Folkling Shop Update | Mountain Mama

This collection of antique whites was shot in the Blue Ridge Mountains one slow early morning last week.
There was the sweetest bit of cool air blowing through the trees, an inviting promise of fall on its way, and the icy mountain river was a revitalizing wake up for my tired bones as I waded across from my campsite.

Each of these pieces were handpicked in Virginia. Some have mends and imperfections, but as you all know, it is in these very details that I find so much beauty and I think that the storied signs of wear and use make them all the more valuable and special.

This collection is a hard one for me to let go of, as the extra time and care I put into fixing and documenting them brings about more attachment and sentimentality in the process. But I hope that the places they end up will be better than where I found them.

Here’s to giving old things new life.

Suggested listen: Narrow Road by Jeffrey Martin (Actually, just go listen to this whole album…)

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Blueberries and Blue Jeans

It seems fruit picking is the order of this summer.
First there were the blackberries and then the figs, now it’s time for blueberries.

Recently spent a rainy morning at Eastfields Farms. A hidden gem in Mathews County. I believe it was their last weekend of picking, which was hard to believe with how full the bushes were. We picked two gallons for a mere $18 (which might both sound expensive and like an insane amount of blueberries, but if you factor an organic pint at the store being about $4…. that’s $64 worth of blueberries… and now the freezer is stocked for smoothies and pies!)

It is such a primal and satisfying thing, picking your own food straight from the bush or tree that it grew on.
I swear the fruit I’ve picked this year with my own hands has tasted like the best I’ve ever had. And perhaps that is some amount of imbued romanticism at the practice of it all, but I think there is something good and natural about that too that connects to our souls on a deeper level.

(Although my Dad said these tasted like the best blueberries he’d ever had, and he had nothing to do with the picking of them so… interpret as you will.)

Grateful to live in a place with such an abundance of natural bounty…
I suppose apples are next?
Virginia, I do love you so.

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Tiny Routines

It is the nature here that has kept me grounded.

Kept me continually looking forward and focusing on the good.

I lived in Richmond my whole life, was born and raised in The Fan.

And then, after 26 years, I came out to the Chesapeake Bay. A place I grew up coming to for a similarly long period of time as my Dad is a sailor. So many spring, summer and fall nights were spent out on these waters. A few winter ones too.
It’s always been one of my homes.

And then I left for The Road.
And then I left again.
It kept calling me back and I kept answering.

Yet another kind of home.

But now I’m back here on the bay and now more than ever it feels like a respite and sacred place amidst the chaos of the world.

The Road still calls, and perhaps it always will. But this place, with its endlessly fascinating array of flora and fauna, is the needed anchor amidst it all.

I have now been here long enough, and in all seasons, to witness the varying cycles of the life that lives here.

I recognize the calls of the osprey and bald eagles and grey herons. Watch them all build their fortresses in the trees and on the pylons overlooking the water from fallen branches and dried grasses from the yard.

And how March brings daffodils and dandelions. 
April fosters camellias and low hanging wisteria. 
May greets buttercups and forsythia.
June grows tiger Lilly’s and road-side daisies and, best of all: magnolias. 

And July—July has brought blackberries.

Which has been one of the greatest gifts in this season, discovering them all around the property. Because I’ve never been here during a July until now, and to witness such a constant thing despite my inconsistency and variation brings a kind of centerdness to me somehow.

It is in witnessing these tiny routines that I find solace amidst attempting to create my own.

On The Feeling of Home

These times certainly pose opportunity for contemplation.
Contemplation, and solitude of course are not foreign states for me. They’re ones I find myself inhabiting regularly, if not striving to obtain more routinely and consistently.

The concept of home is one that is often on my mind, but especially so in these last few weeks.
How many don’t have a safe or comfortable one to retreat to in these times.
How many I have had over the years.
How tired of mine I am.
How happy in mine I am.
How I often ascribe the feeling of home with temporary places or people that I meet.
(Most recently with a man in a pair of raw denim jeans, beat up leather boots and kind eyes, standing on a sidewalk…)

I am fortunate to have had many homes.
Indeed, to still have many homes.

And while I am both in the midst of trying to find a permanent place and home that is wholly mine, and also get back to one of my homes (The Road), I am still pressed to move into a state of gratitude for it all.

So here’s a little collection of film photos from one of my old Richmond apartments.
My favorite one in fact.
Taken in a new season of my life, albeit long ago, and blossoming with exciting potential, contented wonder and settling in.

And as hard and utterly frustrating as some things have been in this current season of my life, I still associate those same aforementioned feelings with where I am now.

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