As I prepared for this interview about Naomi Sangreal’s Little Hidden Doors, I found myself drifting through the landscapes of my own recurring dreams. They arrive unbidden, like persistent visitors who know where I keep the spare key: there I am at Checkers, my first job at fifteen, somehow still on the schedule thirty years later with unclaimed paychecks waiting for me; or I’m at the health food store I worked at while I was living in New Jersey, eternally trying to close up as customers mysteriously materialize through locked doors and darkened spaces. Sometimes I’m struck with the heart-stopping realization that I’ve forgotten about a phantom apartment somewhere, with ghostly cats waiting to be fed. But perhaps most luminous among these visitations was a single dream about my beloved tuxedo cat, Inkers, who appeared to me on a childhood path after her death, leading me through an impossible doorway in her own throat – a dream that spoke to the ineffable nature of loss and the labyrinthine corridors of grief. These dreams, persistent and precious, seem to embody what Jung called “little hidden doors in the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul.” They’re exactly the kind of ethereal material that our interview subject suggests we should embrace, rather than dismiss as mere midnight wanderings.
Little Hidden Doors: A Guided Journal for Deep Dreamers by Naomi Sangreal is an enchanted threshold into the mysteries of our sleeping minds – a luminous sanctuary where dreamers can unfold the origami of their unconscious thoughts. My own copy is heavily annotated, its margins filled with midnight revelations and sunrise insights, and it has become one of my most frequently recommended books, as well.
Through an alchemical blend of psychological wisdom and soul-stirring creative prompts, Sangreal becomes our gentle guide through the labyrinth of dream interpretation, translating complex Jungian concepts into whispered revelations that feel like secrets shared in twilight. In our meandering conversation, we wander through shadowed corridors and sunlit chambers of dream exploration: from the quiet rebellion of honoring our nocturnal visions in a world that prizes constant wakefulness, to the shimmering potential of lucid dreaming as a practice ground for transformation. We pause to examine nightmares not as terrors to be fled from, but as dark messengers bearing gifts of insight, and explore how the gossamer threads of dreamwork weave themselves into the tapestry of our waking lives. Sangreal’s voice – both as psychotherapist and intuitive wayfinder – illuminates our path as she shares her own dream-touched stories, including a pivotal vision that beckoned her toward her calling as a counselor, while offering gentle lanterns of wisdom to those just beginning to map their own dreamscapes.
Unquiet Things: Your book title, “Little Hidden Doors,” evokes a sense of mystery and discovery. Can you elaborate on what these “doors” represent in our dream life and psyche?
Naomi Sangreal: The title comes from one of Carl Jung’s renowned quotes, “The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul, opening into that cosmic night which was psyche long before there was any ego-consciousness, and which will remain psyche no matter how far our ego-consciousness extends.”
Jung describes how our ego consciousness remains small and separate, whereas through the dream we have access to this multidimensional and timeless experience of primordial wholeness. I see these doors as opportunities and inklings, ushering us as we might follow our curiosity through the corridors of an abandoned mansion; we choose which rooms we enter and the deeper we go the more treasures we may find. Dreams are incredible intrapsychic doors into our deep psyche.
You mention that paying attention to our dreams is revolutionary. How can this practice of dream engagement serve as a form of rebellion against what you call “wake-centricity” in modern society?
Revolutionary in the sense that dreams show us what we don’t want to know or see, what is disavowed and unallowed. They are raw, unfiltered and untouched by the social norms, rules and regulations of morality and waking consciousness and by interacting with them we can make contact with truer aspects of ourselves that may not be accessible or embraced by our waking external circumstances or environment. Dreams can offer us transformative experiences and life-changing ideas that we may not have access to in daily life. They share problem-solving wisdom and new insights that we can bring into our lives and our communities to create change.
You discuss the concept of the anima in your work. For those unfamiliar with Jungian psychology, could you explain what the anima is and why reconnecting with it is important in our current societal context?
In Jungian psychology, the anima archetype speaks to the inner feminine principle and the animus to the inner masculine soul that is not yet made manifest. According to Jung, the anima and animus are the contrasexual archetypes of the psyche. They are built from feminine and masculine archetypes from the individual experience as well as experiences with parents and collective, social, and cultural images. These inner figures seek to balance out our otherwise possibly one-sided experience of gender energy or personality expression and call us toward expressing our deep soulful wholeness. We are all both, but sometimes express varying levels of one or the other outwardly at different times. Our inner experience compensates to ensure the balance of our nature, which often is completely unconscious.
Marion Woodman states, “The tragedy and the danger of a patriarchal society is that too often it suffers the terrible consequences of leaving the feminine soul in both men and women in a repressed and abandoned state. Wherever this happens, the ego, unrefined and undeveloped by intercourse with the inner feminine, functions at a brutal, barbaric level, measuring its strength paradoxically by its power to destroy in the name of an inhuman ideal.” Perfectionism is a patriarchal plague. In inviting the anima into consciousness, we can harness her creative potential and enliven the Eros within, calling us toward the rebalancing of feminine power.
You introduce an intriguing perspective on nightmares, suggesting we invite these scary elements into our space. Can you walk us through this process and its potential benefits?
Our shadow can appear in nightmares as perils, gargoyles, tricksters, unsightly beings, or maybe just someone we don’t like. These figures are often helpful guide-look posts at a crossroads showing us exactly which way we need to go. When we can address and face these rejected parts of our psyche; we can further integrate our wholeness and take back our personal power.
Nightmares are not necessarily an indication that something is wrong. They are often more effective messengers. We often remember nightmares more than we do other types of dreams because they are so visually and emotionally impactful. This is for a number of reasons, one being that nightmares are specifically formulated to get your attention. A nightmare figure may have something important to communicate to you or be an aspect of your psyche or shadow that is starved for nourishment and attention. I offer a full guided experience and journaling prompts in my permanent online class through Ritualcravt, as well as detailed in the book!
You mention the concept of “flow state” in your book. I’ve heard this term before, but I am still not entirely sure I understand its meaning. How does this relate to dreamwork, and can engaging with our dreams help us access flow states more easily in our waking lives?
Flow theory was initiated by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in 1975 and held that creative activity can actually influence emotional affect by eliciting the experience of flow. Flow is defined as “an automatic, effortless, yet highly focused state of consciousness” and has been conceptualized as a particular type of optimal experience associated with vital engagement, which is a deep involvement in activities that are significant to the self and that promote feelings of aliveness and vitality. Flow causes deactivation in the brain, and the brain begins to switch from conscious processing, which is extremely slow and energy expensive, to subconscious processing, which is quick and energy efficient. We see this have negative impacts when our brain starts tuning out positive and helpful stimulus and focusing only on survival and threat, but in the experience of flow it has a positive impact in that we get completely absorbed in our creative activity and the brain reduces our anxiety and actually has an opportunity to heal.
The idea of “changing the world from the inside out” through dreamwork is fascinating. How do you envision this internal work manifesting in external reality?
