High-res version

Like a flower turning its face to the sun, I have been seeking beauty for the past six months or so. I want it. I might even say I need it, I need to have pretty things in my life. Kind of a new sensation for me since I tend to go for utilitarian style more than anything else. I don’t do decorative.

Why the shift Christine? (This said in singsong. It’s me talking to myself via the baby. I do that a lot these days.) I have no doubts — it’s because of Addie. This humble, delicious work of mothering Addie has made me feel more myself, more like I was before the migraines began close to a dozen years ago. Whole, you could say. The love that I had for my little family of Seth and Lily was complete and perfect, and then it blew out beyond what I thought possible. Like Dorothy stepping from her graytone home out into Technicolor. Except that we get to live in Oz forever. 

Then there’s also living so much on the farms this season. I’m outside every day, puttering in the dirt with a baby or two, talking to farmers, watching things grow. It’s a quieter form of love, this love of earth, but strong. 

These two factors together are a dream, or more like they fill me with dreams. They make me think there is no limit to possibility, like maybe I can astral project to a stage of perfectly tuned Steinway pianos, set before a field of flowers growing through the auditorium floor, the air awash with hummingbirds dipping and swooping and trilling their funny little songs. My fingers will fly over the keys and I’ll sing along the way I used to do when I was practicing for some high school concert — singing and playing for the pleasure of it. 

In spite of, or maybe because of this  daydream, I’ve sometimes felt a flash of annoyance when I’m rushing through chores and push aside a few scraps of PVC pipe or a measuring tape.  A small voice in the back of my mind whispers that it’s hard to find pretty when living in a construction zone. 

But is it?



Warm wood. Bright windows. Open shelving showing textures and projects and some of my favorite things. All I had to do was pause in my mad rush and look around. There is beauty in this everyday life of ours, even with the construction zone. My walls are partially open and showing our insulation, and there are forever clouds of dog hair and wool insulation sheddings on the floor. But in the right light, I can see past that. And between you and me, these windows almost always let in the right light. 

Wishing you a few moments of pause and reflection this beautiful spring morning!