a poem note necklace

a new necklace in the shop

I love the idea of carrying a poem in your pocket. Don't you smile just thinking about it? Even saying it causes my lips to turn upward. A poem in your pocket. There is even a day all about that very thing that occurs in April each year (this year it was the 14th). I have carried a few poems with me at different times in the last few years. Poems become like friends i think. Lights along our paths. Mirrors. Nods of "me too." 

I have been using the phrase "poem notes" for a few years now. They appear in blog posts now and then and are part of my personal writing practice. In my interview at "la salonniere earlier this year, i shared the following: "I came up with the phrase 'poem notes' to give myself permission to just write. A poem note might be writing that looks like a poem or it might be the beginnings of a poem or perhaps it is simply a few words linked together that one doesn’t quite yet recognize as a poem." I share more about poem notes and prompts to begin the practice of writing them in Inner Excavation.

So when I discovered these little envelopes, I knew what had to go inside them. Of course. A poem note. 

Using my vintage typewrite and vintage ledger paper, I typed a few of my favorite lines from a few of my poem notes and tucked them inside these little brass envelopes to create a few "poem note" necklaces. A few of the phrases that have been used include:

i am pirouetting in midair
i am stillness within the light
i am the harbor of spirit
i am the tucked inside your pocket talisman
i am the ease of laughter through an open window

These little poem note necklaces are now in the shop. When you order one, I will choose a poem note to tuck inside your necklace. You can of course also tuck your own poem or love note inside the envelope when it arrives.

current collection (new in the shop)

new soul mantra necklaces in the shop

a new collection in the shop inspired by:

listening to what you most need
vintage jars full of blooming tulips
the space that surrounds our hearts
friendships between kindred spirits
seaglass found along puget sound
pink (because pink is always a very good thing) 
the invitation to begin 

making these necklaces in my newly painted and almost finished studio makes me so so happy. yes. ellie crawls and plays on the now clear of all clutter floor while i create talismans that will find there way into the world. life is full of so many good things...

PS free shipping this week with the code SPRINGFREE.

heart.full

She wasn’t one for a month all about love or stringing hearts up about the house. She rolled her eyes at the idea of one day when someone you call sweetheart is supposed to buy you roses. She had spent so many days alone that even when she found herself in love and loved in return, she still tried to ignore this need others had to make one day about something that never quite felt real. She was quiet about it but mostly tolerated seeing everyone in red, and then she bought the chocolates when they went on sale.

Years passed with this story on repeat.

Then, on a day in July, she found herself holding the pieces of her own heart together as she watched a doctor try to heal the tiny heart of her five-week old daughter. That day gave her a new sense of what a heart could be, could do, could mean.

In the days that followed, even as life shifted and pushed her in ways she never expected, she found herself saying yes:

to hearts about the house
to seeing the light shine through the cracks
to wearing red
to letting herself be loved
to opening herself to healing

As the light returns a bit more each day and the calendar moves closer to that day of love, she stands in this moment and says yes to all that is to come.

*****

I felt moved to write the above words today and then I made myself a necklace. A red necklace. Valentine's Day, a holiday I have secretly never liked, is approaching, and this year I have found myself (for the first time) drawn to hearts (everywhere) and talk of love. I still don't like how this holiday invites people who don't have a sweetheart to feel (I was that person every year until I met Jon in my mid-20s). But I really LOVE the idea of putting a new spin on this holiday and making it about saying yes to me and what my heart needs in this moment and about how grateful I am for the love I have in my life.

Putting these words to paper and making this necklace made me see that this is the perfect time to launch a new collection that has been sitting inside my idea journal for a few weeks now.

The Heart.Full Collection is a new category over in my etsy shop where I gather up Stories from The Little Room. This collection will be made up of limited edition jewelry and fabric items (I will create new mini-collections from time to time), and it will continue what I began in December as 15% of the profits from this collection will be donated to Mary Bridge Children's Hospital where Ellie Jane spent five days in July of 2010 and Seattle Children's Hospital where she had open-heart surgery in October.

The first four items in this collection are the "yes" all dressed up necklace, the "yes" heart locket, the "seek peace" simple soul mantra necklace, and the "i am enough" all dressed up locket. You can find all of them here.

inspired by ::one good thing::

view from ellie jane's PICU room . july 2010

so this post is really about my shop...well, not exactly...

this post is really about this idea i have about how to give in a one specific way this holiday season...and how one story inspired me...but there are some things that lead up to it all that i really want to tell you...so please read on:

jon and i have been trying to figure out how to give to others this holiday season as we sift through the bills from ellie's surgery and continued care, my surgery and ellie's birth, and millie's surgery that are stacked in a not so small pile on the kitchen counter. as i was thinking about this over the weekend, we received a few calls asking us to donate money to various children's charities. there is always a story that the caller begins to tell, and for the last few weeks, i find myself stopping them and saying something like, "actually, we kind of are one of those families right now, so we won't be able to give this year." i feel so odd saying it...as though it is some excuse...but then i realize that it simply is the truth.