All inner work manifests in the world around us. It changes us and therefore changes our choices and our relationships. If dreamwork is the primary way in which we can face our unconscious directly, it is a prime opportunity for some of the most challenging and liberating self work that we have access to. I have both personally experienced this level of change and watched dreamwork transform my patients lives.
You describe dreams as “vivid visual gifts.” How can people who don’t typically remember their dreams or don’t consider themselves visually oriented benefit from dreamwork?
Dreams are not just visual, they are often highly emotional. Even paying attention to the emotional arch of a dream and the embodied memory of interactions or sensations gives us clues to what is living in the unconscious. There are many styles of dreamwork and ways to work with dreams, they can be felt, acted out, spoken, written, made into poems, plays or songs. Whatever creative venue feels most intuitive to you is ripe for your dreams to emerge, working on and through you. I am partial to visual expressions in part because my dreams are vivid and I am a visual artist.
Have you noticed any shifts in how people relate to their dreams since you began your work in this field? If so, what changes have you observed?
Yes! Overall dreams seem to be taking off collectively in a huge way! When I first sought out dream work in therapy there was only ONE therapist in all of Portland whom I could find (who wasn’t friends with my mom lol) to see who worked with dreams. Now tons more folx are working with dreams, offering classes and writing about dreams online. The dreaming community continues to grow and it is amazing.
In your book, you discuss using lucid dreaming as a practice ground for real-life skills like public speaking. (I’d probably use it for highway driving, which terrifies me!) Could you elaborate on this idea? How can people harness their lucid dreams to improve their waking life abilities, and what other skills might benefit from this dream practice?
Lucid dreaming has been used all over the world to practice difficult tasks, learn new instruments and languages, even face general fears like public speaking. Dreamwork is not only creative and spiritual, it is incredibly useful and practical. For example, when a person is lucid dreaming, they have access to literally any tools that might help them grow. They can practice diving, summon instruments or books, and engage in sports or other physical activities without limitation. Once a dreamer becomes experienced in inducing lucidity, they can use their ability to develop skills that are beneficial in waking life. A person is able to use the dream space to practice skills that have a direct impact on their physical muscle memory and prime their cognitive functions.
In your experience as a psychotherapist and intuitive guide, what’s the most surprising or profound insight you’ve gained about the human psyche through working with dreams?
Dreams never cease to surprise me. They show me over and over again that people have access to deep truths and spiritual images that can change the color of their mind and experience forever. Just one big dream can transform a person.
Your book combines various practices like writing, collage, and meditation. How did you develop this multifaceted approach to dreamwork, and why do you think it’s effective?
These practices are all well-known and documented across traditions both therapeutic and spiritual. I was definitely influenced by my mother, who is a prolific visual journalist, dream worker, SoulcollageTM facilitator, and psychotherapist. For me, bringing them together feels intuitive, engaging different senses; visual, mental, kinesthetic – word, image and imagination allows for greater access to unconsciousness and that is where we are trying to get to and to connect with through dreams.
Can you share a personal anecdote of how engaging with your dreams has led to a significant change or realization in your waking life?
As I mentioned briefly and vaguely in the book, a dream I worked in therapy told me to go to school for counseling. I don’t mind sharing it here; I dreamed I am on the steps of a building with 4 perpendicular sides. It looks gothic or church-like and on each side there are many steps leading up to a door. I ascend the steps and go inside. Somehow I know I need to go upstairs. I go up several flights and find my way into a big event room. There is some kind of conference or celebration happening. The room is full of all different types of people milling about and talking. I take a seat in a chair toward the back of the room near a window. I am introverted, so I tend to wallflower and observe in these types of situations. I sit quietly and listen, gently rocking (autistics will know lol). I am able to hear everyone’s conversations loudly, even private whispered exchanges close to one another’s ears.
I hear people complaining. “I am a professor and I hate my job.”
“Oh really?”
“I am a medical doctor and it’s awful, I’m so unfulfilled.”
I quickly realize that all of these successful and professional people hate their jobs and have no idea who they are or what they want to do. I start rocking harder in my chair and I yell loudly “I know exactly what I want to do!” Everyone stops talking and looks at me. They all say collectively, “Well then why don’t you go do it?” I run out of the room and down the stairs. The next morning I applied to college.
For someone new to intentional dreamwork, what’s one simple practice you’d recommend they start with tonight?
Just set the intention before you go to sleep, “when I wake up, I will remember my dreams” and try to gently recall your dreams as soon as you wake up. Practice, practice, practice.
As someone fascinated by the power of routine and ritual, I’m curious about your personal practices. Would you mind sharing your nighttime routine? What rituals or habits have you found most effective for nurturing quality sleep and rich dream experiences?”
I discuss some sleep hygiene suggestions in the book, but a few personal supports I left out are the manta sleep mask – it’s absolutely incredible – and a grounding sheet. I sleep in a cold room, read before bed, minimize artificial lighting and no screen time. Baths and meditation are also a huge help for me in winding down. I am actually not a night person, I usually go to sleep around 8:30 pm – most of my rituals are morning rituals, which included recording my dreams.
As both a creative soul and an adept navigator of dreamscapes, I’m curious about how you perceive the relationship between dreams and various art forms. Beyond visual art, how do you think other mediums like music, literature, or even scent art like perfumery might intersect with or be influenced by our dream experiences? Have you explored any of these connections in your own practice or research?”
Scent! The olfactory sense is rare in dreams but not completely absent. Just this week I dreamed of an ex’s bad breath lol – smell is, as you know, deeply connected to emotion and memory. Good smells and perfumes can be used to invite sweet spirits and influence our dreams in positive ways! I would be curious if anyone has made a perfume for dreaming? Possibly including some of the well-known oneiric plants or flowers? I know cologne, sprays, and perfumes are used in folk magic practices, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were specific ones for dreams and dreaming. [Author Edit: here are some of my favorite sleeping and dreaming scents!]
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Nicolas Bonnart – The Perfumers Costume (colour engraving)
Heretic Nosferatu As I have been wearing this fragrance, I am struck by how nothing seems quite linear about it, how delicately “outside of time” it feels. I realized it reminded me of the feeling I have after waking up and trying to recall the dream I was just having. I am half-here, half-there, both places and neither at once. Nosferatu is like that–fragments from last night’s dreams, scrawled in the grey dawn before they fade: the moon’s reflection in cooling bathwater. Soft fog, carved from shadow, packed with frost. A brittle wisp of dried lilac, phantasmal at twilight, fragile rustles of the restless dead. Storm-struck stone, its hollow sparking echo dimly illuminating a subterranean cavern, ghost light lingering between vespers, dawn, and never. The creeping moss of midnight rains veining the marble tears of weeping saints.
