blogging

Shoe-gamers, I got you.

If you’re a ‘kicks with everything’ kind of human like myself, then let that one Drowzee go (Pokemon GO-ers, I see you!) and stay with me for a quick minute. I spent the last couple of nights drooling over some damn good lookin’ sneakers that have made their way north of the border as of midnight.

Wednesday 5:22pm : As I was digging deep in the closet for the perfect pair of Chucks to pair with my summer hashtag oh oh tee dee (aka #ootd aka #outfitoftheday) the constant chatter in my head was telling me that those chucks were too worn out, girl! But I wore them anyways. And when I got to the Converse Modern Auckland launch tonight (check out #ConverseModern on the interweb) I realized that the more worn out the Converse, the sexier. Somebody make a doc; if those Chucks could talk!

Welcome to the fam, new friends!

IMG_20160720_204414

I mean, everyone’s appearance changes as they grow up! The minute I put these bad boys on my feet I knew that they would take me from breakfast to bedtime. Simplicity is my favourite. I’m going to go back to that ‘kicks with everything’ line right now as I line up a couple of pictures of what I wore today. A dress and sneakers? With converse, absolutely.

IMG_20160720_213440

20160721_002158
And this is where I tell you that Footlocker at 247 Yonge Street is the only place that you can get your anxious sneakerhead hands on these. Five colours! Raptor red just made sense for my feet.

I’d say, ‘out with the old, in with the new’ but I’m all about saving those sneaker stories. The stains, the scuffs, the good stuff. Just adding these to the collection.

20160720_235641

Footlocker also opened the first #PumaLab in Canada at the Footlocker on Queen Street West this week. So many shoes! So much awesome. -k

IMG_20160720_093637

Please Excuse Me For a Moment.

Often I have the urge to write. It’s where I go when I don’t want to go anywhere else. Often I sit down just like I am now with no direction; mind racing in thirty-two directions, my thoughts crashing into imaginary walls as I watch from afar and judge their motives. Full moon tendencies are on a high tonight in my veins. I can see the full moon across the room through the window, six floors above the late night streets of downtown Toronto. Oh hey, werewolves. I just blanked. So I opened pinterest and the first quote I saw (no joke) was this… “To make the right choices in life you have to get in touch with your soul. To do this, you need to experience solitude, which most people are afraid of because in the silence you hear the truth and know the solutions.” Shh. I’m not afraid of that. I crave the challenge or the truth. What about you? And why did I see that right now…

Now what… dot dot dot…

You know what is refreshing? Reading the true tales of humans. The icky parts. The imperfect race through it all. Just lay it on the line. Because you feel so called ‘normal’. Being in the new age social media scene eats at me sometimes. (How’s that for true tales…) I adore it. I adore the sharing and creativity and artistry of it. I adore seeing the highs of fellow acquaintances and strangers. I enjoy cheering them on from my smartphone. I also adore being raw. Being real. Blurred lines. I enjoy truth.

And so I leave this raw, blurry note with not much direction or purpose but I leave on a high because I have an outlet to be real (with possible judgement) and I’m okay with that. Risk is an addiction. I hope you trust that you’re wonderful enough, no blurred lines, to do the same. -k

“Don’t let someone dim your light simply because it’s shining in their eyes.”

Full Moon Fuel.

I woke up with anxiety that made my heart feel like I was playing in the NBA finals. I blame the full moon. Watch out for werewolves. But honestly, I do believe that astrological effects are legit. So I went to yoga because it’s one of my go-to’s when it comes to calming the heck down.

And my teacher read this poem and everything made sense. That’s all I need to say. It’s so raw and real and wildly right. So I share it with you. Ache for something. Goodnight. -k

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes.’

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

‘Fear can keep us up all night but faith makes one fine pillow.’

Something ’bout Simplicity.

“It’s the little things, but they all add up.”

