for those big, big skies.

sometimes i don’t identify at all with growing up in alberta.
the reputation it has with country music, the stampede, the small towns and pick-up trucks…it’s notorious cow country. and i didn’t even grow up in the heart of it. i grew up in the ‘burbs with all the houses perfectly aligned and school busses plodding on the fresh neighborhood streets, so it wasn’t exactly deep texas.
but still, it’s alberta.

even so. there are times, when i’m not there, that i catch myself longing for all of that even though it’s something i never really experienced.  

i do something like watch the “crazy heart” trailer ten times over and lay staring up at the ceiling dreaming dreams of windy wheat fields and big, big skies. and i long for the prairies.

because i like the idea of aged whisky and guitar plucking and worn out wooden porches and eternal stretches of road to drive a truck that smells of saw dust. i like the idea of a marked-up map resting on the dash, the color worn off from the sun, the number of the barber shop scrawled on the corner. 

i like the idea of a beautiful sense of quiet ever so often interrupted by crickets or the crack of a patio door or boots climbing the front steps.
i like the idea of sitting on a bar stool late at night and listening to songs played by a gruff voice, a voice nearly choked by life and has nothing else to do but sing about it.

i like the idea of fishing all day in a little paddle boat on a lake where the trees are constantly looking at their reflections.
i like the idea of being with a good man who would know how to build a porch swing and has calloused hands and would make coffee and clang around in the kitchen while he tells me stories.

i like these ideas. and maybe someday i’ll live them out just as i imagine them in my head.

spreading.

the dani press word is spreading.

these numbers have faces have so kindly put up a bit about dani press on their blog!

and though i’m not a twitterer myself, you can find the news spreading via twitter here.

thanks for the shout-outs justin.
i’m chucking armfuls of thank you’s down to portland right now.

o, and not to plug the crap out of it, but i might as well swing once.

janis folkerts. if you haven’t met her, you should. and you need to.
she has short blonde hair and likes yellow pants that are on sale at h&m and adores all things french.
i adore this woman. 

her life is lovely and so is her blog. she showed me some love in her most recent post.

armfuls of thank you’s are headed straight for winnipeg, too.

xo.

with one week to go…

it the weirdest thing to watch the commercials announcing the 2010 winter olympics on tv, and then take the bus 10 minutes down the road and watch it all get put together before the cameras roll.

i love it.

last night on the way to trivia at the brewhouse, i walked past this group of dudes. one of them was drinking a heineken so i thought i’d mess with them and ask if they were from where it was brewed.
they were. straight off the plane from holland.
“no way, my father was born in hattem!”
“o yes! we know hattem!”, they shouted.

another group of dudes walked past all donning white jackets. i turned around once they’d passed. RUSSIA was threaded into their jackets.
another group passes, FRANCE on their backs. 
you see, the olympics aren’t so much about blending in as they are about being ragingly patriotic.

and i am no exception. i bounced from store to store after work today asking everyone,
“i’m on the hunt for a huge canadian flag, you have one?”
one shop owner directed me to the hardware store and lo and behold,
“that’ll be $22.35 please.”
i am now the proud owner of a 3′ by 5′ canadian flag with loopholes so i can make it into a cape. a cape! 

tomorrow, the olympic flag rolls into town, along with 15,000 people…

until then, here’s a peek at what the mountain resort town hosting the 2010 winter olympics looks like one week beforehand…

a concert stage found a spot right in front of the grocery store. 

the stage where the medals will all come out to play and dangle on winners.

my friend BJ hard at work picking his nose while building CTV mountain square.

welcome to canada, all ye foreigners. (who doesn’t love mass orientation?) 

this used to be a restaurant, then switzerland took over. 

their broadcasting desk sits around, waiting for perky broadcasters…

the flags practice flying, the streets hold their breath, the mountain stands at the door ready to greet…and the snipers are out.

yup.
my roommate’s friend was snowboarding the other day and ran into two snipers in white snowsuits…apparantly there are snipers every 100 feet circling whistler…

uh…so tip: don’t try to get to the olympics from the backcountry. you’ll be shot.

french toast.

on sunday morning emma and i walked down to the diner.
we did what everyone should be doing on a sunday…watching french toast disappear into happy, happy bellies.

