This is me; I am this.

An ongoing deeper dive...

Oct 28, 2023

Hello lovelies!

I'm so happy you're here! I thought I'd get the ball rolling with a little Q+A thingy. So...should you wish to know more about moi you've come to the right place! If you feel so inclined, please feel free to pop a query in the comments below if there's anything you're dying to know (or if there's anything in particular that you'd like me to think about for the newsletter...or if you simply want to say hey)...I would love to hear from you!

Where did the idea for this newsletter/blog/thing (I never know what to call it!) come from and why now?

In some ways this newsletter/blog/thing is a coming together of all my various selves, a tidying up as it were. As I mentioned in the About I've had a few different careers, learned a lot of skills, made a lot of mood boards, created a lot of things, lived in a few places, accumulated a lot of stuff...a whole shop-full as it happens...and don't get me started on the basement!

When I was young I was painfully shy, and I'm definitely still an introvert, but living in New York for 18 years helped balance me out...I adore New Yorkers for their brusque kindness and confidence and in-your-face, get-to-the-point honesty! It's taken many years of constant looking and fine-tuning to develop my eye (my main skill in life, I think)...it's been honed professionally in the worlds of costume and fashion, and non-professionally in the world of interiors. If truth be known, I won't remember your name until we've met at least 3 times, but I do remember every last subtlety of a beautiful object I saw 40 years ago at a random flea market...that's just the way my brain works.

But there's such a big wide world out there and I'm staring down the barrel of "retirement" (erg...that word gives me the willies with all its connotations...I don't even like saying it!). I am feeling the need to dis-encumber and get out there. The main fear I have about it all is that I will lose my center...the work I love doing, my connection to a "tribe" of like-minded creators, designers, march-to-the-beat-of-their-own-drummer entrepreneurs and eccentrics. But retail ain't easy folks, more and more so these days. So, as much as I love it, it just might be time to think about moving on.

So...ultimately this is my attempt to build myself a new alternate (and portable) universe full of the things I love, that will keep me curious and engaged with a "tribe", and allow me to continue to explore the poetry of material things, without actually having to own the material things.

What do you want to accomplish with this newsletter/blog/thing?

I don't know if "accomplish" is quite the right word...let's go with "work on". This is going to be an ongoing stream of consciousness mulling over of things, getting magpie-distracted by shiny things, morphing the way I think about my life currently. The concepts that I'm most interested in right now are minimal, slow living and how to get there (without a car). I don’t believe in herd-mentality trends, so I only want to share what I love, regardless of whether anyone else thinks it’s cool. If you get it, you get it; if you don't, you don't.

And...I've always enjoyed writing but it's never been something that I've particularly focused on...this will give me a chance to stretch that muscle. On the flip side...I also want to get better at being less in-my-head all the time...saying things out loud, participating in the back-and-forth, exchanging comments, that sort of thing.

Why are your posts numbered the way they are?

It's an idea that came to me from reading Four Thousand Weeks: Time and How to Use It by Oliver Burkeman. I name each post with the number of the week I'm currently in. Yes...you can do the math! I'm of an age where there is more time behind me than ahead and I want to use what's left in the most present-conscious way possible.

What was the last book you read?

The Creative Act by Rick Rubin. (It's good.) I just discovered that he also has a podcast.

Where were you born?

London (Ealing to be exact), UK. My father was a Brit, my mom a Canadian. They met at Powers Samas Accounting Machines (an early iteration of IBM) in London. My mom, a bit of a math whiz (I did not inherit that gene), worked in the programming department, and my Dad in the systems management department.

What sign are you?

(Skip this bit if you think it's all woo woo nonsense.)

Sun in Cancer; Moon in Gemini.

Generally speaking, in a nutshell, according to a horoscope I once had done...

I'm reticent about sharing inner selves; and a sociable, friendly chatterbox with a way with words. (kinda both true)
I resist change; but have an underlying restless curiosity and am open to new ideas. (yep)
I react to hurt by withdrawing and avoiding direct confrontation; but when problems arise my first instinct is to talk things out. (what?)
I love people; but also need a space in which to retreat. (definitely)
I'm at my best when I have plenty of things to do beyond routine (and I dislike housework); but I am also dependable.
I like to collect and network knowledge and data; and I like to map out my own life and follow my own path. (all true)
I have creative and artistic talents, a harmonious demeanor, and am a highly intuitive person with an unusual level of sensitivity to other people's feelings. (well...that sounds good!)
BUT I need to watch out for egocentric and selfish behavior. (...oh)

People...I'm a complex onion!

