winter

Like a pulsating mix of champagne and meteors

/ Alessandra Nicole / Leave a comment

New York City skyline Photographs by Alessandra Nicole

A woman like me alone in a city like this spells trouble, which is presumed, and I wish that you were here for the adventure. I love New York City like I will never again love any inanimate object that seems real and breathing to me, she embraces me every time, my passionate lover.

I am seated in patient anticipation. I hear her voice from afar only to come around the curve after Newark and see her brightly dyed hair tumble upon the nape of her bone-white neck in the form of the latest color scheme on the top of the Empire State Building. Her hands stretch out to greet me with a different bauble for every finger of her warm-heart-cold-hands. I leave the train, climb the escalator, step through the automatic doors to 8th Avenue, and am intertwined with her once more. She steals my breath into her mouth and slaps me across the face with her icy January winds for not calling. I love her with all of my heart and I let her seduce me, caressing every part of me, until I look at my cell phone and see it’s after midnight and someone else is awaiting my arrival.

She pouts with her arms suddenly folded, the black lace strap of her bra slipping down over her shoulder, and I put my finger to her blood red lips, Shh, not tonight, but I will be back tomorrow. I’m just as disappointed to leave as she is to see me go, onto the ferry, where she closes her eyes in sorrow like a woman who knows she’s the Other One in my life, and I realize some of her glittering eyeshadow has rubbed off on my cheek. A man next to me thinks I am crying, and maybe I am a little teary at the heartstopping way her skyline is sparkling like a pulsating mix of champagne and meteors; he offers me a handkerchief.

Anyone would be jealous of the way I dream of her at night, the way I think about her throughout days away. In the morning, she awakes me with the memory of her warm deep kisses and here I sit at 9:30am, plotting the hour when I will steal away to my secret lover New York City. Oh, if only you could see us when we’re together…

words ©️Alessandra Nicole 2004

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Peace + Ease

/ Alessandra Nicole / Leave a comment

It’s been a turbulent few months politically stateside inviting plenty of opportunities to unplug and allow the soul to expand and exhale. So busy- I haven’t had enough time on my hands to keep up with my blog so I’ll just put this little slice of heaven 

right 

         about 

                       here.  ☺️

“11:11; make a wish!” she said. 

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An Ephemeral Question
A friend on FB who is known for asking engaging questions posed the simple query “what is your favorite number?” and here is my answer, elaborated: 

I identify with 11 very much. Getting the practical numerology out of the way: My birthday is 11/22, (at 2:22 AM in Germany- so I like seeing double twos as well of course, being eleven more than eleven.) Digging a little deeper: 11 to me as a lonely only child symbolizes growing up with my own shadow (and embracing that shadow) as my best friend- being my own gravity. I see it as a quiet numeral. I had a very rich inner life and a vivid imagination that colors my every heartbeat and interaction even now. It means self-sufficiency and that my haven is solitude. I feel it is the most elegant-sounding number, too: “Eleven“. Unsurprisingly, I see the digits absolutely everywhere- even in heartbreaking, heart-stopping, places, like the day I saw the largest physical 11 crumble right in front of me to the ground. 

What is number is auspicious to you and why? 

unexpected Snow!

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I am cozy, hot coffee in-hand, in my creative nook today editing last night’s event shoot while listening to Neil Finn as the snow falls softly outside- this late in March! I can’t believe I’m hearing snow plows scraping along the curvy bend outside the house. It was 65° just three days ago! Some craggy old seasons truly don’t know when to let go, move on, stop it’s petty vanity and let the new season settle in- WE ARE ALL READY for it. Your grace has withered away and you have Long overstayed. Winter, you are OVER! As Neil Finn sings in his song Recluse, you are like a “dog pissing on a statue,” trying to mark your territory and get your last shots in before delving back down below the equator. Go bully another continent! Give us fresh flourishing sun-kissed Spring! Freedom and light and colour and life-giving inhales and exhales! 

A morning glance from my personal Instagram account:  My day lily looks forlornly out at the snowy vista. She was looking forward to being planted outside this weekend but we’ll likely wait another week. 

I have seen the world turning
in time you’ll find that some things
travel faster than light
In time you’ll recognise that love is larger than life 
-Neil Mullane Finn, Faster Than Light

We got to see Neil Finn perform last year on Apr 11th at the Keswick Theatre in Glenside, PA, front and center, and were sent home swooning on a moonbeam of love. Such a great show! 

March Force

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It is March 4th and this week in southeastern Pennsylvania we have been experiencing the strangest winter weather yet. 

A 3-day storm is moving through and has brought us water in every form! Yesterday, everything was quickly encased in an inch of solid ice. Today brought temps in the 40s so the lingering snow from last week began to melt which caused a magical fog. Tonight it has been raining torrentially and after midnight the rain is forecast to turn to snow that will bring upwards of 6″ in accumulation. 







View these images on Alessandra’s Instagram: Alessandra_Official

Sunday Epeolatry

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Yesterday, we tucked ourselves hand-in-hand, book-bossomed, into a warm coffee shoppe with our recent findings from the book trader on 2nd + Market to try to revive a little inner apricity and to kill time before catching a film.

