I know it's still summer for most of you but for some reason today I'm thinking about the Ice Hotel in northern Sweden. The hotel is in the village of Jukkasjärvi, north of the Arctic Circle. Every spring the hotel and accompanying art exhibition melts back into the Torne River from where the ice is harvested. And...
Thinking
Why You Shouldn't Follow Your Passion
Follow your passion. We've all heard it a million times, right? Follow your bliss. Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life. The admonitions to find exciting, deeply fulfilling work--with the implied or else. I don't know where I first heard this, but I do know it was somehow embedded in me from early on. Because of...
On Fear, Vulnerability, and Starting a Blog
A few days ago I put a link to a Dear Sabrina post on my personal Facebook page for the first time. It wasn't my first post: it was my fifteenth. And I did it only after a couple friends had already posted links to this blog on their own Facebook pages. I know that at this point, Facebook...
Edwin Morgan's Strawberries
Here's a lovely poem by the Scottish poet Edwin Morgan to wish you a luscious weekend. Strawberries There were never strawberries like the ones we had that sultry afternoon sitting on the step of the open french window facing each other your knees held in mine the blue plates in our laps the strawberries glistening in the...
What is Beauty to You?
Having "beauty" as one of the main topics that this blog covers was a difficult choice. Usually, when a lifestyle blog covers beauty, the subjects are makeup and hair, fashion and accessories. What shoes to wear with that dress, what lipstick to pair with those earrings. The posts usually include photos of beautiful women with gorgeous hair...
Have You Ever Written to an Author?
A few years ago I was sitting in a cafe in Santa Barbara and felt an overwhelming urge to write to David James Duncan. I had just read a piece by him in The Best American Essays 2009 about birds and extinction and disintegrating marriage, which left me weeping at my table.
A Close-up of Tree Rings
I found this stunning photo of a Russian tree while reading a Swedish magazine called Research & Progress (Forskning & Framsteg in Swedish) and was blown away. Isn't it amazing? Each column is one year in the tree's life, and the thin column with the aberrations is from the year 536, when a severe frost hit in the summer....