L'Chaim

I have too much to tell you that I don't know where to start dear diary.
The last few days have been tumultuous. We made a wedding in a hurricane, we fought for the farm, we washed the remains of a dead animal off the dog.
The details of life, flittering by...stacked one on top of the other.

This evening I'm finally back in Brooklyn, settled again at home. I made a tomato sandwich. Eric and Nea take a nap. It's quiet here.

Thursday I got the sad news about Jeanette Ingberman, a woman who I realize I've been carefully modeling myself after these past few years.

To be around Jeanette was to be electrified. Over the weekend I've been filtering though all the moments I could conjure of our time spent together. How strange that after someone dies, the sound of their voice seems to sharpen and crystallize...

I first knew Jeanette as her intern in 2003. She would meet me in her office and we'd sit and organize her desk; I'd leave with a pile of her papers feeling exhilarated and honored. She seemed to me like a queen. I spent an afternoon once trying to find a florist to deliver to Marfa on her behalf. A few years later I went back to Exit to work as Assistant Curator, a job I'd lusted over since first moving to New York.

Jeanette had endless enthusiasm for young people and their dreams. Countless artists will attest to that, and I can too. When I became interested in flowers, she'd let me make big arrangements for openings at the gallery, and then tell everyone I made them and talk about how beautiful they were. When I started Saipua with Eric while still on the clock at Exit Art, she'd encourage me and ask whether I was charging enough for my flowers. And when she called me into her office one day to ask me why I wasn't doing my job at the gallery with full force, I broke down in a shameful mess of tears and resigned.

Of course she knew before I did what was destined for me.

She sent me a handful of encouraging emails in the last few years, often prompted by something about Saipua in the paper. "Love you, miss you, stop by sometime..."
I never did.

She always toasted to life; L'Chaim!

But the thing about life is that there's just never enough time, is there?

all things pass into the night

bad news

eric and I have been trying to buy a farm upstate near albany.
sometimes things work out, and sometimes they just don't. banks are frugal right now, and they won't grant us a mortgage on the land.

i've been dying to show and talk to you about this for ages now, but i've been superstitious.

i cried my eyes out on the corner of lafayette and bond streets today around 3:30pm. a funny thing; when you see someone crying on the street in the city its seems such a spectacle, but when you're the one crying you just don't care who walks by to witness...



this farm is meant to be ours. the first time we saw it, after a long drive, i peed on the corner of the barn, marking my territory like a god damn dog.

NOT GIVING UP YET

rooty tooty, fresh and..

It seems our fall season has started already and I'm scrambling to make the best use of the amazing flowers and fruit that are available to us right now. It's overwhelming.

veddings, veddings

How did I forget to share this, I don't know.
Our friends James and Jen got married at the bell house in May. Photographer Robert Sukrachand took all the pictures.

Weddings we work on for friends are always more fun. Lots of times friends say "just make it beautiful!" or "we trust you!" Love that. James and Jen wanted a rich, opulent Shanghai feel to the night. We played with peonies, oriental poppies, salmon amaryllis, nine bark, carnations, tulips, smoke bush etc...



Jasmine tea soaps were the favor...



Cafe lights; these make such a difference in a big space like The Bell House or at the Foundry. We all worked two weddings on Saturday before climbing a 20-foot ladder to instal these bad boys 9 o'clock the night before...well worth it.



I don't even look tired! That's how good Bobby is...HIRE HIM NOW GIRLS



The only thing funny here is how long Eric's hair is.



Handsom sons



I love when there is good dancing at weddings.



More from this wedding here on Bobby's blog.

i'm trying.

I find Viburnum berries difficult to work with. Sometimes I ask Ben to cut all the "albino" pieces, the ones that don't see the sun, the berries that are hidden on the underside of the bush that color to only a milky-yellow-white. These are like gold. But his "guy" that cuts the stuff somewhere out in Jerse must have laughed at this request and I got a 75 pound bale of thick woody top growth - berries blood red. Blah. Did the best I could with it, but most of it ended up in the wood chipper. I lie, we don't have a wood chipper.

We've been "harvesting" a lot of different things from the city sidewalks this year. Queen Anne's lace, poke-weed. I like to find the pokeweed it in it's infancy, before the purple shows up. It has a soft lacy effect in bouquets. Usually all the leaves have to be stripped off since they wilt rather quickly. I encourage you to read the wiki page for this plant.

Our California garden roses arrive this morning, so I look forward to that.

It's raining again in new york city.

If I had a magic doctor I would ask him to take all of my body apart. Unscrew my head, detach my legs and arms, clean out all the joints. Hey! be careful with my right wrist! I guess I would have to be asleep for this..that's fine. Finally, all the nuts and bolts of me laid out. My eyeballs, the joints of all my fingers. When they have all been cleaned and oiled real good, I would be put back together piece by piece and finally woken up with some of that brown rice green tea.
Then I'd go to work.

grace

Do you believe in grace or nature?...if you saw Tree of Life...it is still knocking around in my head.

Grace Jones on the stereo.

Still fighting boredom and restlessness this week.