The first time I went to Europe I was engaged to be married.  I was touring Italy, studying on an Art History trip and Venice was a stopping point along the way – a place to explore more museums and paintings and architecture.  Had I been prepared for the ache that would settle in my inner arena for being in the most romantic city in Europe (as I found myself without the man I loved) I might have planned for him to meet me there.  But something about the stillness of solitude before the great leap and the assurance that his unconditional love had really come into my life gave me a calm. That love was happening right then and there.  And that connection to him made everything I saw in those moments as romantic as if he had been there. The ache would have been the same. Venice gives you this longing.  It is a painter’s city.  An artist cannot help but love being in love here. From Piazza San Marco to the Rialto bridge, textures and light are all orchestrating a grand chiaroscuro that you only have to open your eyes to be a part of.  The shimmering canals and the sea fresh skies are the cymbal crashes in the song that you never want to stop listening to, but you leave knowing that you can only come back on one condition – that you come back with him next time.

Going to Venice without your fiance doesn’t break your wild romantic heart, it assures your strength in being there alone and surrounded by people other than him without being completely swallowed by the events to come and the city that is far more beautiful than you.

This trip being before the time digital cameras were introduced, photographs were counted very carefully as every frame needed to be taken with the greatest thought. Still, I wish I hadn’t been so frugal with my pictures because my memories have faded so much since then.  In this one, I remember clearly… I was thinking of him.

Now all I need is a sweet stereo slide viewer to see these proper… I’ve actually had this steel lightbox on my wishlist for a ridiculous amount of months.  Though my windows usually work in a pinch to look at negatives and such, being a busy Mom during the day, I usually only have time to create at night.  (Don’t you just love that huge bakelite button on the side?)

If you have the Sundance channel, the second season of Man Shops Globe premieres tomorrow night.  As you can probably guess, I really love watching this show because it combines all my passions into one.  Each episode follows Anthropologie buyer Keith Johnson in a different country throughout the world as he visits artist’s studios, browses through markets and searches remote villages on the ultimate treasure hunt for unusual decorative objects, textiles and furnishings.  (If you haven’t seen Season 1, you can watch it on iTunes!)

While we lived in Uruguay, we met some fellow Americans who also moved there on a whim for adventure.  Having that in common was enough to become friends.  They recently moved to Thailand (!) so I’m really excited to watch the first episode that shows Keith at the galleries of Bangkok and Chiang Mai.  Our friends have been talking up the food and fun they’ve been having their with their kids (they have five) and I’m soo tempted to go visit them while they are there.  I keep seeing their updates on facebook and it just reminds me of adventures we had in South America.  Updates like: “snorkeling on phi phi island” & “getting a $5 massage and eating crab” & “car smells like humid beach towels and children feet! On a mission to find waterfall to play in!”

On second thought – maybe I shouldn’t watch episode one… We all know what happens when Jenny gets an idea…

photos from man shops globe, season two

…In Amsterdam.  My twin brother lived in the Netherlands and survived getting clipped by a fast moving train while riding on his bicycle.  He made the newspapers the following day, “Mormon Missionary Saved by Angels!” I still remember sitting in our kitchen back at home and getting the phone call (we knew something was amiss, as it’s not common for missionaries to call home.) Ben has always had a big sense of humor, so when he said he got hit by a train, I thought he was kidding me.

These past several months of our lives have been so busy.  My concept of time has shifted.  Yesterday seems like a week ago, last week feels like a months ago and a month ago feels like a year ago.  Time is slipping, churning… if it isn’t real, this manmade measurement of abstract space…(time) then how can I feel it passing in my children’s eyes so speedily?  I know that I won’t remember so much of these past several months – in the way that I find last week hard to remember.  And so I keep taking photos, greedily I take everything i want to keep into my camera-I know that someday when I get a moment to myself again, I will be able to come back to those stolen moments and make sense of it all by piecing the images together.

I’m the sort who always cherished time to herself – it’s my way of prioritizing.  I guess it’s because I can stop and see everything that I’ve been doing, in a very real sense.  So it was nice to finally sit down for a few hours tonight and organize my photos.  Going through them I ended up back to our trip to Hawaii in March.  (Yes! It feels like it was already ages ago!) So much has happened between then and now.  I haven’t had the time to sit and catch my breath or write about it, but just the act of looking at these photographs of my life showed me where I am now.  Hawaii: I remember how I packed all blue clothes. How handsome Marcus looks in island light. And how scary thrilling a giant brushfire is up close and personal.  So much more.

Pictures are a suspended reality – they are a trick.  I can suddenly remember the laughter that filled the air, the texture of baby hair, the smell of the flowers.  They are saving me from losing years in my life when I might not know them.  I still have three rolls on my bedroom windowsill waiting to be developed.  Insurance that someday soon I will know these sweet busy years even better.