1// celebrating my grandpa harley's 90th birthday

2// getting phil and jason hooked on a childhood favorite 90's sci-fi show, ocean girl

3// re-reading the hunger games - a little every night just before sleep

4// receiving a box full of impossible film in the mail

5// filling my frankie daily journal with entries

6// seeing jason two days in a row - IN. A. ROW.

7// drinking martinelli's sparkling apple cider just because

8// breaking bread together at brittany's maundy thursday/good friday dinner

9// feeling more and more like myself again

fuji instax mini:  tree green sky blue  |  © kimberly k taylor, all rights reserved

hello chilled mornings and warm afternoons.  hello birthdays of loved ones and cake cake cake.  hello stiff upper lip and sleep-deprived nights.  hello right-before-bed realizations and thankful hearts instead.  hello taxes, w-2s, and appointments way across town in the heart of rush hour.  hello songs for car rides and spilled cider in my sparkle shoes.  hello taupe-colored nail polish smudges.  hello work trainings and lists of to dos.  hello staticky hair and thank-goodness ponytail holders.  hello re-reading books and starting new ones.  hello cross-eyed moments and silly cat friends.  hello perfect kisses and too-soon goodbyes.  hello fuji instax mini film and early morning captures.  hello self.

fuji instax mini:  hello april  |  © kimberly k taylor, all rights reserved

Everytime I drive home... or drive anywhere for that matter, I cannot help but notice the homes, the apartment buildings, and the townhouse units en route.  With each new mile, they seem to be exuding a stately air (even if they're not the stately type) to win me over as I drive their lined streets- streets of differing road curvatures and widths, automobiles claiming driveways, yard ornaments indicating their person.  Such variety, such distiction.  I have been dreaming for a place of my own since I was a teenager, or maybe even before, and it is nearly nearly. 

I think I have a watercolor-blurred image in my mind of what would suit us- of what would feel like us.  Location, however, is something that is changing.  Initially, our hearts were set only on Monrovia.  But now, Jason and I are reconsidering.  As we make our commutes to and from work, to and from work, to and from work, windows are cracking open to Arcadia and Pasadena.  If we found our space further west, Jason might actually have time to spend with me, with people, and maybe even enjoying leisurely habits he has neglected all year.  Eliminating 5:00am mornings would be so wonderful.  Thoughts are being thunk and first drafts are being reworked and a steady little excitement is growing.

fuji instax mini:  monrovian | © kimberly k taylor, all rights reserved

20/29 | Twenty-Nine Days Challenge

fuji instax mini: resonant | © kimberly k taylor, all rights reserved

on the eve of a most favorite day

Happy Birthday Eve, Jason

Enjoy your last day of being twenty-six, Love.
I like you and I like us.

{fuji instax mini:  hometown lovely}

© kimberly k taylor, all rights reserved

new things



... a promise of marriage
... letters
... finding time
... holga
... job responsibilities
... navy cardigan

It has been light and heavy, simultaneously- light and dark, collaboratively.  and I cannot tell you where the time has gone and what has been done with it, exactly.  I can give you hints, hues, and happenstances, but no full pictures can be drawn.

December, what happened?  We were supposed to find quality time to just be together.  To cut snowflakes like last year- intricate, delicate beauties for stringing from ceilings and any edge from which they can be hung.  To learn, for once and for all, how to make those perfectly soft and chewy ginger cookies Brittany knows how to make.  To remember the Story and dwell on its beauty.  To pen and ink and watercolor my Christmas cards.  To sip hot cocoa or vanilla almond tea across the table from a friend.

Somehow, it all rushes past and I really have started to abhor the phrase, "hustle and bustle", but I will try to let that go and smile because all around me there are red, greens, and golds.  There is music circling and scents of cinnamon wafting around and twinkle lights making things feel more homey and personal than usual.

I truly do love Christmastime.  And this year, I am seeing Christmastime and the hope that is birthed with it.  And things seem to be slowing down even though, in actuality, they are speeding up.

