[Lili’s Closet tiered tulle chemise + an old Anthro sweater with gossamer awesomeness + Free People Antalya coin collar.]
Buds.
Not pals, buds on trees. And in the words of Carol Anne, “They’re heeeerrreeee!”
I gotta say. Since this time last year, things have been sort of a professional whirlwind of magical proportions. It’s an odd sensation (since mid-January of last year) to know that there’s literally not an hour during the day during which you theoretically could be working. Not a single hour. That makes it hard to chill, let alone sleep.
That’s the working from home bit, but it’s also the nature of this immense and awesome project I’ve taken on. And I never say “no” to more. Never.
This time last year, I’d stationed myself in the back room on the twin bed by the window, surrounded by broken bits of wasabi peas and 11 library books on the history of furniture. Day and night, just working away. Sometimes crying in the face of the monumental task, but I think tears sometimes unlock fresh logic.
So I wrote and wrote, in arm’s reach of our fig tree outside, which waits until the last possible minute to get its fat, iconic ancient underpant leaves. The rest of the world had caught on to spring—I could hear the outdoor bands and people riding bikes, I just couldn’t join them.
Mid-April was the deadline, and I hit it. I worked til 3 am nights, all day, each day during the weekend. And the fig tree hung on with me, like, “Yo, we not missing anything yet.”
This is the same tree that, like a bitchy sister, is my favorite and also least favorite part of this house. In the summer, her monster canopy keeps the back half of the house about 10 degrees cooler // also becomes infested with birds (vomit) screeching and fighting all day over the figs, which then get diarrhea’d all over the deck, half-eaten, covered in ants // but Eli eats the birds, and I eat the figs. Then in the fall, you can’t see an inch of deck for all the leaves that fall constantly // birds are gone, figs are gone, and I go outside 3 times a day to gather leaves by hand in a sort of meditative break from the workday. Love/hate, but also, a solid companion.
Look at this girthy woman. You can’t even see the back room’s window anymore, which would be at about 11 o’clock in this photo.
Then one day, I turned in my first draft. Not too long after, green sprigs exploded across its massive surface area—a wingspan that had doubled, in fact, since the day we’d moved into the house.
Kind of like me.
I went outside that first morning of relative freedom (work hasn’t slowed, I’ve just leveled out)—and it was warm. And I had a beer for breakfast.
Spring’s back—and it’s Miller time.
-Carey.
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