The last boy I dated

He doesn't live in the City anymore. We met in August of last summer, and this was a picture I took of him on one of our first dates. I don't have many photos of him, but this is my favourite photo of him. I think this was also one of my favourite dates with him. We just sat in the park and talked and made out. It was very easy then. Very simple, very sweet.

I used to say and I guess I still do, "It was good until it wasn't."

He started to get busy with work. I started to get anxious and lonely and desperate. I think he liked me, I know I liked him. We never got into a big fight, but we kept telling each other we were unhappy. I haven't seen him in maybe three months now. We stopped talking for a month or two. He moved away and I didn't even know. I've since told him how I was upset. He asked if it was too late to say sorry. We still joke around. We still text each other occasionally. I tell him I still miss him, and he still teases me the way he used to. But now he lives in a different city and we barely functioned when he lived ten minutes away.

It was good until it wasn't, but I still miss him.

Pictured above: Richard, and the sunset we missed that day. 

A love letter to summer

This is today's journal entry: 
There is another week before March begins, maybe another few weeks before spring begins. I am stunned at the prospect of another summer, but hopefully this year around I feel less lost, less sad. Hopefully, this summer will be filled with the adventure that last summer lacked. I want the summer, the heat to remind me of all the ways I am alive.

I miss travelling. I miss the way that e can see the world with fresh eyes again. I miss the way, the beauty of that. Everything has a different light, different set of lines. I miss the curiosity that accompanies all of this. This summer, I want to make it somewhere, anywhere even if it is not so far. I want to see somewhere unfamiliar, to feel unfamiliar. I want that challenge again.

I want to learn how to skateboard.

I'm going to meet new people. I'm going to challenge myself and my art. Maybe I'll try to set up a small drawing booth at Trinity Bellwoods park. Maybe I will work up the courage to do tis. Maybe I will make friends this way. Maybe something good will out of this kind of practice. I want to further explore this aspect of myself. I want art, lots and lots of art. I want to breathe art, to live with it between my fingertips constantly.

I want to meet love again. Real love that I will have trouble denying, that I won't be nervous or anxious or worried about. I want real love, either with someone or completely with myself and my life and the speed of it all. I think that this is possible. It is possible to discover all over, and I am sure that I can do this, that I will. Discover good again and again.

I want summer this year, to scream life. To scream what is like to be alive in your 20s, full of drunken nights and screaming laughter. Dancing till it rains and your feet are too sore to walk the next day. I want art galleries to be the way I cool off and nude beaches to be where I will relax.

I don't want to put too much pressure on this summer, I don't want to stop moving. Wild things are meant to run free, not with feet bound to this earth. We will have adventures, we will remember sunsets and sunrises. Love, freedom and adventure will define this summer, and laughter will decorate all the spaces in between.

Spring is soon and spring always represents regrowth so it will be a chance for regrowth, for planting our roots in new desires, in new ways of encountering life.

It's going to be a time to be excited about life again. About adventure and all the ways that it can help build us as people. We will do well. We have to.

Mid-February Favourites

I really enjoy the idea of having monthly "favourites," but somewhere between the good intentions at the beginning of the month and the end of the month, the list is lost somewhere and it is never finished or thought of again. So, here is my list of favourites even though there is something like 11 days left of February.

Let's go.

Jade succulent ($7) from Dynasty Toronto - I want to start getting more into plants. I feel like this is a super white-new age-hipster-hippie thing to say, but I don't care. It's a proven fact that plants can make you feel happier or calmer, or whatever the proven fact is. The greenery is nice. Seeing life around you is nice. Plus, Dynasty is a super cute shop and visiting it is just precious.

My new glasses. 

The process of journaling - So I have a small collection of personal journals. They're stacked on top of my wall shelf unit. There's six in total. 5 black Moleskine journals, and a white one that I bought from Chapters when I was 13. I'm on my sixth black Moleskine journal. Journaling is an off-and-on thing for me. I always have a journal (it acts more like a scrapbook), but I don't always write or draw or collage into it. Lately, I've been really trying to get back into my journal though. Most recently, it's a lot of drawing.

Ikea's Valje wall cabinets in white. 

Hot water bottle. 

Winter outfit combination - Jeans, winter wool socks, Blundstone lookalikes from Doc Martens, oversized peppery light grey wool coat from Forever 21, giant Wilfred scarf, some kind of turtleneck sweater, black bag.

Nivea hand cream - My cold broken hands need constant relief from hand cream.

Nude Update

Today is February 1, 2016, and this is how I look naked.

I'm not sure how many people know I do this, but if you ever find my Macbook in the wild and you choose to open the Photobooth application, you will be overrun by nude photos of myself. Surprise.

I've been taking nude portraits of myself for years now. I think when I was 17, they were partially nude or pictures with the bra and underwear still on but the exercise of photographing myself in minimal clothing has always been something I did. You can call this habit any number of things- jailbait, scandalous, slutty, stupid, attention seeking, ego boosting. I don't really care.

If we've dated, I've probably texted you nude photos. If we've lived together, you've probably seen me walking around with my bum hanging out. If you've come over and I'm still asleep, you'll probably find me nude in bed. The first time one of my old roommates' mom saw me, she asked my roommate if I ever wore clothes.

The nude body has always been something of interest- the way that you see people and their lumps and bumps, caves and cervices; the way your partner walks naked across the room; the vulnerability and bravery that a nude body can expose; the parts of themselves someone may expose or hide when they first strip down. Away from the eroticism that we typically associate with nudity, the nude body is so gentle. Skin and the way that it reflects light and darkness, is so gentle. It's vulnerable, and this is so beautiful and soothing.

I don't typically associate the nude with eroticism. Maybe I've become desensitized to it, having watched too much pornography or been on Tumblr far too long. Can I blame it on being too involved in art?

For myself, I record myself nude periodically. I photograph myself nude. They're not amazing photographs- usually terrible ones on my Macbook webcam or poorly angled ones on my digital camera. Once a year on my birthday, I take a nude selfie with an instant camera, tape that into my journal. I do it to remember where I was, where I want to be. I do it to learn to become more comfortable in my own skin, and to discover how I'm not. I do it to accept who we are as human- imperfect, vulnerable, soft, riddled with insecurities and complications. I do it to pick apart my body and what I don't like, but to see how far I've come. I do it to find home again in my body, to find confidence and security in the way my hair falls, the way my boobs lay, the way my stomach rounds and my bum scoops. I think this practice is therapeutic. I think it's important.

I haven't been photographing myself as often. I'm not dating anyone. I'm so busy with work, I haven't had the opportunity to practice yoga, to move my body and feel the same confidence as when I'm active. I haven't felt very creative or motivated.

This is a restart. It is February 1, 2016, and I am naked in bed writing this. It is time to take stock of where I am, where I'm going, and where I want to go. I want to be with my body again, be with my mind and creativity. I want to cleanse, to start with the clean, gentle, soft nude body. This is my body and this is my mind and soul. I am going to find home in it again and again. It is February and it is time to take stock of everything, to cleanse everything.