One other thing the horoscope mentioned was my Sabin symbols...I had never heard of that so I looked it up...they are symbolic of the meaning of each degree of the zodiac.

The Sun / 6th degree of Cancer: Game birds feathering their nests. (not sure what the "game birds" bit means...but I do like a cozy home/nest)

The Moon / 27th degree of Gemini: A young gypsy emerging from the woods gazes at far cities. (that actually, uncannily, rings true...see next 2 questions)

Where did you grow up?

England for the first 4 years and then my family emigrated to Canada. We lived in Montreal (liked), then Vancouver (loved), then Ottawa (did not love...and was pretty pissed about that move!). Then I escaped to the big city (Toronto)...

I'm the one in the middle front (behind the sign)...even though this was just regular old public school we had to wear uniforms and the boys had to wear ties! (I also recall bloomers in gym class...yeesh!)

What did you want to be when you grew up?

Bohemian.

What was the first paying job you ever had?

Selling foot-long hot dogs in a concession stand at the Exhibition in Ottawa. (I was 14.)

Any near-death experiences?

When I turned 4 I was given a tricycle for my birthday. My grandmother, who we were visiting at the time, lived in a house that backed onto one of Toronto's ravines. Big tree to ride around...yay!...multi-storey dead drop on the other side!...I'm sure you know where this is going. My wheel goes off the edge and I disappear, tricycle and all, down the ravine. By some miracle, me and the tricycle get caught up in a branch and I live to tell the tale...but it could easily have gone either way!

What was the one thing you did that most freaked out your parents (aside from disappearing into a ravine)?

The summer after I finished high school, a girl friend and I hitchhiked all the way across Canada...and back. I had lied and promised my parents that we would be taking buses. Many years later I found out that they had known all along what we were up to...I have to give them credit for not stopping me, in spite of that, and for never letting on that they knew!

What's the thing you've done that made your parents most proud?

In 1988, Liberty’s of London planned a special promotion featuring the work of 10 Canadian designers. The work was to be prominently displayed in the store and in all the windows. Their buyers had been in Toronto and Montreal to scout designers...and I was one of those chosen! We were all flown over to London, given a private tour behind-the-scenes, wined and dined. There was a fashion show at Liberty’s and a reception at the Canadian Embassy...and my designs were chosen for the front-and-center corner window! Being British, my dad was really chuffed with all this and my parents even decided to come over to London to see it all.

What was your nearest brush with someone famous?

I've had one or two. I worked in the wardrobe department at Stratford Festival Theater the season that Maggie Smith and Peter Ustinov were starring...lots of passing in the halls and polite nodding. And then there was the time I was looking in a shop window in New York when someone came up beside me, also to look in the window...it wasn't until I'd moved away to rejoin my now slack-jawed friends, that I realized I'd been standing next to Bono! And once, in Paris, I was at a restaurant with some friends and Mick Jagger was on the other side of the small room also having dinner. Then there was the time that John Galliano came into my shop when it used to be in Brooklyn...that was kind of amazing but weird. Oh...and Alexa Chung came in once too...but I didn't know who she was! (She bought a bottle opener shaped like a whale.) And...a few days after 9-11 I was walking around in the Village when Bill Clinton, out of nowhere, just walked right by! And I once saw Joan Rivers in a full-on mink coat coming out of an elevator (she was tiny)...and I've seen Julianne Moore popping in to the corner bodega. Oh...and I once lived in Lauren Hutton's old apartment (see below). So...more than one or two, now that I think about it! Have I ever said a single interesting word to any of them...no I have not! Except maybe Alexa Chung...she was quite chatty...but again, I didn't know who she was at the time!

I would hate to be famous.

Do you believe in ghosts?