{fuji instax mini:  their eyes were watching God}

© kimberly k taylor, all rights reserved

new words

Maybe you know- those days when you wake up and try to come up with just about any excuse to shut off that darn alarm clock and stay curled beneath warm covers, listening to the fan dull away any other sounds that do not belong in the world of slow-dreamy waking up- the way we were meant to awaken.  To me, it feels quite literally like some gratingly sharp pain is scraping me up and down just to leave my bed and make my way to the bathroom where running a hot shower is the only (even remotely) possible compensation.

This morning was like that.  And the morning before that and the one before.  Three days in a row like that.  But, it's all my own fault.  It is my consequence for taking a novel with me to bed, knowing full well that I have a recurring inability to stop turning pages even when there are clear breaks and chapter endings.  But, then there's the I will never get a chance to read all the good novels in the world before I die, so this is my chance!

While I choose reading over sleep, Jason is devoid of sleep for different reasons.  He continues to be perpetually swamped at work in the grilling game of catch-up, waking at 5:00 AM and plodding into his apartment anywhere between 8:00 and 9:00 PM.  Seeing him less and less, and when I do see him, looking into fatigued eyes and embracing shoulders weighed down with so much, makes me sad- he looks so helpless when he is sad.  But, we have managed to go on a few dates or fall asleep for an hour-long nap and those prove to be pockets of happiness in the midst of stretched days.  

Happiness, too, is that we received word that Jason's aunt and uncle have generously announced that we may have our wedding at their intimate mountainside wooden cottage.  Covered in creeping ivy, the little home they hand built together as newly weds, has a deck that wraps around the cottage and overlooks Leslie's garden (the kind you expect to find in movies like Finding Neverland, Miss Potter, and Becoming Jane)- natural and almost wild, yet peaceful in its simplicity and sweetened beauty.  Tall oaks and some type of pine and maybe redwoods cover the hillside.  And it is, quite literally, the most ideal location that has ever entered my mind and I am so thankful and still amazed. 

And with things like that, I can truly feel that our turn is finally coming.  And that is... well, I can't find words- an entirely new emotion.

{fuji instax mini: remembering to remember us}

© kimberly k taylor, all rights reserved

two days of away

big bear lake, ca

labor day weekend

short, but sweet and silly, too

and just enough to remember

beauty and peaceful places

where creation is growing

and wildlife is thriving

before coming back again

{fuji instax mini and canon 30d : two days of away - big bear lake, ca}

© kimberly k taylor, all rights reserved

renegading with rhiannon & co.

this weekend was
lovely

my dear little cousin

who isn't really little anymore

came to town

and stayed with me for

two days

we saw harry potter

and played games with the family

and talked until 3:45am

and went to the renegade craft fair

The Renegade Craft Fair

Fernworks by the exceptionally talented, Faryn Davis

Brilliant Keiko Brodeur Ward from Small Adventure

We posed near this lovely wall, which looked far more green than captured here.

   

and

crossing

5 and 6

off The List.

belated birthday

mimi's cafe, monrovia,

topper dvds from me,

the judge who hated red nail polish from b,

mousse trio (lemon, raspberry, & chocolate) for daddy,

bread pudding with butter rum sauce for me,

apple crisp with vanilla bean ice cream for mom,

brittany was good and didn't have any dessert,

and

watching old topper episodes with him just like when we were little girls.

{fuji instax mini : celebrating a 59th year}

© kimberly k taylor, all rights reserved

saturday




(Click to enlarge)


Keeping up with No. 20 on The List.

And Jason made us a delicious pasta dinner.  The sauce had two different kinds of squash and fresh basil and rosemary from his minature garden.  Then, he worked on the powerpoint for church and I started The Brothers Karamasov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and found myself thoroughly captivated.  My first piece of Russian literature- and I am captivated.  I always had a hunch that Dostoyevsky and I would get along ever since when my first college roommate left Dostoyevsky quotations everywhere beautiful.

seeing lines

The cursor is blinking, a simple upright line, telling me that I have not turned thoughts into words yet.  I have been staring at a blank white text box for many minutes thinking of a million things and not knowing where in my mind to start.

