Rhiannon

October 12, 2022 Renee Magnusson

I have a few mantras that I live by. Words that guide me back to myself over and over again. One of them is my signature “Live Wild. Stay Gold.” These words have so much meaning to me. They have alchemy in them. Lead into gold.

To live wild is to stop breaking my own heart. For me it means making my own rules, loving my pack, and staying feral in a way I have defined for myself. Living wild means actually thinking about what I want and what is enough and where there needs to be less and more. It is a reminder to be IN my life and the experiences, the heartache, the frustration, the enchantment, and the celebrations because there is magic in being in your life.

Stay gold carries the lineage of The Outsiders (one of my fave books). The Outsiders were a band of wild others who found each other and looked after one another. Stay gold is a reference to a Robert Frost poem in the story. "Nothing gold can stay" - meaning the only true thing is death. From that "stay gold" - means be true to yourself while you are here.

The last seven years have been really tough. My life caught fire in 2015 and for a few years I left the flames behind but took the heat with me. Then 2020 came along and we all know what happened then and didn’t we all wonder how it could get worse? For me, in a weird way 2022 has been worse.

You all know I lost Lola on August 20th. (Thank you so much for supporting me through that. I am still unable to read the notes and messages but I will get there. ) I feel like my heart has gone walkabout. It has hung a back in 15 sign on my ribcage. It is on hiatus and I had no idea when it would return it regular programming.

I turned back to what works. Practical magic. My routines that I make into ritual. And my mantras. I have been examining the ways I break my own heart quite a bit since since I became floofless, and turned 55, and along with that I have been looking at my life through the lens of my love languages of space, ease, simplicity, softness, and enchantment.

The summary of all those is I want some peace and consistency. I need things to stay the same for a little while so I can focus on some other stuff that keep getting back burnered. But I really miss the feline energy that is part of my magic and my fuel. Then last week I got a message from my friend Jen…

It seems her friend Emma had found a mini panther crying loudly in some bushes. They heard her as they walked by. Scared and alone they scooped her up and brought her in and fed her and took her to the vet but there is o microchip or tattoo and she is healthy with no fleas and is about 12-14 weeks old. They did the due diligence to see if someone was looking for her but no one came forward so we suspect she was dumped for the coyotes to get. Theyhave an elderly dog who is anti cat and my friend wondered if I could maybe take her. After some refection I decided to stop breaking my own heart and said yes.

Friends I would like to introduce you to Rhiannon. (shout out to Effy for the name) but I call her RiRi. This is her on her first few nights here.

Her FULL name is Rhiannon Gisele Isabella Ruby Moon Magnusson. It’s a lot I know but she can handle it. As my friend said “she handled the dark alleys of the streets until rescued, all 2 lbs of flesh and courage and might.”

a fierce little black panther with white teeth and a pink tongue yelling.

I picked her up a week ago. She was very scared and spent two days in the closet only coming out at night. She also peed on my bed but we will let that slide. I only decided on her name today. I couldn’t name her until l got to know her.

A week in here is what we know so far:

She is a night owl and she likes to watch tv. Last night she made biscuits for the first time and I cried. She started meowing Saturday and she is a talker. She loves toys and having her cheeks rubbed and when she stretches she forgets to come out of it and just lays there sound asleep and really long. She is slightly bowlegged but struts like she is on a runway. She is only just discovering the cat tree. Today she began her first shift as my assistant.

She holds one paw in the air when she is sitting (exactly like Lola used to) and I have already woken up to this. #stanleycam

a stuffed llama named Stanley has been tipped over from his place between a speaker an a baskets of magazines which sit under a credenza filled with plants and fabulous smalls.

Since 2013 I have walked 6 amazing felines to the rainbow bridge and was honoured to do so. I loved every single one of them like I birthed them from my loins and I still miss them dally in different ways and for different reasons. I love senior cats and black cats because they are the unwanted ones that have trouble finding homes and I have been searching for home for a while so I get it. By home I mean the place, not the apartment. My apartments and the magic I put in to them are part of what has kept me here.

For now though…it’s time for my heart to heal with a baby familiar. She is pure magic and I would die for her already.

I am going to let her settle in and maybe go back for Stevie Nicks, the senior who buried her head in my neck and let me cry into her fur for ten minutes, who I am told is just fine with other cats. I think she is shelter depressed and that is why she is a loaf but right now it’s all about settling in RiRi so she feels safe and soaking up the kitten energy. Be prepared to be bombarded with photos.

