Word: Wide Open Spaces.

{Abby Try Again}

Felix and Marta ring to say that they’ll be staying back as baby Eloise is teething. Her fever seems to be rising as does the decibel of those siren toned yelps in the background.

It is only then that I realize I am famished, haven’t eaten a thing all day.

Hair set, face on, I go the kitchen to chill the champagne.

Sweet Celeste calls bubbly and bright. She got the gig and will be opening tonight downtown at the Cigar Bar. I tell her to break a leg and she laughs like a bell choir.

I set the music low and lights lower.

Leroy phones. He’s working late and I really, probably shouldn’t expect him at all. Knowing Leroy, I don’t.

All is grand, as these types of things really are better suited for fewer folks anyway. Still, should any one else care to cancel …and que sera sera….I only fear that my skirt won’t fasten.

:: Many thanks to the author, Emily of Wide Open Spaces!

Word: Capturing the Seven.

{Hakan Photography}

I think I lost him…

Thank goodness I decided to wear these black boots and not those white stilettos my high-fashion mother wanted me so desperately to don on my wide, athletic feet. These cobblestone streets and high heels would have been a recipe for disaster. Or at least a host of cuts and scrapes taking residence on my knees.

No one could understand why I wanted to wear a short white dress. Non-conformist they called me. Who wears a short white dress? I do, I told them. I will, I asserted to them. I am, I proclaimed to them when they greeted me after the ceremony. It was then that they ceremoniously glanced from my perfectly pinned back hair on down to the thin strand of pearls around my neck and sighed with relief. ‘At least she did two things normal’ they were thinking. ‘Normal’. I had begun to hate the word about 6 months ago and it made my blood boil more and more every time I heard it. Why do things have to be ‘normal’? Why can’t they have personality? Or just be our way? Why not?

The plan was hatched after the third month of hearing “Why not do it this way? It’s the normal way to do it.” There was a reason we suggested eloping a year ago. It was to avoid days like this but of course neither side of our families could accept it. So as we went along with “their” plan, we wrote up our own. After the cutting of the cake we would each sneak off without detection; everyone would have had their fair share of champagne, vodka gimlets, and sugar by then. They wouldn’t notice as we left out of separate exits only to meet about 10 minutes away at our favorite bistro. They wouldn’t notice a thing.

And they didn’t. Except the photographer. I couldn’t help myself! I wanted to document the first day of the rest of our lives. As I was sneaking toward the exit to make my escape, I realized that I hadn’t brought my own camera and the hired photographer’s would be the one that I was taking with me. And so I grabbed it and ran.

And here I am now. One block away from my new husband; who will be ready to run away with me. To live our lives the way we want. As non-normal as we want. With a ‘borrowed’ camera and all…

:: written by Jennifer of Capturing the Seven

Word: A Print a Day.

{via ffffound, no source}

And the stars came down tonight and greeted me.
And kissed me.
And their kisses tickled my skin.
And they felt like what stars would feel like.
Or how I imagined them to feel like.
And I smiled for the first time in the longest time.
And I cried for the first time in the longest time.
And I lost myself.
In darkness. In light.
In dreams of stars and midnight.

written by Yasmine of A Print a Day

Word: concrete and honey.

{Grace’s Tophography}

Word: Midwest Modern Girl.

{Anna Wolf}

This week’s Word was brought to you by Danielle of Midwest Modern Girl. After you check out her blog, swing by her shop for some adorable paper goods! Thanks, Danielle.

Word: The Bedlam of Beefy.

This week’s Word is brought to you courtesy of Uncle Beefy of The Bedlam of Beefy. Read on friends, I swear it’s like a novel excerpt…

{William Eggleston}

Go get it. Go, go, go. Get, get, get. It was the long-running theme of her life. She always seemed to be the one to “get it”… but never actually got it. The getting was invariably for someone else. Friends, family, even complete strangers had all reaped the rewards of her attention and servitude but the swell of pride she’d take with her for her selflessness was often shallow and short-lived.

All her life she silently watched from the sidelines trying to calculate the formula that would see her rise up and meet her glory. The right shoes, the right hair, the right attitude, the right voice: it was all negotiated until she had no voice left. At least not her own. But others’ invasive whispers would menacingly creep through her company. Sometimes at night, in the quiet of her own head space, her voice just might bubble through the cacophony of external clamor. But even then it usually ended in a battle between self-deprecation and self-esteem which rarely stood a chance in the first place.

So much baggage and the excess weight fees were seriously steep to her emotional bank account. And her back was killing her. What was she pulling around all this time? Sifting through the sordid unmentionables of her life, she realized that all the things she thought she had needed to define herself and her worth just wound up being someone else’s shit. There was just no hanging on to it anymore. The universe is one bitch of a gate agent and had finally told her that, unless she wanted to pay the penalty, it was time to lighten the load.

“Go get it”, she finally thought. And now she got it alright. A one-way First Class ticket that would take her straight into who she was always meant to be. Straight up or on the rocks, this time the getting would be good.

Word: marta writes.

{ffffound}

Word: Two Brunettes.

{wai lin tse}