52/365

things I'm doing today:

reading his letter from a birmingham jail
remembering that his life and work were (are) so much more than the quotes we all love to share
thinking about how I can do better, how we can do better

19/365

items considered for purchase tonight at the buford highway farmers market:

a bagful of rambutans
a bagful of tangerines
matcha green tea kit kats
chocolate banana cream pocky
an abnormally large bag of masa harina
an abnormally large jar of nutella
japanese soda in pretty bottles
japanese soda you have to manually add fizz to
properly aged parmesan
a case of topo chico

15/365

things that absolutely delighted me this week:

rosemary living in my kitchen window sill
christmas cookie recipes in my mom's handwriting
the most golden of magic hours on december eleventh 
a fortune from zoltar
a mixtape my brother made me
a mixtape, you understand
a cassette tape, is what I'm telling you
old home movies from my southern illinois childhood in which I sound like a hillbilly
lin-manual miranda on the radio talking about the saddest song
questlove on instagram talking about nancy wilson
ava's painting of this photograph of the two of us
ezra's pencil drawing of the sun
the way my family ate my inexplicably very dry red velvet cake with nary a complaint
the way my husband took such care with me on my birthday
every single time we plugged in the christmas lights
every single time, I tell you
mirrors and lights
lights and mirrors

(yayoi kusama forever)

february's sixty seconds

sixty seconds of moving pictures shot in the city with my people on the greyest of february days, a dead grey, really. but that's february for you. month two of the sixty second photograph and I really struggled this go round. fumbled my way through the process, made a crap load of mistakes. but I'm letting go, folks. make and release, make and release. and hopefully, learn a little something in the process. this is my mantra.

p.s. more about the project here, and more lovely february films over on the site.

p.p.s. music by the incomparable nathan corrona aka dj dust.

light, love

I like to keep a little chalk handy. because, you never know.

may we be the light that drives out darkness in this world, may we be lovers that drive out hate. not just today, on the day we honor the life and work and powerful words of our beloved dr. martin luther king, jr., but every day. every single day.

last and first

on the last day of the old year, we stood on the jackson street bridge, watched the sun go down on the city one last time. 2015, going, going, gone.

and on the first day of the new year, we stood at the base of toccoa falls, just before sunset and we wondered. about this year 2016, this new year everyone is talking about, this new kid in town. we opened our arms to her, we did. because what else could we do? is there any other way?

45 on 45

one week ago today, I turned 45. it's a strange age, 45. strangely weird and wonderful and maybe a little bit painful. for weeks now, I've been thinking about it, about how I wanted to celebrate, how I wanted to mark the occasion. because, it is an occasion. sort of like turning 40 but with a little more wisdom and a pinch more panic.

aging aside, the truth is that december birthdays are hard. the calendar is crammed with more obligations than anyone ever knows what to do with and people are mostly tired and grouchy. there isn't ever any extra money, not really, because what little there is has been squirreled away for christmas and whatever bills are overdue. blah blah blah, it's all very first world woe is me.

but I had sleeves with tricks, I did. and a pocket with a few dollars, a few of my favorite people, a good twelve (maybe thirteen) hours and the whole freaking city of atlanta. and so I decided to see if I could do 45 things on my 45th birthday, 45 actual things. and you know what? it was a pretty good way to celebrate. it didn't cost me very much and I will never, ever forget it. and really, that's all I wanted.

here are 45 things I did the day I turned 45:

1. bought a bag of party horns and a package of confetti on our way into the city.

2. ate a doughnut with raspberry pink frosting and rainbow sprinkles.

3. tossed a little confetti out the window as we flew down dekalb ave.

4. had a cup of tea at dr. bombay's underwater tea party, browsed the one dollar books, left a party horn behind.

5. took a polaroid of a favorite scene.

6. threw a penny in the fountain at fellini's, made a wish.

7. picked a camellia up off the sidewalk, left a pinch of confetti behind.

8. taped a party horn to a favorite book and left it in the little free library in my old neighborhood.

9. did a little indie craft window-shopping.

10. sprinkled confetti on the steps of my very first apartment.

11. flipped through albums at criminal records, bought myself a little birthday vinyl.

12. hopped inside criminal's digital photobooth for a strip, left a party horn behind.

13. drove through momo's rainbow tunnel, jumped out and taped a party horn to it.

14. photographed the year I was born.

15. sat in the sun at lottafrutta and had the lulo, a drink made with a fruit I'd never even heard of before.

16. left a party horn taped to the plastic neck of a pink flamingo, took the little orange paper umbrella as a souvenir.

17. sampled the watermelon soda (tasted like liquid candy necklace). 

18. decided I'd make an okay carmen miranda.

19. chickened out of photographing a most spectacular stranger.

20. hit the swings at the noguchi playground in piedmont park.

21. flew down that rad noguchi slide too.