Live wild. Stay gold.

Thanks for hanging out with me.

Renee xx

My French side...

August 1, 2022 Renee Magnusson

dark hardwood, a stairwell hung with framed art, and a corner nook with a plant, framed art, two bistro chairs and a pedestal table — a corner nook with French style bistro chairs and a marble topped pedestal table next to a large plant and a wall of framed art. I AM OBSESSED.

I was looking at my DNA results the other day because I got an email from Ancestry and every time I log on it makes me laugh because I am not split into many categories. Two primary - Iceland and France. I am currently obsessed with everything French because I am veery much in the missing of my mom and Aunt and they both loved that aesthetic and wore it well. I saw a woman on TikTok who had a little corner bistro table and French bistro chairs and didn’t save it but I found this photo on Pinterest and I AM OBSESSED. I want a little space like this so I can be more intentional and slow with my eating. Actually I want it exactly like this. Creamy white walls, and interesting vintage framed art and a marble topped table with a black pedestal base and two bistro chairs but I would have floral fabric seats I think. Or plain velvet. In a teal or gold.

Why amI telling you this? A little back story:

At the beginning of this year I gave myself the promise that I would devote 6 months to just me and my work. It was so fabulous I decided to devote the rest of the year to it. No dating. Very little socializing. A whole lot of daydreaming and miles and miles of tv and movies and music and books full of secret messages to guide me through the next 45 years of my life (assuming I live to 100 which is my plan).

Then the Lola diagnosis hit and I fell deep into a well of anticipatory grief and a lot of the space I had made in the first 4 months of the year vanished into thin air. Not all of it but quite a bit.

Things like how I was looking after myself and how I was looking after my home. All the creative projects I was working on came to a dead stop and things I loved doing I stopped. The only thing I did with love and consistency (other than helicopter parent) Lola was Your Favorite Self tour and Auntie Collection. I kept those commitments to my kittens and wild ones and that pretty much ate up my bandwidth.

Lola is what Lola is. My absolute bestie of a cat daughter - who I feel I birthed from my loins - who has advanced kidney cancer but I don’t think she is days from death like I was told. Obviously cause that was early May and today is the beginning of August. I think her worm treatment for Leonard Colon - her intestinal parasite - is already helping, She has slowed down as seniors with medical conditions do and what happens is going to happen but I need to be back in the land of the living. I miss myself and I miss my life.

Re-entry is hard because when you sink to the bottom of the well of despair you have to float back up again. I started with a few things I had put off. I made a dentist appointment and showed up for it and it was brutal but I survived and I am proud of myself. I made a chiro appointment and showed up (a few times now) because all my surgeries and depression and covid anxiety has locked my back and hips and I miss my body moving like it used to. Both of these things are gonna be a slow and painful process that I have decided to give myself grace to muddle through and I will make more appointments and show up for those as well.

My love languages remain space, ease, and simplicity so I am doing a purge thing I saw years ago where you get rid of one thing on day one and two things on day two and so on. I know that letting go is now a superpower of mine after years of leaving claw marks on everything I let go of so I am excited about that. When that is done I will tweak my 2020 redecoration to include a little bistro spot because I already know I will make the space for it.

I am back on my duolingo and in a 28 day streak of Spanish and French. I am doing my silly mental health walks and as soon as the heat wave lifts this apartment is gonna get scrubbed with bleach and vinegar and all the auntie collection boxes will be properly packed and mailed. I had a bubble wrap issue - as in I couldn’t GET any and it’s here now and I want people to get their treasures so yay for that. I launched a wild musings for August that I created earlier this year and was supposed to be in spring. The timing of this tour being pleasure focused even though by my January plan it is delayed is not lost on me.

I love Leo season and the fire it brings and I am glad I trusted my gut with Lola this week and decided to start again. For me, that is the beauty of being human. I can always start again.

Live wild. Stay gold. Thanks for hanging out with me.

Renee xx

You can check out the daily purge on TikTok @wildmusings and you can read about the Pleasure Tour HERE.

2 Tin Cans and a String - 2021 edition...

April 4, 2021 Renee Magnusson

An entry from the 2019 blogalong came up on my FB memories today and I wanted to add to it.

