{i wrote this post for my friend relyn’s blog to celebrate her month of passions. i am sharing it here today because it seems fitting. if you are not as fond of lower-case letters as i am, do thank relyn for this brief respite from them.}

When I was younger, I wrote letters to a dear friend of mine. She lived less than fifteen miles away and I saw her most every weekend. I loved writing letters – it was fun to capture funny snippets from daily life in a story – and I didn’t have many far away friends. I didn’t expect her to write back; I just wanted to write letters. Plus, my dad intervened in my one attempt to find my own penpal. (I tried to write to an inmate. There must have been an ad in the classifieds? I quietly slipped the letter in the mailbox one morning – apparently I suspected my parents wouldn’t approve – but it was discovered. That was the end of that.)

I have a stack of postcards and cards on my desk right now. They are all addressed – so I remember who they are for – and I am slowly writing on each of them. Most of them are celebrating March birthdays. I am very fond of belated birthday cards; I like to think it’s even more surprising and delightful when a card shows up well after the birthday has passed. This month, I was inspired to recycle a couple of unused Christmas cards in the spirit of fun and whimsy. As far as I’m concerned, you can say “fa la la la la” all year round, and Santa making a snow angel on the beach is the perfect sight for a snow-covered midwestern friend. (I just realized that the latter says “Enjoy the holidays”. Your birthday is a holiday, right? Maybe it should be.)

It turns out that all these years later, I still love sending mail. With a few words and a stamp, I get to show someone that I care about them, even if I don’t say so directly. I get to show someone that someone out there in the big wide world is thinking about them. I get to imagine a little dose of happiness sitting in someone’s mailbox between bills and junk mail. I get to remember that – even in moments when I feel lonely – there are people in the world that I love and adore.

I must say that I loved mail even more once I discovered the magic of postcards. They really are the perfect size! Letters are great, but sometimes my hand just doesn’t flow across the page, and it’s so easy to jot something on a postcard and pop it into the mailbox. (Like: I’m thinking about you! I had a dream about you last night – we were spies and managed to save the world! Harold and Kumar – a pair of bluebirds – are eating bird seed on my patio and I wish you were here to watch them with me! You might like this quote!)

If I really stop and think about it, sending mail is a beautiful practice. I am doing it for other people, sure, but I am also doing it for myself. It feels like I am putting a little bit of myself out into the world. It feels like I am practicing vulnerability and trust and openness. It feels like I am helping to spread joy and surprise and wonder. It feels like a way to ground myself in the moment and to really appreciate it.

I want to help fill the world with beauty. Sending mail is one of my favorite practices.

want to join me? let’s celebrate our friends and fill the world with postcards!

in a fit of inspiration, i created a set of {let’s celebrate friendship} postcards. they were inspired by my love of mail and my love of postcards and my current obsession with friendship. and yes, i actually put “you rock” on a photo with rocks. i am indeed cheesy.

the set includes 5 postcards. the cost is $12.50.

if you’re interested, click yes, please!

you know how sometimes you don’t do something and you don’t do something – and then it’s the perfect time to do it? yesterday was just that time. in a burst of inspiration and a flurry of delight, i joined pinterest.

oh my goodness. you know how much i love quotes, right? pinterest is an ocean of quotable inspiration. i am in love.

(as an aside, this is why i sometimes don’t join things. i am afraid of how much i will love them and of how much time i will give them. someday i will trust myself enough to know that everything ebbs and flows, including my interests, and that spending time on things i love and in places i love is always worthwhile.)

after yesterday’s fun, i just had to make my own piece of quotable inspiration.

plus, now i can finally use the pin it button on my own website!

once upon a time, i had a glass desk. back then, i also had a large print of joan miro’s blue ii over my desk.

i cannot say why, but these photos remind me of him/it.

oh, blue ii, i remember you fondly. i hope your new owner loves you as much as i did.

i am not so good about sharing pictures of me anywhere. i have been trying to be better about it this year, at least on facebook.

it’s partly because people pictures are not my forte. it’s partly because i don’t take pictures of myself. it’s partly because – as is probably true of many people – i am too hard on myself and do not really like pictures of me. happily, i notice that as i grow older and wiser and kinder, i am less and less critical of myself in all ways, including in pictures.

just for fun, i thought i would share some today. i do know that it’s nice to see more of the person behind the blog and offerings. both photos were taken by my sister helen. (you can click on them to see the larger size.)

i picked these ones because the stories behind them made me laugh.

in the first photo, we were playing at being models. my sisters margaret and helen and i went to walk along a lake superior beach one afternoon because it was too chilly to swim. while we were walking, we passed my camera back and forth. at one point, we decided to play the model game. first, helen took pictures while margaret and i modeled. then, margaret took pictures while helen and i modeled. poor helen was getting very frustrated because she wanted us to keep a straight face – unsmiling – but margaret couldn’t do it without either laughing or looking strange. finally, helen gave in and let margaret smile. i liked those ones the best.

in the second photo, helen was trying to prove a point. i have tried to take a few photos of her from that same angle. i think i read somewhere that it’s a good one. whenever she could tell that that was the angle i was aiming for, she’d complain and make me stop. this was her attempt to show me why it didn’t work. unfortunately for her, i didn’t mind the photo so her plan was foiled.