22. left a little confetti in front of the old black iron gates of the apartment we lived in when we were first married.

23. photographed a few people I love jumping in front of a mural I love.

24. taped a party horn to the big yellow dot on said loved mural.

25. taped a party horn to the little orange dot on a favorite HENSE mural.

26. walked the beltline at magic hour, scattered a little confetti along the way.

27. sprinkled a smidge of confetti in front my favorite tiny red door.

28. tucked a party horn inside the string installment that covers the footbridge over ponce.

29. left a party horn behind on our way into ponce city market.

30. sampled a little hops biscuits and gravy, watched the sun go down over ponce.

31. bought a piece of cherry mash and a packet of cherry pop rocks at the candy shop, let the pop rocks crackle in my mouth as we wandered around outside.

32. tried on a few hats at the hat shop, fell in love with a scarlet cloche.

33. wandered the aisles of the art supply store, bought myself a beautiful new fountain pen.

34. found out what it's like to wander the high museum of art at night.

35. photographed my people in front of the anish kapoor piece.

36. spotted the flashing neon HOT NOW sign at the krispy kreme on ponce, had to stop. it's practically the law.

37. watched hundreds of doughnuts on a conveyor belt pass through heavenly sugary showers of glaze.

38. consumed exactly one hot doughnut, let it melt in my mouth.

39. stopped for french fries and cokes at the beloved majestic diner, tucked a party horn between the salt and pepper shakers.

40. stood on the jackson street bridge and looked out over our fair city, threw a handful of confetti at it.

41. tossed the last of the confetti onto ponce on our way out of the city.

42. listened to my family sing happy birthday.

43. blew out all the candles, made one last wish.

44. devoured a piece of red velvet cake.

45. collapsed onto the big green couch, fully and wholly 45.

atlanta + amsterdam: art

atlanta, left:

a favorite mural of mine by 3ttman in the summerhill neighborhood, courtesy of living walls, a non-profit organization that seeks to change perspectives about public space in communities via street art. thanks to living walls, there are murals everywhere here in the city of atlanta, everywhere. 'tis a thing of beauty.

amsterdam, right:

a favorite street art piece of joyce's on a historical building at the prinsengracht. painted by the london brothers back in 2009, it's been the subject of much controversy, city council wanted it removed but failed. sorry, city council. apparently, the people of amsterdam want their public art just as much as the people of atlanta want theirs.

(more from my co-collaborator over in amsterdam, joyce, aka on a hazy morning//more about our twelve-week project here)

atlanta + amsterdam: cars

atlanta, left:

a little sky blue volkswagen bug I pass on my way to pick ezra up from school. mostly, this is not a town of volkswagen bug lovers. or, small car lovers, for that matter. this is a town of big car lovers, giant car lovers, multiple car lovers. which is probably why the sight of this guy each day makes me so happy. it fills me with hope.

amsterdam, right:

a vintage fiat 500, crazy popular in amsterdam because they're so tiny and easy to park. and cute. oh my goodness, cute, the very definition of cute. go ahead, look it up in the dictionary. under the word 'cute', you will find this car.

(more from my co-collaborator over in amsterdam, joyce, aka on a hazy morning//more about our twelve-week project here)

atlanta + amsterdam: flowers

atlanta, left:

when I see that patch of tall, yellow, spindly sunflowers start to bloom here in georgia, I know. fall is here. fall, season of butterscotch-colored leaves and indian summer afternoons. in-between weather so perfect you wish it would stay forever and ever, amen.

amsterdam, right:

there's not a lot of space in amsterdam. people are packed in there quite nicely, or so I've heard. and so they do what they can to plant colorful flowers in the space that they have. sometimes that means a patch of a little something growing alongside the pavement, where folks often live in what's known as souterrains. souterrains, a perfectly lovely french word meaning 'basement'. leave it to the french to make basement living sound lovely. and leave it to the dutch to make a patch of concrete a beautiful, beautiful thing.

(more from my co-collaborator joyce over at on a hazy morning//more about our twelve-week project here)

atlanta + amsterdam: signs

atlanta, left:

the old clermont hotel: seedy, unyielding. permanently fixed along one of the city's most beloved arteries, ponce de leon avenue. ponce, we call it. I'm certain it was something back in the day, before the drug addicts and the prostitutes got to it. you can almost see people in black felt hats and shiny shoes coming and going. it sits empty now, save for the infamous clermont lounge housed in the back. broken windows like missing teeth, paint chipped and peeling, construction signs on the marquee. the place sits and it waits. for the inevitable boutique hotel makeover. when we were first married back in 1994, we lived in an old apartment building behind the clermont and for six years, we watched the comings and goings, for six years, we collected the stories. the old clermont became a fixture in our lives, too. like that great uncle, you know the one-- mostly sour around the edges but with eyes that twinkle,  sort of, if you look really hard.

amsterdam, right:

a beautiful arrow from the streets of amsterdam, story unknown. which, sometimes, is even better because then you can make up your own.