Pineward Borealis paints a stark landscape of frost-encrusted pines and barren rock, a scent so austere it verges on ascetic. It’s relentless in its portrayal of a world where survival, not beauty, is paramount. The fragrance opens with a glacial gust that scours the senses, carrying with it the sharp, mentholated breath of winter winds. This initial surge slowly gives way to the scent of ancient conifers, their woody essence concentrated by the cold into something almost medicinal in its intensity. As Borealis evolves, there are hints of bitter herbs and roots, their astringency amplified by the unforgiving chill, like sparse vegetation clinging to life in frozen soil. A fleeting, ghostly floral note emerges briefly, a spectral echo of summer long past before it’s subsumed again by the pervading bitterness and cold. Underneath it all runs a current of salinity and ozone, evoking vast, turbulent seas and the isolating expanse of arctic tundra. Unyielding and austere, its bitter intensity never softens, but persists with the tenacity of the raw, indifferent environment it evokes.
Zoologist Macaque (Yuzu Edition) I’ve spent countless YouTube hours watching travelers wind their way through Japan’s remote mountains in search of hidden onsen. Macaque conjures what I imagine in those moments before slipping into these natural hot springs: that sharp intake of breath as mountain air fills the lungs, a bracing brightness that stings like citrus without any trace of sweetness. Then comes the dry herbal/woody medicinal presence of cypress wood warming in the sun, and finally, the contemplative drift of incense carried on thermal currents. Its smoke is different here – softened and diffused by rising steam until it becomes almost tactile, like silk suspended in air. There’s something sacred in this solitude of smoke and steam, something that recalls the aftermath of a hot shower but earthier, more ancient – less about soap than the quiet ritual of purification, with just a whisper of mineral-rich air. The lasting impression is of warmth remembered rather than felt, like late afternoon sun lingering after the day has begun to cool.
Francesca Bianchi Voluptuous Oud First impressions of Voluptuous Oud are like opening the door to a grand parlour – a brief, sharp intake of leather and wood that quickly softens into something far more gracious. The oud here isn’t the fierce creature of perfume lore, but something more measured, like old leather chairs that have absorbed decades of warmth and welcome. Each breath reveals new facets of comfort – buttery undertones, traces of wood worn smooth by time, the particular richness that comes from allowing things their full measure of ripeness. This is a scent that understands the difference between abundance and excess. It settles into its own nature with quiet assurance, offering the kind of comfort found in well-loved spaces where every element has found its proper place through long association. Everything arranges itself just so, creating a world of perfect comfort and refinement – until you notice that somewhere, somehow, the shadows have begun to lengthen in impossible directions, vetiver’s bitter fingers grasping at the edges of what might be more than shadows. Yet what lingers longest is that buttery sweetness, rich and golden as an afternoon dream of darker honey, its lushness tempered by threads of burnished, brooding vanilla and sandalwood that render it less confectionery and more contemplative. This is precisely the sort of artful, beguiling fragrance one reaches for when they wish to romanticize their life, those days when a simple afternoon begs to be transformed into something more mysterious and meaningful. It reminds me irresistibly of Saki’s short story “The Open Window,” where a young girl transforms an unremarkable afternoon into something extraordinary through sheer force of imagination. Like the best storytellers, it creates its own reality – perfectly composed, utterly convincing, and just possibly not quite what it seems.
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab Nevertheless, She Persisted is all warmth and edge, a richness cut with a chipped blade, a silver that’s earned its patina, illuminated by a cresting shard of dawn. The scent blooms like resin warmed by just enough light to see by, bittersweet, gentle as prayer, steady as stone. It moves like metallic honey, like quicksilver caught in amber – inexorable and incandescent, a sliver of sunshine given weight and anointed with purpose. Beneath its surface lies something unflinching and resolute, like steel threaded through silk, like granite veined with gold, like a sword of thunder wrapped in a ballgown.
4160 Tuesdays Shazam! Not all observatories are built of steel and glass. Some are carved from ancient wood and wisdom, where mechanical planets trace their paths through the perpetual twilight of desert mysteries. Here in the thin mountain air, elevation sharpens the senses: first the bright bite of altitude, then the way spices catch in the throat like distant light. Time dissolves in the dark. What begins as calculation—the precise geometry of pepper’s gentle ignition and austere cedarwood gears—softens into something warmer, more profound. Each celestial model points inward, finding its own true north in bitter cocoa and burnished amber. Brass orbits wheel overhead at the angle of eternity while censers trace their own paths below, drawing cosmic dust and incense into the undertow of old magics. In the smoke and spice of these shadowed alignments, the machinery of night turns ever inward.
Miskeo Parfum Épices immediately called to mind Audition’s Asami, that icon of patient malice and elegant vengeance, trading her torture kit for a spice collection. She conjures a pristine hostess in her leather apron, each pocket meticulously lined with strategically curated powders and preparations: cardamom’s strange cooling caress, coriander’s numbing bite. Her cedarwood spoon dissects the mixture with surgical precision, stirring sweet-sharp resins and honeyed smoke into something exquisitely lethal. When the spices settle, they leave behind a slow dreamy surrender of soft musk and patchouli’s eerie earthiness – even the deadliest hostess exacting her long game of vengeance knows the art of perfect measure.
Finally trying a few from Filippo Sorcinelli, here are my thoughts…
Notre-Dame 15.4.2019 is what happens when the witchly spirit of venomous anisette, honeyed plums, and midnight-plucked flowers from Christian Dior’s Poison decides to possess a gingerbread man, wrapping itself in a crust of dark spices and unholy sugar.
Basilica of Assisi If Heinrich Lossow’s painting “The Sin” got a modern perfume brief, but plot twist – the nun is doing laundry, and instead of a garden variety horny priest, she’s being visited by a biblically accurate angel, all burning eyes and razor wings and divine perversity. It’s giving Clovis Trouille’s ecstatic scandalous nuns but make it fresh linens and benediction. A slutty nun chypre laundry musk that somehow makes perfect sense. Sacred and profane, bleached and debauched.
BPAL x Haute Macabre The Veil Falls Like Leaves I wore The Veil Falls Like Leaves earlier in the week, and at first, it was very much that seasonal dead leaves/softly decomposing autumn harvest element that BPAL does so well. But by the end of the day, I was like, “What am I wearing that makes me smell like a posh art gallery weirdo?” So I built a little review around that, hehehehe.
The Veil Falls Like Leaves (leaves, vanilla, and leather) Found your local bog witch at the gallery fundraiser, trailing damp, earthy autumn leaves in her wake, each step releasing whispers of sweet autumnal decay and sour, earthy fungi. The wild things clean up nice but never quite lose their feral heart – you smell it in the manky, softly rotting vegetation that lingers beneath her gallery-appropriate veneer. This is autumn’s sophisticated glow-up, where decaying harvest and sweet-tempered spice mingle in the air. As the night deepens, something softer emerges: traces of expensive, elegant leather and fancy high-end shampoo that smells of earthy, loamy vanillagf, like a well-worn jacket catching the scent of damp, moss-tendriled hair, adding an unexpected intimacy to all that earthen wisdom.
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Here’s something different – today I’m reviewing a teapot. I know, I know. Usually, I’m here talking about perfumes that smell like goth California Raisins, or books about apocalyptic viruses, or art that makes me want to climb into the canvas and run away from civilization to spend my days floating on lily pads or whatever, but life is weird sometimes.
