My grand-mother is brilliant. She chooses spectacular incredibly witty, and appropriate greeting cards, writes wonderful hand-written letters (delivered by snail-mail -- yes) with newspaper and magazine snippets that she know's I would love to see, and her gifts are well-chosen books. As a child, my grandmother gifted me a copy of "Alice's adventures underground" by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. This original manuscript (of the now condensed children's book version - famously known as "Alice in Wonderland") is hand-written, and even contains the original story illustrations and page art-work. The back-story, imagination, and characters of this book have served as inspiration over the years -- constantly reminding me to think outside the box, trust my intuition, and allow my imagination to run wild.
This week during an overhaul of my book collection, I found this gem once more. After years under-ground, and then in wonderland. I decided it was about time Alice was introduced to the jungle..
"Alice's Adventures In Jungle-Land"
"I could tell you my adventures
–beginning from this morning,’
said Alice a little timidly:
‘but it’s no use going back to yesterday,
because I was a different person then.’"
“Who are YOU?” said the Caterpillar. This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation.
Alice replied, rather shyly, “I–I hardly know, sir, just at present...
at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning,
but I think I must have been
changed several times since then.”
“I'm afraid I can't explain myself, sir.
Because I am not myself,
you see?”
Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,”
she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen.
“When I was your age,
I always did it for half-an-hour a day.
Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as
six impossible things before breakfast.”
Reminder : allow yourself to keep changing and growing. Allow your imagination to run wild. Never stop believing in the impossible. And definitely DO talk to strangers.
and eat cake.
Photography - Kieron Lennan | Concept, styling, edits - Rebecca Stirm