serendipity

I think we decide to feel the moment. Or we deny the moment. Sometimes that is good sometimes that is bad. But all things happening around us are usually a projection of many ignored/not ignored moments. And then we wake up and we're like: OMG, how did this happen? That is exactly what is happening across the pond. That being said... This whole week was an endless spiral of this. I am very impressed with all the ladies that went out and marched. I also really hope they have a plan how to proceed. This is what I have to say. I mean, what Mr. Steinbeck had to say.

Père Lachaise cemetery on Friday. State of my body and mind: hypothermia.

It was a very cold week here in Paris. You know when you wake up and see wonderful sunny day, and you open the window and feel like the inside of your mouth is turning to ice. That is how I felt the first day of this cold wave. Everything is so much easier when the sun is included. It's fantastic. You just need to layer it up. Like I had a thin wool sweater, thick sweatshirt and a fur coat. It was o-k. Almost a bit chilly.

Frozen.

I make amazing green juice - every day for over 4 weeks now! It's easy when you have a juicer, obviously - and all the ingredients of green juices are easy to clean (unlike carrots and beetroots). So I mix:

- one lemon

- half apple (on the second half you put lemon juice and store it the fridge - when an apple is lemon juiced (?! - meaning covered with lemon juice) it doesn't get brown)

- parsley (a handful)

- a few "flowers" of broccoli

- kale (max 2 leaves)

- ginger (try peeling it with a spoon - yes spoon. You're welcome)

- celery branches (one or two)

This is usually enough for 0.3l of juice. I usually consume it while I'm waiting for my lunch to be ready - so on an empty stomach. It goes straight to the blood and my body thinks it's a soup. Ok, I make a lot of soups as well..but that's a different story.

What are the changes I feel? Well, I feel healthy. I don't know if it's a placebo but it works anyhow and my body seems happy. Try it if you have a juicer! Amazing!

tastier than it looks.

If you wanna invite me out for a dinner - it's pretty easy. I love everything. Except maybe Mexican food. To much bell pepper everywhere. Chipotle can be a solution in that case. BUT if you wanna impress me let's do Indian or Chinese. I know - sexy. But I just love it! Steph had her birthday and we went to KOKO restaurant. I just think we need to start producing rakija in those one cups. Sake is not my kind of a drink...but hey - they were many things to celebrate and when in Japanese restaurant... I also really loved this blue on the packaging! Piercing!

I will end this with him. Cause he's half good half man. When you're a bit stuck with your plans...he'll help you! I promise!

On the was to 10eme and a place called Bonhomie (like good homie, boom)

Years ago I called my good friend to tell him I found my old diary. I tend to do that - to call him when I feel he would find something hilarious, important or overwhelming. I still do. And he still says: That's nice. Well done. Without a trace of sarcasm in his voice.

My old diary was a masterpiece. I was always really bad in keeping diaries - and once I opened it - everything inside was more or less a list of things I wanted to buy, I bought, who said what, who was dating who (but not in a gossipy super interesting way - in a boring, whocares way) and who I was in love with (not so surprising list of wrong people some of which I do not remember to like). I would write in my diary for 3 weeks then I would stop. Then few months later I would write for 2 weeks and then I would stop again. People say you should read your own old diaries to learn something new about yourself. Well, I learned that I was a teenager with a horrible taste in men who was buying far too many unnecessary things. I closed my diary.

When I got my scholarship I decided I need to record details of my life somewhere. I had a simple Canon camera that could fit in any bag and a will to see beautiful things and document them. And in 2011 this blog started. I don't think many people knew of it - I knew some who had and who loved it. But those people loved me so it wasn't really objective opinion. What was important for me is that I really loved this blog. And I still do - I go back to posts from 2012 and I love those photos. They take me back to a specific moment in time that was important for this or that reason. It's like a good vibes scrap book. We always forget bad things...

Living in Paris makes me take my phone out (I stopped carrying that Canon camera around long time ago) and take photos at least few times a week. On the other hand living anywhere can make you do that. And that was that decision I made long time - decision that I will find beauty in everything. Sometimes it's hard and impossible but it necessary.

This long introduction is based on the hope I will write here more often. I really feel like I need to do so. For various reasons.

So.

This was a grey a week. January tends to be like that but weather changed so many times that you couldn't even count on that greyness. Making lists soothes my soul as well as the new country music does. I tried to see some shows (almost failed), hang out with some new old people (amazing experience) and return to the things that inspired me few 1000 years ago (Oscar Wilde and Hunter S/ Thompson).

lace on the ceiling of Le Petit Palais

It took me 3 months to go and see the first Oscar Wilde expo on French soil. The line was long. The space was small. What I really liked was Oscar's notebook where he wrote his favourite things...Like favourite flower, favourite scent, favourite read... We had those notebooks when I went to elementary school. I bet they would be an equally fun thing to read as my diary.

package received

Alterlatine is a website that covers South American culture (everything connected to it) in Paris. Andrea found me and asked me to do flyers for her brand but I thought postcards would be a better solution - everybody loves getting one and plus - I collect them as memories and have a bunch of them around my work space. I did 4 different postcards and I think they are great thing to be collected. They will be spread around Paris for free. They arrived two days ago!

staircase of the Mairie du 4eme.

I'm imagining a person in charge choosing this colour, applying it and saying: "Ups. Kinda too blue."

I think it looks awesome. Especially on a grey week like this!

Some more things that helped me go through:

Let's see how long my enthusiasm will last! Boom!

A detail from the workshop we held for one very talented future artist! We did walking and experimenting and tea drinking.
Also Milton Glaser walked into my mind today again:

Every day around 12.00 cet I get an e-mail. I jump, turn around, and like every proper communication addict I hope for a second that someone severely important is writing me - a person offering me a job of my life time or a book proposal, maybe a prince charming himself, OR unordered food delivery...
But it's him. The guru. Seth Godin.
Then I open the email, I read it and I think for a moment about how mind blown I am every time I read something he writes. And he writes every day.
Also he believes that I should write every day.

Head over to his blog and subscribe. It's a life changer.

I started Carbonara for Breakfast because I knew I had to escape restlessness. And worry. And impatience. I tend to follow every shiny object and become restless. I tend to worry about things I can't control. I am awfully impatient. 2015 sounded resless, impatient and worrying even before she was born. I bought some 25 markers over the period of 3 months - nice bright colors and mellow, pale dusky roses and vanillas. I had everything. How will I do this?

Why will I do this? I will do it also because...because I need to get into coloring/painting things I am drawing. I had no idea if that was the road to rediscover the painting process (it wasn't). I created a blog in December, I intensely thought about things I should draw - made some lists (my life is a list), started seeing how those pretty Promarkers work and the 1st of January still hit me totally unprepared. I spent two hours doodling and coloring and wandering if... if this is it. Well, it was. You need to post it now. You promised yourself. DO IT! I pressed post. I posted it. It was there.

I drew food because everybody else was posting food everywhere. Instagram, facebook, twitter... Well. I will draw food. Boom. What I ate. Or what I love to eat. Or what I need to eat.

Day after day I tried to create magic - and as with everything in life - some days you are more overwhelmed to create, some days you are less. I think one can see how much energy and love, and passion went in a drawing. Sometimes more, sometimes less. I could go through every drawing and conclude if I was in a bad mood. If I was in a good mood. If I hated myself for starting the project. Or if I celebrated my... persistency.

When I go thought it now, now after 365 drawing, the whole year flashes in front of my eyes. What I ate, when, what I drank and who did I drink it with and where...I can see where I traveled, how much love was shared and how many important people I know. Important for my heart, obviously.

This is the list of the things I learned:

1/ This project you are doing only for yourself aka Haters gonna hate

2/ Every day you are getting better and better in something aka Why are you doing this at all?

3/ I can change the drawing style whenever I want to aka Reinvent yourself when you get bored

4/ It is easier to hide behind a fake name

5/ Passion is obvious aka Either you're in or you're out.

6/ If you work hard nice people will come your way aka If you work hard nice people will come your way

These drawings here are my favourite drawings from the first six months of project.

I was sitting in the office the other day and a colleague of mine, looked at me and said out of nowhere: "Sonja, what are your New Year's resolutions?" First of all - I didn't expect him to show any interest in my life - one of those guys... Secondly - I didn't have any. Or wait, I did - but I make them every 1st of a month, or every Monday, or every evening before going to bed. But - good point - New Year's resolutions add a nice touch to a new start. He told me a few brilliant resolutions. And I decided to think harder about mine.

A friend of mine went to the swimming pool two days ago. He went there at 7 am. I said - "WOW!" He said - "Yup, that is what I will do for myself twice a week this year. Thou, I am hoping the rest of the people will dismiss their New Year's Resolutions. That will make the pool less crowded. "

I restarted my running activities. I started reading books in French again. And I decided to do something for you every month... I will transform some of my 100daysofparis.com posts to desktop calendars! Click on the links under the photos to download the one for January!

Happy New Year everyone!!

link to the map calendar background (for those of you with better organised desktops)

link to the pattern calendar background (for those of us with less organised desktops)

type: image

dimensions: 2560x1600

Horizontal resolution: 300dpi

Vertical resolution 300dpi

Type: JPG file

These three words and everything that hides behind them determine where are you from actually.

Wonderful TED speech of even more wonderful Taiye Selasi ispired me yesterday to start and finish many things. It also inspired me to redefine some of my ideas. On the other side it supported my emotions about the nation and the sense of belonging.

I've listened to if few times. And Taiye Selasi's speech inspired more drawings and stories that are happening soon.

So where are you a local?

Taiye Selasi on TED

I am happy to announce that my Etsy Shop is now open again, this time with some new items!

I am preparing some surprises for the following month so stay tuned! Shhhh - maybe 100 days of Paris are printed out? ^^ bah, you'll see!

Happy Saturday!

When my dad opens his wallet - there we are - photos of his family. I unlock my mobile phone with some funky password and I go to the gallery on my phone - there they are, my family, photos of them. In my wallet, I carry a poem. A part of a poem, to be precise. That poem is about ideals, about youth, about fight and about trust in one's road.

Its author was a famous Serbian poet Jovan Jovanovic Zmaj. Zmaj was a physician, he was a journalist, influential character himself and a friend of influential people of the 19th century. Among others, friend of Nikola Tesla, famous scientist who translated Zmaj to English and publish a book of his work in USA.

I did a mural on the wall of a poem. The name of the poem, the one from my wallet, is "Svetli grobovi" or "Grave and Its Glory" (one of English translations). This song always reminds me of the fact that no matter how hard times get, we need to go further, go out of our comfort zone, finish a battle after a battle and praise our success when it happens. This poem also reminds me of a friendship. It was written and recited for the first time on the wake of another Serbian poet, Djura Jaksic.

When a wife of my friend died few years ago, I tried to find a translation of this poem into French. I couldn't. So I tried to explain him the meaning. He understood. He felt what the poet tried to say. That why this song needed to be read (from the wall) over and over again. It needs to remind us constantly of how precious life is.

translation by Vedran Dronjic:

Have you been, my young brethren,

Have you ever been to a graveyard,

To a large graveyard?

– Well, we are always in a graveyard.

The earth we walk on is a graveyard;

The water we sail on is a graveyard;

Yards and gardens are graveyards;

Hills and valleys are graveyards,

Each foot

Grave next to grave.

The monument of all times is a graveyard;

The books we read are a graveyard;

The history book of all lands,

Of the olden emperors, kings,

And the obituary of higher images

Of the chosen ones, of martyrs,

From as far back as memory goes;

It’s all a graveyard –

But a cradle too.

There is no name and no number

For all the stars high above,

And even less can there be number and remembrance

For the graves in the dear earth!

Millions were swallowed by darkness,

The pitch darkness of many a millennium,

Nobody remembers them still,

But a candle always burns for some of them.

It is either a candle, or the name is bright,

Or the deeds are ever-burning,

So that they adorn with their rays

The rows of the endless cemetery.

These graves,

Old, new,

They shine

For every generation –

When minds get engrossed in the past

For them not to get lost in the darkness;

When you plunge into the holy ancient times,

Both holy and cursed ancient times,

For your thought not to get you off your way.

They are harbinger fires,

Which reach from distant eons

In that long procession –

Shining a light for one another

With a stream which flows forth,

Striving toward a single goal, –

And so the bright beams

And so the bright traces

Of a single spirit of various ages,

A spirit which has no grave.

– It merely chucks the bones into the grave,

Shakes off the ashes which impede it.

For a faster progress, higher flight

Toward an elevated future.

He who turns around to look

With a clear eye and sight

At these bright graves,

History books in a long succession,

He must hear how,

Through centuries, through mist,

Grandfather to grandson, father to son,

Warrior to warrior

Loudly cried:

‘Where I stopped – you will go!’

‘What I couldn’t – you will do!’

‘Where I couldn’t – you’ll arrive!’

‘Whatever we owe – you pay it off!’

These are the words, these are the voices,

Which adorn the past,

Which penetrate through the world of darkness

From those shining graves,

Binding with a thunderous roar

And with a divine force,

Binding centuries together

And binding man with man.

[…]

Sofie from Seattle bought my heart straight away. Mellow tunes, guitars, strange instruments, beautiful voices. I melted, I listened carefully to find all the thin layers of emotions in their words, my eyes were wet, I smiled and I closed my eyes. That's what music does to you. It makes you feel something, just like a particular perfume that brings subtle memories.

First time I listened to this song I heard seagulls. I heard the river. I heard some voices in the background. This song sounded to me like beautiful late summer day and like new expectations.

This EP cover is the first of our collaborations. This fall some more will happen. I am happy to plunge into Sofie from Seattle's music, this time on a level of a participant.

For all the news, you can follow them here.

I hope you will enjoy!

I generally believe that our food could have munch better quality only if we would demand that. We are the customers and we CAN demand that. We can ask for meat with less male hormones and fruit with less female hormones and veggies with less pesticides and we can organize protest against all the "E"s in out food, but we simply don't have time for that... It's not that we don't care - we don't have time for that.

And that's sad. Because we are what we eat. And we are not getting any younger. We need to balance our meals. We need to eat healthy things. We need to be more aware what is in our food, what exactly we are consuming.

Green one is the good "cop", red one is the bad "cop". The green one is saying to the red one that they should go and continue informing people about the "good" food and "bad" food by scanning the bar codes.

There is a lovely french application, called Kwalito. You go to the supermarket, and scan the barcode of the chosen product. BAM! - Kwalito informs you what allergens that chosen product has. It also informs you what else is inside - eggs, emulgators, traces of nuts.... It is great for you if you are vegan or vegetarian. It is great for you if you are gluten or lactose intolerant. It is great for you if you care about your health. And also it is free! (in French, but free)

"But stop eating candies - they are full of artificial colors!"

One day, Aleksandra, one of the two master minds behind the whole project, asked me to do a small drawing every week for the Kwalito. She told me the story why they started the whole project and why they designed the whole application. I listened to her and said "YES" straight away. Since May, I am spending my Thursday with two funny, and well informed gentlemen (in the drawings). We call them les Kwalutins. I am drawing their stories and places they visited. Often, very often, they remind me how easy it is to choose healthy food. And often they remind me that I don't do that. Now, we have no excuses - healthy food search (or the search for food that suits you) just got easier... At least in France ;)

Green one: "There's nothing better that the fresh fish"
Red one: "You can also find it in the supermarket and cut in the fish fingers"

Kwalito stories are out every Friday!

When I was born, Slovenia was the part of the country where I was born. Later it became a separate country. It was once on our way to the mountains somewhere in Austria. We stopped in the capital, Ljubljana, but just for a drink.

This year I was visiting Slovenia again, this time I stayed for a few days there and I had a chance to explore it well. Ljubljana, at least. My company was great, weather was a bit tropical and the capital itself was gorgeous.

Here are a few drawing from my journal:

There is a song that starts playing in my head every time somebody says July. I heard it for the first time few months ago. On a cold day and July was far away. Sofie from Seattle sounded mellow and soft. And vibrating. I was yearning for warms days.
Now, when I am melting under the AC, Sofie from Seattle sounds refreshing. And mellow and soft.

day 36

Few years ago I was walking around, taking photos and enjoying in the serendipity on the road. Somehow I realized I gathered so many drawings and illustration that it was time for me to put them on a world wide web. And that's how all of it started. I started drawing more and more. Drawing became an important part of daily routine.

I also bought new phone somewhere in the late 2013. I stopped carrying my favorite camera around. I would take a photo and post in on instagram. BAM. Few lines. Few hashtags. That's all. Few weeks ago, I was going through my accounts and I realized how many things I gathered here, on this blog. How many memories, how many feelings. And I decided to revive it. I decided to make this blog my think-tank again. And also a recorder of the things happening.

day 34

Second thing why I decided to revive this blog was because I finished the project called #100daysofparis. I put illustrations of my Parisian adventures for 100 days every day on instagram. I made a website out of it. It made my heart beat, and it made my heart sink. It made me happy and it made me melancholic. And it made me overwhelmed. Now, those 100 days are gone. Life is a fast lane. We need to record our progress. Or we just to need to capture our stories on a page. So we can laugh about it now and we can laugh about it later. I will share here some of those catches. Some of those magic moments.

Here are my fav drawings from #100daysofparis. Every drawing has a story so be sure to click on the number under it in order to read it.