"Come in out of the darkness"
"Come in out of the darkness"
Come inside my world full of antique perfume bottles, heart shaped sunglasses, Mad Men inspired fashion and décor and a love for Old Hollywood.
Recently I went to Brooklyn in search of excellent bars, thrift stores and restaurants. Each place had a retro twist and something completely unique and magical about it. I spent most my time in Williamsburg and soaked in the artsy, creative vibes and the warm late May weather. I enjoyed seeing the thrift shops with their signage and chalk lettering, the restaurants serving up delicious, artisanal culinary delights and the bars that went from dressed up and classy to down and dirty. Being from and living in CT, I feel New York and all it's boroughs are my neighbors - neighbors I don't see often but know well. I was so wrong. It was fun though, to explore, to wander, to take in all the magic that Brooklyn has to offer. I wanted to write my guide of my favorite places + spaces in Brooklyn.
Mind, body, spirit. When I saw photos I did from a shoot about empowerment and positivity, I couldn't help but focus on my physical flaws. We hear it from celebrities and Instagram models who tell us it's all Photoshop but still day after day we are inundated with what "perfect" should be. I have cellulite, my weight fluctuates, I wish I had firmer arms. I'm a messy eater and I always have way too many keys on my key chain. I have bad panic attacks that have left me curled up in bed shaking. How did I get from my physical flaws to other personal flaws? I'm use to that, my thoughts racing and racing until I have to wrestle with myself to calm down.
I've had anxiety since I can remember. I remember the first time I had a panic attack. Both my maternal grandparents had died within days of each other right before Christmas. I was a little girl trying to comprehend two unexpected losses and my parents (especially my mom's) devastation. I remember playing barbies with my cousin and neighbor and all of a sudden things didn't feel real. I felt like I was in a dream world. I later found out this was dissociation. Dissociation is a common yet severe effect of my anxiety disorder. It is a defense mechanism—we separate out of our memory things that we don't want to or can't deal with. I still have this - and no matter how often it happens, it always feels so unfamiliar, so terrifying, so lonely. But it passes.
To me there's nothing better but finding a shady spot under some magestic oak tree and reading a book with the warm winds of summer all around me. One of my favorite topics to read about is Golden Hollywood. There's the glamour, the beauty, the romance but all the stories that people don't often know about..All the chaos and sadness behind all the sparkling matinee signs and velvet gowns. The real stories of all those gorgeous ladies and handsome men and what brought them to Hollywood and how hard it was to stay relevant.