latest roll of film

 

There’s something uniquely beautiful about picking an old hobby back up where you left off to find that no matter how your life has changed, it still feels the same.

“‘Finding yourself’ is not really how it works. You aren’t a ten-dollar bill in last winter’s coat pocket. You are also not lost. Your true self is right there, buried under cultural conditioning, other people’s opinions, and inaccurate conclusions you drew as a kid that became your beliefs about who you are. ‘Finding yourself’ is actually returning to yourself. An unlearning, an excavation, a remembering who you were before the world got its hands on you.” 

 – Emily McDowell

sketchbook

This is where my mind has been lately. I am fortunate enough that all of the writers illustrated above have been on my reading syllabus this year and studying them hardly feels like ‘work’ at all.

watercolours

I love painting and drawing because they are my solution to wanting things I don’t have (whereas photography is my solution to having exactly what I want). Right now I want spring—lilac trees in front of old brick buildings, overcast skies and green for miles, buds and blossoms on trees, flowers and farmer’s market fruits. J.Crew swimwear and Kate Spade handbags . . . 

2013 so far...

end of May

As May comes to an end, all I can think of is ballet, puppies, and Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald. I had my last ballet class of the spring term yesterday and I don’t go back until July, and while normally the whole month of June would have seemed like too long a wait, I will be too busy in June to notice because I am getting a puppy! I am out of my mind with anticipation. And just when I thought life couldn’t be any better, I was given a ticket to see the Bolshoi Ballet this past weekend! It was surreal—my favourite scene was, of course, the Dryads, and I was especially in love with Vladislav Lantratov, who was dancing the role of Basilio in the performance I saw.

All I have read this month has been F. Scott Fitzgerald—at the end of April I read Zelda Fitzgerald’s Save Me The Waltz, which is what sparked my Fitzgerald obsession is now one of my very favourite books—I keep rereading passages of it, and have renewed my copy at the library several times until I can find one to buy. In May I read Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, followed by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is The Night, then I reread The Great Gatsby and loved it even more this time around, and I am just finishing reading Babylon Revisited and Other Stories, as well as skimming through more of his short stories here, my favourites of which have been Two Wrongs and The Sensible Thing.

Here are two watercolours I attempted, one of Zelda and Scottie Fitzgerald, the other of F. Scott’s gorgeous signature (I have an obsession with handwriting, and his is especially beautiful)—

One of my other obsessions is the Paris Opera Ballet—here is an adorable documentary about the Paris Opera Ballet School and les petits rats; (the playlist to which it is attached is wonderful too).