Back Story: Across the lane from my apartment there is an old house that is cut into suites. There is a tiny attic suite with a little Romeo & Juliet balcony and I am OBSESSED WITH IT. (I have a fantasy about living in an attic suite) I can see it from my bed and one of the residents a few years ago was a woman who seemed to be my age. She lived alone and I could see plants through the window but no candles or twinkle lights. She would sit outside on the little balcony drinking wine and smoking and scrolling her phone and I felt such a kindred with her that I bought a neon flamingo and put it in the window as my own way of saying I see you and I feel you and you are not alone. (read the original here)

If I had two tin cans and a string I would ask the woman across the lane about her life and how she ended up living there.

Did anything happen?

Did someone leave or pass on?

Did she decide that there was more to what she was doing and that meant she needed to make changes?

Was she the one who left? The partner, the job, the family, the life?

Finally. After all that time what was enough?

What did it?

How did she end up in an adorable attic suite alone?

Would she tell me that story?

If she did I know I would have questions. And stories of my own.

I would ask her if she was single and if the people who wanted to date her shamed her for living in a wee apartment.

I would tell her when I started dating after That Guy left, and I was living in my tiny studio, that men tried to shame me because my place was small and I didn't own it. I was - god forbid - a RENTER.

I would tell her they would mention that they couldn't live in a space that small. Like I had already given them a key and was picking save the date cards.

I would tell her they would mention it in a condescending voice intended to wound me and then passive aggressively try to soothe it with a veiled promise that if I behaved like they wanted, then I could move in with them and my life would be so much better.

Like their houses out in deep suburbia were a consolation prize for my bad choices and somehow made them better than me.

And maybe if I was REALLY good I could help pay their mortgage in a house their ex picked out and decorated but really it was THEM doing ME a favour.

I would tell her all the things I discovered about myself as I confronted the shame put on me for living in a city that doctors and lawyers and rocket scientists can't afford to buy homes in then how the fuck can a woman who chose vintage over corporate so her soul wasn't sucked dry and made that choice hoping that just MAYBE that would leave energy to build a wee business for herself and keep the lights on but in no way meant I could afford to buy a home?

I would tell her that I know now Vancouver is not where I would buy anyway because my bones crave heat and I need the sun and this cost of living is not sustainable forever.

I would tell her that the choice of vintage over corporate resulted in enough bandwidth to make that wee business a reality and that it is ethical and magical and contains a body of work I am really fucking proud of.

I would tell her that the people that made the rules didn't have us in mind when they made them and that's ok.

I would ask her why men who are supposed to be wooing me wanted to shame me and what the fuck is that about anyway.

I would tell her that people who try to date us need to stay on the flirting train until they have our permission to get off it and vomit their shit all over us.

I would tell her that I am not a receptacle for men’s rage, entitlement, problems, or sperm and they need to act accordingly.

If I had 2 tin cans and a string I would tell her I discovered that sometimes the best life is clear direct communication, friendships that you can count on, allowing for more, sunlight and moonlight and a wee familiar to keep you company and plants that need love and attention.

I would tell that a big bed with soft thrifted linens and a laptop and a bodum and strong coffee from the Italian grocery store 3 blocks away might be the cure.

I would tell her that yards are nice but fire escapes and balconies are lovely too and you can still plant a pot of lavender and have all the magic you need.

I would tell her that giant pink vintage wine goblets with gold 8 point stars and 9 dollar wine is delicious and for 30 bucks you can have Netflix and Crave and have all the escape you want or need because there are stories to get lost in and characters to fall in love with.

If I had two tin cans and a string I would ask why she kept what she did to make that wee place her home.

I would ask her what is it about the stuff we love that is so special we keep it, when there is no room anymore for the stuff we had, and how did she decide what stays and what goes and was purging it hard?

I would tell her what I kept and how life is now and is actually so much better now because it’s clean and pure and enchanting and real in both the dark and the light and the loss and the celebration.

I would tell her about that photo of Bardot from the vintage Penthouse I got for 10 bucks on the street sale that we walked by before a pandemic kept us all in our homes and that photo hangs in my bathroom and keeps me company as I sip my coffee to the soundtrack of Lola’s screaming while I search for my eyelashes every morning wearing a black slip and a kimono that is 3 inches too long for me but embroidered with cherry blossoms and I wonder if she will relate?

I would tell her that healing looks different than you thought it might and to honour your grief and men lie but that is not a reflection on us and adopting special needs senior cats might be a sweet spot even if it brings more loss and Zoom visits don’t replace in real life ones but they sure do help and one day the world will open up and we can all go for breakfast and blackboard walls are life giving and muses are everywhere and to never stop wanting more even if you have enough because it is revolutionary for women to want.