A few weeks ago, Umi Tea Sets reached out after seeing the YouTube Amazon Haul video I did last year (the one with a glass teapot in it, among other things), and they asked if they’d send me one of their fancy teapots, would I share my thoughts about it? While quite unexpected because, frankly, I don’t get a lot of brands reaching out to me to give me stuff, it was great timing because I had just broken the other teapot!
So I said sure, why not? But when it arrived, I realized I had no idea how to review a teapot. Books and perfumes? I can do that all day. But teapots? That took some contemplation.
There’s something deeply satisfying about a well-crafted vessel for daily rituals. This Thickened Glass Wooden Handle Teapot, with its clear borosilicate glass (I had to look that up! It’s basically extra-strong glass that won’t crack under temperature changes) and black walnut accents, has found its place in the small pockets of peace I’ve carved out of my workday. My mornings begin in the pre-dawn quiet, curled up on the sofa with a book and soft light. During lunch, I steal away for quick visits with the bumblebees in our garden. But it’s the 3 o’clock tea break that’s become something of an art form.
The practical stuff: it doesn’t drip when you pour (crucial), the handle stays cool even when the tea is scalding (also crucial), and it has these little filter grooves that catch all the tea bits so you’re not drinking leaves (extremely crucial). It can handle ridiculous temperature changes without exploding (apparently from -20°C to 150°C, which seems excessive but good to know).
Working from home means my afternoon tea ritual is sacred – a necessary pause in the day’s momentum where I can reset before diving back into emails and deadlines. Now, it includes watching oolong pearls spiral downward through crystal-clear glass or, on especially contemplative days, seeing a flowering tea ball slowly bloom into an underwater garden. I can already tell this is going to be one of those well-loved objects that collects memories along with daily use.
Every winter for the past few years, I’ve been baking these lovely cookies adapted from a Hildegard von Bingen recipe (if you’re curious, you can find it on Atlas Obscura). There’s something deeply satisfying about pairing a 12th-century mystic’s spelt and honey cookies with tea leaves dancing in contemporary glassware. I like to think Hildegard, who knew a thing or two about rituals, would appreciate how these small ceremonies punctuate our days, even centuries later.
Whether I’m steeping something fancy or just my regular afternoon blend, I appreciate using a tool that’s been thoughtfully designed for this purpose. It’s not about slowing down – I was born at a snail’s pace and have not shown any evidence that I am getting speedier over the years – but about making these stolen moments as beautiful as possible. Even in the middle of a workday, especially in the middle of a workday, we deserve a little everyday magic.
You can find this little teapot and many tea-related items and accessories on the Umi Tea Sets website.
(Full disclosure: The company sent me this teapot for free, but they didn’t tell me what to say about it. These thoughts are my own, fueled by possibly too many cups of hojicha while writing this.)
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When I was curating images for my book The Art of Fantasy: A Visual Sourcebook Of All That Is Unreal, I found myself drawn to the peculiar charm of Max Frey’s undersea tableau not because it featured an obviously fantastical creature like a dragon or unicorn, but because it captured something equally magical: the strange poetry of a human figure astride a sea slug, as casual as if riding a horse through city streets.
Frey’s fascination with undersea subjects emerged during a time when the natural world was capturing the imagination of both scientists and artists alike. The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw an explosion of interest in marine biology, with publications like Ernst Haeckel’s “Art Forms in Nature” bringing the strange beauty of sea creatures to the public eye. This was an era when the depths of the ocean still held countless mysteries, and every new scientific expedition might reveal creatures that seemed as fantastical as any medieval bestiary.
Max Frey, Poseidon und Tochter
Max Frey, Amazone und einhörniges Seepferd
Frey wasn’t alone in finding artistic potential in marine life. Odilon Redon transformed deep-sea creatures into mystical floating eyes and otherworldly blossoms. Jean Painlevé’s early underwater photography and films of seahorses and octopi revealed an underwater ballet so strange it influenced the Surrealists.
What sets Frey’s approach apart is how he places humans in direct interaction with these creatures. His figure atop the sea slug brings to mind the way Symbolist artist Arnold Böcklin placed classical figures among realistic Mediterranean landscapes. But where Böcklin’s work often leans into myth and melancholy, Frey’s sea slug rider maintains a wonderfully deadpan quality. The subject’s imperious expression suggests they see nothing unusual about their choice of vehicle – it’s everyone else who’s making it weird.
Max Frey, Wasserfee und Prinz
Max Frey, Lichtspenderin
Max Frey, Das Prinzesslein
This wasn’t a one-off flight of fancy for Frey. His work reveals a whole series of these marine mounts, each more fantastic than the last. Some glide through the water with sleek, silvery bodies that wouldn’t look out of place on a pulp magazine cover. Others sport mohawk-like manes or crown-like fins atop their heads. Yet their riders maintain that same air of perfect nonchalance, as if commuting to some underwater office on their sea-slug steeds.
In ‘”Das Prinzesslein” (The Little Princess), Frey gives us a humanless scene – though perhaps not entirely. The central creature’s expression suggests a strange mix of concern, bewilderment, and haughty bearing as she surveys her underwater domain of muddy anemones and eels. A gross, leering, crab-like beast lurks nearby, barnacles and tentacles sprouting from it like some strange mutation. One can’t help but suspect we’re witnessing the aftermath of a curse, the little princess transformed but still maintaining her royal demeanor among these unsettling depths.
Max Frey, Das Wunder
In “Das Wunder” (The Wonder), Frey takes us deeper still, into a dim underwater grotto where a serpentine creature – or possibly two creatures, it’s difficult to tell if we’re seeing a two-headed being or a pair – gawps at what appears to be a human figure encased in a glowing egg. The murky illumination from this strange cocoon creates the kind of scene you might expect in a deep-sea expedition’s fever dream.
Max Frey, Das Wunder
Finally emerging onto land, we find “Tier und Mensch” (Animal and Human), where a hybrid of giraffe, llama, and dinosaur appears with pinky-beige hide and doleful expression, its wiggly ears and sad face giving it an almost apologetic air. A figure kneels beside this bizarre beast in an enigmatic vision that raises more questions than it answers. Like his undersea riders, Frey presents this unlikely encounter as if it were the most natural thing in the world, leaving us to puzzle over whether it’s the scene that’s strange, or merely our perception of it.
While New Objectivity and Symbolism appear frequently in descriptions of Frey’s work, these pieces suggest an artist operating in a territory entirely his own, where grand sea wyrms serve as commuter transport and sad-eyed hybrid beasts receive mysterious visitors. Each piece is presented with the calm assurance of someone who has witnessed something deeply weird and is simply waiting for the rest of us to catch up.
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First, I would think of the wild geese. Not the poem—the actual birds themselves, cutting their black paths through the dawn sky, crying out to one another in voices that sound like longing. I would remember how I learned to see them differently, to hear in their calls not just noise but a fierce joy in being alive.
Osprey by Holly Fasching
I would sit with my betrayal like a stone in my throat. How many mornings had I carried her words like talismans? How many times had I pressed them into the hands of friends who were drowning in grief or doubt? The grasshopper, the swan, the lily—these were more than just images. They were keys that unlocked something vital in me, something I had forgotten how to name.
