Ok, so. I’ve been blogging and writing for over two decades. It’s probably about time I made one of these accounts for myself. If you’ve enjoyed my ramblings on fashion, perfume, art, books or horror; or perhaps my writings and reflections on matters of mortality, grief & loss & trauma, mental health, or hell, even my old Skeletor Is Love content, please consider supporting my work through Ko-fi, a platform which allows creators to receive money from fans of their content. Anyone who clicks my link can support me with a ‘coffee’ (a small payment that is roughly equal to the price of a coffee).
In full disclosure, I didn’t think I was ever going to make one of these “please consider donating to support my writing” things. But…I remember following a blog back in 2010 or so; it was a fairly popular art blog where the guy shared a lot of imagery, but he misrepresented the information half the time, and when he wasn’t getting shit dead wrong, he just didn’t bother sharing artist credit at all! And if this dumb-dumb could slap a “please consider donating to support my curation work!” on his blog, then surely I can be afforded the same indulgence. And unlike that asshole, I think my work is actually worth something. Ahem.
So anyway! Yeah, I did post something at the beginning of the year about the trepidation I had about being paid for my work. It might place an obligation on me that I would come to resent, I didn’t want to create any expectation levels, etc. etc. I still feel those things, and so I would probably never set up a Patreon, for example. Or do free-lance writing for pay. Too much stress! Nope! But a little donation link that I can put on my “about” page and I don’t even have to think about 99% of the time? I mean, why not?
Vanitas with Sunflower and Jewelry Box by Maria van Oosterwijck
A gathering of death-related links that I have encountered in the past month or so. From somber to hilarious, from informative to creepy, here’s a snippet of things that have been reported on or journaled about in or related to the Death Industry recently.
“Here Comes Little Sarah!” That is something my late Mawga used to say when she heard my presence somewhere in the house or saw me peeking at her from around the corner and knew I was readying myself to run into her arms.
Sarah is not so little anymore (she wasn’t very little back then, either) but “Here Comes Little Sarah!” is something I still whisper to myself when I’m about to embark on something that feels big and important, or more precisely when I’m about to finish such a thing and reveal it to the world.
I am somewhere between the two right now, midway on my journey of beginning and finishing a thing, and when my sister shared with me this stash of photos from my childhood that had been recently uncovered, it felt like such wonderful timing. Firstly because I need a new author photo (ha!) but mostly because it’s such a powerful exercise to gaze into the past at that round little dumpling face and channel that jaunty insouciance from say, the featured photo up top, or that sense of wonder and curiosity exuding from the photo of be-mulleted, lavender crop top-wearing little me at the very bottom.
I look forward to seeing the other versions of myself that emerge from this mysterious cache, and all of the other little Sarahs that I may have forgotten about along the way. Here she comes! There she goes! Where does she end up? I’ll check back with you right here and let you know when I get there.
For a few years there, every time I got super excited about discovering a new artist who it seemed that no one had yet written about or interviewed, without fail, there were always the same two bloggers who had beaten me to the punch. One is a lovely individual who I have interviewed before, and the other is Jantine Zandbergen… who is visiting us today for our July Installment of Ten Things!
I must pause here to say that one might be inclined to presume, that if you’re constantly running into someone who is getting the scoop before you do, then one might begin to consider such a person your nemesis (and don’t get me wrong, I have always been a little bit obsessed with having nemeses, much like Roxane Gay ) But I reckon that while there is an appropriate time and place for collecting nemeses– those people “whose very existence troubles your soul”– I believe that in other situations it is far smarter and more soul-satisfying to attempt befriending those kindred folks who obviously share similar interests and passions with you!
Jantine Zandbergen is a designer and an art enthusiast in the Netherlands who blogs at The Quiet Cold, who writes fascinating guest features about incredible artists at Beautiful Bizarre, and whose art blog, Bleaq was a gorgeous gallery of visual inspiration featuring the kinds of art that I love best–fine arts, design, illustration, photography and fashion, all touched with a tinge of melancholy, of morbidity, of the macabre.
