1. 19 May



    aint-got-nothin-at-all:

    GO AWAY YOU’RE TOO PERFECT YOU’RE JUST GONNA EVENTUALLY MAKE ME REALLY SAD

    this, actually.

    I think about this way more than I’d like to admit. nothing lasts.   acknowledging that could be a precondition for living a human life. some days everything we do, every interaction feels like a gamble, because how much do I want to invest when absolutely everything feels so uncertain? however good it feels now, it could feel just as horrible later when it falls apart. it does scare the shit out of me. 

    man. I somehow thought writing about this was going to make me feel better. It didn’t. Leals, if you get a chance I would loooooOOooove to skype wicha. 

    Also, do you want to collaborate and write a simple surreal fairytale poem thing, and then I can do multimedia illustrations or a film piece or photo series? I just love your writing and it really inspires me to draw.

     

  2. 26 Mar



    So I am growing all my leg hairs wild and free, because I want to be a stronger, wilder, more powerful HUMYN AMINAL. I am running more, enjoying feeling my muscles sing and talk to me when I stretch in the morning and push up hills on runs, surrounded by blue hills. I am working on loving BIGGER and MORE, challenging impulsively judgmental thoughts, finding affection for people I normally would dislike.  And I am growing my spirit on these runs, these moments after phone calls when my heart aches, these parched blazing afternoons alone.

    I realized today that while, well, yes, it will be nice to have plumbing and salad in a months time, and I do miss some creature comforts of home, I’m not overwhelmed by my craving for them. I feel really, really content. I don’t need ice cold lemonade or sprouts, they alone won’t make me happy, I can smile at flies and sore throats and flies and ants in my bed. I can love people from afar.

    My heart is  really, really full. I feel the wealthiest I’ve ever been, with my experiences. In the last year I’ve eaten sandwiches on mountain tops and disappeared into clouds, I’ve slept in cold bus depots and cars on the east coast, I’ve watched lightning storms and melted in a sun filled boat with an excellent human. I’ve been breathtakingly lonely, I’ve loved more than I could bear. All this adventure is absolutely everything I’ve ever wanted. I feel so endlessly, absolutely, perfectly full.

     

  3. 15 Mar


    I am feeling just all kinds of tired and burnt out. The teaching environment is just toxic. Almost everyday, I have to watch kids get screamed at (“don’t you have eyes?” if they copy something wrong), get caned, hit on the head with books, hit on the head with the teachers knuckles, scraped with chalk, and on and on. It’s horrible, it’s poison. It’s begun to really, really wear on me too, now that I don’t have anyone here I can really talk with. What traveling has taught me is to never, ever again take for granted the beautiful thing that is COMMUNITY. Having artists and students and oddballs to dream with and talk with and vent with. I’m really appreciating just how amazing and unique all my friends from home are, there’s not a lot of people like you out there. A good friend can get you through just about anything. Your emails and phone calls are amazing and really get my though the week, so thank you thank you, to everyone who’s written me. I’m going to have to learn how to be my own little turtle, to make myself my home, and my brain a happy place to hang out no matter where I am. I want to travel the world and, being such an intensely emotional human, I have to learn how to keep myself going when I feel overwhelmed by it all. beads! Keta, Ghana

    I am feeling just all kinds of tired and burnt out. The teaching environment is just toxic. Almost everyday, I have to watch kids get screamed at (“don’t you have eyes?” if they copy something wrong), get caned, hit on the head with books, hit on the head with the teachers knuckles, scraped with chalk, and on and on. It’s horrible, it’s poison. It’s begun to really, really wear on me too, now that I don’t have anyone here I can really talk with. What traveling has taught me is to never, ever again take for granted the beautiful thing that is COMMUNITY. Having artists and students and oddballs to dream with and talk with and vent with. I’m really appreciating just how amazing and unique all my friends from home are, there’s not a lot of people like you out there. A good friend can get you through just about anything. Your emails and phone calls are amazing and really get my though the week, so thank you thank you, to everyone who’s written me.