if it was in ideal world, i’d be feasting on this at mother’s bistro in portland. home of the best french toast to ever hit a hot pan.

but alpine will have to do. for now…

“get your pencil, grab my hand…”

there is a very necessary part two to the cards.

and it’s these guys right here:

here’s the story:

i was plodding around donald miller’s blog one day back in october, and found this older post written about his then-roommate justin. 
not to kill the chronology of the story, but i ended up talking with justin and it turns out he had been to south africa a few years ago, got back, knew he wanted to do something more, borrowed a book from the library about how to start a non-profit and…you guessed it, he started a non-profit.

ridiculous. people actually do this.

it’s called These Numbers Have Faces and, in the briefest explanation, they developed this model for sponsoring youth in south africa to go to university that involves community service, mentoring and financial accountability, in turn creating strong leaders for the future of africa.

so donald miller plugs it on his blog, i click on the TNHF link, browse it and sign up to help sponsor one of their students. this isn’t really an interesting story, yet.

a day later, i get an e-mail that starts,
“This is Justin, I’m the director of TNHF. Thank you so much for signing up…”
and puts me in touch with the student i’m helping sponsor, xolani gixela.

fast-forward two weeks to me sitting around, thinking in my living room.
i always knew that if i started a card line that i wanted to give back in some way, a 10%-of-the-proceeds-goes-to-this effort. some way to be something small, yet pool into something greater.

i could only think of one organization. yup, these numbers have faces.
so knowing full well that justin, without seeing my cards or my photography or my writing or my anything, could say, “uh, nah.” i e-mailed him anyways, explaining my proposition and what i had in my mind if they would want to be involved in my little idea.

i pressed send with a muttered, “here goes nothin’…”
and expected to wait a week or two with who knows what answer.

i get an e-mail the next hour,
“I’d love to talk to you on the phone if you have a moment. Thanks so much for wanting to do this. We are really excited…”

i was STOKED.

i remember walking to work a couple hours after that. it was drizzling and pretty miserable, but i was quite taken, emitting moonbeams or something. 
you can start this little, little thing and if you just give it all you have, it can become something bigger. something so much bigger than what you thought. i remember talking to God about how excited i was, and just feeling His presence so strongly, like i was walking in the outlines of His footprints.

the next morning, i rang justin. we got on straight away and talked about aid and south africa and his time there and my time there and TNHF and all sorts of things. we talked about the cards for a bit, (10% of the sale of dani press cards will go to something rad), and they’ll feature dani press on their site and do a bit of advertising for me. so here i am, already on cloud nine.

then talk turned to south africa and the fact that i’m a writer and photographer…and justin pitches out this idea,

“what would you think about writing for these numbers have faces during the world cup in south africa?”

i think my heart stopped.
stopped mid-beat. and shut down. “it’s over guys. we’ve just died. everybody go home.”
my heart flipped back a page to the dialogue written the night before while walking to work. i had been telling God that He could have dani press and that i would just follow His shadow, wherever it went. but that it was His. 

and then, back to being on the phone, here is the director of a non-profit offering me the very thing i’ve dreamt of doing for years.
ever since i took my first journalism class.
ever since south africa won the bid to host the world cup.
ever since anybody ever asked me “what is your dream job?” and i answered,

“to write in some capacity during the world cup in south africa.”

i couldn’t believe it. 
we talked a bunch more about what that would entail, what kind of assignments, who i could get connected with, what type of stuff i’d be writing, etc..etc…

i hung up the phone and before i had even breathed in, my fingers were dialing for my mom. before she could even breath in, she had heard the whole story spewed out in one long run-on sentence. she shared in my joy, as only she could, and after that i hung up and cried.

ha. i did.
i just straight up had nothing else to do but put my head in my hands and let this tiny river of tears come and play on my hands,

to become the evidence of my gratefulness.

i truly believe that God blesses you with things to be good at. gives you passions, gives you gifts, gives you things that just come out of you. and He gives them to you so that you will use them for His glory.

He gave me a couple things that i love, that i dearly love to do. but i have never been sure how that would fit into life, how i could do it or what it would be good for.

but with that conversation He walked through this giant iron door, held it open with His arm, and as all the light pooled in, He looked over at me with softness in His features and asked me to follow Him. 