But then I would remember: the truth about teachers is that they are always human first. Their genius and their darkness flow from the same well. We drink what nourishes us and leave the rest. The greatest gift a teacher offers isn’t their perfection but their ability to illuminate the path—even if they themselves have stumbled on it.
Great Horned Owl by Kshanti Greene
So I would begin the careful work of separation, like sorting grain from chaff. I would spread out all I had learned about attention, about the sacred in the ordinary, about the weight of a single moment held up to the light. These truths remain true, regardless of their messenger. The lily still opens in its own time. The swan still curves her neck toward her reflection. The grasshopper still fills her body with the day’s sweet excess.
What we learn about beauty doesn’t become ugly just because the one who taught us was flawed. The wild geese still know their way home. They never needed anyone to write them into meaning—they carried it all along, as do we all, waiting for someone or something to teach us how to see it.
Barred Owl by Kelley Luikey
In the end, I would keep the lessons and release the teacher. I would thank her, not for being perfect, but for showing me how to look at the world with eyes hungry for wonder. And then I would go walking in the woods, watching for movement in the underbrush, listening for the sounds of small things going about their vital, ordinary lives. Like the great owl moving through darkness, its wings deadly and silent, I would learn to navigate by instinct through this tangle of meaning and messenger.
Because that’s what she taught me, after all—not to worship her, but to worship this: the unfolding miracle of each moment, whether we deserve it or not. And maybe that would be the final lesson—that beauty and truth can flow through crooked vessels, that we are all both monstrous and divine, that the world goes on offering itself to our imagination despite our failings. The wild geese still fly overhead, crying out their harsh and exciting notes, and we still have the choice to look up.
P.S. As far as I know, Mary Oliver was not a monster! But I’ve been thinking lately about what we do with beautiful things we’ve learned from flawed teachers, and how we might salvage the lessons from the borrowed lenses through which we learned to see—even if we have to leave their messenger behind
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I’ve been making a habit this year of following the fleeting strangeness of my thoughts down their winding paths. When an odd question or observation surfaces, instead of brushing it aside, I’ve been letting myself explore it fully – turning it over, examining its edges, seeing where it leads. This practice has turned into an unexpected series of bloggerly meditations, each one revealing something I hadn’t anticipated when I first began picking at the thread.
Today’s contemplation springs from a rather mundane source: my head is pounding, a dull ache that makes the glare of my laptop screen feel like a personal affront. The logical solution seems obvious: take a nap. Step away from my desk, find a quiet corner, and let consciousness slip away for just a little while. Such a simple fix, in theory.
Yet I find myself resistant, and not for the usual practical reasons – the fear of oversleeping, the worry about nighttime insomnia, or the guilt of stepping away from work. My hesitation runs deeper, rooted in a peculiar existential anxiety that has haunted my relationship with daytime sleep since childhood. In truth, I have not had a nap since September of 2014, in a tiny bedroom in our Reykjavík lodgings, after a full day of air travel.
This resistance to naps has always marked me as the odd one out in my family. Both my sisters, my late mother, and my late grandmother were all devoted practitioners of the afternoon nap. They could – and still can, in my sisters’ case – drift off contentedly at any hour, emerging refreshed and bewildered by my inability to do the same. “Are you sure we’re related?” they tease when I remind them of my napping aversion.
While nighttime sleep feels like a natural rhythm, a universal pause in the world’s turning, afternoon naps have always felt like acts of rebellion against the very fabric of social reality. Waking from a nap would leave me profoundly discombobulated, grappling with questions that went far beyond the usual sleep inertia. These brief glimpses into an alternate reality – where our carefully constructed routines dissolve – leave me wrestling with what philosopher Martin Heidegger called “thrown-ness”: that unsettling awareness that we’re thrown into existence with all these structures and routines that can suddenly feel arbitrary when disrupted. If we can simply check out of our structured reality for an unauthorized break in consciousness, what does that say about the structures themselves?
It makes sense, in a way. I’ve always been motivated by ritual, routine, and an almost visceral need to avoid “getting into trouble.” Since childhood, the prospect of breaking rules – even unspoken ones – has been enough to keep me rigidly in line. Regular sleep feels sanctioned, a shared agreement we all participate in. But naps? Naps feel like temporary anarchism, little ruptures in the social contract. Each time I’ve emerged from one, I’ve found myself questioning everything: Why do we partition time the way we do? What makes these hours “working hours” and those hours “sleeping hours”? The arbitrary nature of it all becomes suddenly, uncomfortably apparent.
René-François-Xavier Prinet, Elégante sur un canapé
So here I am with my headache, contemplating the strange choice between physical discomfort and existential disorientation. There’s something telling in the fact that I’d rather push through pain than face the void of afternoon sleep – that space where the careful constructs of daily life reveal themselves as exactly what they are: constructs.
Maybe I’m overthinking it. Maybe a nap is just a glorious midday escape, as my sisters would surely tell me. But what if there’s an opportunity here, buried beneath my resistance? What if I approached this age-old family divide not as a quirk to be overcome but as a window into something deeper? Perhaps in examining why I find such profound discomfort in these sanctioned moments of chaos, I might discover something about the nature of order itself – and my relationship to it.
What would happen if I treated each nap as a kind of meditation on structure and chaos? I could keep a journal of the thoughts that surface in those disorienting moments between sleep and wakefulness. Why do certain types of rest feel “legitimate” while others feel transgressive? What makes me guard so fiercely these artificial boundaries between day and night, work and rest? There’s something about voluntary unconsciousness in the middle of the day that still feels like a small betrayal of the orderly world I’ve constructed.
Maybe in deliberately crossing these self-imposed boundaries, I’d find they’re more flexible than I imagined. Or perhaps I’d discover that my resistance isn’t about rule-breaking at all, but about a deeper need to remain tethered to the waking world, even when it hurts.
As someone who delights in recalling and recounting my dreams, what different flotsam might rattle around in my brain during these contested hours? While my nighttime dreams unfold in their sanctioned space, what unique consciousness might emerge in these guerrilla afternoon sessions? It’s like having access to two different dream laboratories: the official nighttime one where the subconscious is allowed to roam free, and this rebellious afternoon version, where different rules might apply. What revelations await in these unauthorized territories of rest?
I touch my tender, throbbing temple and wonder: what might I learn by finally letting myself drift away in the forbidden afternoon light?
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I love perfume. I love talking about perfume. I love how it’s simultaneously the most invisible and most evocative art form we have – how a single molecule can transport you through time, space, and memory. The fragrance community has given me some of my most treasured conversations about art, emotion, and the weird, beautiful space where they intersect. But like any passionate community, it’s got its share of nonsense.
Let’s start with the one I find most aggravating…
tap tap tap Here’s another pristine manicure hovering over another luxury bottle, another perfectly filtered face telling us something is “literally fire.” These aren’t fragrance reviews – they’re beauty influencer content that happens to use perfume bottles as props. The fragrance itself is barely a supporting character in its own review.
