3 stages of love

blue eyes, wild red hair, a favourite scarf and a big thick fleece sweater - ahhh

My favourite everyday work attire. Les Uniform. This is old house gets quite chilly, often it's colder inside than it is outside and Mama is always tres cheap with the furnace oil and I turn the heat on only in the direst of circumstances and there is something I find very comforting about a giant faux turtle neck. This black and white Nordic number is my fav and lovingly hunted for and found at our local and famous second hand clothing spot Francois.

This week I'm drawing sweet baby animals, tiny historic lockets and a new jewellery project for this company - Brighton. Hooray !! A company that I worked for for 4 years in the beginning of my Hey ! I own my own design business business - It was, by a landslide, the most amazing 4 years of freelancing this designer gal could ask for. I think he (the boss man) always thought I'd want to move to LA and work with his team there - and he, being born and brought up in LaLa Land, and having never experienced life in a tiny Nova Scotia village - could not understand why on earth this designer gal would want to stay here - in this 2 bit place where, there appears to the unenlightened, to be nothing - ahhh but we know that's not true and it's our secret. I am thrilled to pieces to be working again with him, with Brighton. The most generous boss man, wide open creative license is always encouraged and the products that they make are both very beautiful and top, top craftsmanship. I know I went to China with that big gang and toured all of their amazing factories - not to mention 3 or 4 days in and around beautiful Hong Kong with way too many stars for this country girl to count. Merci Jerry !

I watched Babettes Feast last night for the very first time - I know, I know How is it possible that I hadn't watched it ever before ? And yes it was lovely - lovely. I especially enjoyed the wonderfully muted and dull colours everywhere. The cowboy made me a small stack of movies to watch from his petite movie collection. Fargo, The Thin Red Line and Working Girl are three others that I've brought home with me (the cowboy thinks that my voice is much like Melanie Griffiths, and he thinks that's a good thing, I can't decide if I'm flattered or maybe eek !). And by my bedside is the book Zen and the Art of Motorcylce Maintenance a book the cowboy read twice this past summer and now I'm going to read it. Please see below Self Revelation.

When I went to NSCAD for all those many years trying to decide between a BFA or a BDComm I eventually threw in the Wow ! there are just way too many great courses I want to take towel and ending up graduating with both degrees. To accomplish this I did have to take my fair share of academic courses which I mostly loaded up with a steady stream of amazing & wonderful art history classes. However I did venture out to Dalhousie one summer to take one of those 6 week, meet everyday, full credit course done in blink - Psychology 101. Something that has always stuck with me from that text and course are the 3 Stages of Love - now I've been googling around lately and those darn stages seem to have evolved somewhat since my lazy summer afternoons in a big auditorium at Dal. When I first learned about les Stages they were described as follows.

No. 1 Attraction - based almost entirely on a physical sense of the person, their physical features, maybe the way they dress, the way they carry themselves, their voice, the make and model of the pick up truck they're driving. How 'bout the tallest silver moustache ? or boyish good looks? a well loved canine sidekick ? A huge big grin? eyes that twinkle ? Oh ! Oh ! - stop me quick - I am about to go on and on and on....

No.2 Self Revelation - ahhhhh - the blissful chitter chatter, the endlessly talking and revealing of more and more and more about each other - to each other. The past, the present and the dreams of the future. Finding out so many obscure and wonderful details of a life, of their life. Like the description of the one and only sandwich (the making of and les ingredients) that my new true love took to work every single day for 32 years. Or the model airplane that he built when he was 5 out of balsa wood and won a prize for, or the white navy dress uniform he wore to a prom with his lobster red and sunburned face from a day of fishing with his Dad. Oh, I ache wishing that I knew him then. Knew that boy, that young man- but if I knew him then - would I, could I ... know him now? Scratch that wish and tell me more please ... and more and more.

No. 3 Interdependence - I wonder can I spend an hour not in his presence ? and how much will I miss him. Someone reminds me that I had another life, just weeks ago without him in it. Shut Up !! I say That cannot be true ... for now I have absolutely no recollection of any such life. My life, this life, began that Friday afternoon in the park with Winnie, Piper Belle, the cowboy and his brown hound Bess.

or maybe it really all began this fateful afternoon.