Ten years ago today, I woke up in Norway.

In a red wooden artists’ house, on an archipelago called the Lofoten Islands.

That day began like all the other days I’d spent on Lofoten so far. With a view of water outside my window, and mountains on the horizon. With long, quiet hours at my desk, working on the book I had tasked myself with writing that spring. And a few trips to the kitchen, for coffee and chats with the fellow travelers I was sharing the house with.

But someone new arrived at the artists’ house that morning — someone who would make the day be remembered for being very much not like any other day.

Here’s how I wrote about my first conversation with Jose in the journal I was keeping in Norway:

Ten years have somehow passed since that fateful day on Lofoten. Ten years in which Jose and I became a team of two, and then two became four.

When Jose and I talked about how to mark this milestone, all I knew is that I wanted to wake up again in Norway today. And so we did — in the city of Bergen, in a hotel overlooking the harbor.

Our room doesn’t have a view of the water, but I know it’s out there, and beyond the water, there are mountains. I’ve got a desk (though I don’t think I’ll spend much time there), and plenty of coffee. As for my fellow travelers, they’re the greatest gift of all.

No matter what the rest of the day holds, I’m so happy it started here.

In the place where life first surprised us; where the world opened up, as expansive as the sea; where there’s a mountain for every horizon.

“There is only one question:
how to love this world.”

— Mary Oliver, “Spring”

Hello, friends. Over the past few weeks, I’ve loved sharing some of my favorite colors of spring in Belgium with you.

Hyacinth blue.

Magnolia pink.

And yellow, always yellow — that blessed color of daffodils and forsythia; the color of buttercups and crocuses; and most of all, the color of the sun.

Today, I’ve brought my little odes to spring together in one place, all of which were written in the meter of haiku. I’ve loved the creative constraint of it, and yet how even within the bounds of set syllables, there has always been just enough room for what I wanted to say.

I hope the same for you this spring — for a new season filled with color, and room for everything you’re here to create.

With love,
Candace

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Hello there! And welcome to Dandelion Seeds, a hand-drawn and illustrated newsletter that normally arrives in your inbox on Tuesday mornings.

But once a month, I also send out a short bonus letter to paid subscribers, going behind the scenes of a recent illustrated essay. For our March letter, I was inspired to share a few surprising things I learned about magnolia trees while working on this week’s story. In fact, I was so astonished by what I learned, that I thought — I have to share this with everyone.

If you enjoy this letter, I’d love to invite you to become a paid subscriber of Dandelion Seeds, and please know how grateful I am for your support.

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Last Monday night, as I was putting the finishing touches on “Magnolia,” I found myself wanting to know more about the star of this week’s story.

All I’ve ever really known about magnolia trees is that 1) they are heart-stoppingly beautiful, and 2) their flowers have a short blooming period. I’ve always thought of them as I think about cherry blossom season; something that is all the more beautiful for how fleeting it is.

And so you can imagine my surprise — or rather, my utter astonishment — to learn that the magnolia genus dates back more than 100 million years. It turns out these ephemeral blooms are one of the earliest flowering plant families, and they’ve changed so little over time, magnolias are considered to be “living fossils.”

They may not be the oldest flower in the world, but my goodness they’re close.

Magnolias are so old that they existed alongside dinosaurs — and they outlasted them.

And the first magnolias were pollinated not by bees, which didn’t even exist yet, but by ancient beetles, which is why their flowers evolved to be as hardy and strong as they are short-lived.

The last thing that blew my mind about magnolias is something I wasn’t consciously aware of, but once I read it, I realized I’ve seen it every time I’ve looked at a magnolia tree in early spring: that its flowers appear before its leaves do, when the branches of the tree are still bare.

One site described the symbolism of this fact so poignantly, I have to share it with you word for word:

“The bloom arrives without the protection of foliage, exposed and fully committed. That visibility — that willingness to appear before conditions are certain — is precisely what made magnolias natural symbols of courage and nobility across cultures that had no contact with each other.”

Friends, there are many things I wish you in these uncertain times, but perhaps most of all today, I wish you the resilience of a magnolia — a flower that has outlasted so much else in our world.

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March’s art download

As a part of each month’s offering for paid subscribers, I often create a new iPhone wallpaper featuring artwork I’ve painted. This month, I loved putting together two new magnolia designs — one with a hand-lettered quote, and one without.

All you need to do is click on the button below each image to download it, and I hope it will help you carry the enduring beauty of magnolias with you.

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Download wallpaper #1

Download wallpaper #2

Hello there! And welcome to Dandelion Seeds, an illustrated newsletter in search of the meaning in everyday moments.

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This past Friday, I opened our mailbox and found something rather special waiting for me — a bracelet made of red and white threads.

It had been sent by my friend Sevil here in Antwerp. And you might remember from a story I shared this time last year, that in Sevil’s home country of Bulgaria, this kind of bracelet is known as a martenitsa.

But that wasn’t all Sevil sent me last week.

As the bracelet slipped out of the envelope, I noticed a small hand-written note had also been tucked inside it:

As I read Sevil’s words, right there in the entrance of our building, I felt extraordinarily grateful. For the friends we’ve made in our new home, for the traditions they share with us, and most of all, for Sevil’s wish for light.