Jantine, please don’t think that I for even a second considered you my nemesis, though! Every time that Bleaq showed up first in a google search as already having an article or a profile on an artist that I was pursuing, I would always take the time to read your thoughtful words and marvel, and thank the heavens that yes, Ok! Maybe you did beat me to X/Y/Z artist! But in a world of routine reblogs and careless, context-less shares of imagery sans source or artist credit (or any sort of research at all) you are always so thoughtful and respectful and reverent about how you presented the artists and the work that interested and intrigued you. You were someone that I wanted to be friends with from the very beginning, and there was no nemesis-ing about it
…And I hope Jantine is not too weirded out by this introduction! Anyway, I do not consider Janitine my nemesis, and, as a matter of fact, I recently discovered in discussing my budding interests (pun intended) regarding plants and botanicals and horticultural things, that we have yet another interest in common! And that is how this guest post came together.
photo credit: Jantine Zandbergen
When Sarah and I started brainstorming about what I could write about for the ‘Ten Things’-series it took us around two minutes to come up with something plant related. Although we met online through our mutual love for art (I guess, right Sarah?) (Editor: hee hee, yep! See intro above!) we both turn out to be #crazyplantladies, something that gave me plenty of inspiration for this article.
A little backstory before I start: I live in Rotterdam, the second-largest city of the Netherlands. The city is located in the so-called ‘Randstad’, one of the largest metropolitan regions in Northwestern Europe. It’s great for work and life, yet when you love nature as much as I do it’s not easy to find a good, quiet green spot. Next to slowly transforming my house to a plant sanctuary I also regularly visit greenhouses and botanical gardens to get me my much-needed nature-fix. There are many fantastic gardens in the Netherlands, and once I got hooked I visited beautiful gardens during travel in other European countries as well. Today I’d love to share ten of my favorite European botanical gardens with you.
The first garden on the list will always be special to me since it changed my green interest into a serious hobby: the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin, Ireland. I was in Dublin to attend a work conference and extended my stay over the weekend to explore the city. Glasnevin Cemetery, next to the gardens, was number one on my list (I’ll forever be a cemetery fangirl!) and when I found out they filmed scenes for (my favorite) tv-show Penny Dreadful in the gardens I knew I had to visit.
The garden itself, and especially the amazing, Victorian greenhouses, blew me away. There’s a huge variety of especially orchids and palms to see and the combination of the architecture and the plants are fantastic.
Then on to my own country, the Netherlands! The Hortus Botanicus in Amsterdam is the most famous botanical garden in the Netherlands – if not for its beautiful variety of plants it certainly is for its highly Instagrammable pink wall in the cacti-greenhouse. The garden dates back to 1638, when it was founded to serve as an herb garden for doctors and apothecaries. The rich history of the place is well documented and make visiting a must when you visit Amsterdam. As of most of Amsterdam’s tourist hotspots it can be super crowded though, so an early visit is recommended!
If you are looking for a quieter green place in the Dutch capital I’d suggest you check out the Amsterdam University Botanical Gardens, located in the ‘Zuidas’ area. Although not as big as its famous sibling, there’s a lot to see! I especially love the wonderful wild garden and the greenhouse filled to the brim with all kinds of cacti.
Fun fact: plants that are taken into custody at Schiphol International Airport are all taken care off in this garden! Many confiscated plants are on the endangered species list and are protected and taken care off by the staff here.
The oldest botanical garden in the Netherlands, and one of the oldest worldwide is located in the beautiful city of Leiden. It was first mentioned in 1587 and founded in 1590 to help the medical students of Leiden University.
Today the garden has a wonderful collection of subtropical plants, a collection of trees that are over 300 years old and a very busy bee-hotel 🙂
As a part of the Technical University of Delft, this garden plays a big role in scientific botanic research. Fortunately, it’s also open for public, and with a nice tree garden, fern meadow and greenhouse with spiral staircase it’s one you shouldn’t miss.
The province of Utrecht is home to several beautiful fortresses, so – of course – the botanical garden based in its capital with the same name also features one. When you enter the gardens, the fort is the first thing you see and is an entry to a wonderful rock garden featuring a large collection of plants. The garden also has several tropical greenhouses, showcasing a big selection of plants from the Neotropic area of South America. Oh, and don’t make the same mistake I made last year and visit on one of the Summer’s hottest days. So. Warm.
One of the first things I do when I travel is check Atlas Obscura for creepy places and see if there are gardens I should visit. Wrocław turned out to have the second oldest botanical garden in Poland, so when I visited the city on my company’s annual city trip, one of my colleagues and I sneaked out of the program for a quick plant-fix.
We visited the garden in early October, and with its beautiful Fall-colours, patches filled with pumpkins and a warm, October-Sun my colleague and I enjoyed every minute of quietness before returning to our hectic group.
When you’re from Northwestern Europe, a visit to Spain feels like Summer holidays. The weather is great, people are super relaxed, and there are palm trees and cacti growing in the wild. The city of Valencia is amazing – it has a lovely old historical center, plenty of street art, and a lot of green areas. And, of course, a botanical garden.
