence your mamas had on you.

In their presence and in their absence, their love and their devotion, their neglect and their distance mothers are absolutely influential in our lives. As my obnoxious father says, and I often quote, "You gotta dance with the one what brung ya." The dance between mothers and their babies is sometimes sweet, sometimes excruciating. They made us, those mamas. I thank yours and mine for the invitations to the dance.

1 comment:

Northern musings said...

Great post - I so understand the dog hair situation... am just getting out of a month period of hair hair everywhere!