I remember playing outside while my Mom was getting dinner ready, studying bugs and branches and bushes halfway between flowering and Fall. Or lying on my stomach contemplating the fairy dust that filtered through shafts of light. Or staring with ridiculous adoration at my very first “real” piece of jewelry given to me by an eccentric aunt. A ring with 7 opals, in a row, across the top of the band. I lost that ring when I was 11, and never got over it. I loved it. I’d spent hours looking into each of those seven stones, watching them shimmer and shift with — what seemed like — Life. I spent even more hours trying to find the ring, between every blade of grass in our yard. Looking very closely.

I’ve always liked to do that—to put my nose right up to the object of interest. Add in the fact that i’m near-sighted (very), and you’ve got a person who believes she can understand the meaning of just about anything if she just peers at it with enough intensity. Of course I don’t understand the tiniest fraction of what I'd like to, but while I’m looking, I’m falling in love with my material world. With each freckle, dimple, imperfection, lint-speck and particle.

So it’s with joy that I undertake a new project with illustrator (and fellow near-sighted observer), Anne Smith, to reveal and revel in those things that are right in front of our eyes. She’ll be doing what she does brilliantly, making art, and I’ll be giving words to our extended game of I Spy. You can find us at work on our Instagram page, @there_for_paper. I hope you’ll follow us for the duration of our experiment. Rumor has it we may, someday, be taking requests. See you there! Charlotte