bests of the summer

Because I am woman of habit, I have to keep these things up, even when it's months late –

bear island, nothing better // meeting rosie // lemongrass cider at surf club with amber d., over and over // and having a female friend to talk to about politics // SIMON // franny's poetry reading // mepkin abbey, always // you are a god of seeing // sunrise walk on the beach with a. // jamila woods in person // breakfast tacos with derek // alexandra's birthday party // a day in durham with elsa, soren, + torunn // walking home drunk with tor // all my best lady pals together on a blanket // margaret's fairy houses // lazy sunday afternoons at bobbit's hole // my native flower garden (ugh, I miss it) // brewery bhahavana + banana walnut cake with a. // murakami for the first time // the ymca pool // a grocery store cake "in the colors of RISD" from holy family folks // cajun dance in a furniture-maker's barn // jean's baptism // whale-watching in maine with my family // that early, early morning alone watching the sunrise in portland // ACADIA // strawberry granita // touring apartments in providence with mom // sweetest gift + note from max // sitting on the rocks on belle isle in richmond // tea parties with margaret // best, best durham birthday party // penland, a gift // the clientele // living with kendra, ryan, langdon, and elias for two weeks // mary karr // birthday rosemary grapefruit drinking vinegar + morning buns // best birthday overall with the best people // getting back in the darkroom and remembering why I love photography // grilled cheese with tomato jam // our backyard picnic table, even if short-lived (v. worth it) // new swimsuit, first bikini // mornings with amber j. at penland // just amber in general // pizza + whiskey with frank // by each try to simply merit the fitness of a lone occasion // things coming to an end, things coming toward a beginning

[pictured: flowers from my garden <3]

I always found you there

 

So, I made it to Rhode Island – now trying to make stuff, the reason that I'm here! Before I left, I met with one of my mentors for coffee to say thank you (something I'm trying to do better and more often, saying thank you) and she told me when I get to my new studio to leave all the walls blank. Don't put up any of my old work or pictures that I 'succeeded' with before or felt good about. Don't even look at them. If you look at them, she said, you'll be tempted to just go back to what worked before and be less likely to take creative risks. So that's what I'm doing and I'm f*ing scared that everything I'm making is really stupid but I am trying to stick with it, keep moving forward, ask the questions later and just play with materials and make images that I like. Here's to reminding myself of that here, permanently.

twenty-six

Here I am, twenty-six years old, for some reason still posting pictures and writing in this space, one of the many ways I journal and log and record – maybe the reason I am into photography in the first place, because memory fascinates me. But, here I am, at such a different place than I was last year, more sure of myself than I have ever been before, more grateful too, more certain of God's faithfulness: less so from the good things that this year has brought and more because it was the hard year before it that brought the good things. To stay on this side of anger and the other side of sadness, that is what I keep coming back to – tough spirit, tender heart.

with you nothing is simple yet nothing is simpler

A few weekends back, in Asheville, with some of the people I love most in the world. I feel so lucky to get to live life with these folks – and their children!

It is a Sunday night. A. and I had frozen pizza, greens, and margaritas for dinner, then he went on solo bike ride and I took a long bath and walked to the co-op for frozen yogurt. As I think about moving at the end of the summer, one thing I will miss is that walk – a brief hello to Charles, checking in on the garden at the one house at the corner of Burch and Exum, the magnolia tree at the corner of Wilkerson, pausing to cross Chapel Hill Street. And then, of course, there is the sweet comfort of grocery shopping, something I'll never quite be able to explain. I love it – seeing what's new, comparing prices, lifting each grapefruit to see which one is the heaviest and juiciest. Do the radishes look good today? Is the ice cream on sale? Should I get the chocolate with cacao nibs or almonds? Unlike so many of life's questions, these are questions I can always answer.

[all 35mm, Asheville, NC]

bear island

We booked a camping site a month or so ahead of time, hoping that we could take a day off work and go to the beach – so glad we made it happen. We had the whole island to ourselves, the best mac and cheese made over a camp stove, and a long, long morning walk on the beach. I am dreaming of getting back here before we move.

[Bear Island, Hammocks Beach State Park, all 35mm]

two years

We spent three glorious fall days in Portland, Maine last October, a tag-on anniversary celebration after spending a few days in Boston visiting grad schools.