In a time when things only seem to grow darker, I wanted to share her wish with you today. I hope you’ll enjoy revisiting this story with me, and rediscovering the tale of two little threads who brought the world together.

With love,
Candace

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Every once in a while, I witness something in nature that I feel compelled to share with you in its purest, rawest form.

It happened last fall after we got back from our trip to Uruguay, where I had the good fortune to hear a zorzal sing. But I didn’t want to simply tell you about its song; I wanted you to hear it sing just as I had, and so I embedded a short audio file that I recorded in the Uruguayan countryside one morning right in the story itself.

And it happened again this weekend, when I glimpsed a little cluster of grape hyacinth growing in our neighborhood in Antwerp. There was just something about the otherworldly blue of the flowers and the rain falling around them that gave me peace — and I hope they bring the same to you today.

With love,
Candace

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Friends, this week’s story is about something I almost never write about. It might be even more accurate to say it’s something I never write about:

Pop culture.

But as I watched a certain singer perform in a certain halftime show last week, I kept feeling all the feels — and in the days that followed, thinking all the thoughts. Finally, after I got the girls to sleep on Friday night, I sat down and wrote this piece in less than an hour; for me, this is always a sign that a story was meant to make its way into the world.

I hope you enjoy reading a different side of Dandelion Seeds today, and next week, I promise we’ll be back to celebrating all things crocuses and daffodils.

Con amor,
Candace

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“Soon a host of lovely flowers
From vales and woodland burst;
But in all that fair procession
The crocuses were first.”

— Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Friends, I’d been planning to share a different story today, a new one, but something happened this weekend that inspired me to change things around:

I saw the year’s first crocuses.

I spotted a few on Saturday, little isolated groups of tiny purple flowers. But the next day, at the zoo with the girls, I saw great swaths of them. And there was just something about these first emissaries of spring that made me want to weep — from their beauty; from their color; from the way their petals were like arms held open to the sun, and to each other.

And so today, I’d love to revisit a story I wrote during our first spring in Belgium, a story in which crocuses take on a starring role. It’s called “How I Want to Tell Time,” and it continues to be one of my favorite illustrated essays I’ve ever created for Dandelion Seeds.

Here’s to stretching our arms out to the sun, and to one another.

With love,
Candace

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Dear friends,

During bedtime one night this week, in a sudden surge of sisterly affection, Elena began pulling books off her bookshelf for Eva to look at — specifically any book that happened to feature flaps, pop-ups, pull tabs, and all manner of moveable parts.

At first, Elena assembled the books into something resembling a pile. But after I stepped out of the girls’ bedroom for a moment, I returned to find the books had been spread out across their bed, the colorful cover of each title now visible.

“This is our library,” Elena told me, and there, glowing amidst it all, was their beloved lantern filled with light.

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Hello there! And welcome to Dandelion Seeds, an illustrated newsletter in search of the meaning in everyday moments.

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Yesterday felt like one of the darkest days we’ve had yet this winter in Belgium.

The sky was heavy, the air was bitterly cold, and when I set out with Eva in our bike, my fingers felt frozen within minutes, even with gloves on.

But then I turned a corner, and there, standing tall in a wooden planter by the street, were the year’s first daffodils — so improbable and bright that even Eva sat up straighter in her seat and called out, “Mommy, lellow.”

Right now, it feels like the world is also living through the dark days of winter. The skies are heavy, and the bitter cold keeps seeping in.

Over the weekend, in desperate need of warmth and hope, I opened a book I turn to often — To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings. It’s by the late Irish poet and philosopher, John O’Donohue, and it’s a collection of blessings unlike those I’ve read anywhere else, such as “For One Who Is Exhausted.”

As I looked through the blessings, I came across one whose title was just two words, but they stopped me in my tracks:

“For Courage.”

I was so moved by John’s words that I’ve hand-lettered an excerpt of his blessing to share with you today. I focused on the lines I felt most speak to this moment — and, I hope, to you.

With love,
Candace

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Ever since I began reading through your beautiful reflections on last week’s story, “A Dolphin in the Waves,” there is one line in particular that has stayed with me:

“Let the wind lift the waves of our lives and take us wherever they wish.” — Kate Selner

I’ve been thinking about what it means to let the wind lift the waves of my life, and I’ve thought about the places I hope the wind takes us all in this new year.

And so for today’s post, I’ve hand-lettered a few of your comments from last week, including Kate’s moving words, and I hope you’ll enjoy spending time with them here as much as I did.

With love,
Candace

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Dear friends,

I’m delighted to be sharing the replay from our first official hangout for paid subscribers with you today, but first, a little story.

On New Year’s Eve, after the girls were asleep, Jose and I opened a bottle of cava and put on our favorite movie. It’s called About Time, and it’s one of those movies that, no matter how many times I’ve seen it, it never fails to make me weep.

It’s also one of those movies where different lines speak to me every time we watch it. This time around, what had me reaching for a pen happened right after the wedding of protagonist Tim and his beloved Mary.

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Dear friends,

It’s here: our first official hangout for paid subscribers is happening tomorrow on zoom — at 10am PT, 1pm ET — and I’m thrilled that more than twenty people have signed up so far.

I can’t wait to connect with you in real-time, and I’m also planning to read a new illustrated essay that I’ll be publishing next Tuesday. I’d love to share the story with you first — and create some space for a little shared reflection, as one year ends and a new one begins.

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