12.10.13

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All images are via my tumblr, which I post on pretty frequently. If you are on tumblr, you can follow me here. 

12.6.13 {an update}

It's been about 2 months in my new place, and its starting to feel like a home. My new house backs up to a nature preserve, and I take walks with Lola there many mornings. Its beautiful and doesn't feel like I'm in the city at all. This morning we came upon a group of deer grazing and watched for what seemed like forever, it was so beautiful.

I haven't decorated for the holidays yet, but I thought I'd share a little peek around the house. It's starting to come together. I even have had time during some naps to do a little artwork as well.

Lola is now almost a year and a half and is growing so much. We had our first conversation today. She jumped off the bed and I asked her if she was okay. She turned around and said, "yeah mama." Small things, but it made me realize what a little person she is becoming. She says things like "mine" and "nope" in conversation and it makes me so proud to see her grow.

Her favorite food is now spaghetti, she loves to read Goodnight Moon, and her favorite thing is SHOES. Mine, hers, random people on the street. "SHOES!" she cries. A girl after my own heart.

I always get superstitious when I say things are going well, but I guess they are. Hope all is well for you all out there.

This is what the stars looked like in 2013.

“Within our lifetimes, we’ve marvelled as biologists have managed to look at ever smaller and smaller things. And astronomers have looked further and further into the dark night sky, back in time and out in space. But maybe the most mysterious of all is neither the small nor the large: it’s us, up close. Could we even recognize ourselves? And if we did, would we know ourselves? What would we say to ourselves? What would we learn from ourselves? What would we really like to see if we could stand outside ourselves and look at us?”

-Another Earth (2011)


A small selection of the best images taken in space in 2013. Jaw-droppingly beautiful, it makes my head hurt.

 via spacetelescope.org

Rose Maureen

The portrait of my Nana at her high school graduation (in white)

I've written this post hundreds of times in my mind, and probably at least 20 here. It's been saved on my computer for nearly two years. Finally, near the fifth anniversary of her passing, I'm sharing it. The most difficult thing in blogging is writing about subjects so near and dear to my heart. It may seem like I am able to share things without hesitation, but I keep a great deal of myself secret, not just to the internet, but to everyone.

“It sounds like we would have had a great deal to say to each other
I bet when I leave my body for the sky the wait, will be worth it.” Airplanes by Local Natives

Every time I hear this song I think of the first time I heard it, over 3 years ago. It was around the anniversary of the passing of my maternal grandmother, my Nana, after a brief battle with lung cancer. It hit her quickly, and despite a family full of doctors and nurses, no cent spared in hopes of a cure, nothing could be done. Money can't buy everything.

My Nana was, strange as it sounds, the love of my life. She was the earliest thing I had to a soul mate. We were alike in a family where we were different. The artists surrounded by scientists. Dreamers surrounded by realists. She taught me to create, to express. She loved deeply, listened intently and advised wisely. Her favorite words are inked forever on my arm, ‘this too shall pass’, in her very handwriting.

The love I have for her cannot be put into words on this page.

And so I named my firstborn after her. Lola Rose, my daughter, named for Rose Maureen. This is the story I will tell her.

Rose was born the third of three children in Wichita, Kansas in the midst of the Great Depression. She was born to a farmer father and an artist mother. Her father drank heavily. It wasn't an easy or happy childhood from what I gather, but I never heard her complain about it. I do remember her once telling me some nights it was so cold, she cried when she had to get into bed because her sheets were like ice. When she was five, her mother asked a neighbor to watch Rose while she went to the store. She never came back. Nana told me that she just thought her mom had gotten lost. In reality, she had left her family to go to Hollywood to pursue her dreams of fame as a singer.

Thinking back now, as a mother, these stories break my heart.

Rose went to live with her father’s parents. They owned a funeral home, where she would live with them for the next 12 years.

At 17, Rose left Kansas to live with her mother, now remarried to an artist and living in Los Angeles. She graduated high school and worked for film studios in Hollywood, as a fit model. She was beautiful, with strawberry blonde hair and green eyes. And tiny! She told me once that sometimes, she could only afford to eat cans of Campbell’s Tomato Soup, and she was the smallest of all the fit models due to that.

My mother has a beautiful emerald green velvet skirt suit that my nana wore in a fashion show. She wore that suit to a Holiday party, one December in 1951, where she met a very handsome, charismatic man named Gerry, who also worked in Hollywood. A very (VERY) fast courtship was followed by marriage.  My Aunt was born that October.

Three more children followed. A son, then their second girl, my mother, and finally a fourth child, years later. They lived near Gerald’s parents in Los Angeles, eventually moving to the Orange County in the 1970s. They spent their weekends in the desert riding dirt bikes, boating or fishing and water skiing.  My mom and her siblings grew up with many friends and tons happy stories. I like to think my Nana gave her children the childhood she did not have.

The things I remember about my Nana are her smell (Red Door perfume and Dial soap), her nickname for me (babydoll) butter and sugar sandwiches on white bread, her laugh, her ability to seem innocent and then shark the best card player around.

She taught herself to use DOS in the 1980s. She became a licensed CPA. She provided for her family when my grandfather could not. She did it all on her own. And she was the kindest, gentlest person.

So when my daughter is old enough, this is the story of her name. Of how I became who I am, and the person most important to me… besides her.

Beginners

I sat down last night and watched an ENTIRE movie. From start to finish. I can't remember the last time that has happened. It was glorious. And it was made even better by the fact that it was a wonderful movie. Beginners, by Mike Mills. It was released in 2010, but I'm about 3 years behind on everything so that's about right.

I loved the story- a man's father comes out to him after his mother dies. It's set throughout Silver Lake (it was interesting spotting places I knew) and it has the most beautiful message. Ewan MacGregor stars, along with my favorites, Christopher Plummer and Melanie Laurent. Its a great film, I highly recommend it if you have a few hours to spare.