GRATITUDES + BREAKTHROUGHS // AUGUST 30, 2016

Gratitudes

This week was filled with errands and hurrying to pack to head to Maine for the weekend.

This isn’t a gratitude but a funny story I wanted to share – On Wednesday night I headed to Baltimore with my boyfriend and our friend Julien to have a relaxing night before we caught a 7am flight up to Boston on Thursday morning. We got to the hotel and pretty much went to sleep until we were woken up by the fire alarm at 1:30am. You want to be terrified? Try being sound asleep and hearing the repeated scream of a hotel fire alarm. All of us jumped out of bed disoriented and tried to make sense of the noise. I grabbed my computer bag with all of my essentials – computer, power cords, hard drives and gummy bears – while the boys debated on bringing their suits with them. We walked the four flights down the stairwell and stood outside in our pajamas as we watched other hotel guests pour out like sand from a sandbag. We stood there looking at each other and the hotel and laughing – this is what delirium is at 1:30am. Thankfully everyone and everything was okay, some lazy fool decided to smoke their cigarette in the stairwell and set off the alarm. Our 1:30am wake-up was followed by our real alarm at 4:00am. We headed off to catch our flights.

Maine is beautiful. I don’t know why I never thought it would be. It’s never been high on my list of places to – actually let me be honest – it’s never been on my list. But when my boyfriend was asked to be the Best Man in the wedding I knew I would be heading up there. I decided for this trip I wasn’t going to bring my digital camera. Instead I would bring my Fujifilm Instax Mini 25 as well as my 1980s Nikon EM. I specifically made that choice so that I could feel free. Sometimes as I travel I feel like I need to document everything, which as a photographer is easy. On the other hand by doing so I don’t feel relaxed. I feel pressure to make sure I get all of the details that my travel mates might have missed. So I left everything but film at home. When we arrived in Biddeford, Maine I was blown away by it’s beauty. Ocean views, massive rock beaches, stretches of soft sand, lobster boats, kayaks, paddle boards and so many bicycles. The vibe was so different from southern beaches. This community is full of families that stay the entire summer, they have build relationships, made connections and continue to return to a place that they really cherish. This was a nice, friendly tight-knit community that we were enjoying for the weekend.

Initially I was kicking myself in the ass for not bringing my digital camera, but after the first day I was able to unwind and select the moments I thought were valuable. That’s the difference between film and digital, with film you get to be discerning. You get to pick and choose which moments are right to remember. When you shoot digital it’s similar to your Iphone camera in that you shoot often with multiple out takes and the ones you don’t like you delete. Shooting film over the weekend reinforced that desire to explore film and to slow things down a bit. I will be dropping everything off this week to get developed so I’ll be able to show you just how beautiful it was up there!

This is week I was totally grateful that my boyfriend is a vegetarian. Since we were in Maine, the rehearsal dinner was a celebrated Lobster Bake with each guest having the option for one, big, tasty Maine lobster. This mean that your girl here, got to eat two full lobsters all to herself – butter and all. It was amazing!

Nail color of the week: A Grape Fit! I have worn this color for years, so long infact that the old bottle that I have is dried and crusty on the top. I couldn’t bear letting it go through just in case I could salvage it later, until I found it again at a local CVS. So naturally I scooped it up and brought it home to replace the old one. This was one of my solid go-to’s about 3 years ago. I wore it almost monthly. It’s creamy – obviously and more rich than the faint Lucky Lucky Lavender. I think this color transcends seasons and I tend to wear it more in the fall and spring. If you haven’t given it a shot… you should!

Breakthroughs

I had the opportunity this weekend to go and sit on top of this huge rock off of the coast of Maine and enjoy some alone time. I got to reflect on my recent travels and really wonder why I’m so called to travel and why others aren’t. I’m not sure why I am so curious to roam the world to see people just like you and I live. We all accomplish + experience essentially the same things, right? Like eating, sleeping, housing, families, languages and connections but if you look at the world and break it down by region and even more so by country we all do it differently. Americans, Italians, Africans, Russians, etc. each place has created a system of living that has worked but it can be so vastly different than our norm. What we eat, how we eat, how we interact, family dynamics, social norms etc are all in place and all get things done. It’s all so fascinating.

As always, thanks for reading. xoxo.