(more from joyce's point of view over at on a hazy morning//more about our twelve-week collaboration here)

atlanta + amsterdam: bikes

atlanta, left:

we are not known for our bikes here in this town. we are a city that loves our cars. we do not love our traffic, we curse our many highways but we will not give up our cars. and I really wish we would because bikes are nice, bikes are nicer, bikes are nicest.

amsterdam, right:

city of bikes, teeming with bikes, busting at the seams with bikes. in fact, joyce told me there are roughly 900,000 bikes in amsterdam, that there are actually more bikes than inhabitants. well, we do not have 900,000 bikes in atlanta. but I bet we have 900,000 cars.

(more of joyce's perspective over at on a hazy morning//more about our twelve week collaboration here)

atlanta + amsterdam: treats

atlanta, left:

a fried peach pie from the varsity, still warm in the bag, sounds of the streets all around us, north avenue to the right, the big downtown connector off in the distance. the sounds of folks coming and going, swinging those front doors open, bits and pieces of that old varsity chorus wafting out, what'll ya have what'll ya have what'll ya have, a chorus cashiers have surely been singing out since the restaurant first opened back in 1928.

amsterdam, right:

joyce's norwegian cinnamon rolls and can't you almost smell them? because I can. straight from a cozy kitchen in amsterdam, which I imagine be filled with a lovely light,  a clean light, the kind of light I like to think only exists in amsterdam. am I wrong? I do not think I am wrong.

(read more over at on a hazy morning) (and more about our twelve week collaboration here)

atlanta + amsterdam: buildings

atlanta, left:

a favorite old abandoned building, downtown atlanta, two blocks from the alleged heart of the city, woodruff park, peachtree street. atlanta, with its propensity for tearing things down and starting over again. atlanta with its insatiable need to destroy and rebuild, deconstruct and reconstruct, this is the pattern. the blood of too many beautiful old buildings on the hands of this city I love (which I do still love, despite this).

amsterdam, right:

joyce's favorite corner building, de jordaan neighborhood, amsterdam. amsterdam, with that climbing ivy and those lovely bicycles. that history, that charm. I would climb inside this polaroid and live for a little while, if I could. if science would allow it.

(read more over on joyce's lovely, amazing blog and you can read more about this twelve-week collaborative project here)

atlanta + amsterdam

the internet is a ridiculous place. a ridiculous, crazy place. but for every ridiculous, crazy internet thing, there are at least a dozen spectacular, wonderful internet things. in an instant, we are connected in impossible, miraculous ways, find commonality in similarities and differences, in the ways our stories intersect through the sharing of the work we make and the photographs we take. never has there been a better time for collaborations between artists, never in the history of the world.

in the spirit of this, I give you atlanta + amsterdam. over the next twelve weeks, I'll be collaborating with joyce (from on a hazy morning) to bring you looks at two different cities through the lenses of two polaroid SX-70 cameras. every thursday, we'll be here (and there) with different polaroids, side by side-- bits from atlanta, bits from amsterdam.  a little world travel every thursday, if you will, without having to move even one inch.

meet you back here in a week, folks. until then, the streets of atlanta and amsterdam are waiting.

hashtag summer

I did not paint the rest of the rooms in the house white this summer like I said I would. I did not read the half dozen books on my summer reading list. I did not pick strawberries or blueberries or even blackberries and make all the things with them like I wanted to. I did not plant flowers or tomatoes, did not throw the big backyard party to celebrate one year back home in atlanta, did not unpack the rest of the many boxes that now permanently live in the garage, did not meticulously archive all the family photographs. I did not, I did not, I did not. there were a lot of things on my summer list. there were a lot of things I did not do.

instead, I watched ezra float on his back in the ocean for the very first time. I laid in the resurrected hammock in the backyard and watched the quiet blink of the season's first lightning bugs. I cut bouquets of black-eyed susans from the side of the highway with a pair of scissors I started to carry in my purse once I noticed those happy roadside clumps of yellow start to pop up. I watched ava ride her bike down the road towards the local library, where she volunteered every tuesday and thursday afternoon. and I beamed with pride.

I covered the living room floor with a mess of quilts and blankets for epic cousin sleepovers and listened to them argue about which movies they were going to watch while I jiggled pan after pan of jiffy pop over a hot stove. I hustled to get us ready for the drive-in, packed more sheets and pillows and treats in the trunk of the car than we knew what to do with, prayed for rainless nights. I hung string lights between the two big trees in the backyard, spray-painted the old metal lawn chairs bright red, roasted marshmallows till they were burnt beyond recognition, slapped (in vain) at a thousand mosquitos and played croquet with the family til dark. I sang along with mighty mo, that magnificent old organ down at the old fox theatre. I gave the kids pennies to throw in the fountains at fellini's and they wished for things. I did too.