In each of these videos, the person reviewing the perfume looks like a social media beauty influencer, and I know that you know exactly what I mean. Not just “pretty,” but beautiful in that instantly recognizable, algorithmic way – the ‘clean girl’ aesthetic, the glazed donut skin, the lip combos, the siren eyes, the perfectly sculpted ‘that girl’ routine. These people and their unattainable levels of curated beauty have somehow become the faces of fragrance discourse, and I find that absolutely insufferable.
Why? Because perfume is supposed to be the great equalizer, the one form of beauty that has absolutely nothing to do with appearance. Fragrance is where those of us with crooked smiles and frizzy hair and uneven eyeliner get to be goddamn ethereal. When I smell beautiful, I don’t care about my sun spots or broken capillaries or the way everything jiggles when I move.
A perfect scent lets you slip through the world in a veil of impeccable elegance or a melancholy cloud of romantic longing. It moves you to beauty in places that powder and glosses can never hope to reach. While influencers are tapping their manicured nails on bottles and getting millions of views for calling everything “iconic” or “no thoughts just vibes,” some of us are achieving a beauty far beyond what you can capture in a well-lit studio with all the filters in the world.
The comments section erupts: “omg queen your reviews are so detailed and helpful! 😍” Meanwhile, people who actually describe the development of the fragrance, its artistic merit, its place in perfume history, or god forbid, its actual smell, get “too wordy, just tell me if it’s good.” The rise of micro-content has somehow convinced people that complex olfactory experiences can be reduced to three-second clips and vague superlatives. I get it – long-form content takes more time and effort to consume. But perfume isn’t a TikTok transition trend. Some things deserve more than a bottle tap and a catchphrase – especially something that makes you feel beautiful in ways that have nothing to do with how you look.
And of course, it’s not enough to make perfume just about looks – we’ve also got people turning it into a competitive sport.
“But what’s the sillage like? How’s the projection? Is it BEAST MODE?” My brother in Christ, not everything needs to announce your presence from three zip codes away. The obsession with performance metrics has created this bizarre arms race of nuclear-strength fragrances that sacrifice all artistry for pure brute force.
The whole “beast mode” culture has led to these bombastic, synthetic power-fragrances that smell like they were designed by people who think typing in all caps makes their argument stronger. Judging a perfume solely by its longevity is like judging a meal by how long it takes to eat, or a movie by its runtime. Those gorgeous citrus top notes? They’re fleeting by nature. That’s literally physics.
Sometimes beauty is ephemeral. Sometimes reapplication is part of the experience. Sometimes screaming doesn’t make you a better singer. And sometimes your nose has just gone temporarily blind to your fragrance because you’ve been marinating in it all day (Google “olfactory fatigue” before you leave that one-star review).
Speaking of missing the point entirely…
“Which fragrance gets the most compliments?” This is not a dating strategy. The constant pursuit of compliment-getting fragrances has turned parts of the community into a weird sort of olfactory pickup artist scene.
And while we’re here – it’s 2024, and you’re still asking me if a scent leans more feminine or masculine? Gendering scent molecules is like gendering clouds or colors or the concept of Thursday. Is your bergamot licensed to practice law? Does your vetiver have student loan debt? When was the last time your oakmoss filed its tax return? Do these sound like silly questions to ask? They are equally as silly as fretting about your perfume’s gender identity. Just be a human, wearing a note you love because you love it.
And while we’re on the subject of arbitrary rules we’ve made up…
“What’s your signature scent?” My what? “Nobody needs more than 10 bottles!” Says who? The weird moralization of both collection sizes and scent monogamy in the fragrance community is exhausting.
Some days I want to smell like a marble bust vined with ivy, others like I just rolled in a constellation of stars. Sometimes I want to be a cozy sweater, and sometimes I want to be an entire gothic cathedral. Why limit yourself to one song when you could have a whole playlist?
And let’s talk about the designer fragrance snobbery. Not everyone needs to be wearing small-batch artisanal perfumes that cost half a month’s rent. That “basic” designer scent you’re sneering at? It probably brings its wearer joy, and isn’t that the whole point?
And once you’ve finished judging how many bottles someone owns, you can start judging how much they paid for them…
“$300 for scented water? What a rip-off!” Ah yes, because art should be cheap. Those years of training, rare materials, creative development, and artistic vision? Should probably cost the same as a bottle of designer body spray, right?
The dupe-hunting mentality is particularly exhausting. “Does anyone know a dupe for BR540 that costs $30 and performs better?” No. No, I don’t. If there was a $30 perfume that smelled exactly like a $300 perfume AND performed better, why would anyone buy the expensive one?
And don’t get me started on “clean” perfume marketing – it’s greenwashing with a side of classism, wrapped in a recycled bow. Not everything natural is good (poison ivy, anyone?), and not everything synthetic is bad. This marketing approach doesn’t just mislead – it creates artificial moral hierarchies around something as personal as scent preferences.
After all this talk about what perfume shouldn’t be – too expensive, too synthetic, too gendered, too whatever – let me tell you what it is: it’s poetry for the nose
Yes, I know my reviews are flowery. Yes, I describe perfumes in terms of memories, emotions, and elaborate scenarios. No, I will not simply list notes like I’m reading the back of a box. If you want a clinical breakdown of molecules, go read the IFRA documentation.
When I say a fragrance smells like “the last warm day of autumn, when the golden light hits fallen leaves and you’re sipping a hot chai and nibbling an apple cider donut when you get the call that your dad died,” I’m conveying an experience, not just a list of notes. Scent is intimately tied to memory and emotion – describing it purely in technical terms misses the entire point.
And finally, because I desperately need to say this…
Here’s the thing about perfume recommendations: unless you’re asking me how to smell like Brigitte Lahaie in Jean Rollin’s Fascination, or the trippy pastel poster art of Belladonna of Sadness, or lying on your bedroom floor in 1994 feeling weird and hazy and scared of the future while listening to Mazzy Star, or Scully slapping on the latex in that one funny episode of the X-Files, or that dream you had after finishing Jeff VanderMeer’s Area X trilogy – I probably shouldn’t be your guide.
“Looking for something unique but crowd-pleasing, sexy but office-appropriate, under $50 but niche quality, smells like summer nights but works year-round…” Does this exist? Possibly. I got bored and fell asleep before you finished your request, though. Without a genuine connection to your desired vibe, anything I suggest would just be me half-heartedly people-pleasing. My recommendations would be exercises in mediocrity, expensive arrows shot in the dark.
Just last night, someone messaged me asking how to smell like Gerard Way at a 2002 New Jersey basement show. No shade to the asker – that’s actually a fantastic request! The specificity is chef’s kiss. But I had to admit I literally didn’t know who Gerard Way was until that very moment. And you know what? That’s perfectly okay. We had a fun chat about it anyway, made a new connection, and they’ll hopefully find someone who can actually nail that early-aughts emo basement vibe for them.