this year, i have sat in a doctor's office, holding my five-week-old daughter while her doctor explained that we must leave for the PICU (pediatric intensive care unit). right now. and we cannot stop for anything from home. she will meet us there in 20 minutes. and then she will be using a defibrillator to try to get our daughter's heart, our five-week-old daughter's heart, to find its way back to sinus rhythm. and then it didn't work. and then the fog rolled in completely. except for my head. my head stayed out of the fog because my brain had to work in order to understand and make decisions and sign papers and hope...

and then we did it all over again when a surgeon cracked open her heart in order to repair it.

i keep thinking about the PICU. i keep thinking about how the fog rolls in when you are watching your child unconscious in a very small little bed hooked up to machines that you only knew about from watching er and grey's anatomy...i keep thinking about how the fog rolls in to provide you with a very clear path for moving forward. one breath. one decision. one moment. one prayer. (please.) repeat repeat repeat.  

i keep thinking about the woman in the restroom at seattle children's the day after ellie's surgery. i walked out of the stall and began washing my hands. she was putting on makeup. it was maybe 6 AM. she saw the badge that identified me as a parent. she was wearing one too. she wanted to tell me her story. honestly, i didn't want to listen. ellie's first hospitalization taught me not to look anyone in the eye and just walk to and from her room. i do not want to take on your story too was my unspoken wish. i cannot nurture you. i cannot be a sponge and be there for my family. i cannot help you. my daughter is not okay. please don't ask me one question. but here was this woman telling me that she printed out huge photos of her daughter and put them on the walls of her PICU room so that the doctors would see her as a person and not this unconscious teenage girl who had been flown in from alaska. "she is a real person who laughs and plays soccer," she told me. as i type this, i am right back there in that moment. trying to breathe (right now, i try to breathe) as this woman told me her story and then waited as i shared just a few sentences of ours. "only four months old?" she said. "yes." "i am so sorry," she said quietly as she reached out to hug me. me too. for you. for me. dear god why does this have to be the way it is for families. why. 

i keep thinking about the taste of the oatmeal cookies in the cafeteria. both children's hospitals ellie was in had them. they were the only thing that pushed me out of the fog for a minute and reminded me that i had senses. 

i keep thinking about the parents of children who are in the PICU right now. wondering if their child will live to see her first Christmas. wondering if they can make it through the next minute; knowing they must because this is their one job right now: get through the next minute and the one after that because they are their child's voice. i keep thinking about those parents who have been awake for hours...who don't have their toothbrush or clean clothes for tomorrow or someone to hug them. i keep thinking about those parents who are standing at their child's bedside hoping...praying...breathing through that fog.

*****

yesterday, this kind of perfect storm happened that brought me to this place where i am now writing this post. i was up early and watched the news while ellie was sleeping. i wanted to weep with each story of how we are hurting each other in this world. i decided to pound the words "seek peace" in metal that would become a necklace as my voice in the midst of that hurt. 

then i noticed a link to a blog post that a friend from high school had posted on facebook. i clicked. and i found myself reading about hudson. i found myself reading one woman's brave truth that she is writing as she walks the path of grief after her one-year-old daughter died earlier this year. and reading about hudson and her mama's wish that we do "one good thing" in honor of hudson's birthday this week deeply inspired me.

because here it is: i have dipped my toe in this world that this woman lives in. just dipped my toe in it as i watched the doctor use the defibrillator. as i waited for the pager to go off with updates throughout the surgery. as i stood outside sobbing when no one would explain why the surgery was taking hours longer than we had been told it would. as i take my daughter to the cardiologist each week. i have just dipped my toe in the world of the fear of the possibility that my child would die because her heart just couldn't do it anymore.

and reading mandy's beautiful words about hudson inspired me to have this idea:

instead of offering a discount in my shop this holiday season like i had originally planned, i am going to take 15% of the profits i make from items in the shop from today until the Solstice (December 21) and donate that amount to the PICU at Mary Bridge Children's Hospital. this is the hospital here in Tacoma where Ellie spent five days in July. 

and, instead of offering a free soul mantra necklace with purchase, i have put the "seek peace" necklace in the shop and will give all the profits made from that necklace to Mary Bridge. (i have enough supplies to make quite a few seek peace necklaces over these next few weeks.)

and when we donate the money later this month, i will let them know it is:

in honor of Hudson.

in honor of our friends whose children have died

in honor of the families we do and do not know who won't have one more day with their child

in honor of each day we have with Ellie Jane

*****

thanks for reading...i honestly didn't expect to write this much when i came to this blank screen earlier tonight. in some ways, all that i have written feels a bit dramatic. but this is our life. and instead of making this a shorter post or edit out the parts that seem like too much, i am going to let it be what it is. because as you read my words, you are helping me heal. because maybe someone who needs to know they aren't alone will read these words. because sharing our stories matters.

thank you for all the support you give me...give us...through your words and prayers and orders and emails and thoughts. thank you for seeing me.

so i fly (new in the shop)

new earrings in the shop

The So I Fly earring series is inspired by one of my most popular Soul Mantra phrases. The idea behind the phrase:

When life pushes me beyond what I know
When the joy fills me up 
When the fear tries to settle in
When I am holding on to hope with each breath
When all this and more leads me to feel unsure of the next step,
sometimes I step outside, feel the warm sun upon my shoulders, look up at the blue sky, and make one decision: 

I fly.