And, two years of marriage! (Two years and four months, now.) I tried to write about marriage so much in our first six months being married before realizing I had absolutely nothing to say. It was all so new, so unknown, and there was so much to process and try to understand about myself, much less another human being. I just didn't know how to think about it yet. When people asked me how married life was going, I found I just told them made-up things to assuage their questioning.

But, maybe, now – I'd like to think – I'm coming into it. I know I can say this, at least: marriage has been a safe place for me to grow in confidence in myself, and for that I am grateful. I think that is what marriage should be – not your everything, but the most safe kind of love, along with being a marked reminder of dying to yourself anew every day. I think of this line from Auden: "Afraid of our living task, the dying / which the coming day will ask." Marriage is a risk, a stepping boldly into that fear, into that risk of dying to self, even still as you grow more deeply into yourself. (Of course, there are plenty of ways to do that besides marriage – but it is one way.)

That's my two cents for two years, anyhow. Mainly, I like being married to Austin.

[all 35mm from Portland and some surrounding islands]

just this side of anger, and on the other side of sadness

Somewhere near San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome on one of the most recent happiest days of my life – I was traveling alone, so this is the only picture I have of myself from that day of wandering.

I am particularly grateful today for mentors and friends who speak so clearly into my life, just when I need it. If you saw me weeping yesterday, it was probably because I just received this:

Prayer for Jessina

Father, I pray for Your child, as if she were my child: but I dare to ask - that if I am actually addressing her - through You - that You are the One doing the talking. Or at least getting a Word in.

And so I ask this:
That You not set her faithfulness against her hopes.
That - in Your very gentle way - You are unsparing in Your claim - on her - 

on all the things You’ve given her; to attend to.
That’s a hard prayer. And You are not a hard master.
She knows - better than I - what those things are.
So may she find, in her circumstances, en famille, in the Circle of her loves - and Yours: 

may she find support: not that support that shuts down, that “pacifies," that places her at the bottom of a deep, dark pool: but the support that stirs up, like the salt spray, the tang and the splash of her deepest yearnings.

Those desires are there for a purpose: not just to anchor her: but to set her free.

It is has been a strange new season of life these past few months – I hate using the word 'season,' and always have, as it seems to indicate some sense of 'this is what was meant to be,' or waiting circumstances out rather than taking active steps or problem-solving – but I can't think of a more fitting word right now. I feel like I am coming into myself, that for so long I talked up a big game – told myself that I was strong and intelligent and beautiful, etc. – without actually believing it. 

I think we all do that in our own way, hoping that if we say it enough maybe we'll inch towards believing it. It seems like in any career you have to be able talk bigger about yourself in order to get anywhere. It is that sense of talking 'bigger,' but more than that, not only taking up space but feeling like it is your space, that you belong there – that is what I am trying to get at. 

That I belong here – I know it more now than I ever have before.

There is a new expression on your face: more determined, but not (yet?) hard. I pray you can stay there, just this side of anger, and on the other side of sadness: and right in the middle of strength: real strength.

for molly and summer

A long time ago, a friend and I were walking home at dusk along College Avenue in Berkeley and she asked me what I thought were the essential things in life, those things that made life worth living. We started making a list, framing it as what we would tell our daughters someday. It has been a long while since I have looked back at it –

We will use cloth napkins.
We will have compost piles.
We will make love to good men.
We will pray for peace in the world.
We will try and be peacemakers in our own world.
We will go by ourselves to fancy restaurants.
We will not make excuses for spontaneity.
We will have slow meals late into the evening.
We will have open doors to friends and strangers alike.
We will try new recipes often.
We will have successful careers.
We will be willing to give those up to be mothers.
We will not let the allure of success control our lives.
We will be bold when love requires boldness.
We will be meek when love requires meekness.
We will see everything as an opportunity to practice virtue.
We will have art on our walls.
We will stop during the day to sit and stare at it.
We will make our own art for our walls.
We will write long letters to far away friends.
We will hum as we wash the dishes.
We will say yes as often as possible.
We will say no when necessary.
We will go to the ballet in the city on a whim.
We will wear lumpy sweaters and red lipstick when we're old.
We will be sexy mothers before we grow old.
We will live in a place where we can walk to the grocery store.
We will walk or bike instead of drive as often as possible.
We will take care of our bodies.
We will not be ashamed of our bodies.
We will grow large gardens.
We will bring our children to museums.
We will never be too old to keep learning.
We will have front porches and sit on them often.
We will teach our children to love traveling.
We will teach our children to love rootedness.
We will make eye contact with the world.
We will learn new skills with each year's coming.
We will dance in the kitchen.
We will stop the car to pick flowers on the side of the road.
We will drop to our knees, everyday.
We will listen to our mothers with patience.
We will give grace to ourselves, and grace to others.
We will choose others before ourselves, without forsaking ourselves.
We will come into the peace of wild things as often as possible.