I spent entire afternoons and evenings talking with friends-- old friends, new friends, from portland and atlanta, about nothing, about everything. I braved the smoky clermont lounge with said friends and came home with stories of strippers with vacant eyes. I picked up my ukulele again, turned a cartwheel to see if I could still do it (as it turns out, I can) and baked my mom's gooey butter cake exactly twice. I finally met dear mollie and the greene family, let dot and lola cover me with every stuffed animal they own upon our arrival, watched ezra and jude become fast friends and fell in love with aaron's mamiya rz67 the second he put it in my hands and so graciously let me shoot with it.

I swam in the ocean for the first time in years, felt the prickly underside of a sea star with my fingers, felt a thousand jangly shells wash up around my feet. I shelled and shelled and shelled and then I shelled some more. I collected more shells than I knew what to do with, learned all the proper names for them and then realized I will probably be The Old Woman With All Of The Shells. this is okay with me, really. I wondered why we have never owned a rainbow beach umbrella before now or why it took me so long to buy a big floppy straw hat. on impulse, I bought an enormous inflatable pink donut to bring to the pool and it was maybe the best thing I bought all summer. except for the actual real life pink donut that seemed to be an exact replica of the float, which we ate but not before we took a hundred pictures of it. we watched fireworks on the beach, felt them explode all around us and decided this is what it must feel like to live inside a roman candle. I drank frozen lemonade slurpees from 7-11 pretty much everyday and watched the sky turn bright pink pretty much every night and I never wanted it to end, never wanted to leave. does anyone? ever?

I surprised my dad a week before his 69th birthday with a family party, his favorite banana cake and as many candles as we could fit on top of it, celebrated ezra's 11th on the 11th (the golden birthday!) and hit the road for ava's 15th, where we stacked a dozen donuts on a paper plate, fifteen sparkler candles on top and sang to her outside a motel room in nashville, tennessee. I took her to the nashville fleamarket for the first time that weekend, just like my mom did when I was fifteen. and I saw my 15 year-old self in her at least a dozen times that day, saw my mom around every corner, went backwards and forwards in time so much so I nearly forgot where I was. at some point, it hit me. I'd have just three summers left with her before she heads off to college. three summers before she's officially off and running into the world. the realization of this nearly brought me to my knees and I spent the rest of the summer planning all the trips we'd need to take before that inevitable day.

I watched ezra at my dad's basketball camp, watched him do all the drills I remember watching my dad do with hundreds of players at camp after summer camp for so many years. I wanted to cry at the sight of it, but didn't. I took photographs instead. I spent hours sifting through stacks of books and dishes and junk with ava at a handful of thrift shops in the small town where my dad lives. we navigated sweltering, precarious aisles at our beloved olga's house of stuff and came home with more than I'd care to admit. and on the way back home, I drove through the small southern illinois town where I lived when I was little and marveled at the way it all came back to me-- the time I won a banana split from dairy queen for kickball MVP, the public pool where I learned to swim, the slide and swings at the park my dad took us to most every night, the high school where my dad coached basketball, the way queen always seemed to be playing in that big, beautiful old cavernous gym, the old movie theatre that played saturday night fever (which I was not allowed to see) and the library my mom took us to weekly, the library where I first fell in love with books. it all came roaring back in an instant and as we hopped back on the highway and headed towards home and the kids lost themselves in books and video games, I felt an ache so deep it was all I could do to keep from pulling the car over to the side of the road.

I ate peach pies and chili dogs from the varsity with the kids, thick slices of sicilian from fellini's, strawberry popsicles from las paletas, pimento cheese dogs from I dream of weenie, cheeseburgers and lemon ice cream cones from krekel's and late night waffles from the one and only waffle house. tiny cherry tomatoes from the church community garden were devoured and I believe we consumed our actual weight in peaches. we drank strawberry lemonade and blueberry lemonade and raspberry lemonade and lemonade lemonade. I wondered if there is such a thing as too much lemonade. as it turns out, there is not.

I spied ruby red cardinals and bluebirds just outside my window, monarch butterflies and the swoop of an occasional bat, too. I wondered if it's true what they say about butterflies and cardinals, that when one flies near you, it's the spirit of someone you love. I'm not sure I believe this but I held onto it this summer, because I wanted to. I wanted to believe my mom could fly near me, could be as close as just outside my window. I watched the meteor shower with ezra and thought my eyes might pop out of my head when I saw two streak across the sky, one after another. my neck hurt from all the looking up but it was worth it.

and so now I'll need to make a new list, a list for fall. there will probably be a lot of things on it I won't end up doing either. but that's okay, because now I know. the best things, the very best things are never on the list.