2011

flax-golden tales: an embrace made of stars

an embrace made of stars

He asked me what I missed, most of all.

I was almost asleep so he had to repeat the question.

I told him truthfully that I didn’t know, the thought lost to dreams within a matter of minutes.

He asked me again the next night when I was more awake so I considered it for a while and I couldn’t think of anything and I told him so.

I thought that would be the end of it, but he asked again and again, every evening in that pre-sleep quiet, letting it become part of our nightly routine. But while I could have listed a litany of things I missed, none seemed worthy of that most-missed title.

And one night I knew, surprised that I hadn’t thought of it before.

“I miss the stars,” I told him, looking up at the empty darkness above.

He only nodded, in agreement or approval or some combination of the two, and held my hand while we fell asleep like he always does.

I woke to find myself enveloped in an early-morning night sky, stars hand-drawn on bare ground and walls, each one bright and warm and glowing.

 

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

By erin, ago

real book!

I got a finished copy of The Night Circus in the mail today. There aren’t really words for this, I’m torn between giddy excitement and befuddled disbelief and mild concern that it is rather difficult to take a photograph of such a shiny-covered book.

I even took a photo of it in the sunshine so you can see how the scrollwork is all holographic and rainbow-y:

It’s difficult to tell in the photos but the background is shiny and the hand and tents are matte but embossed, so the texture is amazing.

And I am apparently blessed by the endpaper gods, because this one has stripes:

Tessa remains unimpressed, of course.

By erin, ago

flax-golden tales: the memory of birds

the memory of birds

What is it? she asks, pressing her hand against the picture on the wall. I wonder how many other children have repeated the gesture before her, impressed that the paint has not yet worn away, though the wall is crumbling in other places.

What is it? she repeats, and in my distracted wonderings about the longevity of paint it takes me a moment to recall the name.

It’s a bird, I tell her, though the word sounds wrong as it escapes my lips—too harsh and short for the delicate lines of the painting—I am reasonably certain of it. I think there were different types of them but I decide the explanation is better left simplified.

Is it a real thing? she asks, her finger hovering over the black dot of an eye without touching.

It was, I say, still favoring simplicity.

So it was here Before and someone saw it and repeated it on the wall so other people would see it and remember when it was real? she asks.

Something like that, I say, but no one remembers the real ones anymore.

I’ll remember that it was real Before, she says, and she reaches up on tiptoe to trace the lines of its open wings before nodding to herself and taking my hand, leading me farther along the crumbling wall.

 

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

By erin, ago

pictures of kittens

I would like to apologize for the lack of kitten photos on the blog recently.

The reason there has been a lack of kitten photos is that during and immediately after the actual moving the kittens were not here. But now they are, so for now we can return to our regularly scheduled kittens.

Tessa spent about twenty four hours howling her head off when she first arrived in the new place and now has returned to normal:

So far she’s been keeping away from the electrical cords, too, which is good because they are one of her favorite things to chew.

Bucket stayed in her carrier for a few hours and continues to be skeptical about this whole thing.

But overall they seem to be adjusting fairly well. The one thing that both of them are taking issue with, though, is the fact that they are not allowed in my new office. Which normally wouldn’t be a problem but it has a glass door, so this is what I’m looking at as I type:

Or rather, this is what’s looking at me. Sometimes there are confused meows and once in a while there is plaintive glass-pawing. Then they usually get bored and wander away. Hopefully they’ll get used to it, the office is still too much of a mess of cords and kitten-inappropriate things to allow them access. They have plenty of other interesting places to flop.

By erin, ago