eleven zero one

We are moving into a new home this week and leaving behind our yellow house, a space that (minus the cockroaches) has been comfort and safety to me these past two years. I slipped on my wedding dress for the very first time in the bedroom, and a few months later put it on with my mother and sister by my side in that same room. It is the home Austin and I first came home to after our honeymoon, and the place where we have grown in love and understanding for one another. We have argued in this house, planted rosemary and lavender and mint in the front yard, built a raised bed with our own hands, strung lights in our backyard, hosted any number of bonfires and parties. We have filled this space with friends, over and over again, on air mattresses and at the dinner table, the leaves extended to fit as many people as possible.

I rode my bike by the yellow house a random hot spring afternoon in 2015, and thought, I want to live there. I memorized the address and looked it up online when I got home, and found out that it was a rental property, and due to be up for lease come the month that I needed to move. But, the realty company wasn't sure the current tenants would be moving. I spent that next month praying and riding my bike by it almost every day. I called the realty company every week to see if there were any updates, and finally heard word that it would actually be up for rent. It was a little more expensive than we anticipated, but a friend told us to go for it, that the first house that you live in as a married couple carries deep and meaningful memories, and that it would be worth it. So we did.

It wasn't until later that I noticed that the address 1101 was also our wedding date, November 1st—a silly coincidence, but one that makes me happy, and makes it seem fitting that it has been our first married house.

we don't love like flowers

I am sitting at the studio where I work, "woman-ing" (as my boss says) the gallery for the Saturday brunch hours. A. and I slept in for the first time in a very long while and went to the farmers' market and ate lemon poppyseed muffins on a bench and talked about naming our future dog Poppy, which almost makes me want to get a dog. We are in an in-between space, frantically trying to figure out jobs and housing and whether or not we are staying in or leaving Durham. Everything feels fragile. A trip to the farmers' market at once feels sentimental (if we leave) and boring (if we stay).

I have been inching my way through John Berger's Portraits, reading an essay most mornings with my coffee, and being reminded how much I love reading about art. My two main goals for this year were really just to (a) read more and (b) take pictures. I have been doing both, and it feels right. It feels like where I ought to be. 

We have fennel and leeks and lettuce and peas and basil in our garden, and the first thing I do each morning is walk into the kitchen, open the blinds, and look out on the raised bed to see if anything looks bigger than the day before. They rarely do, but there is great joy when the fennel looks just the slightest bit healthier and larger, or the leeks look rounder and more robust.

These words have been on my mind:

"Let us return, then, to that anointing of his, let us return to that anointing that teaches within what we cannot speak; and because you cannot see now, let your role be found in longing. The whole life of a good Christian is a holy longing. But what you long for you do not see, but by longing you are made capacious so that when what you are to see has come, you may be filled...So God, by postponing, stretches the longing, by longing stretches the soul, by stretching makes it capacious. Let us long, therefore, brothers, because we are going to be filled.”

(Augustine, Tractate 4 on 1 John 2:27-39)

[The Guggenheim in NYC last November, 35mm]

our balm

"...for we are the Lord's joy and delight,

and the Lord is our balm and our life."

[Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love]

Derek in Brooklyn last November, when I flew up for the weekend and stayed with him in his first apartment in NYC and we went to the Guggenheim to see Agnes Martin's retrospective and had a long conversation about politics over pizza and wine at the restaurant down the street. I stayed in a tiny room in the front of the apartment that only fit the twin bed that I slept on but that had this large floor-to-ceiling window which overlooked the street below—basically, my dream.

I see the shape of my nose and eyes reflected in his face, and my questions, doubts, and fears reflected in his own. Our shared introspectiveness sometimes makes us boring conversation-partners, but there is also always this sense that he understands some part of me few (if any) other people have ever understood. These are inadequate words: sometime I will write a poem about him.