The earrings in this series are all adorned with birds or other winged creatures. I see them as a daily reminder that you can feel your wings and you can breathe deeply and you make the choice to fly when it serves you.

Thank you so much for your continued support of my shop. It makes my heart so happy to send into the world these little packages filled with reminders to live with your heart wide open.

Blessings and light,
Liz 

a full of gratitude shop special

betty models a few necklaces in the shop

it has been a really good thing for me to be able to create in spurts here and there since ellie's birth. (i thank jon for really getting my need to stay connected to my creative life even while navigating the waters of new mother and other things.) creating soul mantra necklaces has been something i can pick up here and there throughout the day and in the evening when things settle down a bit. there is something about the power of words that speak deeply to me being hammered, letter by letter, into metal, believing that someone will see those words and recognize a phrase from her own story and decide that she needs this reminder of their truth.

because of some things on our schedule over the next few weeks, next week i will be closing the shop for a bit, probably until late october. in anticipation of all that is to come and in the spirit of gratitude for all the support people have given my shop this summer and early fall, i would like to offer a super (not too) secret special for blog readers (and FB/twitter folks).

here is the scoop: spend $30 in my etsy shop and I will send you a simple soul mantra necklace as a free gift with your purchase. i will choose one for you (like one of the examples pictured below) and package it up in the hopes that it will be the message that you most need in this place on your path. i am also happy to send it (with free shipping) to a friend, if you think a friend might need a quiet, powerful message right now.

just mention "gratitude" in the notes to seller when you check out. this special is available until this Friday night, September 24 at 11:30 PM PST.

begin

pieces of fall through my lens

crunch, crinkle, crunch, crunch,
her decade-long companion cowboy boots along for the excursion,
she stoops to gather one of each color
(brick red, goldenrod, carrot, sunset)
and tucks them into the bigger than her hand pocket of her grandfather's brown cardigan.
she pauses at a pile in the middle of the park.
twirls once to check for onlookers,
and finds herself crosslegged with a smile.
breathing deeply, she rests in the knowledge:
autumn is her spring.

*****

each season, i am creating a limited edition necklace that honors the colors, smells, textures of that season. the necklace is paired with a poem and a word (the poem's title) that shares a sliver of one moment in that season. (read more about the origins of this series here.)

today, i am introducing begin: a necklace inspired by one girl's walk in a park along puget sound on a day when she could almost hear the leaves as they turned away from green and began to dance with color.

you can find begin in my etsy shop; it will be available for just two weeks (and possibly again in late October).

abloom.

 

(snippets of summer through my lens)

abloom

(adjective, abounding with blooms)

the bursting with pink patchwork quilt sits beneath her crossed legs

as she creates a crown of queen anne's lace

with each twist and turn of the stem,

she smells her still sticky from watermelon juice fingers

hears the insistent jingle of the ice cream man's truck, two streets away,

and feels the sun's cocooning warmth

finished, she places the crown upon her head, stands,

and slowly, she begins to spin

the fuschia, purple, orange of the dahlias and snapdragons blur

one foot races the other as she circles

stopping suddenly, she crosses her feet at the ankles, and in one movement,

she lands on the blanket with a grin

sipping lemonade from her thermos,

a poetry reading for one begins

as she recites the words of billy collins, marge piercy, and may sarton

(mapping them into her heart)

when it is almost too much

the words, the scents, the truths

the invitation to own all of it

she walks to the roses

curtsies

and breathes in each petal

*****

introducing seasons 
(a new necklace series in the shop)

in my corner of the world, people often joke that we have two seasons: rain and "july and august." but i don't feel that way. i think the colors in this corner of the world are magic. spring begins her dance in february when the crocus inches toward the sky. when summer arrives, the dahlias are standing so proud, you can't help but breathe a little deeper when you come across their brilliant swaying stalks. fall brings leaves that sparkle as the rain sprinkles upon them. and winter brings a green that hints (even with its grey companion in the sky) that spring will return. the seasons sometimes tumble awkwardly from one to the next as they forget the calendar's invitation to arrive, instead finding their own path. capturing them through my lens provides me with moments to sit in the quiet and remember...

each season, i am creating a limited edition necklace that honors the colors, smells, textures of that season. the necklace is paired with a poem and a word (the poem's title) that shares a sliver of one moment in that season.

today, i am introducing abloom: a necklace inspired by a romantic afternoon for one filled with words and colors and juicy moments and the reminder to soak up every second of its beauty.

 

you can find abloom in my etsy shop, and it will be available for the rest of the summer.