The fragrance community (and everybody, really) seems oddly hesitant to say, “I don’t know,” or “That’s not my area.” But it’s actually freeing – better an honest “not my wheelhouse” than pretending expertise you don’t have. Perfume is deeply personal, and unless you’re tapping into something that genuinely excites me, something specific and evocative and meaningful (to me), I’m not the right person to guide your scent journey.
Every community has its eye-rolling moments and misplaced priorities, and perfume people are no exception. They obsess over synthetic metrics instead of genuine experiences, make up arbitrary rules that serve no one, and sometimes get so caught up in chasing trends and validation that they completely miss the point of what makes this art form special. But there’s something beautiful about watching someone describe a scent that moved them to tears, or sharing a sample that changes how they see the world, or finally finding that perfect bottle after a hundred near-misses. Even when they’re driving me crazy… they’re still speaking my language.
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My two favorite comfort spots as a child: tucked in a corner with a book, or in the kitchen at my grandmother’s knee. Both places taught me to love the slow unfolding of stories – whether they came from mixing bowls or printed pages. Maybe that’s why I find myself lingering over scenes of characters eating. A flaky crust or the smell of burnt sugar can transport you more surely than any map. What characters eat, how they eat it, who they share it with – these details tell us everything about their world.
As I grew older, I realized something curious: while other readers might have dog-eared the romantic scenes in novels, I was the one impatiently flipping past them to get back to the detailed descriptions of gathering herbs or preparing meals. Even in the notoriously salacious Clan of the Cave Bear, I cared more about Ayla’s medicinal plants than her spicy cave encounters. Maybe because food scenes revealed something more intimate – not just how characters fed their bodies, but how they nourished their souls and connections to others. Plus, I was a constantly hungry child. My mother had me counting calories from age five. I ate vicariously through these characters, savoring every detailed description of their meals, while secretly stuffing saltines and oyster crackers into my pockets – not always from hunger, but often from spite, claiming these small crunchy acts of rebellion. Even now, I can’t read without something to crunch between pages.
The Boxcar Children showed me first what food could mean beyond hunger. Four siblings with nothing but each other, turning an abandoned train car into home. I envied their freedom to eat what they found, when they found it. Every small victory mattered: a cup cut from a tin can, milk kept cool in a stream, wild blueberries gathered in a fresh bucket. Each meal became an act of love and defiance – we can make this work, we can stay together, we can turn nothing into something.
In Little House on the Prairie, each meal was a triumph I could taste in secret: stewed jackrabbit with white-flour dumplings and gravy, steaming cornbread flavored with bacon fat, and molasses to pour over top. No one counted Laura’s calories. Karana in Island of the Blue Dolphins followed the same patient rhythm of survival: abalone pried from rocks, fish caught in tidal pools, roots dug from the earth with improvised tools. These girls ate to live, and lived fully.
In The Secret Garden, I found a different kind of mirror. While Mary transforms from sallow to vibrant, I was being taught to wish for the opposite. My mother’s voice suggested that thin and pale was preferable to rosy-cheeked and sturdy. Still, I devoured the descriptions: warm milk, homemade cottage bread slathered with raspberry jam, buttered crumpets, currant buns. As the garden comes alive, so do the children who tend it, nourished by Susan Sowerby’s hearty oatcakes and fresh milk brought for picnics among the roses. They eat without anyone watching, measuring, counting.
Harriet’s tomato sammy
On dark and stormy nights in A Wrinkle in Time, the Murray kitchen glows with love and warm milk for cocoa. Charles Wallace, wise beyond his five years, makes liverwurst-and-cream-cheese sandwiches while his sister Meg gets her one precious tomato with her mother’s blessing. Here was another kind of hunger being fed – not just for midnight snacks, but for unconditional love served up with hot chocolate and understanding. A mother who could say of her last tomato, “To what better use could it be put?” than feeding her child’s happiness. That liverwurst sandwich, by the way, became such an indelible detail that years later, when I was interviewed about the Wrinkle in Time cover art saga, it was the only thing I could recall from the entire story!
The Wind in the Willows packed picnic baskets of pure imagination: a yard of French bread, sausage fragrant with garlic, cheese that “lay down and cried,” and bottled sunshine from Southern slopes. In Heidi’s world, simple meals became feasts: toasted cheese and fresh goat’s milk in her grandfather’s alpine cabin, tasting of freedom and mountain air. In Harriet The Spy, Harriet M. Welsch’s tomato sandwich appeared like clockwork, made the same way every day by her nanny Ole Golly (white bread, ripe tomatoes, mayo, and though I’d add salt and pepper, I doubt Harriet would approve).
When my mother was monitoring every bite, allowing only Weight Watchers-approved foods and endless bowls of undressed salad, I found myself drawn to the strange, exotic foods in books: Edmund’s Turkish Delight in Narnia, the pickled limes Amy March coveted at school. I had no idea what these things actually tasted like, which made them perfect for fantasizing. They existed purely in my imagination, where no one could measure their calories or deem them forbidden. No Weight Watchers points chart in the world could calculate the value of magical sugar covered in snow, or the tart sweetness of pickled citrus traded like contraband between schoolgirls.
And speaking of fantasy feasts, the dwarves raid Bilbo’s pantry with a gleeful abandon I recognized in my own hidden snacking: seed-cakes vanishing, buttered scones disappearing with raspberry jam and apple-tart, followed by mince-pies, cheese, pork-pie and salad. Then more cakes, ale, coffee, eggs, cold chicken and pickles. The Redwall books fed these fantasies – deeper’n’ever pies, greensap milk, meadowcream pudding, hot cornbread studded with hazelnuts and apple. Between crackers crushed in my pockets, I devoured these imaginary feasts.
In Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, a plate appears loaded with Southern comfort: fried chicken, black-eyed peas, turnip greens, cornbread, and those titular tomatoes. The chocolatier in Chocolat reads her customers through their cravings. In Like Water for Chocolate, a single chile in walnut sauce captures all possible flavors: sweet as candied citron, juicy as pomegranate, hot with pepper, subtle with nuts.
But food can speak of darker things too. The Secret History’s feast spins out of control – soups, lobsters, pâtés, mousses blur together with Tattinger champagne and brandy until the room tilts with excess and abandon. In Castle Dracula, Jonathan Harker’s journal opens not with terror but with dinner – an “excellent roast chicken” served by his gracious host. And in Rebecca, the narrator torments herself remembering teatime at Manderley: dripping crumpets, crisp toast wedges, mysterious sandwiches, that special gingerbread, and angel cake that melted in the mouth. These are meals haunted by what comes after.
I actually started writing this piece seven years ago, just a simple list of meals from books. But, like the best stories about food, it was never really about the food at all. It was about hunger and love and what happens when those things get tangled together, about mothers and daughters and all the ways we learn to feed ourselves when no one else will.