I am thinking of the novel and its many stories that I am reading.  I am sensing being lonely at work.  I am remembering a conversation I had on Wednesday night and being hopeful of newness and authenticity.  I am considering writing a book and wondering about that.  I am feeling warm from a chance encounter with an unmet-known-of person who recognized me, cared for introductions to be made, and was kind.  I am noticing the taste of a banana strawberry smoothie (and how most people call them strawberry banana smoothies, but that seems strange to order the fruits outside of alphabetical order like that).  But, what am I trying to identify...

There is a persistence in an undying line.  I awake prematurely and see that light is just beginning to enter this part of the world.  It is still early, but not far enough away for comfort.  I rotate my body, changing position, to try to shush my mind from guessing what time it is and waking up more surely.  Sometimes I find a few more minutes even within an hour's span, and sometimes I rotate again and again until that one last minute of peace  surpasses its last second and the inevitable alarm and all its irritations invades the gentle and sounds in my head and worse, my body.  My tired body that needs to lie still for three or four more at least.  And honestly I feel like I am in very real pain.  The pain of waking a body and mind that has yet been unable to find solace for enough to rejuvenate and replenish, much less invigorate.  I know that rest is what I need (so it is already identified and needs no reminders), but I am a grown-up now and there are responsibilities and I must adhere if I mean to keep up.  Time and sleep can be the most noncommittal, evasive pair of friends even if they are such beauties. 

Another seven-days have passed and it feels like a new hope.  Strange... how the passing of days can be encouraging for new ones.  It seems backwards.

{fuji instax mini:  let's share and we can be each other for a time}
© kimberly k taylor, all rights reserved

I like:

..1..

these flowers

..2..

the last name Fitzpatrick

..3..

the book I'm reading,
The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery
and given to me by Diane Pestell

..4..

silver better than gold

..5..

checking things off my list of tasks

..6..

using my savings account for the first time since I moved out in 2003

..7..

taking Jason's home-cooked meals with me to work for lunch

..8..

singing High School Musical songs in the car

..9..

watching old Mad About You reruns with Jason

..10..

toffee powdered sugar almonds from Peet's Coffee

{fuji instax mini:  my first instant mini}

© kimberly k. taylor, all rights reserved

dividing the land

it's about time i ran and fell
fell and scraped my knees
but laughed

{fuji instax mini: dividing the land}

© kimberly k. taylor, all rights reserved

been meaning to...

...figure out the next step
...start my field journal
...finish A Spell is Cast by Eleanor Cameron
...blog about our trip north and last week's adventure at the Fair
...have pizza with Megan
...send a letterjournal to Allison
...try out my new Impossible film
...finish editing images for a client
...celebrate Jeremie's birthday via double-date
...sleep (a lot)

but,

turns out that

goings on have been

(with life not being easy)

so,

okay then

{fuji instax mini: yellow neighbor}

© kimberly k taylor, all rights reserved

always, never, need to

i am always
...making lists
...in the mood for pasta
...short
...prone to singing in the car
...tempted by etsy.com
...happy to sleep in

i will never ever
...forget my first cat
...give up on the lost art of letter-writing
...be into pro sports
...lose my love of cheese
...change my mind about the color pink
...choose the beach over mountains

i need to learn
...how to pursue dreaming
...a way to enjoy cooking
...to keep better tabs on crankiness levels
...how to to put a novel down and get some sleep
...the value of being a tad more extroverted
...to make more time for art

{fuji instax mini:  Ode to Feet No. 1, 2, 3}

© Kimberly K Taylor, all rights reserved

an attempt to understand the horror

I have so many words to say and yet no words that can fully express Melanie Weaver's powerful art installation.  Melanie was a victim of human trafficking when she was a child and her experience and artistic genius are revealed in her staggering piece.

I was and still am so completely overwhelmed.  At first, I was overwhelmed in an aesthetic way.   In the colors, artistry, sculptures, and textures. After walking away, I became emotionally overwhelmed and returned to work through all the meaning and depth there.

