Girl Eating Porridge by William Adolphe Bouguereau, 1874. Will oatmeal give me her youthful glow? I was procrastinating about writing (don’t judge – we all do it) and so I decided to shovel the snow off the sidewalks instead. As much as I love watching a blizzard? The shovelling is a bugger and yet, also […]

Written by Tracy Giles, Canada The ocean was still and flat like a scrying mirror with nothing to tell. The air was wantonly warm, tickling, tingling; and the sky was a deep swimming pool sapphire, unblemished by a single cloud. But there – a ripple, a break – the head of a seal, smooth, black-eyed […]

Written by Kate Hensher, Italy The hospital bed, oversized and incongruous amidst the junk shop finds of my mother’s, dominates her narrow living room (the irony of living, not lost). I don’t know how she does it. Even with this ugly piece of metal that lifts and lowers, and promises her comfort, she’s still squeezed […]

Babette’s Feast is imprinted on my heart forever. I was in my early 20s and it was going to be a cold winter weekend with a blizzard of snow and howling wind. The kind of weekend where you happily leave the world outside and hunker down with books, apples, a cozy blanket, soup on the […]

Acclaimed American children’s illustrator and writer, Tasha Tudor, puttering in her garden. When the world feels heavy (and you’re feeling overwhelmed, or exhausted, or needing to find some small joys?) I have the answer for you. You need to write about puttering. Puttering is an odd word but even the sound of it captures its […]

Magpies are incredibly beautiful and intelligent! Photo by Emily Gorda. I love early winter mornings and everything about them: being gently woken up by my werewolf dog, he barely touches my hand with his nose; putting on my vintage thrifted kimono robe; smelling the fresh coffee my husband has made downstairs and smiling at the […]

Edouard John Menta (Swiss, 1858-1915) The Hiding Place. (Don’t you love my socks?) Georgia O’Keeffe once said, “I have done nothing all summer but wait for myself to be myself again.” Oh, Georgia. I get the waiting to be myself bit…but damn, my summer was a blur of activity. I wish I could have done […]

And you think your back is sore? ( Anežka is 90-years-old in this picture!) Meet Anežka Kašpárková, the 90-year-old Czechlosvakian malérečka (someone who paints folklore on objects). After many years of working in agriculture, Anežka took up painting in her retirement. She painted her village’s chapel and houses with simple floral symbolism in the traditional […]