Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Achingly gorgeous:

tragic love; the female gaze:

the way art consoles

Meanwhile the world goes on

You do not have to be good. 
You do not have to walk on your knees 
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. 
You only have to let the soft animal of your body 
love what it loves.

Nineteen

My little Bean is 22 today, somehow. I am older than 22 in this picture, but not by that many years! Funny how time works, isn't it? I remember when this was taken, we were waiting for the ferry to Block Island, the wind was blowing. Zoë wasn't talking yet, but she was signing all kinds of things--"ball" is the one I remember most clearly. During this trip, she did an alphabet puzzle that made it clear that while she didn't yet speak, she knew the entire alphabet (she never did do things in the "right" order--she walked before she crawled, etc). It wasn't all that long after this that she taught herself to read (when she was three). I love to look at this face and see both baby Zoë and grownup Zoë. She amazed me then, and she continues to amaze me with her brilliance and ferocity and sensitivity and sweet beauty and determination.

(Almost) The Mud Season of Our Discontent

There was a day, a part of a day, when the universe felt perfectly in balance, so that every single person I love was, at that moment, utterly content. Even though there's no possible way I could know that to be true, still I believe it.

These two are adorable. I like when he says, "It's a weird life, to travel around singing every night and have people look at you."

We've been watching season two of The Americans and slowly working through True Detective with Jason. Both are hugely satisfying, much better than our previous attempt at family TV night (the terrible American Horror Story: Coven, and the genial-but-sleepy Life on Mars).

I can hear Mark cleaning something upstairs.* There is a cat looking at me. I made pumpkin waffles this morning, unwisely following a recipe that was heavy on the cloves and light on the ginger and called for probably a third of the amount of flour necessary. Still! They had chopped toasted walnuts in them and tasted pretty good, once I added lots of flour, with just the slightest numbing clovey aftertaste. Isaac is out with his sweetheart.** I love when I get happy texts or Book-of-Faces messages from Zoë at two o'clock in the morning.***



*It's the bathroom. It is totally my turn to clean the bathroom--he's done it at least the last three times.

**He would object to my vocabulary and the very fact of this sentence. Let's see if he still reads my blog, shall we?

***Usually it's a Tamil or Hindi song/video/poem/joke.

Blink

Some days you wake up and your babiest boy is seventeen years old. Still the sweetest, still a blond headed boy, still wise and stubborn. So smart and fierce and funny. I love every minute I get to spend with him, even as they fly past me. Happy birthday, Isaac!

Amour

You know when you cry
so much that your neck gets wet?
For me, that's Amour.

Friday

Beautiful stormy beach in the morning. We went back in the evening and celebrated our anniversary (22 years!) by walking in a torrential rainstorm on this same beach, Gus galloping happily through the sand and bumping goofily into the other dogs, all three of us soaking wet. The Gus had a bone and Mark and I had Indian food beside the toasty pellet stove.

Birthday Boy

My baby boy is sixteen today.

Happy birthday, Boo. You are still the sweetest boy I've ever met. I couldn't be prouder of you.

the stranger who has loved you

"Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart."

 from love after love by derek walcott


my valentine's day playlist, for you:

my heart's an autoclave, the mountain goats
lion's mane, iron and wine
true love will find you in the end, daniel johnston
jeane, if you're ever in portland, casiotone for the painfully alone
maps, yeah yeah yeahs
let's stay together, al green or barack obama
the reasons, weakerthans
after you listen to those, just put 69 love songs by the magnetic fields on repeat.

also, minnow would like to be your valentine. this means he wants to kiss you on the mouth for an hour, which...that's really all any valentine wants to do.

minnow would like you to be his valentine

there is time for work. and time for love. that leaves no other time!*

my mom sent me a link to these stunning australian mug shots that were taken in the 1920s. they're unbelievably stylish; criminals dressed so fashionably back then, and had such fabulous hair and accessories. in australia, anyway. there's a link to the sydney justice & police museum's larger collection of crime photos from a period between the 20s and the late 1950s, and they're amazing. above is the one i'd like to use on a business card or resume for myself. or, not really, but for something! look at that sewing machine just behind that dead body!

*coco chanel

we can live here, love, safe from the elements

happy twentieth anniversary* to my best friend, my partner in crime, my associate, my sidekick, my love. i don't feel old enough to have done anything important for twenty years, much less to have been married that long. i like it: let's go for another twenty.

i know i just used this photo on your birthday, but i love it.

*twentieth = china, in case you were wondering! i'm picturing some weird coffee mug from goodwill...

secrets

this isn't really a secret, but bean has started hearing from colleges in the last week or so, and i'm afraid if i say anything about it she'll fear that i'm jinxing her. so i'm going to wait until all the votes are in to issue a full report on the college thing. which should happen within the next two weeks!

also, her gap year plans = unknown.

also, i'm not allowed to say here that she is smitten.

ahem. onto the boy, who has such a cold and who coughed all night monday, causing bean to stumble into our room around four a.m. and say, "will you please take him to the hospital so i can get some sleep?" when boo came downstairs late on monday morning, he moaned, "all of my face holes hurt." he is starting to feel better, and we even sent him to school today for the last hour so he could collect mountains of homework.

it snowed a little bit today, so i refused to go outside or look out the window.

back to the sweatshop, where i'm stitching up a brand new color of scarf! and we have two new print designs. i'll show you later.

broken hearted

it is a very sad day in maine, where voters repealed a law that made it legal for any two adults of any gender to get married. i am disgusted and furious with about 52% of the people in this state right now, and feeling guilty that i didn't personally do more to fight for no on one. also, i am compiling a list of the towns in maine where i would never, ever live -- the ones where a majority of people are full of ignorance and hate.

another reason i love my dog

reason number five bazillion and two, perhaps? i love when he rests his chin on me, like so.

lovey-dovey

okay, i am really excited about this movie:



but it's weirdly similar to this movie, which i'm even more excited about:



the first one is a fake documentary about love made by one of those quirky "indie" directors; the second is a real documentary about love made by a genuine indie director. and the second one features ira glass, which the first one does not.