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ten good things

01. weekend with kendra and eight-straight hours of talking in the car
02. working with thomas, jamila, jeffrey, quedrith, and alyssa at the school for creative studies each week and remembering how much I love teaching (and these kids)
03. surprise afternoons at home alone with a book, and reading goals accomplished
04. the sense that durham is maybe, finally beginning to feel like home
05. this wonderful website about women photographers
06. this article on zadie smith
07. seventy-five degree weather in February, and drinking tea with austin on our front porch
08. yoga with ash and chandler at the YMCA
09. a day trip to richmond to visit candela books + the best pastries from sub rosa bakery
10. thinking and dreaming about what the rest of the year might hold for us

[35mm, A. at Eno River State Park]

looking back, twenty-sixteen

The following is what I set out to do in the last year. I made this list last January, printed it out and pinned it to the linen board above my desk beside the closet where I get dressed every morning. Despite the fact that I did not complete many of the goals, I did nonetheless find it helpful to have these goals in front of me each morning: a guide to remembering how I want to spend my days.

Run a half-marathon. Nope.

Do one art project each month. Eh. In retrospect, this wasn't that helpful of a resolution, seeing as good projects take much longer than a month. But this past year has been good soil for an idea that is just now coming to seed, and which I am hoping will be finished this coming year, and am really excited about. That feels even more successful to me than doing twelve small projects.

Do the introduction class and two-week trial at the climbing gym. Maybe stick with it. Nope. Instead, I joined the YMCA and am loving it. I am pretty certain that YoPi at the Lakewood YMCA on Monday evenings is way better than any climbing gym.

Get more involved in Walltown. Keep popsicles in the freezer. Sit on the porch. Visit neighbors. Not really, except the sitting on the porch part and sharing some tomatoes with Mario and talking plants with Mr. B. Need to keep working on this.

Make more of an intentional effort to make and keep friends. Kind of a difficult one to judge. But, I feel grateful for more and deeper friendships in Durham this year, particularly female friends.

Start art group with Sam. Did this, but it was kind of a bust.

Read a book a week—fifty two books in the year. I was so far from this goal, and it seems to me like the most important goal, the one that I need to really work on again this coming year. Not necessarily 52 books, but just more books. More reading. I have been thinking a lot about what it means to be a working woman, to carry the burden of both making money and domestic responsibilities (something that I find myself falling into, by habit), and how little time that leaves for anything else besides sleeping. Finding time to read is hard, much harder than when I was in school. But I have also been realizing what a necessity it is for making art. If I am going to make art, I need to read more. And if I am going to read more, I need to be both better at fighting for my time and letting the dishes go.

Visit Heather in Boston. Yes, and I had such a sweet, sweet weekend with H. in March.

Initiate girls' weekend with Rebekah and Anna. Kind of, not really. Try again for this year!

Write poems, and submit them. I did not write a single poem this year, but I did submit a few old ones, and one got published. I have some snippets I've been working on for a new poem, and maybe now is the time to turn back to that.

Quit at All Saints. Done.

Find another job that I like. If anything, this has been the year of too many jobs: gallery assistant, graphic designer, photographer, studio assistant, barista, and I could go on. The question I most dread people asking is "Where do you work?" It's just too complicated to answer. I love almost all of my jobs, and feel very lucky to have work that I find meaningful, but I am also hoping that maybe this new year brings a less complicated answer to that question.

Watch more films on Derek’s movie list, as well as in general: more films. I wouldn't say I watched a lot more films, but I did cross off a few from Derek's list (A Single Man, The Royal Tenenbaums, Fargo, etc.). And, last night, Austin and I watched Short Term 12, which just might be one of my favorite movies I've watched this year (that, or Moonlight).

Go on a backpacking trip with Sarah. Yes! I am so glad this happened. I didn't think I could go because of a barista shift, but at the last minute someone picked up my shift and I quickly packed my bag and took off with Sarah and Taylor to Grayson Highlands State Park. It was a good, good weekend of constant rain and wild ponies and burning bushes.

Find a way to begin learning Italian. I tried so hard to get into a course at Duke and the local community college, but to no avail. 

Go through all clothes and re-vamp closet. Keep no clothes that I rarely wear. This is more of a twice-a-year task, I find, but I did it early this year and again recently, and took big bags to the local thrift store both times. I am almost too good at getting rid of clothes, because I will often find myself weeks after I gave a piece of clothing away looking for it and wanting to wear it. Oops. But I would much prefer that than to be burdened by too much.

Bake bread regularly. Kind of, sort of. Austin and I baked a lot more bread this year than any year before, so I'll say we (not just I) did this.

Find a spiritual director. Yes!