(as a side note, modeling is hard work. the second photo was from another set where helen was making me model for her. she’d take a picture and then holler, “change your pose!” after maybe two poses, i had run out of ideas and could only do something random and awkward. it was pretty funny.)

(as another side note, this post was inspired by liz lamoreux’s latest adventures in creative self-care newsletter. are you signed up?)

i had lots of fun taking pictures of graffiti in spain. i have a longstanding but vague dream of some sort of photo display in my house with all my favorite graffiti images, so i like to collect new ones whenever i can.

while we were taking the bus up to the alhambra, we passed through a neighborhood with the most amazing graffiti on the whitewashed walls. i think my jaw might have been on the floor. i decided we just had to walk back down through that neighborhood in order to take pictures of the graffiti. (we didn’t. it was twilight when we left.) however, there were construction fences in front of most of it, in a way that made me think they were going to paint over it and were possibly not as enamored with it as i was. it was such a good reminder that not everyone sees things in the same way, and art can be just as controversial as it is celebrated.

{a photo project honoring radiance, one of my words for 2012 :: 52 photos that represent radiance, 52 photos that represent luminosity.}

i had a thought about radiance that i want to share, but i have not yet found my words. while trying to find them yesterday, i took a short break, during which i discovered byron katie’s youtube channel.

one of the videos i watched was so lovely and so inspiring and so applicable. in it, byron katie is examining a woman’s belief that there is something wrong with her.

i felt lighter and more radiant myself after watching it.

have i mentioned that i love graffiti? i do. i really do.

a friend of mine is living with me for the moment. over the years, i’ve occasionally worried that i was too old and too set in my ways to enjoy living with someone, but it turns out that i worried for nothing. living with a dear friend is really wonderful and i feel so lucky to have the opportunity. also, i am learning to enjoy the smell of coffee in the morning. i have decided that this bodes well for the future.

on a not entirely unrelated note – since you can live with roommates or significant others – if you happen to be single (and looking), i heartily recommend reading getting naked by harlan cohen. i saw it on a table of books at b&n and the title made me smile so i picked it up. the letters and replies he included (he’s an advice columnist) made me laugh so much that i bought the book. it is seriously the funniest and most useful book on relationships i’ve ever read. plus, i have managed to apply it to friendship and work. fair warning, my conversation is now peppered with, “as harlan says ..” or “i suspect harlan would say ..” yes, we are apparently on a first name basis. he is changing my life, one person at a time.

want to know how to make the best green smoothie? you need kale, a banana, and strawberries. first, slice the banana and eat the slices with a nutella-like spread. (the cocoa almond spread from trader joe’s is really good.) second, add the kale to a salad and top it with lots of thousand island dressing. third, eat the berries with sugar and cake and ice cream or whipped cream. de-licious.

how’s your monday so far?

there is much excitement in the elizabeth & atlas house.

early tomorrow morning, i am setting out on an adventure. my youngest sister is studying in spain this semester and i am off to spend her spring break with her.

as a bonus, i am going to turn 35 years old in morocco! with that beginning, i am pretty sure that 35 is going to be the best year ever.

i will be back on the 20th – with lots of photos, i suspect.

(speaking of photos, did you know that if you buy a spare camera battery and it sits in the box for four plus years without use, when you happen upon it and are excited to take it on an adventure with you and go to charge it in preparation for the trip, you will discover that it doesn't work? i feel rather sad that my poor battery expired without ever getting to do the thing for which it was created.)

my blog will be quiet while i am gone, so i am leaving you with three things:

a picture of atlas, who will be having a jolly time at the doggy ranch;

a rather silly story about a hippopotamus named humphrey;

Humphrey

and a sneak peek of my brand new website, which i adore and will introduce sometime after i return. it's from the lovely allie of allie creative, who is a design genius.

until i return, may your april be full of sunshine and flowers.

i was trying to decide if this set of photos would be an ode to mark rothko; in the end, i decided they were not. i then decided that they could possibly be an ode to kandinsky, only a very loose one.

come to think of it, an ode to kandinsky might be a very fun photo project.

someday. when i am feeling more ambitious. i suspect i would need a great deal of shiva nata practice before my brain would be scrambled enough for that sort of challenge.

you know i have an image grab bag, right? digital images that come with freedom and permission and possibility?

kate of studiok8 sent me something that she created with one of my images. it's an encaustic (a medium i am not entirely familiar with but i know it has something to do with beeswax).

these pictures do not even do the piece justice. it's shiny and smooth and i can touch the center daisy! it's a little like braille; i can tell it's a daisy just by feeling it.

if she sold it in an etsy shop, i would want to buy it. it is the coolest thing ever.