Leonard Cohen reading an excerpt from Beatiful Losers

A.Ell Fashion Show, Featuring Ema Savahl

We had a Pretty Amazing time making a fashion show happen over the weekend, these pics are by yours truly, Keri Cooper and Aaron Feinburg...

I am right here...

I write this again in the throes of insomnia that seem to just plague me until I force my thoughts onto paper. These are the hours in which I wish I had more, more energy coursing through me to dance or sing, but I often stare out into the night from my porch typing whimsical longings and nonsensical nonsense. I have felt my world rise and expand lately reaching forward toward knowing something more, the simplicity of these things bring me so much joy, I have vowed to be present with people. I find it a lost art, one that yields such a different experience altogether. I am not perfect, but I am trying to be better. About a month ago when I did this cleanse it forced me into doing this, I went to my friends house and she worked on her ceramics and I painted, and we talked, we didn't just talk we took turns pondering and listening. And the next day I felt that we both left each other knowing something special had taken place. A silence and respect for our friendship and for each others company. The most magical times in my life have been the ones of human connection where you are both understood, where you have stripped away all the bullshit and you are so excited someone else has let their walls fall, it creates this spark inside me where I have renewed faith in people, in human connection. This is what makes me feel alive and not so alone, I think it is what a large portion of the world is lacking right now, with all this technology all these things to bring us closer together, we have forgotten the ones right in front of us. Sometimes you get a moment, sometimes you get a night, or a few weeks, or a lifetime, I value any time with someone when you can truly look at each other and feel safe in the confines of that person to be totally and utterly honest and real. I often think about this, I have this sort of file in myself of moments where something someone said moved me, sometimes if they had not said that perfect thing at that time it would have changed the course of my life, sometimes it was a five minute conversation with someone on a bus, but we are constantly affecting each other. People are powerful words are powerful, your presence in this daily life is powerful. You never ever know where someone is at, and how important we all are to each other in this way. I value this beyond so many things in my life, to do this is giving the other person the utmost respect, you are saying "here I am fully present with you, you are what is important right now" if you are texting and talking on the phone and watching television well it isn't the same. This is something I have really tried to do with my daughter and I have seen our relationship transform so drastically when I sit with her and give her my full attention and really talk with her, make projects with her. To see her light up inside at the excitement of such small things in something that moves me so deeply. Starting school this year was my biggest challenge in this, just mentally making myself concentrate on one thing, just one at a time, breaking it up and solving it. Like Welding, which like most things takes on this metaphor for life for me, how in the beginning I was so afraid every time I would hesitate or bring fear into it something would happen, or when I let my mind stray, but when I worked slowly, turning this flame into a tiny dance, this blue little flame that requires such perfect timing you can think of nothing else, this is when it all came together in this silver clean line. I remember the moment and I just knew I had gotten it right. These days I am thankful for the people in my life who really make the time to be there, really to be there with me. I tend to isolate myself in books and writing and just living on this little island out the middle of the Pacific. I have so many places I want to see and taste and touch and feel, immerse myself in every tactile sensation, I have so much love to give and so much I want to express. There are so many ways I see the world, the more i know and learn, for instance the other day I saw everything in shapes and angles From a welders point of view, sometimes I see the world in poetry, sometimes I see it in photographs, I look at other people and wonder how they are seeing the world. Anias Nin wrote this beautiful simple quote "we don't see things as they are, we see them as we are" I wake up lately just so grateful for it all...Life isn't always beautiful sometimes it is so heartbreaking and sometimes it's awkward and messy and you have to choose battles, sometimes people do really shitty things, I know I have. I know we are all human. But I also know in between all that there are just such poignant moments of beauty that I can't even fathom, I just want to be awake for them fully present. I have come to this sort of Content place~like kisses on the back of your neck, or feeling the elation of understanding, like the riding of a wave, or the discovery of music that made my heart stop...I suddenly felt this release in a way that I had never known. because I wasn't wanting anymore, I wasn't searching for it through someone else. I just found the beauty on my own... There are many things that go through my mind a day about the world at large, sometimes it seems so immense like it's all too much... But it's all pretty simple. I just want to do my best to be humble, to treat the people in my life with respect, to live a healthy full life, to make sure I raise my daughter right, to love and be loved all the same, to travel this world and to live in my moment each and every day and just to be fucking happy~

Summer Love

Waking is rising to a sublime shade of gold, catching the light with the skyline looking out at that perfect procession of fishing lines meeting the water...of losing your breath and seeing the endless abyss of the ocean, falling into the picturesque backdrop of losing yourself in a moment, the confessions made with those moments~ where pressing yourself into something real means everything, having a sincere conversation, living entirely in your truth...wrapped against those afternoons where you Surf ~ sharing the space of the humble souls seeking outward to the sea to calm our wild spirits and feed that great fire of desire to be immersed in the element...where adrenaline and calm resolve meet...and the times when you are alone out there when everything disappears and your realize how grand and fleeting and how beautiful it all is, how this ocean speaks metaphorically ~ watching your child making tiny footprints in the sand along yours, singing in that sweet small voice that could break your heart, because you never knew you could love so much...being exhausted with happiness with those days you can steal away into a river, arms outstretched to the sun, feeling this ancient knowing that we are truly blessed, having a human connection, realizing that whomever will be there, is a blessing for whatever time they are there, and taking that feeling in, the moments, when someone truly sees you for who you are~ those lazy half stoney afternoons, napping in the sun, and waking up only to let yourself float in the sea. Knowing there is reality~there's always those things, those bills, those jobs, conflicts...But in the end it's so good because there is so much beauty as well. Grateful for the abundance of those times, when you laugh so hard with friends, on decks watching sunsets and eating food that was grown with love, sunburnt faces smiling from long days of hard work and hard play, eating mangoes warm from the sun, drinking coconuts.... watching the familiarity of people who have all known you at some point, lifetimes of stories, and smiling from the corner of a coffee shop....staining your feet red dirt caked in between those jaunts to the jungle~ just moving upward to see what's over that next corner,~ And missing so many places with so many more you need to see and taste and touch, and knowing that wanderlust so fiercely, that you too will clean up nicely and wear beautiful things, and walk down streets of Spain, Or New York, and they won't know that you are special because you know what is so valuable in this life, that you will board trains just to have the feeling of watching the world recede in a blur, that you will taste wine, and stare at beautiful paintings that will move you to tears... but that you are here, the love for a place that has absorbed into your heart, that this island, this is home, and this where you want to be.....

You know what happens when you cross the thresh hold into woman; the novelty of the asshole wears off and the nice guy becomes appealing, no matter how much you work out the curves remain and you own them, you hear young girls talk and hope your daughter doesn't ever sound like that, you stop caring what people think, you clear the way and let yourself sink into the moments of happiness and dance through the pain..