Digital Bowerbird

My name is Lani. This is a collection of interesting things that I find online and offline.  

[lanipauli]

But there’s a bigger picture here, beyond friendship: You have to cultivate an interior life that you enjoy. I know that sounds a little bit odd in this context. But sometimes people who get really hung up on friends tend to be people who really don’t want to face their truest desires or make themselves happy at a deeper level. I’ve always defined myself as someone who faces herself, almost relentlessly so. But I didn’t have a clear sense of how to squeeze some happiness and solitary satisfaction out of my day until pretty recently, because I had a bad habit of looking for something to MAKE ME FEEL BETTER QUICKLY instead. Sometimes it was a person. Sometimes it was social media. I thought I was just trying to connect. But I wasn’t. I was needy, and I was feeding my own neediness. I felt a little desperate. I wanted salvation. I didn’t want to do the work to pull myself out of a bad state of mind.

The Cut ‘Ask Polly’ 

[lanipauli]

Self care is also at the heart of her approach to cooking, the central message of every recipe. Whether she is baking a honey cake, frying anchovy-stuffed sage leaves or poaching a whole chicken to make soup, she believes that taking pleasure in food is an inherently nourishing act, that to cook yourself dinner is to be good to yourself.

Eat What You Love, NYTimes 

[lanipauli]

“The new heroin addiction is connectivity,” says V. Vale. “The only solution is not one that most people want to face, which is to become lovers of solitude and silence… I love to spend time alone in my room, and in my ideal world the first hour of every day would be in bed, writing down thoughts, harvesting dreams, before anyone phones or you have any internet access.”

Austin Kleon

[lanipauli]

Interiors trends are often a reflection of the global climate: economics, current affairs and world events. They speak to our wants and needs, and often echo how we feel – safe and brave, or vulnerable and cautious?” says Diane Cocksey, senior interior decorator at Freedom.

Where do the latest interior trends come from 

[bloomflowersbloom]

[oldchum]

[lanipauli]

Recovery is not without its cataclysmic life changes. I lost some friends who preferred me when I was a doormat. As my friend Kevin says, “When you get healthy, the sick get angry.” I still panic that mitigating my codependent impulses will make me less successful professionally, since needing people’s approval is historically what propelled me to work so hard. If I actually had self-esteem, would I ever work as hard again? The answer is no, but that’s OK.

Whitney Cummings, Lenny Letter

[lanipauli]

My role growing up was the peacekeeper. My home was stressful, and putting out fires was the only way I could feel seen and like I had a modicum of control amid the emotional pandemonium. When my parents fought, I would put on improvised performances or fashion shows in our living room to try to distract them. Fussing over narcissistic people was how I kept in their good graces and how I felt safe. Worrying about other people’s problems (or perceived problems) was a habit I developed very early on. It worked as a child, but once I grew up, this coping device was a weapon I kept using even though I was no longer at war.

Whitney Cummings, Lenny Letter 

[boredpanda]

Japanese Photographer Documents The Beauty Of Everyday Life In Japan

[lanipauli]

Having the space to be present is making a remarkable difference to the quality of my life. I was always too tired and stressed to turn up for other people and myself. After a typical work week, I don’t have the energy to do anything, much less hang out with other people. Now, I am no longer wrecked with guilt because I am not spending enough time with people I care about, or feeling like I was only barely present with people, because I had so much to worry about. I have the time and space to turn up for events I never would have gone if I had a full-time job, to foster unexpected connections to people in random places because now I have the time to be random.

Winnie Lim 

[lanipauli]

I know. Adele. When she opens her mouth, honey-coated muses come pouring out. She has an uncanny way of taking all of our collective romantic anguish and singing it back to us so that we may reflect, relive, and then rip out our own hearts and hold them up to her, sobbing and bleeding. Waking up to “Hello” was the aural equivalent of waking up to a break-up text.

Allison P Davis http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/10/new-adele-song-will-have-to-wait-till-sunday.html?mid=twitter_nymag

[lanipauli]

To keep loving someone is an art. The start is the easiest part. To keep loving someone, you have to suspend the present moment in your mind and remember why you decided to love this person in those first glittery months of newness. You have to be in love when you don’t feel any particular tenderness, when bills are late or the trash hasn’t been emptied or you’re feeling underappreciated or when the ugly monsters from your past have convinced you that what happened then — whatever heartbreak exists in your memory — is here and real and will happen again. You have to pretend to be in love when you’re terrified of disappointment, of trusting someone, of believing that the person you’re waking up next to won’t ruin you, because they could. Love is being acutely aware of how quickly someone could ruin you.

Jamie Varon 

[onelovelydaynz]

SUPERETTE

Takapuna                    Northshore

I always love creating in Superette’s spaces, so for the new Takapuna store I was asked to come up with a centre piece to hang over the shop counter … and what’s a shop counter without lighting and lots of greenery. So thats exactly what they got! The small window space also got a little sprinkling of love, with some bespoke hand covered books piled up to create display levels, simple and effective x.

Photography: Dalong     Fresh-and-chips 

[newyorkcityfeelings]

DUMBO by Phil Fusco #nyc

[gifsboom]

Video: Happy Baby Donkey Swings in a Hammock

[lanipauli]

But this break from being "perfect" also speaks to something greater. That is, in order for creativity to really flourish, we need a break. We need to give ourselves time to breathe. There is a place for doing nothing in our day, and we don't need to taint it by telling ourselves we should be doing more, or we should be doing things differently.

A 30 Day Habit Experiment 

[lanipauli]

But recklessly expanding a mere lifestyle trend into the grave matter of consumers’ physical health, commonly throwing in words like “cancer”, “Crohn’s” and “heart disease” in the process, requires a great deal more care and accuracy. People have a right to expect your expertise to be based on more than thigh gap, lovely hair and a mother rich enough to buy you a Vegemix.

Sali Hughes, The Pool