    I’m going to have to learn how to be my own little turtle, to make myself my home, and my brain a happy place to hang out no matter where I am. I want to travel the world and, being such an intensely emotional human, I have to learn how to keep myself going when I feel overwhelmed by it all.

    beads!

    Keta, Ghana

    (Source: make-the-path)

     

  4. 4 Mar


    make-the-path: Kokrobite, Ghana

    make-the-path:

    Kokrobite, Ghana

     

  5. 4 Mar


    make-the-path: watercolor/acrylic on mixed media

    make-the-path:

    watercolor/acrylic on mixed media

     

  6. 20 Feb



    : I’m blessed to lead a very privileged life, and often overwhelmed by...

    make-the-path:

    I’m blessed to lead a very privileged life, and often overwhelmed by the responsibilities that comes with that. Where do you start? In a world as vast, beautiful, inequitable and unjust as this, where do you begin to try and affect change?

    All of us the world over are inextricably linked,…

    this is a college app essay, I need it to be 200 words shorter, ideas?

     

  7. 13 Feb


    watsupbuddercup:

    some drawings from my journal, february 2013

    wwow wwoowowowowoow

    (via aint-got-nothin-at-all)

     

  8. 11 Feb


    Hey I believe in storybooks and if you do too, then maybe you could donate? What childhood books have affected you as a human? make-the-path: Here’s what I think: I think story books are a human right. I think everyone needs the beauty and levity of cats in hats, easily distracted mice and cookies, and magic beans. I can’t imagine what my life would have been, or who I would be now without the hours, probably easily the months I’ve spent lost in books.  If you’ve ever been inspired, touched, shocked, saddened, awestruck, tickled, or amazed by book, please give. Books broaden you world, they help inform your identity, they inspire, they engage, they empower. What does it mean to live in a world without books, or any media at all? No TV, no internet. No newspapers. What does that look like? Everyday I’m finding out. It means the The students don’t know who Nelson Mandela is. I asked a classroom of 10 year-olds to explain who he was and received blank stares in response. On a 93 degree day, with 110 percent humidity, I had goosebumps everywhere. Nelson Mandela! Martin Luther King Jr! Gandhi! Think of a world where they don’t exist. For the children of Frankadua, effectively these people never did. Students can’t find the continent of Africa on a world map, let alone Ghana. They’ve never seen a globe or a model of the solar system. A large, colorful and laminated world map costs about 2 USD here. These things are easily affordable, and can be world altering. If you’d like to send books, please send a package to: Claire Baldwin 79 Little Roses StreetAshaley Botwe Old TownMadinaAccraGhana If you’d like to buy books online and send them, please take a look at my amazon wishlist. We need very, very basic books for beginner readers. If you’d like to donate money, click on the link! It’s at the top left of the page. Books are beautiful and important, but so is clean water. That is priority number one. After the students have clean water, money will go towards books, bookshelves, tables and chairs, maps, computer repair and art supplies. I’ve already spent a few hundred on this project but I won’t get much farther on my own. If you feel compelled, please give anything you can. I will be posting updates and pictures of everything I’ve received and bought. Thank you, thank you, thank you, lots of love to you all from an ocean away. I’ll be in touch!

    Hey I believe in storybooks and if you do too, then maybe you could donate? What childhood books have affected you as a human?

    make-the-path:

    Here’s what I think: I think story books are a human right. I think everyone needs the beauty and levity of cats in hats, easily distracted mice and cookies, and magic beans. I can’t imagine what my life would have been, or who I would be now without the hours, probably easily the months I’ve spent lost in books. 

    If you’ve ever been inspired, touched, shocked, saddened, awestruck, tickled, or amazed by book, please give. Books broaden you world, they help inform your identity, they inspire, they engage, they empower.

