This week, I am in the gentle haze that follows travel. Years ago, jet lag would have undone me. After so many seasons of early parenting and fractured sleep though, the jet lag feels almost companionable now. It reminds me that the world is wide and that the body can find its place in it, even when the hours are uneven.
Being without a phone in London brought its own kind of haze. I had secretly hoped for cinematic clarity. I wanted time to slow and the world to tilt into a perfectly analog dream. That did not happen. What I noticed instead was how much of my creative life truly permeates digital channels. My ideas run through my notebooks and my notes app, my minds eye and my camera roll. I love sharing my inner world with you on Instagram. I am devoted to the slow, analog pleasures of letters and wax seals. Yet I am not trying to escape the digital world. These two realms feel like companions. I enjoy both and I need both.
When I was a preteen on AOL Instant Messenger, the digital world felt half real, something like a dim hallway where people drifted in and out as usernames. Now it feels entirely real because so many of our relationships exist without physical form at all. That recognition makes letter writing feel even more powerful to me. If a screen can carry so much feeling, imagine what becomes possible on paper. It has the immediacy of the digital and the presence of something you can hold in your hands, something that carries a piece of you.
There were other kinds of fog on this trip. AtBloom, a perfume shop in Covent Garden, an associate named Nicholas led my friend and I through a beautiful afternoon of scent. I left with a few new fragrances. He also introduced me to a perfume named London Fog, created by an English perfumer, Brandt London. Nicholas had never heard of the drink until he moved to Edinburgh, where expatriate students ordered it with devotion. I loved that. A drink named for a city, discovered somewhere else entirely.
I kept thinking about that perfume on the flight home. London Fog, made in London, learned about in Edinburgh, carried back to Seattle in my suitcase. Layers of haze stacked on each other. Nothing quite where you expect it, yet everything somehow meaningful. That feels like the truth of this moment for me. The world is both tangible and digital, present and remembered, scented and pixelated. I keep finding myself somewhere in the middle, where the fog does not erase anything at all. It softens the edges just enough to make the experience novel.
The Newest Color - London Fog
Inspired by my favorite hot drink, I am launching a new wax color today called London Fog. It is a soft, luminous light brown with a gentle touch of pastel. It feels a shade quieter than tan and has the calm presence of something warm held between your hands.
When the first étuis went out to their new homes in January, it felt almost impossible to imagine that all ninety nine would find their collectors within the year. Now we are down to only twelve. Watching this community grow has been one of the most meaningful aspects of my work. I know how much each of your étuis mean to you, and I am so honored to have these pieces find their way to you.
The newest penny will be unveiled later this week. Anyone who purchases an étui between now and the unveiling will receive the new penny along with the standard set of three.