Make my own chai more regularly. I started doing this earlier in the year, and then realized how expensive it is to buy vanilla beans (etc.) every week, so I haven't kept it up. 

Compost. Build compost pile in the backyard. Yes! And I'm so proud of our little compost pile, which is doing quite well now.

Build raised beds. Yes! Austin and I built it ourselves and hauled two carloads of dirt to our front yard. We grew tomatoes, butternut squash, cantaloupe, strawberries, basil, lavender, and broccoli. It all was ready to harvest when we were gone this summer, so we didn't actually get to eat much of it. But I am hoping for a better spring harvest!

Save and buy a new camera lens and/or body. Yes! Sold my old Nikon D7000 and bought a Nikon D750.

Finish setting up our home, so that it feels finished. I still have plans to sew curtains for our bedroom, but other than that, yes! It does feel finished, and I love this home so much.

Have monthly re-evaluations of goals and life choices. Nope, not really.

Find a way to practice confession at a church. No. Perhaps this Lent?

Begin a photo-book library. Yes, and I am out-growing the section of the bookshelf that I designated for photo books. My most exciting recent acquisitions include Emmet Gowin and Ellsworth Kelly.

Sew a dress. Ask Rebekah for that pattern. I have the pattern printed and ready to go, but have not sewn the dress.

Make a tres leches cake. I literally made this on NYE, so yes! I did, and it was tasty and sweet. A little too sweet for my liking.

Develop recipes of my own. Start collecting them into a homemade book/blog. Mm, not really, but I have got something in the works for the new year.

Bike more often. Get bike equipment. I did buy a bike light, a helmet, and gloves, which makes biking seem more doable, but I need to actually do it more often.

See Gianna and Kira face-to-face. This, somehow, magically, happened! I saw Gianna earlier this year in Boston, and Kira came to visit us in Durham from Toronto. The best.

Re-do my website. Make it more professional. Started an overhaul and re-designed it. Still needs more content updating though.

Write long letters to friends, especially Jess, Kira, Jayne, etc. Some, but not enough.

Write one letter a week to Austin, even if short and sweet. Failed at this.

Get a second ear piercing or tattoo.  This was the one thing I thought for sure I wouldn't actually do, but I did after all get a tattoo this year. Reb and I went together in September and it happened in ten minutes and I am happy that I did it. It still surprises me sometimes.

[our home, 35mm]

she went over it like a bird

I did not know what else to do the day after the election except to read Dorothy Day. A much needed reminder when all actions feel weighted by insignificance:

"What good can one person do? What is the sense of our small effort? [You] do not see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time; we can be responsible only for one action of the present moment. But we can beg for an increase of love in our hearts that will vitalize and transform all our individual actions, and know that God will take them and multiply them, as Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes."
(Dorothy Day, Loaves and Fishes)

In other news, I just got to spend some time with this wonderful potter and his wife, who both make beautiful things. I am also re-reading Woolf's A Room of One's Own and simultaneously getting excited for a little studio space I may be renting in the spring, a real room of my own.

[Dorothy Day, my fashion icon]

the roundedness of things

At the end of the summer A. and I made a guide to filling our days, something we did a long time ago to fill those pockets of time together with good things. Our list for September included: more porch dinners, visiting friends in Asheville, biking the downtown trail, singing on the kitchen floor, church vacation and finding spike ball friends. There were plenty of things we didn't get to (going to the swimming hole, picnicking in the gardens, etc.)—we'll have to carry those over to October, which is now, somehow, just around the corner.

After a three-week hiatus, I really am just in the mood to cook, cook everything! Tonight we made these sorrel pesto rice bowls, and I want to make this banana bread with muscovado and chocolate. I also want to get some chard from the market to make chard with chickpeas, lemon, and tomatoes.

I have just started working with a 4x5 view camera, and it is everything. There is just something extraordinary about throwing a dark cloth over your head and staring at a reversed, upside-down image on the ground glass—something I have never felt with a digital camera, or even a 35mm camera.

A poem out in the world, and Frank Ocean's Blonde all the time.

These words, which A. sent my way:

"When Jesus warned, 'everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted,' he spoke, apparently, of two alternative mistakes and not only one, a false self-promotion and a false self-humiliation, both in need of correction. The reality that exposes false pretensions catches up with us, not only to throw us down from heights of importance we have arrogated to ourselves, but also to dig us up from bunkers of insignificance we have hollowed out for ourselves. Hiding like Saul among the baggage, we shall be dragged uncomfortably before those who expect something of us. Perhaps, after all, there is truth in the suggestion that the two failings join hands behind the curtain, that modest invisibility is not very different from boastful self-promotion. Whether publicizing oneself or shrinking from publicity, one hopes to avoid the candid gaze that sees through one's self-image. What is required is that we know ourselves as we are known. To refuse self-knowledge is to refuse to find ourselves in the world God loves, to refuse to love ourselves." 