I sprinkle that mesh of words into scenarios frequently. Because I am a big believer and lover of simplicity. Sure, I absolutely adore the big brimmed hat the shy girl on the corner of Yonge Street is sporting but it’s the way the hat tips and her coat sits and where her purse hits that makes for stronger pictures. Stronger feelings. Everything is art.

I like messy beds and over worn pyjamas. I like the wild silence on the subway in a car full of fifty strangers. I like uneven footprints in the snow and melting flakes on eyelashes that make your mascara run. I like aged cracks in the pavement and a paper bag caught in the gutter from someone’s lunch. I like worn out edges of over read novels and fingerprints on the car window. I like holes in t-shirts and the sound of coffee brewing at 8am. I like imperfect smiles, frown lines and scars with stories. I like how you look at me. I like empty wine glasses on the counter from the night before and newspapers on the train seat next to you that have been touched by numerous hands. I like water stains on the bathroom mirror and cloudy airplane trails in the sky. I like how you make me feel. I like the souls sense of serendipity and the touch of a first dance. I like blueberry stains on my fingers and the morning after nose scrunch of a too-many-drinks text. I like the lipstick stains on coffee cups and the sound of a key in the lock after a long day. I like you.

Everything is art. -k

‘The simple things are the most extraordinary things and only the wise can see them.’

Instagram my Life. 30. @MatterofKAT

it’s a girl thing. when the team’s away, we invade. cast life.
frozen movements. wrecking crew. travel bug.
nostalgia. it’s a comfort thing. opening life doors. -k

Frozen Movements.

What do you do when you feel you’re due for a little bit of too good to be true? Does it push you forward or push you away? Does it fuck with your freedom?

I had a couple of comfort convos today about just that. Finding the freedom and hidden fabulous of tough times. There’s a glow of greatness in absolutely everything that falls at your feet or in front of your face. I do believe that. Even when it shakes up your sensitive soul. I also believe that it takes the continuation of life’s great dance to make believing it a habit as oppose to just head filled hopes. Time is a blessing. And the transitions that two-step there way into your life are a blessing.

I’ve really rambled about life alot lately. Sometimes I don’t even know if my rants make sense but they make sense to me. Four years ago I felt one of those transitions. At the time I had been frozen for years. Life offered me it’s hand and said dance with me a new way. I didn’t expect to continue experiencing the transitions as much as I have but I almost get high off of them. Maybe I look for them and that’s why I notice them. I can’t wait for them, even when they’re challenging, because they’ve only brought me freedom. And I full out love a good challenge. Even if it took a minute or a day or months for the transition to mold me and make me realize why it spun me to the right. Because it was right. And I was left to be better. I challenge you to accept them in all forms. -k

‘Sometimes you find yourself in the middle of nowhere and sometimes in the middle of nowhere you find yourself.’

Therapy and Tea.

Creative expression is an addiction of mine. I crave waking up on a Sunday morning, making a cup of tea and endlessly scrolling through pinterest boards full of photos and quotes that fill your soul up to the top. And then writing the crap out of my reaction to a photo or quote. Thinking about it now, it’s a therapeutic thing. When the soul has been emptied of a little confidence or belief, I believe in finding something to repair it. I’ve heard this before –> There are poems inside of you that paper can’t handle. How beautiful and true. When words are locked up in my insides I always find it easier to express them through photography. It’s definitely a favourite creative outlet of mine. I’ve been stopped in my tracks on my daily commute a lot this month due to the city shifting into winter mode. The puddled streets and snowflakes and sun hanging on to the buildings because it doesn’t get to play as long at this time of year has made me pause. And as I sit here now at a loss for words, I’ll drop a photo I took this week to explain the rest. Happy Sunday. -k

Please excuse me if I don’t talk too much, it’s loud enough in my head.

‘Have no fear you will find your way. It’s in your bones. It’s in your soul.’ – Mark Z. Danielewski

My New Year.

My sweet summer is gone. It doesn’t feel like summer is signed, sealed and sent away on Toronto streets due to some last minute heat from the sun but this is the time of year where shifts happen. More Raptors news on my social feeds and planning for upcoming events means the countdown to my new year is on. I’m so ready to dig in.

