From day to night (and more green walls)

These are the places and spaces I spend my days here.

I really can’t complain much – there’s an endless supply of tea and snacks and smiles.

“Just as appetite comes by eating so work brings inspiration”. -Igor Stravinsky

On originality and finding new inspirations

The other day I posted this photo and it got me thinking about just how true it is.

If you want an uncomplicated and straightforward life, don’t travel.

Travel, I find complicates everything. It makes you question all, makes you want to live in a bold new way, and makes you want to make lasting changes. If ever I feel that I’m stuck or in need of new inspirations, I travel. Travel ruined me and ruined me at a young-ish age, but its something I wouldn’t ever want to change or take back.

Travel doesn’t have to be far or involve multiple flights. Just the act of moving can become a sort of mediation and a way to clear the clutter from my mind.

These days, I have found that I find inspiration in the simplest things. I haven’t been able to sleep through the night in over a month because I lie wide-eyed in bed and start thinking of all the things, projects, people, etc.

I want to see and experience and touch all of it and I don’t want it to stop after these three months of summer traveling.

Over the past several years of my life, this has become a sort of routine –> find something, pack a backpack, leave for Asia for three months (sometimes more), get overly inspired, return home –> repeat.

For now, when I think of the future, it involves living much as I am now –> New languages, sights, sounds, tastes, and nights spent not sleeping (solely because I’m just too excited to go to bed). After all these years of traveling and living like this I was afraid that this summer would finally break me, I’d be done with it, and want to embrace the uncomplicated. If anything, the opposite has been true and Burma has reminded me once again of how much I love this life and this style of living.

“I don’t believe in originality. You take inspiration from whatever moves you and you find your voice in those things.” – Tim Walker

I’d give up a good night’s sleep and fast internet any day if it meant I could feel this alive and this much like myself.

(Overly) inspired

According to the fat dictionary, the word inspired means “having a particular cause or influence.”

Lately, I feel that I’m just overly inspired and my interests are far too varied and vast. At times, I feel I’m going mad.

I’m currently in such a funny middle place between moods and seasons. Feeling impressively present and happy overall, but at times anxious about the big, bad future!

Being in NYC last week, certainly didn’t help, although I had the time of my life there! I constantly felt bombarded by contradictory thoughts and feels and the desire to feel and experience everything in life.

This photo is from one of my long, long walks through Brooklyn last week.

Many photos to come from Katherine and Caley’s beautiful Saxapahaw wedding and  NY.

Crazy, stupid colors

Amirah in Oz asked me to think of the best places I lived in//visited in NZ and it brought back a flood of good memories. That, and a good conversation on bleachers about how NZ is the greatest place on earth, has had me thinking a good deal about NZ again.

I went through old photos and found these.

Gorgeous, crazy, stupid colorful NZ. I love that place and the life I lived there. Funny to think how different I feel now. I’m stable. Content being here and most of all passionate about things beyond just places alone. It is so easy in a place like NZ to feel constantly and unbelievably excited//inspired by your surroundings, but I’m finding that is possible in most any place. Yes, even here. Even in Carrboro.

It is fun to revisit this place through pictures and words and even more to realize that beauty exists like this. A type of beauty that is uncomfortable//distracting. A place that glows with so much color its frightening.

[Photos: The impossible beauty of the Milford sounds, NZ//Grace Farson]

Advice for the young

Patti Smith has long been a hero of mine. Amirah shared this with me today and it’s fabulous.

Do yourself a favor and listen.

“Don’t make compromises, don’t worry about making a bunch of money or being successful. Be concerned about doing good work.” – Patti Smith

+ Just Kids

I’ve been thinking. . .

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what my life would look like if I gave everything away, practiced true non-attachment, and started over. . .

What if I lived a beautiful, simple life without clutter? Just how little can I survive on?

After reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and a bit of Thich Nhat Han’s writings this week, I’m ready to make some real changes . . . I don’t really know that it will look like just yet, but I’m excited to try and live life a little simpler//a little less chaotic, but still full, meaningful, and busy.

In a sense, I like the word busy. I like life when it’s busy. Busy shouldn’t be a complaint, but rather a privilege.

Approaching life with mindfulness. That’s the goal. . .

Break is still treating me well. I’m more than happy these days. . .

Plus:

This video has rocked my world//invaded my dreams//inspired me beyond words:

+ I like their life and think their blog is pure magic.

[Photo//Video: Sunset on Gili Trawangan Island, Indonesia//Grace Farson + The Goodwin Project//Avocados and Coconuts]

Beauty everywhere

 

“We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.” – e. e. cummings

Happy Monday.

Find someone to believe in you.

Find something beautiful to celebrate.

These photos are my inspiration//the things that are pulling me through the next few days.

[Photos: Found in Nepal//Grace Farson]