The Sunday Toast, 1

For many months now my e-mails to my sister have been peppered with “I’m going to start blogging again.” And now, in these uncertain times, I’m needing precisely the little nods to the good things in life that are inspiring, uplifting, or helpful in the journey. So it begins.

• ‘Andrà tutto bene.’ I was reading this message of hope with misty eyes. Everything will be all right. Let’s do our part to send messages of hope.

• Everything sounds better in Italian. Especially when it comes to quarantined Italians singing from their balconies to boost morale. I’ll take this as an opportunity to request that you tag me in videos you happen to find on Instagram, please and thank you.

• Instagram can be a triggering place to be lately. Rather than a respite from the madness, it sometimes has the misfortune of fanning the flames of our anxiety. An account doing quite the opposite right now is The Good News Movement. These posts are evidence that we shine brightest in the darkness.

• Walking the line between staying informed and getting swept up in not being able to turn off thinking and getting worked up about the Coronavirus is, understandable, tricky. While I’ve been limiting my intake to help manage my own anxiety, I did find the most recent episode of Call Your Girlfriend a to be a refreshing take on it all. Let’s check in on each other.

• The Daily’s special episode on Tom Hanks was like wrapping myself up in a blanket just warm from the dryer. Kindness is everything.

• A new friend got me on the Imperfect Foods train. I’m so excited to have fresh produce delivered straight to my door next week. Customizing my first box in a few days is something I’m already looking forward to. It’s nice to have something to look forward to.

• Having just reorganized my entire pantry, the fact that I have all the ingredients needed to make Bon Appetit’s Chocolate Almond Fridge Fudge is not lost on me.

• Let’s all brainstorm ways we can keep supporting our local businesses. Tell me what you come up with and what you’re doing, okay? They enrich our lives and neighborhoods so so much. Me, I’ve got the online store pulled up for my personal favorite and am torn between everything Nickel City has to offer.

• Good news for my neighborhood! Happy days are coming in the form of two new restaurants. Este, a seafood Mexican restaurant brought to us by the folks at Suerte, and Vic and Al’s, a Cajun restaurant brought to us by the Patrizi family. I can’t wait to break bread with my friends amongst other friends breaking bread together when that’s safe for us to do again.

• I recently invested in one of my favorite albums, Gregory Alan Isakov’s Weatherman, and the opening song “Amsterdam” makes me stop in my tracks, setting my mind at ease and making me breathe deeply.

• Sometimes I ration out the episodes of shows like I’m storing up for the apocalypse. Well, what do ya know! Watching season 3 of Queer Eye (specifically Antoni’s reaction to a Corgi) is making me believe in humanity.

• This morning I woke up to rain — a disruption to my normal first-thing running routine. A welcome change of pace was a return to Yoga With Adriene. I tend to do the same ones over and over, but I tried something new and it was incredibly energizing. I found myself laughing out loud during the practice. I’m feeling good about making more space for yoga in my life as opting for staying home becomes more and more necessary.

• And finally, in light of it all, maybe it’s time to sit down and have a cuppa à la Nina Cosford.

Stay healthy, my friends. Be kind to yourself, be kind to others, and please do share how you’re getting on and what’s making you happy.

xoxo

PROVIDENCE | PART TWO | IN THE BEGINNING

Week one of my summer program is a bit of a blur — a stroke of pigment that slowly fades across the page. It’s a jumble of new supplies, sitting down in one attitude much longer than I’m accustomed to, raising my hand, erasing, reworking, sweatily hauling my bodyweight in art material up and down the steepest hills in town, experimenting, trying again and again. There is so much I don’t know, so much to learn. About tube watercolors, figure drawing, the quality of paper, my expectations, habits to keep, tendencies and attitudes to abandon or adjust.

My instructor has merry eyes and a knowledge of the paint that hearkens to cooking without a recipe — expert and second nature. Steeping in that expertise makes the eight hours of studio time a day fly by as if the day is set to fast forward. The class itself is made up of 15 students and only three of us are working professionals — funnily enough, all teachers. For a continuing ed class, I certainly wasn’t expecting to be surrounded by current art college kids, but here we are.

Unlike my week long intensive last summer, which ended with a book dummy, this class is comprised of a variety of assignments that reflect jobs you could have as a children’s illustrator. The first two days in the studio, we focused on poetry. The assignment: choose a pair of poems with similar themes and paint a two-page spread that unites them. I chose a wintery theme, blending the idea of frosty breath being like dragon smoke and a poem about all the fun things you could do over the course of a snow day. In the end, I have two bundled up kids building a snow dragon.

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All three characters came alive for me on the page, and I found myself getting more attached to them with every snowflake in their hair or twig for an eyelash. I hope I did them justice. Tomorrow morning will start with a critique of everyone’s final product. Wake up and smell the coffee!

But for now, the artist’s tape has been carefully peeled off the page and it’s high time to celebrate at a clam shack.

“Just bravely having a going at it with a good spirit is the only way you can learn.” Well said, Deborah Frances White, very well said indeed.

Bravely forth,

Sally

PROVIDENCE | PART ONE | THE BEFORE

I am sitting in the window seat of a sunny apartment that isn’t mine. The birds that woke me up at 5 am are still chirping, the sun is only just shining again, and the night ahead is yawning wide with the promise of WaterFire and Del’s frozen lemonade.

Despite months and months of planning and a week of assimilating, how very odd it is to find myself here. In Providence. On the cusp of a summer program and getting shaky with nerves. When the tables are turned and I become the student instead of the teacher, I’m equal parts thrilled and terrified. I’ve been there before and I know I can do it, but I’m still scared. I’m still daunted. But come Monday morning, I know I’ll be in that studio early, fidgeting with my pencils and telling the teacher, “Actually, I go by Sally,” when the roll is called — a first day of school ritual that naggingly persists to this day. I’ll tuck in and show up and make mistakes and hopefully learn something. I’ll do it because I love making art more than I fear everything that comes with it.

The next six weeks will see me studying Children’s Book Illustration at RISD. And no matter how many times I read the course description, I have no idea what it will look like. I can only hope. Hope I learn something. Hope I improve. Hope I find joy in the making. Hope I don’t sink under a mountain of work. Hope I make a friend. Hope the teacher likes me. Hope I still have time to meet my sister for lunch on studio days or any old day. Hope I find room for adventure and all the messy rest. Hope I pass. Hope, hope, hope. Jiminy Cricket! What a privilege it is to have so very much to hope for!

I’ll finish with a quote from Elizabeth Gilbert’s thunderous Big Magic, which I’ve just finished listening to for the second time. “Put yourself forward in stubborn good cheer and then do it again and again and again.” Yes. That. I’ll do that.

Ever onward, xoxo, etc,

Sally