inflorescence, scraps, and scribbles

a year of blooming & learning to lean into the color and the chaos

Dear Sondra,

Happy 2025! I hope the holiday season brought you joy and some much-needed rest with the people you might call home. Though sometimes complicated, this time of year always feels a bit like wearing your old favorite sweater — it doesn’t always keep out the wind and it might have holes from all the years of wear, but you put it on, and a sense of deep familiarity slips back in. A comfort that comes from knowing every inch of something. Its scratchy collar, missing buttons, and all the holes you’ve stitched up lovingly with your own thread.

In reality, these little letters of ours got a little caught up in the holidays — the glitz and the glam, the gatherings and the “ending” of it all. So let me catch you up.

A Glimpse into November & December:

• I got a new film camera!! (Asahi Pentax k1000) - This was a gift from a dear friend’s brother, and it was their grandfathers — I’m a big “sentimental value” person, so I’m very excited to take it out and about and shoot with it for years to come.

• I spent the last two months living locally. With many a days, nights, and anything in-between hanging out with friends in my neighborhood. From birthday parties for our favorite restaurant (they’ve been here 2 years!) and Christmas markets, to befriending the new wine bar owners, it was so lovely to get to truly express my love for living here and all the things that come with it.

• I refinished a coffee table (very proud of this one’s before & after — I’ll put photos at the end).

• Spent several days running around in the rain tying tarps and such to boats.

• Finally got to go snowboarding - my favorite season approaches!!

• Got laid off accidentally (yes, accidentally) by being in a meeting my boss didn’t know I was in & having my departure listed as a part of the US updates (it’s okay I was planning on quitting!!) This was the most chaotic end to my time at Candela, but you know what? I wouldn’t expect any less with how chaotic everything else was. I’ll miss it, but the universe said, “NO you’re not bringing that into 2025 girl” and who am I to argue with the universe!

• A lot of Holiday parties, laughter, a friend’s Dad’s funeral, some girl’s nights out, and an evening at the ballet later, here we are.

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The MESSY GIRL

Of course, as the year turned from a 4 into a 5, a lot of introspection was to be done. I couldn’t drag my brain away from the utter freedom I’d been dropped into, coming into this year. Here I was, no job, no significant other, no plan, friends moving to other places, and my future was completely open. Still is. For about five minutes I got anxious, trying to think of how I was going to become the clean, successful, driven girl that does Pilates at six am and eats breakfast every day. The girl I had sold myself on long ago.

But day after day, as the idea of 2025 came to sit in my stomach, I started to lean in. To listen to who I am and where I might want to be. I wanted 2025 to be a year of blooming. Of planting seeds and watching others, planted years ago, bloom. It’s this whole idea of Inflorescence, which is the process of flowering. A sewing, and a coming to fruition. Now, what exactly, and where exactly is still a big, untold mystery to me, but I did sort out a few things.

I am not the clean girl. I love her, but I am not her.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m clean day to day, but that polished, goal-oriented, slicked-back bun, darling of woman is not me. I’m funky and quirky and a not-always-matching mesh of everything and anyone I’ve ever thought was interesting. I’ll show up in my Carhartt work pants, covered in grease one day, and in heels, dancing at an art gallery the next. I’ve ALWAYS been a scraps and scribbles girl. Wishing I didn’t need to keep tickets from trains abroad or write poems on scraps of an old envelope. I remember the envy I felt in drawing classes when my best friend would present her beautiful, simple line work, and I would instead have scribbles to show.

I tell people I might work part-time for an educational boat-building non-profit and sit there while they ask me “why?” in a tone that makes it obvious it’s not a choice they would ever make. And I smile to myself since now I can admit “because I want to.” It’s something I have interest in. Me. It’s MY interest. Not the worlds or my parents or my friends or what I thought I should be interested in.

I even saw the messy peak through in my vision board. The girls and I got together and did these over a glass of wine. We passed them around after, and suddenly I saw the messy there too. My scrapbooked, colorful, chaotic choices splattered across the page the way they tend to splatter into my life too.

my 2025 vision board :)

I am not a straight-line girl. My brain is a tangled ball of yarn and my life, a big fat chaotic adventure, and I love it that way. The color, the chaos, the scraps, the scribbles— this year I’m leaning in.

You’re never too young or too old to start doing whatever the hell you want. And why wait? Even your plans are uncertain. There is no timeline except the one that you get every single day. My hope for us, this year, is that we do something with it. Something WE want, whatever it might be.

And if you’re scared, if you’re uncertain or uninformed, or worried people won’t show up, or don’t know how the heck you might pull it off, I’d like to say, let’s do it anyways.

Because you might as well be you. You might as well build what you can build and create what you like to create. Why only express half the joy or half the sorrow? Isn’t leaning in a far more beautiful experience? Why run away just because it looks a little messy.

Messy could, in fact, be you.

All my love,
💙 V

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The Scraps:

• I’m reading The Women by Kristin Hannah and cannot recommend it enough. It’s poignant, well written, and just as good in audiobook as it is on the physical page. It’s the sort of book you end up reading until 2am because you just can’t put it down.

• If you’re unfamiliar with Mary Oliver, she is a wonderful poet. Many are truly obsessed with her poem “Wild Geese,” but I’d highly recommend you look her up and find your own favorite.

• Coffee Table Before and After as promised! Found this on FB Marketplace and couldn’t resist. It now houses all my fancy glassware and alcohol.

  

• Winter means citrus is in season!! If feels counter-intuitive, but please go find a citrus salad or cake or pasta recipe— there’s just nothing like a good orange this time of year :) And we loveeee the vitamin C that comes with it!

• It’s a little cliche but make your own vision board! First, it’s fun and a great visual reminder of all the things you’re looking for this year. We just used Pinterest and then Canva, Procreate, or Adobe.