 

and that’s part two.
it all started with paper.

xo.

what was once in the waiting room…

we all have a few things we’ve always wanted to do. big ideas that have sat in our souls and never bothered to get up and leave.

things that are constantly in the waiting room reading a magazine, thumbing through the pages of time, ready for their turn.

we stare at them and want to try them and accomplish them and say that we did them. to check them off the list and feel what it feels like to actually do something we’ve been thinking of doing for so long.
but we’re scared straight or talked out of it or find the excuses why we’re not ready.

so they keep waiting. breathing in and out, checking the time, crossing and uncrossing their legs…waiting.
and we honestly hope that the next time we peek our heads out from behind the door, wether that be a day from now or ten years from now, that they will still be there waiting. that, even if we don’t plan on inviting them in, we won’t have to find out that it’s too late for us to have attempted them if we ever got the guts to.

i’ve had one of those big ideas sitting in my soul since i was 18.

it was to make cards.

it had sort of taken a back seat in the waiting room, never really aggressive or daunting, but waiting there nonetheless.
and maybe it would have sat there for a few more years if it weren’t for a moment i had in holland in the spring.

this one:

it was just the most beautiful sunday, so deserted, so peaceful. dylan and i were biking to easter lunch at a dear friends house. (every holiday should be had in such an old-fashioned-feeling way…)
i was in the habit of precariously snapping photos while trying to pedal and dylan was in the habit of flailing his arms out or climbing on his seat and just generally entertaining himself with his own tricks.

it was at such a moment that i snapped this. and the very first thing i thought as i looked down at the photo on my screen was, “that could be a card”

so over the summer i started shoveling photos i liked into a file on my computer, but it wasn’t until october that i seriously sat down with pen and paper and invited the big idea in from the waiting room.

after four months of phone calls, design tweaks, way too many e-mails, printing decisions, color re-jigging, business card ordering, envelope finding, shipping details, number crunching, and a hundred cups of coffee had while staring into space waiting for words to come…

this is what came of it.

and here are three of the twelve i’ve started with…

check out the whole line at my bigcartel store.

sigh, i have so much more to tell you about what has come from starting this card line, but i’ll save that for sunday.

right now, it’s started.
officially.
i did it.
i started a card line!

i can’t wait to hear your thoughts…i can’t wait to get the word out and see where all of this could go. if you dig dani press, please pass the store love on. i can’t do it without your support.

big ideas sit around in the waiting room because they are meant for you to do. to invite in.

and conquer.

 

news.

i have

big

news.

i’ll drop it on your lap tomorrow
and i hope you’ll be as completely over-the-moon about it as i am.

a simple letter.

dear whistler,

you are magical. 

xo.

booked.

new york city.

(photo compliments of the beautiful hailey taylor)

cape town townships.

the view from a plane can look so completely different.

and it is with all the excitement in the world to announce that i will be blessed to see both views again this year.
my flights are officially booked!
i’ll have my feet in the big apple may 15-19 before flying out of JFK and arriving in cape town on may 20.

there are so many details to share, without even mentioning the world cup (the WORLD CUP!!!), but for now, relishing in the simple joy of a booked flight is enough.

relish, relish, relish.

i heart.

i spent a couple days at the beginning of this week in the great former abode, vancouver.

ellie and i strapped on some rubber boots and sloshed our way through the saturated sand down by the sea to take some snaps for a school project of hers.
through the lens it took a matter of seconds to see exactly what i miss about the city by the sea… 

i miss all the sailboats and their big, white poles that reach towards the sky like pool cues at attention.

i miss the art in everything. the art lodged between spokes of a bicycle at the market.

i miss this. 
being able to stand before the docks, stand before the shops, stand before the bridge, stand before some skyline, stand before the sea, and stand before the great peaks, ALL while standing in one place.
it is a very rare and beautiful city that can give you that. 

i miss fish. not so much the oysters, but the fish. sigh, i miss yummy fish on my plate.

i miss all the trees and their moodiness. their old, crooked fingers sprawled out begging for spring.
i miss pacific central station in all its stature. seeing it always reminds me of training it to portland back in november. 

and i miss the shops that display exactly my point.

until we meet again…