MY COLLECTION THESE DAYS

We're in Virginia Beach this week but here are a few photos from a few weeks ago....of early mornings, bed time snuggles, tutus and pandas, hugs and kisses, grandparents, selfies, weekends, card games, family walks and solo walks. 

Once in a while I like to throw these photos all up here so that there is a single place where these all go. I resolve several times a year that I'll get around to organizing all my photos and printing books out of them one of these days....but until then. 

Here's something that I've learned recently: I'm really never going to have luxurious, ample, uninterrupted time to write.  That's a fantasy that I've given up on long ago, and in a way, maybe that's ok. Maybe I write better in little bits and pieces, in bursts here and there, on scraps of paper and on my Notes app on the iPhone. Anyway, that's how I can write these days, and that's how I will write.  Here I am, doing it.  

I'm (finally) reading the book, "Steal Like an Artist" and there is a page in it that describes how artists are collectors: "The artist is a collector. Not a hoarder, mind you, there's a difference. hoarders collect indiscriminately, artists collect selectively. They only collect things that they really love...Your job is to collect good ideas. The more good ideas you collect, the more you can choose from to be influenced by."  

And then this quote, by Jim Jarmusch, "Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic."  

This really resonates with me. That's what I'm doing, as I hungrily sniff out things in this life - through reading, conversing, walking, traveling, pinning, exploring, looking, listening....and on and on.  I'm collecting, partly for the sake of collecting, but mostly in the hopes of creating.

And here is one of the types of collecting I do, I snap photos of a moment in the day, and I try to write some words down in this blog thing of mine.  I'm collecting moments, moments that speak to me, and images that I find moving.  It's documentation, and it's material and inspiration for more.  

I now see why tulle was invented.  It is for little girls who dream of ballerinas, and there is no better use or place for it than on twirling three year olds. 

At each stage of Sloane's life, as I encounter my strengths and weaknesses as a parent, I see my own parents in a new light. It's enlightening.

I hope I never get over the thrill of referring to them as "my girls".

I'm giddy every time I pick up this newborn. I'm floored every time Sloane acts like a much older kid than I think she is. I pinch myself about how lucky I am to have a husband like mine.

I'm working up a sweat with my walks, but I'm counting the days when I can get in the gym again.  This body has been good to me, I'm trying to be good back.