I would tell her when she sees the pink flamingo light in my window it is a secret message from all of the woman who said no to a misogynistic, patriarchal society to say yes to themselves.

If I had two tin cans and a string I would tell her about all the people that love her little place every time I tell them about her and I would tell her that life ain't so bad. It ain’t so bad at all.

But I suspect she probably already knows that.

NOTE: she moved on a while back. I donated the flamingo light because I had no connection to the new people that moved in. I still think about her and how I would look over from my bed to see her outside and how somehow I knew she was important to me but needed her space and how I was so sure we were silently sharing the same experience.

(day 4 of Effy Wild’s blogalong)

Sunday covet + obsessions - 2.8.21

February 8, 2021 Renee Magnusson

Covet + Obsessions as a spiritual practice.

It’s been a minute. January was *waves hand at all of this* but I am reclaiming my space and testing out the Purge prompts and I am at the point that i hate everything. So the fact I have things I actually covet this week is a miracle. Valentines is coming so I have been getting lingerie ads. Which pisses me off because I love lingerie and want it for ME not some dude so these are always a covet and an obsession. Here we go!

This snake body suit by Lorette Lingerie I am DYING for. Again with the snake imagery. I should look that up cause it keeps showing up over and over. — **This snake body suit by** **Lorette Lingerie** **I am DYING for. Again with the snake imagery. I should look that up cause it keeps showing up over and over.**

I am obsessed with the AD tour of Lenny Kravitz’s home in Brazil (and him in general) but this one thing REALLY jumped out at me. This coffee table with only a single tray of white candles. Can I do this on my coffee table? That would mean getting r… — **I am obsessed with the** **AD tour of Lenny Kravitz’s home** in Brazil (and him in general) but this one thing REALLY jumped out at me. This coffee table with only a single tray of white candles. Can I do this on my coffee table? That would mean getting rid of some more stuff…hmmm

**MINI DOLLHOUSES. But not Victorian. MCM inspired with plants and cool furnishings. Can you even? OMG I am obsessed.**

This black leatherette bouncy castle created by Tom Dale. “Tom Daley, this Tom D is known for his left-field and politically charged sculptural statements. Being shown in London for the first time alongside other new work, Department of Interior is … — **This black leatherette bouncy castle created by Tom Dale. “**Tom Daley, this Tom D is known for his left-field and politically charged sculptural statements. Being shown in London for the first time alongside other new work, Department of Interior is a 6.5 metre black leatherette inflatable said to represent the Houses of Parliament and the dirty inside secrets that thrive within its four guarded walls. Dale mixes up social and psychological spaces and uses this absurdly childish motif to poke fun at authority and expose the ongoing affair between patronage and democracy.” OBSESSED

This new lip tint from Jae and Leona that launches on Wednesday. I can’t wait. — **This new lip tint from** **Jae and Leona that launches on Wednesday. I can’t wait.**

@grumpbaraba’s humans new green velvet bedding. A bunch of comments asked where she got it. She didn’t answer but I love it. — **@grumpbaraba’s** **humans new green velvet bedding. A bunch of comments asked where she got it. She didn’t answer but I love it.**

**Aviation Gin. Cause I love gin and I love Ryan Reynolds. That is all.**

THIS bathroom!! I love the subway tile. I am a fan. I don’t care if it is “on trend”. Its so clean. Love the brass accents. Like I said above I prefer all white in a bathroom but starting this 8 point star wallpaper high up is BRILLIANT. It would fe… — **This flat lack lambskin vintage Chanel bag but with the extra long chain straps. One day.**

**This cat bed for the LolaVision disco. Because she is not going in it. She just lies under it with an “I do what I want” look on her face. Also, I assume she will sit like this in it lol**

This new to me cosmetic company called Catkin Cosmetics. I AM OBSESSED with the packaging. — **This new to me cosmetic company called** **Catkin** **Cosmetics. I AM OBSESSED with the packaging.**

3 - Sunday covet + obsessions

January 3, 2021 Renee Magnusson

Covet + Obsessions as a spiritual practice.

There is a theme in my most recent pins. Snakes, jungle cats, and outer space. And Stevie. But there is ALWAYS Stevie. Must be the Saturn/Jupiter conjunction and some new pieces of myself I discovered in the fall. Shedding old patterns and reclaiming my wild. Either way I covet and I am obsessed. This is what showed up this week. xx