Nothing Ever Happens on Mars.

First of all, Welcome to my personal growth blog!

Every morning at the farm where I've been for a week or so now I get up and sit here with my coffee. I have a new coffee pot that is very good and so this is a better than usual event. I just look out the window and think. My mom says I get thinking from my father.

I've been a nervous wreck for the last week, with no real explanation except that I'm really terrible at relaxing. Just the way I am. With time off my anxiety blooms; spores of it mushrooming, a dark algae in standing water. Invasive and fetid ... by the time I realize what's happening it's too late, it's systemic...HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!! 

I convinced myself of dizzy spells, I have low iron, a sinus infection, parasites!, early signs of a stroke, chest pain. Lately I've been trying to just let it take over, staying in bed half the day sometimes, eating chicken liver pate with a spoon (high in iron) and going to bed at 8pm some nights. I'm getting better at handling anxiety, just letting it happen. Just being OK with the strange feelings, no matter how uncomfortable. Fighting it makes it worse. 

When I think about how I wanted Christmas to go it's like this; me and Mookie had a week with no work, no visitors at the farm and were going to relax and spend days in pajamas making waffles and reading in bed and talking like we used to, losing track of days taking long walks with the dog...

If you want to really fuck yourself, set up a bunch of 'realistic' expectations and then wait to check em off like a laundry list of happiness. Life is like this in general. I'll be happy when I fall in love, when I have my own business, when I have a farm. 

Now I have to deal with myself or invent more tasks and more distractions. Which undoubtedly I will do because I am a modern, success-oriented woman. But I know I have to keep coming back to deal with this thing in me; this deep dissatisfaction that is the result of always ignoring the moment and rushing to the next thing. 

For my sanity I keep one foot in the city. I find rest in the joyous hum of days carved up into 1/2 hour segments buzzing around in the back of a taxi cab yelling into the phone. Like magic, every single one of my symptoms vanishes when I'm there. 

PERENNIAL Calendar with Brown Parcel Press

A few months ago Megan of Brown Parcel Press and I started talking about making a letterpress calendar together; mixing my flowers with her printmaking. TaDA!

It feels so luxurious to have such beautiful prints of my flowers; Megan's interpretations of the flowers are so accurate while managing to remain rooted in her own artistic style. I'm sort of in awe of this collaboration. I hope you like it.

The prints are made with 100% cotton paper (no trees) and are intended to function with the calendar and also on their own. So in 2015 you can still keep the prints on your bulletin board. I mean, if you want to.  

I've been working on tweaking our website this week. We have a new and improved SHOP page; this calendar is up there (sold for $45) along with all of our soaps, candles and some other random things I'm offering up from the Saipua vaults. 

P.s. This is the last week to order your holiday wreaths. You can also come by on the weekend (we'll be open Saturday and Sunday from noon-6) to pick one out in person.

puppies and lilacs from the poorly kept saipua files

WARNING! THE FOLLOWING PHOTOS ARE IN NO WAY SEASONAL, NOR DO THEY SERVE AS AN ACCURATE PORTRAYAL OF CURRENT SAIPUA ACTIVITIES

(You have to be so careful these days.)

A more accurate account of current going-on's would be me doing my typical solo city dinner of cheese, bread, and a box of arugula listening to westend girls by the pet shop boys on repeat. Ignoring the work at hand to look at old photos and try not to think about how tired I am. And how I can't wait to crawl into bed with old episodes of gossip girl. 

Today was a rough day. For one thing, I've been in heels and a brassiere for over 12 hours now. Secondly my truck is at a chop shop on 38th and 10th after breaking down on the FDR this morning. Which is bound to happen in our world of constantly hustling things back and forth...suddenly I'm jamming a truck full of flowers into a cab on Houston Street, showing up miraculously on time for a celebrity photoshoot. I've learned that you don't mention your truck troubles; it's just not that interesting.  I haven't agreed to do a photo shoot for a while, and it was fun to be back on set - this time with jewelry that required 8 (I counted) separate guards. I went over to the jewelry table during a floral lull to check out the booty; "Can I look?" I asked. And I got a careful look up and down (tight jeans with tight pockets so I was in the clear) "Yeah you can look." 

What I like best about photo shoots is that they order fancy lunch, so I was happy today - despite my transit woes and the fact that I was forced to handle out of season peonies. Just feed me and I'll do pretty much anything you ask.

I don't feel like myself on these types of days. I try to remember to wear deodorant, to put on mascara. I always feel like an imposter, like the kid sister tagging along...the girl that doesn't fit in. Years ago it was because I was the youngest on set or the most naive. Now I get it, I understand most of it; the way women in magazines are, the way the photographer needs to assert his opinion on the angle of that one ranunculus. It is actually important. 

The contrast of living at the farm, working to keep animals alive and well fed and fondling fifteen dollar Australian peonies and Van Cleef diamonds is a stark one. I struggle with the uncanniness of this disconnect a lot lately. But this seemingly silly scenario is one which allows me to have the farm that I so desperately need for my work these days. I cannot have one without the other. 

Looking at these photos from last spring I recall great luxurious afternoons. They say memory is inaccurate, unreliable.  My memory is writing it's own story on these photos. A story overtop of the real one, the way it really was. (It's sort of like instagram.) In reality I know these days were average. No better than today. I went to photograph the lilacs out of obligation. 

It's weird when your job is to make things look a certain way, when you are hired for pretty. Lately I look at things and I feel like a zombie. There is just so much pretty lately. A proliferation of pretty. A million styled lives spinning. 

My sometimes astrologer cum therapist is so smart and gets all of this - got it all right away months ago when I started to try and figure out my depression. 

She said:

"Go do something beautiful and leave your camera home. Don't show anyone. Do it only for yourself. For your own consumption. You are starved!" 

Good grief, life is a grand puzzle. Thanks always for listening to my ramblings.