    What does it mean to live in a world without books, or any media at all? No TV, no internet. No newspapers. What does that look like?

    Everyday I’m finding out. It means the The students don’t know who Nelson Mandela is. I asked a classroom of 10 year-olds to explain who he was and received blank stares in response. On a 93 degree day, with 110 percent humidity, I had goosebumps everywhere. Nelson Mandela! Martin Luther King Jr! Gandhi! Think of a world where they don’t exist. For the children of Frankadua, effectively these people never did.

    Students can’t find the continent of Africa on a world map, let alone Ghana. They’ve never seen a globe or a model of the solar system. A large, colorful and laminated world map costs about 2 USD here. These things are easily affordable, and can be world altering.

    If you’d like to send books, please send a package to:

    Claire Baldwin

    79 Little Roses Street
    Ashaley Botwe Old Town
    Madina
    Accra
    Ghana

    If you’d like to buy books online and send them, please take a look at my amazon wishlist. We need very, very basic books for beginner readers.

    If you’d like to donate money, click on the link! It’s at the top left of the page.

    Books are beautiful and important, but so is clean water. That is priority number one. After the students have clean water, money will go towards books, bookshelves, tables and chairs, maps, computer repair and art supplies.

    I’ve already spent a few hundred on this project but I won’t get much farther on my own. If you feel compelled, please give anything you can. I will be posting updates and pictures of everything I’ve received and bought.

    Thank you, thank you, thank you, lots of love to you all from an ocean away. I’ll be in touch!

     

  9. 9 Feb


    Ghana Ghana Ghana

    Ghana Ghana Ghana

    (Source: make-the-path)

     

  10. 1 Feb



    yes

    lapoor:

    who could do what you do better than you do

    (via lapoor-deactivated20130418)

     

  11. 22 Jan


     

  12. 6 Jan


    tarot thing. I’ve been doing these a bunch. I like the idea of a super specific, crazy accurate deck of tarots (that you make for yourself)(which is why it’s accurate).

    tarot thing.

    I’ve been doing these a bunch. I like the idea of a super specific, crazy accurate deck of tarots (that you make for yourself)(which is why it’s accurate).

     

  13. 20 Dec



    Currently waiting for a us passport control dude and my fingers need something to do so
    Wish me luck

     

  14. 17 Dec



    I want to love BIGGER and MORE

     

  15. 10 Dec


    AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH So apparently…. I am going to Rome? For Christmas? I have waited and waited and waited so long for the freedom and possibility to do this, I worked ten hour days, I ate peanut butter and quinoa and pb+js for weeks and months on end, I stayed in when friends went out, I know I am very very very privileged and extraordinarily blessed to be able to put savings towards last minute trips and not towards tuition or family or groceries at present, and I am going to feel infinitely grateful and shoot love beams from my every pore into the universe and soak up all the beauty and freedom and insanity and bring it back to everywhere and everyone I meet, and I will think back on this moment when I am broke and busy or old and tied down with kids or a job and think, “damn, deciding on a whim to go there for funs was just simply a great decision”. This will be the most money I ever don’t regret spending. (this journal entry pictured was a beginning to a thought process)

    AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

    So apparently…. I am going to Rome? For Christmas?

    I have waited and waited and waited so long for the freedom and possibility to do this, I worked ten hour days, I ate peanut butter and quinoa and pb+js for weeks and months on end, I stayed in when friends went out, I know I am very very very privileged and extraordinarily blessed to be able to put savings towards last minute trips and not towards tuition or family or groceries at present, and I am going to feel infinitely grateful and shoot love beams from my every pore into the universe and soak up all the beauty and freedom and insanity and bring it back to everywhere and everyone I meet, and I will think back on this moment when I am broke and busy or old and tied down with kids or a job and think, “damn, deciding on a whim to go there for funs was just simply a great decision”. This will be the most money I ever don’t regret spending.

    (this journal entry pictured

    was a beginning to a thought process)