The first mentions of the Jardin Botanica date back to the 14th century, with the herb garden turning into a public botanic garden in 1802. The garden is known for its lush greenery and I was especially amazed by the huge cacti, palm trees and Monstera plants all over the place. Also made some cat-friends over there, so I need to plan another trip to see how they are doing 😉
The botanical garden in Akureyri, a town in Northern Iceland, is one of the most Northern situated botanical gardens in the world. Although really close to the Arctic circle, geographical factors ensure quite a moderate climate in the city, making it a great place for a botanical garden.
The garden itself is filled with Arctic plants and a delight for plant-lovers. Iceland has a rich variety of smaller plants, yet lush and green patches like in this garden are scarce in the country. There’s an architecturally beautiful café in the gardens where they serve a great soy-latte, so if you’re around I definitely recommend a quick stop before you return to Iceland’s epic North.
The last garden on this list is one very dear to me: the Trompenburg Tree Garden in Rotterdam. To say I visit this place all the time might be a bit too much, but since it’s only fifteen minutes from my house I try to visit at least once every season.
The garden itself feels a bit like a hidden gem: not many people from Rotterdam know it’s there (old people definitely do: try a visit on a sunny Sunday!) and because it’s not situated in the city’s centre it’s not on the to-do list of the tourists.
Being an arboretum (a tree garden) means the park is filled with some of the most amazing trees. There’s this little ‘pine-alley’ that I love, as well as a magnificent setting for ferns, a cacti and succulent greenhouse and the best bench to read in the whole city. One of my most remarkable visits was on a cold Winter morning: a tiny layer of frost sparkled in the low Winter sun’s rays and I was just incredibly happy to be there.
That’s all! Thanks to Sarah for letting me share these places with you.
My summer 2019 edition of Needful Things is up over at Haute Macabre this week! I love to put these lists together every quarter (or season, or twice a year, or whenever our fancy takes us) because they’re really just the personal stuff we’re into at the moment. No one’s really trying to sell you anything or promote various products, it’s just stuff that we honestly love. Stuff that we actually use! Heck, some of it’s not even tangible “stuff,” per se. Head on over to the Haute Macabre blog today to read about my personal, current Needful Things and feel free to leave a comment and tell me all about what you’re into right now, as well.
I am currently in a hardcore avoidance mode. When this mood sets in, I get the sudden urge to clean house when most other times I can’t be bothered in the slightest; I get in at least 20K steps a day due to the sudden desire to keep fit; I uncovered a scattered ambivalence of WordPress drafts that I started two years ago and I center all of my focus on them because clearly, that’s a priority right now! The bottom of the barrel items which are so insignificant that they don’t even register for the to-do list suddenly become of vital importance when I am avoiding certain work or projects. I made jam this past weekend, for god’s sake! Which…to be fair…making jam is totally a thing that I would do, so that’s not a great example. But I should absolutely not be making jam right now! I have things to do! Which is also why I rearranged all of the art on my walls.
…and since I am still not doing the things I should be doing, I thought it might be a good time for a small update.
I have been going to a new therapist since January of this year. I say “new” like I’m trying to distinguish her from all the other therapists I’ve seen, but really, that list is not terribly long. I tried one out back in 2015, right around the time my grandfather died, but it wasn’t quite a fit. I don’t know how to say this without sounding like an asshole, but I just didn’t love the feeling that I might be smarter (maybe a lot smarter) than the person who is counseling me. I mean, how can that be? They went to school and got degrees and all that sort of thing, so I can’t be all that much smarter, right? AND YET. Also, I don’t want this person to be too chipper. Or too “normal”. I don’t even know what I mean by that, but basically, I just don’t want to get therapied by someone who reminds me of the most average person in my high school class. The sort who was probably raised in a nuclear family with a nice mom and dad and was in a sorority and grew up to have three kids and who gets regular blowouts and does Zumba classes (and I KNOW these are all ridiculous qualifiers but I can’t help it!) I can’t talk to that person about my problems and I can’t take advice from them.
Right now I am seeing a therapist, twice a month, who reminds me of a grown-up Pippi Longstocking, which I find somehow really comforting. She drives a jeep with a “Chewie is my co-pilot” sticker on it. She wears skirts but doesn’t bother to wear stockings with them. I like that. Not that she needs me to like it, I just mean I dig the carefree aesthetic. She doesn’t seem to say a lot. I don’t know if therapists are supposed to? I find myself talking until I’m hoarse, and during this time I have observed that she barely even guides the conversation. Is that normal? Is this how it works? Oftentimes there are silences and I jump to quickly fill those in. I don’t want to be thought of as a bad conversationalist, but is what’s happening even considered a conversation? It’s a one-woman show, really.
