Chloe Story.

I've long been a fan of librarian Natalie Pantoja's paintings and illustrations, so I was happy to hear she launched a website this week. A stand-out among her work is the graphic essay Chloe Story, which details Natalie's friendship with a young woman named Chloe who passed away last summer — it's beautifully, simply, elegantly done. See for yourself, here.

Thanks so much for sharing, Natalie. Find more of the artist's work on her website.  

Recommended Reading / 25.

Every Monday, words to start the week. 

This week: iGNANT's round-up of outstanding mobile living spaces from Gestalten's The New Nomads. My favorites: Sealander's water caravan (complete with sound system and mini kitchen), and Poler Stuf's waterproof rooftop tent, big enough to house a queen-sized mattress.

Three more, just because:
-Branding Girls.
-Beach-going cows.
-Drinking habits of writers (mint juleps for Faulkner; gin rickeys for Fitzgerald; iced champagne for Oscar Wilde).

Also, I'm happy to share an interview I did for Life:Captured about storytelling and memory keeping, and a new post for Conde Nast Traveler about where locals play in Tulum — I wish I'd known when I was there!

More recommended reading, here. Have a lovely Monday.

POV: Rotations.

POV ("point of view") is a series that addresses many of the same themes covered in my Equals Record column: growing up, saying yes to adventure, learning to embrace a quarter-life crisis. While my previous column focused largely on ideas, POV focuses on moments - glimpses, glances, tiny stories. 

I spent Wednesday—the last day of a spontaneous week-and-a-half getaway to Los Angeles—in the heat of an 80-degree March afternoon, barefoot, in front of a tinsel-like stretch of the Pacific Ocean.

My nephew, Dash, newly turned two, squatted in the sand beside me, eyes fixed on a bird wetting its wings in the surf. “Bird,” he said, blinking with such force that his lashes, straight as sticks, created shadows down his cheeks. Then, noticing the distant hum of an engine overhead, he looked up, pointing at a cottony stream of clouds left in the wake of passing plane. “Plane,” he said.

“Dash,” said my brother, Max, “tomorrow, Shoko’s going to be on an airplane.”

Dash shoveled sand into a Smurf-blue plastic mold of a castle.

“The next time we talk, I’ll be in New York,” I said. “Beach today, city tomorrow—isn’t that crazy?”

He turned the mold upside down, revealing the crumbling architecture beneath it, mouth open as the turrets fell. Then, already at work building the next one, he answered me flatly, with what’s become his most-used (and most useful) word as of late: “yup.”

Flowers Afloat.

For those of you who loved the room with the dandelion canopy, the greenhouse made of sugar, or the umbrella that mimics light through the leaves of trees, here's another wild, wondrous project that may strike your fancy. Called Floating Flower Garden, the installation — housed at Tokyo's Miraikan National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation — features over 2,000 living flowers in what its creators refer to as an interactive garden.

Writes the crew at Japan's teamLab: "Viewers are immersed in flowers, and become completely one with the garden itself...A person will become integrated with a flower when they look at a flower and the flower looks at them; possibly at this [moment], the person will truly see the flower for the first time."

See more at teamLab's site, here. New POV coming tomorrow!

Waves of Freedom.

Easkey Britton is an Irish artist, scientist, professional surfer and Ph.D. She's also the co-founder of Waves of Freedom, an organization that aims to empower vulnerable members of society through surf. Her efforts to bring the sport to the women of Iran (who will be the first ever in their country to surf) has been chronicled in the upcoming documentary Into the Sea.

According to the WoF website: "At the core of Waves of Freedom is how surfing can become a medium to empower those who are most vulnerable in society...surfing is not just a sport but a lifestyle and an art-form synonymous with freedom and creative self-expression. Waves of Freedom has grown from a belief that the ocean does not discriminate."

Learn more at Waves of Freedom, here. See also: Skateistan, a non-profit that teaches children in Kabul, Cambodia, South Africa, and Afghanistan to skate.