Life Update /004
A wander around the museum on a frosty Thursday morning; bad hair days and the smell of books; learning how to manifest and become the architect of my own life
At TIG I ran a series called Notes from the Weekend in which I wrote about my weekend or life lately in whimsical, sometimes wistful, oftentimes rambling prose:
It was one of those sipping drinks at sunset kind of weekends, the clouds tinged pink at the edges and a hazy light falling on the countryside and hills in the distance, causing P to remark that you could mistake it for Tuscany. I have been melancholic, of course, because I always feel this way when the days get shorter and the leaves begin to fall, but it’s also kind of cosy and very romantic, our late nights now spent by the fireplace. I am currently reading a novel (it’s my break from Hume, which can get heavy at times) that has all the main characters constantly checking their phones and communicating by email and it all feels a bit much, which, I think, is the point that the author is trying to make. I’ve begun deactivating accounts again and pulling back from the ones that seem to be the most harmful and it seems to be making a difference on my energy and outlook…1
These small glimpses into my life have been described as written in a “deeply personal, introspective, and slightly meandering writing style that's intimate and stream-of-consciousness, reflective, with a mix of sensory description and philosophical musing”. These little notes were my favourite to write, for there was always something to share—lunches with my sister, an art gallery opening I attended with friends, our weekend away to another city or the coast, how I was feeling at the moment.
This week, I've decided to retire this series at the site and merge it with my Life Update series here, as an experiment, as we’re still not 100% certain about this space.
At the moment, my hair has become a wild testament to absence—missed salon appointments caused by the hundreds of miles currently separating me from Anna, who gives me long feathery layers and butterfly bangs every two months, and Denise, who weaves the most elegant ash blond highlights into my difficult tresses. Left to my own devices, my hair is now a canvas of untamed length and russet undertones, stubbornly resisting the promises of blue shampoo.
While P attended a before-lunch meeting, I wandered through the museum, immersing myself in the sculptures, statues, and architecture from the city's golden age. A secluded chamber held a curated collection of Arts & Crafts Movement antique furniture, accompanied by beautiful blown glass decanters and other meticulously preserved artefacts—each piece holding the secrets of another time. Afterwards, we lingered in our favourite book shop, losing ourselves among art and photography books, design and culinary volumes, and the latest non-fiction releases.
Before the book shop, we paused at the magazine store, catching up on current issues—fashion and home décor for me, world events and Monocle for P. While flipping through glossy pages, I found this layout from Harper's Bazaar that I loved, wistful for the gradual disappearance of artful magazine design. (As an aside, I'm now wildly curious about Tom Ford's Vanilla Sex, a fragrance I've yet to explore despite years of wearing Black Orchid. Its reportedly divisive nature only deepens my intrigue.)
“Read. Read as much as possible. Read the big stuff, the challenging stuff, the confronting stuff, and read the fun stuff too. Visit galleries and look at paintings, watch movies, listen to music, go to concerts – be a little vampire running around the place sucking up all the art and ideas you can. Fill yourself with the beautiful stuff of the world. Have fun. Get amazed. Get astonished. Get awed on a regular basis, so that getting awed is habitual and becomes a state of being.” —Nick Cave
Chilly but beautiful frosty grounds on a cold November day, and chic little ornaments in the shape of lettuce and tied bunches of asparagus … next year’s Christmas tree with be vegetable themed, I think.
After a lifetime of leaving things to the universe, chance, fate, and luck, I've suddenly decided to take a more active approach to my life and explore the art of manifestation. While luck has generously choreographed extraordinary moments (perhaps over drinks sometime, I’ll tell you about all the times when everything magically aligned, especially during the time when we lived in Spain), I'm now intrigued by the potential of actively participating in life's unfolding narrative. In those past times of perfect synchronicity, I can't help but wonder if I was unconsciously manifesting—and now I'm curious about the possibilities of a deliberate, conscious approach.
The first stage looks something like this:
To truly understand who we want to become and to begin that journey towards meeting our most empowered selves, we must first let go of the person we once were and the person we thought we should be. Our past is equally as responsible for getting us to where we are today as it is for holding us back from where we want to go.2
This step is a difficult one for me, as I’m constantly struggling to let go of my past self. The work of shedding old selves demands a ruthless accounting of one's accumulated narratives, and the courage to dismantle them, acknowledging what has been while refusing to be defined by it. The real work is in the unlearning: recognising the stories we've told ourselves, and understanding that awareness itself is the first act of liberation.
All of this was brought on by a life audit I happened across that involves figuring out where one stands in eight areas of life—health, finances, personal development, relationships, career, self-care, home life, and free time—and then to identify the changes that would make the biggest impact. I have yet to begin this audit, and am only at the start of my manifestation journey, which includes rewiring my brain with messages like, "…you are the designer, curator and architect of your life and you always have the power to rearrange, alter and dictate how you want it to look", but so far, it feels exciting to reclaim a sense of agency—to recognise that my life is not something that simply happens to me, but something I can actively shape. And, even better still, to be working on improving my inner self rather than my outer one: a quiet revolution, undertaken in the thoughtful moments of an ordinary afternoon.
bisous,
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Past Life Updates
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