Upon entering, I was mesmerized by the brilliant, varying shades of reds sewn together in shapes and beautiful patterns to make up a large quilt that, draping from iron hooks and the ceiling, coated the space - the walls, the floor.  Each quilted piece was the fabric from women and children's clothing. Dyed doilies, crocheted delicacy against the harshness of the room.

Women and children's shoes, more shades of red, lined the room.  Each filled with more red fabric.  And in them, I saw their lives, torn and bleeding.

The boldness of the reds were accompanied by the starkness of skin colors of dismembered dolls in cold, black cages.  Hanging sculptures of naked limbs, bouquets of torsos, and lone heads.  Torn apart, no longer whole.  How harsh, the realization when I made the connection.  The inanimate objects- the smiling doll children.  Trafficked victims, completely and utterly objectified.

Each represented a trafficked victim who has been stolen, abused, stripped of their dignity, silenced by their oppressors, and isolated from all love and light and goodness in the world.  Each head, varying hair (in differing styles), skin, and eye color.  Yet all of them had a small smile playing on their lips in irony.  For they must smile.  They have no choice, it is what they exist for.

Many of the smiling lips had a dark twist of black yarn protruding from their mouths in a long strand down towards the floor.  Symbolic of a bitter truth that when you continually put evil and darkness into someone, it will begin to come out... expressing itself in pain and horror.

Each forehead is marked with a red, wax seal of the letter 'H'.  'H' for 'Holy', the artist Melanie Weaver, told me.  The purity, the beauty of that mark, in stark contrast to the false label seen by those who rent beloved creatures to achieve their own satisfaction.

Holy

Little plastic cherries and handmade ones out of yarn littered the floor.  Dismembered hands of children held one solitary cherry in their open palm, laying on the quilted floor.  Crass is the picture.  Crass is the phrase, "pop her cherry".  In my conversation with Melanie Weaver, she described to me how trafficked victims are becoming younger and younger as those who want to use them desire the least likelihood of receiving an STD (no concern given to what the as buyers already carry and will inevitably pass on to their victims).  To "pop a cherry" is ideal.  And younger and younger are these victims.

These pictures do not do justice to this incredibly impressive art installation.  It was abrasive, yet sadly dripping.  It was filled with eeriness and horror, yet beauty in the art, itself.  It was disturbing, as it should be.  Human trafficking is horror, is skewed, is torture, is stolen dignity and innocence.  It was gut wrenching, uncomfortable, overwhelmingly powerful, and undoubtedly rewarding.  I do not think I was able to take it all in during one evening.  I keep thinking about it and finding new things and my heart hurts a little more.

Jason, Kirsten, and I found the artist, Melanie Weaver, outside and away from all the noise and ongoing performers, taking it all in and breathing after working for days without sleep.  We had the opportunity to have a discussion with her.  I described some of my observations and the symbolism I had recognized.  She smiled and nodded emphatically and said, "It's working," with happiness and relief at all the labor and heart and creativity and pain she poured into this.  She affirmed some of my interpretations and enlightened me on many.  She told us how she has been collecting the dolls and purchasing "Hi-Ho Cherrio" replacement pieces for a very long time and that this installation has been years in the making.

Now, in it's wake, I am utterly humbled at its beauty and severity.

Tonight was a preview and only a portion of what will be created as a full show in January 2011.  Believe me, I will be getting as many people to see it as I have in my power to do.  I have to find a way for Bryan to get out here.  This is too important, too big.  Art forces people to see in a way that can't be explained.  It has a magic to instill emotions and fears, to provoke action, to break hearts, and to instigate a way for change to occur and beauty to come.

I will be thrilled to assist the talented and brilliant Miss Weaver in the January installation.  How I respect this woman.  For her vision, for her bravery, for her extraordinary talent.  She handed me her sketchbook, pages covered in quilt sketches and ideas, and had me write my contact information there.  She said it was "in exchange for the picture" (below).

 To view my complete photographic experience, please, click here.

 © Kimberly K Taylor, all rights reserved