(Oliver O'Donovan, Finding and Seeking: Ethics as Theology, Volume II, 54-55)

[singing on the kitchen floor, a favorite activity, 35mm]

the bests of the summer

biking in denver // honey stingers // getting a tattoo with reb // beach day with kira // birthday sheep's milk ricotta bruschetta // boulted bread dates with a. // curating my first exhibit // meeting susan worsham // summiting mount democrat // prayers from father martin in my inbox // elena ferrante // ellie running to greet me at all souls // chicago with shannon // josé gonzalez in millennium park // emma and heather in the same room again // biking to locopops // FLORIST in chapel hill // riley and maggie // moxie koigns // sam walking down the aisle // thump coffee mornings // eldarado canyon state park // sweet corn ravioli from potager // RICHMOND // tacos with janine and zech // gordon parks exhibit at the virginia museum of fine arts // biking the american tobacco trail // hannah praying with her lips // "and the Lord remembered her" // quirk hotel // austin's farming hat // remembering why i love annie dillard // asheville weekend // "the impeded stream is the one that sings" // cardamom buns // spike ball with jeff and reb at the gardens // string lights on our front porch // walking around cheeseman park with a. // using our tent for the first time // waving at mr. b every single morning

[view of Kite Lake from a climb up Mount Democrat, CO]

to say the names of things

"God is present and will be present. All of us have heard, or in some way experienced, a call. It may have been a voice in the night or a dawning awareness, a lifelong inclination or an epiphany impelling us to change how we live altogether. How we respond to that call is manifested in our lives as artists. I like to think that what we do and what we make are ways of saying to God, 'Here I am. I am present, too.'" [Mark Jarman, in an article in Image]

Listening to a lot of Hello Shark this weekend.

These—the perfect road trip snack.

[from a trip to Boston, earlier this year, Honeywell Pentax, 35mm]

the good flesh continuing

Some disposable camera images from our honeymoon in Joshua Tree, something like six months ago now.

Also, lately:

Listening to Quilt. And Strange Bedfellows! Very proud of A. & friends.

Meditation at Lagunitas by Robert Hass, which is probably one of my top five favorite poems ever, and reading it is the quickest way to transport myself back to that perfect Berkeley summer.

Consuming a lot of strawberries with homemade basil-infused whipped cream. Nothing better.

Crossing build a raised bed off my list of goals this week, after A. and I hauled pounds and pounds of topsoil, shovel by shovel, into our little 8x4 bed. I planted purple cherokee tomatoes, green arrow shelling peas, broccoli di cecco, leeks, and bell peppers! Now to prevent the cabbage worms and bunnies from consuming it all.

this to that

may the tide

that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back may you
open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this to that

[Lucille Clifton]

intent on what they touch

We were out of breakfast foods this morning, so today began by walking to the coffee shop around the block to pick up some muffins, which A. and I shared together on our porch, drinking coffee and avoiding a bee. It was a much needed slow morning after an all too busy week—one of those weeks which by the end of it I had no energy or kindness left to offer anyone.

Other things, lately:

Sarah Coakley on prayer (part II and III, as well).

Caroline Walker Bynum on Gertrude of Helfta.

Bruce Herman came over for dinner a few weeks back—and what a gift. He has a way of articulating what my own work is about that helps it become suddenly much clearer in my mind, and has encouraged me to plunge back into it. I needed that.

I have also been thinking about habits vs. rituals, and how those play out in my day-to-day life—what are those rote daily tasks that could become something more intentional, more beautiful?

I still think often about the food I had in Italy last summer—how simple, fresh, and good it was—and have been trying to emulate that approach in my own cooking. Rachel Roddy's column A Kitchen in Rome in The Guardian has been especially inspiring.

Dreaming about going to Look3 in Charlottesville. I have also been dreaming about going here.

And, here is a poem for the Feast of the Annunciation, an image for Good Friday, and a poem for when both fall on the same day (which apparently won't happen again for another century).

[Honeywell Pentax, 35mm, Durham, NC]