But I’m so happy thinking about the summer that was. Snapshots of summer have been slapping me in the face all day. I saw a lot. A lot of things I’ve never seen. And I am so thankful for the days on opposite coasts. Someone said to me on a Sunday morning in a city that wasn’t mine (when we were absorbing wordy memories of yesteryears while staring at a new day warming up in front of us over java) to store these moments in your mind for yourself and the people you are with instead of capturing them to share on social platforms like the ways of the world. The two of us, we had changed since our last meeting, but what hadn’t changed was me cringing at the fact that my camera was still sleeping at home. But then I just let it be. (It was NOT easy, trust me, I crave my creative outlets and the excitement of creative visions.) To be places and see the seconds in moments that no one will absorb but you is kind of awesome. Especially when you’ve got someone to talk about it to down the road. And pictures just never live up to the moment that was. It has stuck with me, for me (and you) to see.

And now? With grace and guts I’m tackling new endeavours. That’s the only way to do it. You know that saying, ‘act like duck; keep calm and unruffled on the surface but paddle like hell underwater’? Uh huh, honey. I’ll be quacking all month until some of these visions that keep slapping me in the face become reality.

And when the nights are darker than most because my thoughts cloud the moon,
the thought of your face, two breaths between us, makes me sleep;
the blurred dream of a someday soon.

But the pics I did grab? Uh huh, honey. Next trip? Vancouver for Raptors training camp. Back to the west coast which will always have a piece of my heart. -k

I was always an unusual girl. My mother told me I had a chameleon soul. No moral compass pointing due north.
No fixed personality. Just an inner indecisiveness that was as wide and wavering as the ocean. – Lana Del Rey

West Coast Ways – Day Four.

A few days ago I raced up Yonge Street on my way to yoga beside a twelve-ish year old girl in the same chucks as me. She carried a skateboard, we both had our headphones in and she wore the cutest little floral skirt. We kept getting stopped at the same streetlights and when I turned left, she turned left, and when I turned right, she turned right, weaving the same path with different destinations. We were most likely listening to different tracks and worrying about different nit-picky problems and daydreaming about different ideals because there are -insert your guess here- years between us. I don’t even know if she noticed me. I just read a quote from John Steinbeck that says, ‘I wonder how many people I’ve looked at all my life and never seen.’ Different intention but cool point. I noticed the girl because she reminded me of myself back then. A little bit of tomboy tendencies while staging the independent women status before the term ‘women’ legit fit into your life.

We spend the first half of our lives planning the future and the second half reliving the past. When does it change from one to the other?

That’s what’s on my mind as I relive the final day of San Francisco in iPhoto. It was my third time in California and each trip has settled into my life where I stood at a fork in the road and had to decide if to go right or left. Ended this trip ‘on top of the world’ in the pics below. Always search for that feeling. Until next time, SF. -k

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all. – Oscar Wilde

West Coast Ways – Day Three.

I asked a friend the other day, ‘how’s that bucketlist of yours looking?’ I found a version of mine folded up in the back of my journal this summer with the date 2006 on it. The wild part about it was that I sat there ticking off some dreams that became reality when I didn’t even realize I was putting energy into making it happen. Some were small like surf in Malibu and my continuous quest to hit every baseball stadium across the states which is a work in progress. But some were on the next level scale like host my own TV show and get a photo professionally published. I’ve been given the same advice more than once in my life from people that I admire with great respect; write down what you want even if you don’t know how you’re going to get there. And keep writing because as the pages fill up things with scribbles and scratches, things will become clearer and you’ll find yourself checking off bucketlist dreams one day too. I challenge you to try it.

One of my little wishes was visit wine country in California. So the ladies and I set foot on Sonoma Valley soil on a Sunday funday last month. Check. -k

What you think, you become. What you feel, you attract. What you imagine, you create. -Buddha