Dear God/Universe/Creator/Life,

Thank you for lazy Saturdays filled with baby-blue skies, marshmallow clouds, and breezes that ever so slightly cool the skin (angels breath, I think). Thank you for a puppy who helps wake me up each morning with tiny kisses and flopping ears, and for a super amazing boyfriend who makes me the happiest girl in the world. Thank you for people who are willing to help me if I just ask. I am so grateful for the fresh food you provide and for helping me to take care of my body. I love you for loving me always and for sending your love through star-filled skies, peaceful moments, and songs that fill my soul (1000 Ships came at the perfect time). Thank you for another beautiful week in this enchanting life.

Love,
Cassandra

I am wildly inspired by Cassie's (aks bee hives) photos. They are magical, seductive, innocent, dark, beautiful. The one I've posted here inspired me to dream up a story for NaNoWriMo last year. The novel is unfinished, but I'm still in love with the characters - Ginger and Lily. 

Ginger is a modern-day Clara bow: black bob hair cut and red, red lips. Her favorite outfits are dresses and colored tights and ankle-high combat boots. She doesn't wear a lot of makeup - just those red lips; they make her feel powerful, but she’s quiet. She does not stomp around the halls of her high school or smoke in the girl’s bathroom. She sits at the back of the room and observes. She scribbles hearts in her notebook like any other girl, but her hearts are empty.


Lily lives through life as if it were a fairy tale. She collects old things and loves the shape of moth wings. She loves brisk autumn mornings and swirling cinnamon sticks in her chai tea. Her hair is the color of honey, eyes blue as a lily pond, but no one would ever say she was spectacular looking. Quite ordinary, but beautiful in her own way.

I don't know if I'll finish the story, as so many others have popped up and taken the focus away, but I thought I'd share a little with you here. 

From Ginger's diary:
There are some things that are just better in pictures. Our love, perhaps, because it will always remain in that one beautiful state we left it in. Ode to a Grecian Urn. Do you remember that picture we took at the lily pond? Remember how it looked like a Monet painting? I remember it all; I wore a pair of black tights and you stuck a daisy behind my ear. You wore that ankle-length white skirt that revealed the shadow of your legs when the sun shone through. You set up the camera so that we could both be in the picture and we climbed that rock in ballet flats so we could be closer to the tree tops. You took off your shirt first and after I did you hugged me and said, “Now hold still.” Your skin had never been so close to mine. You held me tight, and yet there was gentleness in your fingertips. I pressed you harder into me so that your ribs fit into mine like puzzle pieces. I felt the little beads of sweat run down your spine. I felt every groove, every empty space in your bones, the fleshy parts of your breasts in that brief moment. I nestled my lips into your neck and heard the camera click, but we stayed there. You whispered, “I'm so glad you're my best friend.” I wanted to stay on that rock forever. Did you?

You are an amazing human being ~ the only who thinks the way you think and looks the way you look. Kind of like a snowflake (except with a brain, of course). But that's pretty amazing, right?! That's why it's important to remember that being a better you is not about being a different you or thinking you're not good enough. You are, tweety sweet pea! Becoming a better you is about accepting your whole self, mistakes and all, and moving forward into the you with bigger and brighter wings. A caterpillar is a cute little thing (albeit a little annoying with the plants sometimes, but hey, you gotta eat) and would be just perfect staying the way it is, but think if it never turned into a butterfly; that's a lot of beauty to miss. So here are three easy peasy ways you can grow your wings: