Simply Is
Me & You Ireland, July 2012
Real happiness lies in that which never comes nor goes but just simply is.
- yogi tea
Every now and then that yogi tea knows what its talking about. Every now and again you get that one that actually applies to the moment and makes sense. While I do my fare share of eye rolling at most of the tea prophesies I receive, I also have a superstitious streak and do believe that the universe speaks to you if you only listen. So I'm listening to the damn tea.
This all ties into our most recent series of stories on our Instagram. John had uploaded a vast quantity of our photos onto Amazon Prime account ( For those of you who have an account there currently is not limit for your photo storage so we are taking advantage of this while we can ) photos going all the way back to 2006. Photos from before we were together! All of this triggered a huge trip down a rabbit hole of memory.
Coming or going ? I don’t remember we took so many flights but isn’t it something?
This is what saying goodbye to Maurizio looks like.
I know we're not the only ones sharing our backstory nor are we the first to comment on the need to show more transparency in practice. Beyond feeling a human need to have connection I think its also so valuable to share ones origin. To bear witness to success in whatever capacity was achieved through a saga so to speak. Some of this I am sure is self indulgent sure but I also think , like a good critique , our photo archives can teach us about where we are and we need to be. They speak so much to who we were at the time. Our interests, fashion, skill sets and passions and how different they all were before the standard of Instagram. I recounted in our stories section that it dawned on me for the first time that our first big trip together in 2012 was the catalyst for what would become our business - appartion.
And it made me think about how much our mentality has changed since those early days. Not only because we have grown as artists and partners but because of Instagram influence. While IG made it's debut in 2010 it just wasnt a part of our vocabulary, our lives. Heck we didn’t even get smart phones or have consistent internet until 2012. We couldn't afford international data plans so we used a blog so that our parents could know we were alive when we did come across some wifi ( here is a link to John's Hesselbl0g circa 2010 )
Me & the gear. Travel bags were not what they are now and I certainly didn’t need to pack a tent in hindsight.
Clearly didn’t know John was taking this.
Our first stop - Barcelona Spain. Airbnb didn’t exist so booking.com got us this room for $50 a night. A balcony, breakfast included and the tiniest cage elevator you’ve ever seen (the two of us almost didn’t fit) - just heaven.
This is how we ate the entire trip save for the three meals we ate at restaurants.
When we started traveling together and the way in which we traveled was of born of a romantic vagabond ambition. While our intent ultimately was to document our life and travels to share with others there was no real president ( save for the photos of our travel heros leaps and bounds ahead of us) . We were very young, newly in love and very much wrapped up in our own little world. A world that only we saw. And I realized looking back the other day that those journeys , our past has mostly stayed that way.
John was all work and no play back then especially in those stunning 80’s overalls Maurizio lent him.
Burning brush is no joke.
We joked that we would live here but ironically it wasn’t far off from the Olneyville warehouse space I had lived in before John and I dated.
Everything BIG (before Instagram) has mostly remained tucked away. While I have sprinkled some "archives" throughout our profile, the standards of IG being what they are today had some bearing on what I shared. I felt trepidation. Older photos may not have the same color grading we use now. Our compositions may not have been as strong. Our (my) fashion choices at the time may not have been as “polished” as they are now. Our traveling methods not as glamorous. And mainly we overall have progressed more maturely as artists. But as I said before isn't that the point? To constantly keep journeying to striving towards learning and growing? And while there is value of course in creating a portfolio one is proud of that may aid to getting more work not all of life is a highlight reel. Some of the photos John and I find the most inspiring are those in the outtake section. Those that speak to the emotion or best tell a story.
One of our jobs on Maurizio’s farm was to take care of the chickens and geese. The day after we arrived a hen who was working on hatching some chicks very suddenly passed away.
We didn’t have an incubator but with the help of a sweater and a toaster oven set very low we managed to hatch two chicks.
My babies.
It was the Prinano street market. I made friends with the cheese man and we made a trade a picture for a painters hat with the cheese logo on it. We mailed him a print but never got a hat but heck what a memory.
To that point John and I just watched the recently released Patagonia origin film - Mountain of Storms with Yvon Chouinard. It's the 1968 precursor to the Jeff Johnson documentary 180 Degrees South. It's phenomenal. Yes these people Doug Tompkins, Yvon Chouinard and Dick Dorworth are insane athletes but thats not the intriguing part.It's their determination. Their scrappiness. Their tool making, their van breaking down, their selling the gear, the inclement weather, their imperfect narration , their vulnerability all combined together that makes it compelling.
Maurizio’s work van only had two front seats so I rode in the back. I didn’t mind as I was catching up on all the sleep I had missed out on from being a barista for half a dozen years. I still don’t think I've fully caught up.
John’s turn to be in the back of the van. He was always taking pictures of his feet at this time in fact he once put out a zine and hid it in the libarary. It was called “ When I have nothing to photograph I take pictures of my feet”.
When we shared our outtakes form that 2012 journey honestly it was somewhat vulnerable to divulge but not embarrassing. If anything I was so proud of our resourcefulness and our ability to just jump right in without truly knowing what we were doing. And mostly of our growth since then.I bet even Ivon Chinard feels the same way about his 1968 trip. So to go back to that tea quote it's best to take our past (imperfections and all ) as something that simply is. You can bury it. You can edit it.Or you can just own up to it and share what you've learned. *
Farming in action.
Nothing beats line dried laundry
* as a footnote to this writing there are so many many photos from this trip - too many to include and some that I have already shared already on our IG. I just wanted to share a sampling of those outtakes , some that I previously didn’t feel made the cut, the ones that show just where we were at. I also wanted to mention that the photos were all taken on film with a Hasselblad ( we actually tried to go to the Hasselblad factory when we were in Sweden but it had moved).
Real unfiltered life on Maurizio’s farm.
Breakfast with the regazzi - they had never had pancakes before!
Despite his wild look John was actually quite a good driver and expertly navigated the blind curves of the Isola de Elba.
Windblow on the Irish coast - he fits right in.
Nita Maurizo’s partner holding one of the many kittens born on the farm that year. This photo speaks so much to her sweet playful character.
Even the most gruff exterior divulges their weakness
On Silvana’s Farm. It may look like i’m surfing the web but I am really reading . We couldn’t afford data plans and Silvana’s farm had no WiFi so my workaround was the Kindle app. At that time you could read all the classics for free which was wonderful. This was also the same morning I found a lizard in my bed ( good thing I checked before I got in).
Silvana is an amazing baker. She got all her flour in these big bags my job was to sift it all using her beautiful vintage sifters ( I certainly got an arm workout).
Paulina and I. She would follow me everywhere I went (to the point where I admittedly would sometimes get annoyed) and sleep on the floor of our little house. After our stay here she disappeared from Silvana’s farm.I miss that sweet girl.
Silvana’s kitchen - where I learned the beauty of using ash as soap.
Silvana found this little nest in the outdoor pizza oven.
This couple was walking in front of us on our way to the Giants Causeway. We joked we would never be “that couple”. Years later we find that we love the same style of gear and more often than not end up twining.
Giant’s Causeway
It rains a lot in Ireland. One minute its sunny, the next rain and sometimes both at the same time.During one shower we were lucky enough to find shelter in a cave. I reached into my purse and found a forgotten Guinness which John and I split as we waited out the rain.
The roads in Ireland are confusing even with a map and a gps. We somehow ended up at a little B'&B way out in Glean Cholm Cille. This was the view on the way to the little pub we found just outside the place we were staying. Between breaking into Gaelic and serving drinks the bartender would sporadically throw peat on the fire. It was like stepping back into one of my favorite movies The Secret of Roan Inish.
John and his cousin Keiran in Galway. I was always told the Irish were stout people.
John’s Irish side still lives in Monahan on the family farm. Patty passed away a few years back but I will never forget his warm smile or the shot of whisky he offered us as a welcome to his home,
John and I stayed at a hostel down the road from my cousins Pelle and Brigitta. It was a bit strange because we were the only guests , it was a dry establishment ( which didn’t know when we booked it for Midsommar the most party hearty event in Sweden) and there simultaneously a teen summer camp also being hosted on site. Needless to say we snuck in some beverages and had a lovely time strolling to the lake or riding our bikes to Pelle & Brigitta house. We even got to witness a traditional Maypole raising.
Remind you of the Perks of Being a Wallflower? That’s what we were going for. Also I still have these shoes - John bought them for me on the Isola de Elba as a birthday present and I have called them my birthday shoes ever since.
At my cousin Karin’s house on my 26 birthday. They made me a feast and brought me the most beautiful Midsommar crown which I still have dried and hanging on my wall.
And this is what it looks like when you get detained and almost miss your flight because you’ve gone through Irish Customs and foolishly claimed the smoked packed sausage you bought for your sister’s birthday because you saw there were drug dogs sniffing people’s bags and you thought if you didn’t claim what you had they might think you were a drug mule. I asked the officer if they had a giant BBQ with all the confiscated goods - no it gets thrown away. Also apparently making jokes isn’t funny. So my sister didn’t get her sausage but she did get a print of this photo as a b day present that year.