…and yet. I have of late found that in these hour-long sessions I seem to shepherd myself along a circuitous route to some fairly impressive epiphanies and revelations. This is unexpected. What does it all mean? It’s hard to know. It’s maybe to soon to tell. I have been holding space for my wounds and trauma and broken bits for so long, I am not sure who I would be without their strange and dreadful companionship. It might be interesting to meet who that person is, though. I’m open to it.
One of the things that came up is how sometimes–most times, really–the only way I can get myself to actually go somewhere and do something, is because I know that afterward, I shall have a memory of having done it. It’s the pursuit of the perfect memory that finally compels me to do the thing, whatever that thing might be. But funny enough… the things I have the most wonderful memories of, are those unprompted moments– the things I did on a lark, decided on a whim, without having time to hem or haw about it or to have worked up a fine amount of dread.
On the way home that particular day after non-talking with Pippi, we grabbed some coffees at a cramped but charming donut shop, and as we were readying to leave, we realized that an accident had just occurred on the street just outside the building. A damaged truck was lodged on the curb right behind where we were parked, and we couldn’t back our car out of the parking lot to leave. As we waited for the police to take statements, we stood holding hands under a flimsy awning in a downpour, its meager shelter barely keeping us dry…and in the space of that moment, I was so inexplicably joyful. I have no idea why. But I knew I would stash this afternoon away in my mental drawer of mind-nibbles as one of those wholly unexpected morsels of happiness.
Another instance of this spontaneous joy happened while I was visiting BGF in Philly last month. I had been fiercely looking forward to the trip–to seeing her, to decompressing after a few months peppered with more stressful kinds of travel–and though we had a few things planned for my time there, it was a late afternoon hour or so spent walking through the city as the sun was setting, glaring directly in our eyes and blinding our vision, that remains a memory to cherish. I was practically trotting, attempting to keep up with her long-legged stride as we hoofed it through a more worrisome part of town, and either right before or right after that, we walked by the park where the Chinese Lantern Festival was being held. Nothing was lit up yet, so I didn’t really get a sense of what it was all about or how beautiful it would be after dark, but I did snap a photo of this lovely sidewalk Chinese zodiac along the way. I was overheated and overstimulated and my feet were bruised and blistered and bone-sore, but that time spent with my beloved friend on that particular afternoon left a vividly buoyant feeling in my heart that I can still summon when I conjure the imagery of those moments.
During my most recent visit with my therapist, I began what I believe will be several sessions of EMDR, which is a treatment designed to diminish the distress associated with traumatic events. I don’t think I am quite ready to talk about it yet, but I will share that I was a walking wound afterward. My eyes were raw from all of the savage, furious crying until well into the next afternoon. That was a week ago. Now, when I attempt to call forth the feelings I’ve associated with that particular experience, I feel a little differently about it than I have for the past 25+ years. It’s still very tender when I probe at it, but I think I may be looking at it from a different perspective now, through different eyes. I was stuck at that point in time, and it’s a little easier now to see it through the eyes of someone older, someone not standing so close.
Is this progress?
I sought guidance from the cards, above. Which is somewhat absurd, since I am not really all that knowledgable about the tarot. I just like the art, much like my mother did when she was alive …which is funny, because she is a major source of the angst and trauma I am currently working through. Oh, universe! You’re such a hoot. I am sure that someone much more well-versed in this divinatory art than I could give me a more thorough analysis and interpretation, but from what little I understand, I was encouraged.
The Maison Francesco Scognamiglio Fall 2019 Couture collection, with its contrasting play between excess and restraint-the undulating satin, that see-through tulle, those rivulets of crystals and embellishments!–call to mind languid lady vampires swanning around an abandoned moonlit chateau, or perhaps flickering amongst the bleached bones scattered throughout the sandy stones of a coastal cliff-side ruin at twilight.
If there is a sigh between salacious and celestial, I think it is in that whispered instant that this collection leaves you gasping.
The olde depop shoppe has been updated! Have a peek! But please don’t ask me lots of questions/ask me to hold an item/ask me to lower the price on an item… and then end up not buying anything at all! That’s annoying as hell, and actually kinda rude, and you will fall quite a bit in my estimation.
Wow, I am such an engaging and enrolling shopkeeper, huh?
A gathering of death related links that I have encountered in the past month or so. From somber to hilarious, from informative to creepy, here’s a snippet of things that have been reported on or journaled about in or related to the Death Industry recently.