Yet it’s not these haunted meals or desperate hungers I want to carry forward. What I want now is to nourish what was starved. I imagine setting a table for my younger self, covering every inch with the food of these beloved books: warm cottage bread fresh from the oven, slathered with sweet butter and honey, piled with slices of ripe tomatoes and sprinkled with salt. Crumpets dripping with melted butter, currant buns still steaming, seed-cakes and apple tarts and mince pies. A tureen of rabbit stew with dumplings, cornbread flavored with bacon fat, blueberries gathered by small determined hands. Hot oatcakes wrapped in clean napkins, brought by a mother who knew how to feed children’s souls as well as their bodies. I’d tell that hungry, hiding girl that she can eat until she’s satisfied, that there’s no need to count or measure or feel shame, that the crumbs in her pockets were not crimes but survival. And maybe I’d set a place for my mother too, hoping we could both finally taste something sweeter than fear – forgiveness, served in portions large enough to fill all our empty spaces.
Next month marks eleven years since she died. My body remembers before my mind does. It asks for comfort reads and crackers in corners. The old familiar hungers, the slow work of healing.
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In times of deep shadow, humanity has always reached for two torch flames: magic and art. Often, they burn as one – each a way of touching the invisible, of shaping reality from the raw stuff of imagination and will.
Each an attempt to make sense of a world that sometimes seems senseless, our fingers stretching toward that distant spark of understanding.
Art’s power lies not in offering escape, but in its unflinching ability to witness, to record, to create. It reflects our full humanity – our grief and our joy, our rage and our hope. Through this honest reflection, we find our strength. Our imaginations aren’t exits from reality – they’re tools for seeing it more clearly, for envisioning what could be.
Creation is an act of power – a reaching inward to find something stronger than our circumstances, a way of claiming space in a world that sometimes seems intent on shrinking us. We raise our hands to shape, to shield, to shatter what needs breaking.
Right now, many feel a profound weariness. But across time and space, across every circumstance, humans have made art. Like moths drawn to flame, we spiral ever toward the light of creation. It’s not just how we resist – it’s how we exist.
Art speaks what cannot be said plainly. Through it, we express the inexpressible, share what feels unshareable. These creations may come from any time, any place, any hand – but they speak to something universal in the human spirit.
Every brushstroke, every sculpted line, every carefully chosen word is a thread connecting us to everyone who has ever faced uncertainty and chosen to create anyway. It builds bridges between hearts, between centuries.
This is why we cannot stop making, cannot stop imagining better worlds into being. Art isn’t a luxury to set aside until better days. It’s how we live through all our days – through grief, through rage, through moments that feel impossible to bear. It’s how we express our truths, how we find each other when the weight feels crushing, our hearts, our voices, our visions blazing with possibility.
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Memory works in funny ways, living in fragments and feelings more than solid details – it’s a bit like peering through the glass at a dollhouse scene, where some things snap into perfect focus while others stay pleasantly fuzzy around the edges.
For years, I’ve carried this memory of a childhood museum visit: walking up dark ramps, my small hand probably clutched in my grandmother’s (Lady Sue, my father’s mother – not to be confused with Mawga, my maternal grandmother, who starred in so many other childhood adventures and shows up frequently in this blog), as we gazed through windows at tiny rooms that glowed like jewel boxes in the dim light.
When I mentioned this memory to my youngest sister recently, she immediately suggested that it must have been the Museum of Miniatures in Carmel, and for a moment, those fuzzy edges seemed to sharpen. And so we made plans and last month, I made my way to Carmel, excited to revisit this piece of my childhood. But as soon as I stepped into the charming converted church that houses the current museum, I knew this wasn’t the place I remembered.
More talks with my sister afterward and some internet digging led us to the truth: those childhood memory-fragments lined up perfectly with the Thorne Miniature Rooms in Chicago. In later looking at photos online, I felt that little jolt of recognition – aha! yes! These were the elegant, carefully crafted rooms I remembered. Seeing them again brought back not just the memory of that visit with Lady Sue, but all the stories that shaped my young imagination around miniature worlds.
Because it wasn’t just those museum rooms that captivated me – it was the stories about tiny people living secret lives right next to us. The Borrowers, The Littles, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, and later, Studio Ghibli’s The Secret World of Arrietty – these tales changed how I looked at every little corner of the world. Every crack in a baseboard, each mysterious hole in a garden wall, became a possible doorway to some hidden community. These stories taught me to start looking for the magic in everyday things – a postage stamp becoming a masterpiece in a tiny gallery, a safety pin transformed into a sword, a teacup doing duty as a bathtub. Even now, I catch myself being careful around established rosebushes, wondering about the tiny homes and borrowed treasures that might be tucked beneath those thorns.
This fascination with miniatures followed all three of us sisters into adulthood, though it manifested differently for each of us. My sisters embraced their childhood love of dollhouses with grown-up collections – their tiny rooms filled with perfectly arranged furniture and carefully chosen accessories. But my relationship with these little dwellings has always been more complicated. Despite how much I loved peering into these perfect little worlds, I never felt I deserved a dollhouse of my own. My reasoning, flimsy as it was, went like this: I can’t even decorate my own full-sized home properly. My pretty things tend to pile up in heaps and clusters, like a magpie’s collection waiting to be properly shown off. If I couldn’t handle organizing normal-sized spaces, what business did I have trying it in miniature? (Though in a funny twist, while I’ve denied myself a dollhouse, I’ve somehow ended up with quite a collection of creepy dolls over the years – but that’s a different story, one about how childhood fascinations grow up right along with us.)
So when I visited the Carmel museum last month, I found myself comparing its treasures to both my childhood imaginings and my adult hesitations. The museum, housed in that converted church, felt like a different kind of sanctuary. It was full of impressive recreations, from Sherlock Holmes’ 221B Baker Street to the Addams Family mansion, and the tiniest details that caught my eye and made my heart go pitter-pat–jewelry boxes with impossibly small hinges, tiny treasure chests that looked like they’d been plucked right out of a dollhouse-sized Cave of Wonders, and best of all, a perfectly scaled beaded necklace draped across a lady’s vanity.
These museum pieces were worlds away from my beloved Borrowers and Littles, with their clever makeshift solution, like Arrietty using a clothespin for a hair clip or a fallen leaf as a lampshade. Here, instead, every piece was crafted exactly to scale, tiny treasures made with as much skill and care as their full-sized versions. I pressed my face to the glass just like I did as a kid, amazed at how these craftspeople had caught not just the look but the very soul of these tiny objects. The way light played on the miniature beads, the faint gleam of tiny metal clasps, the careful arrangement of microscopic bottles and brushes on the vanity – each detail showing just how much artistry is possible at such a small scale.
As a kid, my imagination ran wild with possibilities. I even believed, with that rock-solid certainty that only kids can have, that a microscopic civilization lived in my stomach, surviving on my daily bowl of Wheat Chex. Now, as an adult who collects perfumes and ghost stories, who knits and cooks and lives among creepy dolls, I see it’s all part of the same impulse – this need to gather and arrange small things, to create little pockets of order in an oversized world.
Whether it was the Thorne Miniature Rooms or somewhere else, that museum visit happened to little-me, and it was a very formative memory! Though now I wonder how many other childhood memories I’ve mixed up or mistaken–but is it even a childhood memory worth having if there isn’t a little bit of magic and mystery and make-believe mixed in?
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