Taking a moment between pages and sips of fresh coffee in my typical state of glowy vorfreude to steal a glance at and a gaze from my mate, I noticed this fun typography:

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Find Alessandra on Instagram @Alessandra_Official | Twitter @novembergrlfoto

Tree update

/ Alessandra Nicole / 1 Comment

Snow began to fall in Chester County, PA this afternoon causing a poetic hush over the land so I decided to grab my gloves and go see The New Tree. The landowner apparently had a new tree air lifted and planted right where the infamous one was before lightning brought it down in June. I was told that when he bought the property he was just as enamored with the tree as were many of us in the region and he made (obviously) heroic efforts to reestablish the alluring landscape it created.

Today was the first time I saw this replacement tree… and true, it still makes a great a picture, but it’s really not quite the same– and it’s not because I’m sentimental or a purist. The shape of this tree is different on the bottom; the branches do not create the same special aesthetic as the original Tree. This new tree will still get some face, lens, and paintbrush time out of me despite the differing nuance in silhouette but it does not possess the same level of captivation for me.

I had also deep down hoped they would plant a sapling and we would all get to enjoy seeing it grow year after year into something of it’s own. I didn’t expect a whole mature tree to be uprooted and transplanted in it’s place.

The spell has been broken! and in my peripheral I will be scanning horizons for a new Tree muse. My “This Little Girl / The Tree Grows” project will be paying homage to the original Tree up on the Hill that provided the catalyst to a literary transformation in me and my creative work. (More on that in the coming New Year!)

See the original Requiem for a Tree blog post HERE.

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For Anita

/ Alessandra Nicole / 6 Comments

I lost a friend and an irreplaceable, impeccably kindred spirit just before Thanksgiving suddenly and much sooner than I ever, ever expected. She was just 31. Beyond that, I really have no words for it.

Turning down a lane behind Barnard Orchards in Chester County, PA this foggy misty morning I drank in this tranquility, and wept.

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Prose: Chesapeake Bay Sunset – Alessandra Nicole

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Once upon a time many chapters of life ago I worked out of Washington, DC and would commute at the end of each week back to Delaware and Pennsylvania. I wrote this on one such trek eastward this time eleven years past. Freshly “post 9/11”, having been immersed in a strange new world of confusing and radical precedents (especially regarding travel, which was a large part of my experience back then) and fear (I worked nationally and within a myriad of federal government buildings daily) what I felt below was like coming up for gulps of delicious life-giving oxygen.

Chesapeake Bay Sunset

by Alessandra Nicole
January 2002

The moon is bright and full and I actually got out of work before dark for once. The sun was setting over the great Chesapeake Bay as I crossed the five-mile bay bridge.

Suddenly, a feeling of euphoria welled up from somewhere deep within me, like my soul woke up from a nap and was stretching. I began to feel so peaceful and happy that tears came to my eyes. Seeing both the sun setting and the fat moon hanging in the sky like it was I had to pull over to give them my full attention.

I looked out over the Bay as vibrant violets and tangerines lost their tempers and exploded into an astonishing array of furious flames filling the clouds overhead with a raging fever. What was even more breathtaking was the reflection made in the water, perfectly mirrored as if there was no horizon line, and it didn’t even stagger as it was sliced in half by a sharp ocean liner. I stood there and imagined myself diving into that reflection, swimming and swirling with the mercury-stained sun and the shy stars, swept into a Technicolor tide of tremendous color play. I waited until the very tip of the sun vanished below the horizon, and filled my lungs with the sweet Bay air musk I grew up with.

The stars began to pop out by the thousands, fluttering like a swarm of sparkling fireflies. It was as if the Man in the Moon uncorked a bottle of glimmering champagne in celebration of the beginning of night. I waited until all of the stars appeared, bowing to their royalty that magnificent and full moon which was set up into the sky like a topaz gem set into the crown of a queen.

I waited until a gentle northeastern January breeze ran her chilly fingers through my hair, whispering into my ears that night had begun and the temperature had dropped. I climbed back into my little car and let the moon lead me east, and I drove up the moonbeams to my home.

tiny island

/ Alessandra Nicole / 2 Comments

pteridomania {noun} “fern fever”:

a term coined in 1855 by Charles Kinglsey in reference to the Victorian fern-collecting craze

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At the beginning of Autumn last year, my beau gifted me the book “Tiny World Terrariums” by Michelle Inciarrano and Katy Maslow, the creators of Twig Terrariums (http://www.twigterrariums.com.) I have always been captivated by terrariums and was eager to learn what it takes to make a successful little ecosystem of my own.

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The process was an amazingly rewarding little journey. I purchased a Weck jar and went hunting throughout Chester County, PA for the many elements over a period of weeks. I used soil, moss, and small pretty stones I found along the Brandwyine River on hikes with my beau around his home and out at The Laurels (http://www.brandywineconservancy.org/laurelsPreserve.html.)

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After consulting a bit with the professional green thumbs at one of my most favorite indulgences, Terrain (http://www.shopterrain.com/styers/) I topped this new little world off with a little plant from there that reminded me of a favorite tree.

I’m very proud of my inaugural terrarium and am already looking for glass and moss for my next one! I think I’m going to seek out some vintage-y apothecary glass for it this time and maybe introduce some tiny imaginative creatures.