Mornings And Other Contagions
A series of unsnarky observations
It’s all glowy outside and weird bright green, you know there’s rain coming, and I feel great about everything except my eyebrows which I self-dyed using Just For Men, but I want to start this blog with good things about mornings, so forget that and here goes:
My across neighbour’s white garage goes creamsicle orange
Daisy is old now likes to sleep all day in doorways for more efficient fart-bombing I think but first thing she is e-n-e-r-g-y-!
Coffee
I feel willowy (I am not willowy)
I love my hair these days silver-edged
Poetry site
Fruit
Water
I think of my children, I don’t brag about them enough, they are wonderful accomplished kind soft hard surprising funny
Beach sand on the floor
Herbs on the deck I can smell basil and is that lavender and the other one, the one got with Indian food with two names neither of which I can remember right now
Half-darkness
Half-lightness
Early morning swim in Lake Ontario’s warm chill
Change change change change
I was on a shoot yesterday for the cover of a magazine, and this is the second issue in which the lead article, and cover, features a real person, a Toronto celebrity, and this one was health and wellness guru Dr. Stacy Irvine, who owns a posh gym/yoga studio/education centre right smack downtown.
I had the three shots planned out so we were ready for her when she came beautiful in blue yoga bra and leggings, and we started shooting, I should mention she is in her fifties, and she was yoga posing in this beautifully lit space, brick walls and plants, loads of windows, and wood floor and of course she’s in terrific shape, camera’s click click clicking, I’m smiling at her hard and she’s smiling back.
I’ve shot lots of real people before and they’re the ones that cringe when they see themselves on screen in the same way people hear their recorded voices IS THAT ME? and they usually don’t like what they see but I gotta tell you Stacy loved every single one of her shots and used words like CUTE BEAUTIFUL NICE LOVELY and even STUNNING as I flipped through them and her confidence impressed me, it really did, and I stood closer to her in case it’s contagious.
She’s not a professional model and some of the shots her eyes are closed or just one, and some weirdness is going on in some, unflattering optical illusions and all that, but her self-admiration was unfailing
And I think this sort of shit is catchy if you let it and I wrote another list sort of like the one above about mornings but it’s things I like about myself and you should try it, you’ll see what I mean when I say it’s powerful.
Just try it – nobody has to know, you can delete it right away, be silly and honest – I’ll wait…
Going to that shoot was my first time on the subway in two and a half years or more and everything’s the same, it’s us who have changed you know, everything’s in the same place but I got lost, thought the subway let out at Spadina rather than University and had to walk twenty minutes in the hotness and in a jumpsuit, stomach in, needing to pee and in a jumpsuit it’s an entirely uncharted level of difficulty/panic I mean just because you’re in the bathroom, in the cubicle, you still have work to do.
So keep your pelvic floor happy if you want to wear light-coloured jumpsuits
We did the cover shot outside in twilight and they were gorgeous she said breathtaking. LOL.
Going home was after rush hour and the subway wasn’t crowded and I saw some things and made phone-notes which don’t mean so much this morning, but in honour of when they did mean so much, I gotta tell you about these sisters, maybe 7 and 12, I guess when they got on the subway it was crowded so the girls were sort of separate from their dad with lots of eye contact and smiles and the way the little one was sleeping, her head in the older one’s lap was a beautiful example of sisterhood, the older one flat-out adoring her sister, playing with her hair, touching her face, so gentle and the love was loud and clear and I don’t know about you but younger siblings are often tortured, aren’t they, I mean maybe lightly, but still, some of that shit sticks, just ask me.
I was glad I was wearing my mask because I had one of those smiles that are messy and emotional and no little girls want some silver-edge-haired jumpsuit-wearing vigorously-holding-in-pee person gawking.
The other thing I typed in, not sure what I was thinking, but maybe self-admiration and confidence had something to do with it or maybe what I was saying about younger siblings came through:
The little engine that said fuck you
Also…
I celebrated a week of successful dieting last night with cake and ice cream!
Have a nice weekend everybody and thanks for reading!
That was the end but I like to go for a walk before posting in case I get new ideas I might want to throw in like this observation about writing: Everything up until now has been practice and this, too, when tomorrow comes.
Pretty fucking profound, right?
And, as a bonus, watch this video set to Cat Stevens’ Morning Has Broken, so funny, and goes nicely with the old joke:
Q What does a Scarborough girl do first thing in the morning?
A Go home
