all good things are wild and free

via: SARAHLEE

via Escape From Reality and Milkteef

Be for me, like rain...

Whenever the weather starts getting colder, and daytime hours start to diminish, I always find my fingers hovering around my bookshelf for the dusty little volumes of poetry, rather than my trusty in-the-moment novels or well-thumbed classics. 

Perhaps is also why I'm tending towards wearing more muted colours at the moment:

Wearing: Tsubi jeans, MinkPink singlet over Glassons singlet, Longchamp bag, Silver jacket from Glebe markets, Sasha Scarf

But that aside, as it gets a colder, and I find myself snuggling into my jackets as I walk, and bunching my hands inside my pockets (how on earth am I going to survive winters in London??), there's something that draws me to poetry. 

Currently I am sneakily, adoringly dipping into this:

A few of my favourites?

Are you still longing,

seeking what is beautiful,

what is decent and true?

Here in my hand, this flower,

my love, is shockingly red. 

Yosano Akiko (1878 - 1942)

The little sycamore she planted

prepares to speak - the sound of rustling leaves

sweeter than honey.

On its lovely green limbs

is new fruit and ripe fruit red as blood jasper,

and leaves of green jasper.

Her love awaits me on the distant shore.

The river flows between us,

crocodiles on the sandbars.

Yet I plunge into the river,

my heart slicing currents, steady

as if I were walking.

O my love, it is love

that gives me strength and courage,

love that fords the river.

Anonymous Egyptian )ca. 15th-10th centuries BCE)

The Rain

All night the sound had

come back again,

and again falls

this quiet, persistent rain.

What am I to myself

that must be remembered,

insisted upon

so often? Is it

that never the ease,

even the hardness,

of rain falling

will have for me

something other than this,

something not so insistent - 

am I to be locked in this

final uneasiness.

Love, if you love me,

lie next to me.

Be for me, like rain,

the getting out

Robert Creeley (b. 1926)

xx

In need of a nook...

I've been busy the last few days perfecting my nook. I think we all need a few good nooks in life. Those places you can fold up, tuck into and just be for a while. 

My nooks have always been used to read. If I was away from my nook, away from my book, I was always filled with a feverish impatience to bundle myself back there to continue traipsing around the world or back in time, undisturbed.

Nooks are safe and cozy and odd. Some are temporary, like the forts made out of kitchen chairs and sheets and pillows that hold enough magic in an afternoon to make packing up afterwards worthwhile.

Flickr: smwright

As we get a bit older, our nooks change. We don't have that much time to sit in our nooks because too often we're at desks studying, or on the phone, or on the train to work, or whatever it is that we all spend so much time running around doing.

These days, my nook time takes place here:

On a big fat cushion that has no practical purpose but to be nook-ful. Tucked in between my haphazard bookshelf and the door that lets me escape straight to the garden. Making awkward angles with the three-tiered pie shaped table thing I nicked from the loungroom. Sorry mum.

This is where I cradle my laptop, read, dream, and stare out the door.

From my nook, I can see my inspiration wall, which is actually looking kinda bare at the moment.

I can dump off my jewellery, onto aforementioned pieshaped table.

And wonder how, at the ripe old age of 23, when I should be beyond forts made of pillows and scraped knees and cordial cravings and the like, I still manage to tear every pair of patterned tights I own. These lasted two hours, on their second wear. 

Ah well...

xx

Andreia Chaves

Andreia Chaves

You can see more here.

Amazing... just amazing. I love the concept of shoes that move way beyond function into some crazy design-architectural-texture scape. 

Camouflage high heels? If I was a superhero, these would be my secret weapon... I just need a superhero name. Any ideas?

xx

Watch Your Manners

Went out for a quiet dinner on Saturday night, at the amazing Badde Manners in Glebe. Love that place.

I've been loving the look of lightweight draping used as a jacket. I think it's all the movement it creates. This Tigerlily beach dress, with it's tie-up sleeves gave me all the commotion I could want. 

I've been wearing socks with all my heels. Can't get enough of it! These purple booties were the best $60 I ever spent. The colour is just so vibrant, love it! 

Skirt: Supre. Bodysuit: Finders Keepers. Jacket: Tigerlily. Shoes: Gasp.

Feather In My Cap

Put-Put!

Several of the best things in the world: mac laptops. Hermes scarves, Coopers beer and pizzas. The upstairs of art galleries. Midweek gigs. A wee red feather, tucked jauntily away. New pink lipstick.

Why not, on a Thursday night?

Shirt: Wrangler. Skirt: Supre. Shoes: Sam Edelman. Earrings: Vintage (aka knicked from the dress up box). 

Bag: Longchamp. Lipstick: Christian Dior.

InsideOutLaces

After listening to Ryan Adam's cover of Oasis' Wonderwall on repeat about 7 times as I walked home, a slightly whimsy mood managed to trickle into fullblown heart-sore.

I tried to resurrect it back up to whimsical by putting on my favourite pink mumu thing (thrifted from Melbourne).

It has a giant bow.

Didn't work though.

But lying on my dresser was this headband:

Memories are crazy. You can strain your mind back to something as hard as you can, and oftentimes you can only catch the whiff of a whisper of the occassion. Yet something as tiny as this headband took me straight back to that brilliant New Year's Day, where my two bestfriends and I were giddily drinking our hangovers away as we got ready for Field Day. Not usually my thing, but I'll do anything with my girls. Out the door, into the midday sun, hailing a cab, and talking drunktalk like it was 3 am in the Cross. 

The poor cab driver thought we were literally insane.We had the audacity to charm ourselves into the VIP tent. Dancing on shoulders, dancing while walking, dancing while eating some form of vegetarian kebab thingy. Unstoppable.

And that got me thinking about those nights when you literally feel unstoppable. It might be a certain someone, or the right combination in your cocktail. Having money in your bank account, the friends you were so in the mood to catch up with. It might be a killer new dress.

Or it might be the unexpected.

Now, this admission doesn't come lightly for me. I'm a girl who likes my shoes.

A lot.

I think wearing flats is an opportunity wasted.

But every-so-often, unexpectedly, I will find myself out on the town. In flats. Dancing. And it's fun. 

These are my current favourites, these little white buddies, with their one-tucked-in-and-one-tucked-out laces.

Because in these I've discovered that I can dance allll night long without worrying about my walking quota (my kind of shoes are made for sitting, dancing, and minimal standing. Definitely not for walking) and without concentrating on my steps (more than usual anyway, I'm a clumsy walker).

I realise my segue is very weak. And if you were to ask me if I just took photos of my head and my feet you wouldn't be far from the truth. Actually, I did take lots of photos, but tonight, in my whimsy mood I only want to deal with fragments. 

The whole can go to pieces and be done with itself (snap!).  

Because when you're a wee bit heart-sore, sometimes you just need to concentrate on the little things, like headbands that remind you of sunshiningdancing days, and shoes that have shown you a good time without any pain. 

La Clare