My first real apartment in Manhattan (after the immigrant-obligatory Lower East Side sublet with the bathtub in the kitchen) was on Waverley Place in the Village. I knew that the previous tenant had died in the apartment but it wasn’t until later that I learned the whole story of Bob Williamson and Lauren Hutton…

Lauren met Bob in 1964 at the age of 21 when her modeling career was beginning to take off. She called him “Bob God,” and turned over all her money to him on the understanding that he was investing it. He paid all the bills, they traveled all over the world together, they shared a $400 a month rent-controlled converted sculptor’s studio in the Village (hidden behind my building). Hutton eventually left him when she was around 40 (he had been cheating on her all along, among other things). Then, at some point in this saga, the roof of the coach house collapsed, at which point Bob was given what later became my apartment to live in temporarily while the roof was fixed. The owners of this building were very slumlord-y so that never happened…and Bob died there in 1997, having squandered the entirety of Lauren Hutton’s fortune.

A few years later (she waited until after I'd moved out), a friend told me that the apartment was definitely haunted! She said it was an older man...he wasn’t a malevolent presence, he was just there to watch over the place. I had never felt it myself (although that closet in the living room did kind of give me the creeps when I passed it at night), but this made perfect sense…it was Bob watching over the coach house!

Interestingly, I recently found a listing for the coach house…it has finally been fixed up by new owners and now rents for $6500/month…I wonder if Bob has moved back in?!

My apartment (in the building with the cleaners sign) was the second from the top...it was a nice apartment but note the fantastic glass roof on the top...that apartment was to-die-for!

Do you have any famous ancestors we may have heard of (not that I'm obsessed with fame...it's just interesting)?

Apparently I am descended, on my father's side, from Horatio Nelson's older brother, Maurice...so not really. My ancestors on both sides were more in the farmer, butcher, baker, bonnet sewer, housemaid strata.

My maternal grandfather lying in a field… (1918)

City or country?

I've always lived in big cites...I moved to Toronto when I was 19...then Manhattan and Brooklyn for 18 years...then back to Toronto. I like the idea of living in a stone cottage by the sea, hearing the waves, smelling the salt air...but I worry that the novelty of that might wear off rather quickly...and I don't like little critters scrabbling in the walls at night! I like the buzzy beehive-ness of cities but I also want peace and quiet and more nature! It's a conundrum.

What would you do if money were no object?

I love working so I wouldn't want to live an idle life. And I have no desire for multiple large properties with lots of upkeep. I do, however, like the idea of bopping around to all the places I'd like to see...maybe I'd pick one country at a time and stay for a while and get to know it. A different country every 3 months until I've found the place I'd like to settle in. I like the idea of picking up random skills along the way...a pottery course here, a photography course there, maybe some drawing. I'm feeling the need to downsize but I do like beautifully made clothing and objects (hence the shopkeeper thing) so I might be splurging a bit on the creature comforts and my surroundings...but all in a packable way!

If you had a magic wand, what one thing would you change about your physical appearance…and what would you definitely not change?

Teeth. Legs.

What does a typical day look like?

7-ish to 11-ish: Make coffee. Make bed. Drink coffee while puttering around on the internet a bit. Work on whatever project is most consuming my brain (currently this newsletter).

11-ish to 12-sharp: Listen to a podcast or an audio book while I make breakfast (usually a yogurt/fruit/protein shake) and get ready for the outside world.

12 to 5: Since the 2020 shutdowns I've cut back on my shop hours...but I work 7 days a week. I try to stay focused only on shop business while I'm in the store (chatting with customers, placing orders, processing new deliveries, shooting new merch, editing photos, updating the website, answering emails, faffing about with displays, general upkeep...etc). Around 4:00 I always feel the need for another coffee and a glance at the NY Times on my phone to see what's going on (and to do the mini crossword).

5 to 7-ish: I get outside for a bit...even if it's just to grab something to eat or run errands.

Evenings: I'm a bit of a home body (Cancer, remember) and I get my fill of social interaction in the store, which I really enjoy, but I'm happy to switch off in the evenings. I'll either get back into one of my other projects...or just zone out a bit with Netflix or YouTube...lately I've been watching people build houses and make gardens in the Portuguese countryside...(I would quite like to have a garden like that one day).

Twice a year I shut the store down for 3 or 4 days and travel for work to see trade shows and do showroom appointments (New York mostly, but occasionally Paris). Every other year or so I take a slightly longer vacation trip...last one was to Oaxaca.

Where might you be 2-5 years from now?

No idea...working on that! Somewhere warmer (and cheaper) than Toronto...but not too hot. Portugal? Maybe France? Lamu? I really don't know. (Open to suggestions.)

Let’s talk 💬...

I plan on keeping this post ongoing and updated by continuing to answer any (good) questions that are submitted by readers in the future...so please ask away!