so it begins.

my name's laura and i just started a blog. i'm a student and i spend most of my time memorizing flash cards and burying my nose in books about art. i also read. a lot. and quotes are my favorite thing in the world. so you can't say i didn't warn you a few blog posts from now. just a heads up. if you'd like to know more about me, you can just ask me, or imagine who i am and build your own laura inside your mind. or just read the bio to the side of this post. your choice.

so anyway, i've started a blog and given it a pretty cool name. (just to note: this is also the name i'll use for all my future entrepreneur-ing endeavors...like book stores and umbrella stores and all kinds of other stores, i've got tons of ideas you haven't seen the last of). this title not only captures my sometimes obsessive love for all things scandinavian, it also captures something more powerful and meaningful:

the illimitable power of nature and the constant inspiration it provides. allow me to explain.

the mountain and the fjord are both natural phenomenons formed by the all-powerful forces of nature, beyond human control and outside of human time and space. both provide a small glimpse of nature's beauty, and give us inspiration to seek the Truth (yes, with a capital "t"). these forces of nature that we see all around us and that we seek out are at once an expression of the insignificance of human beings in the shadows of such great phenomena, and, more importantly,  a reflection of the infinite possibilities that nature constantly gives us. we can achieve great things when we grab hold of nature and everything that is organic, authentic, and pure and tap into ever-flowing inspiration. to write, to paint, to blog, to speak, to think, to enjoy, to live.

the mountain and the fjord are also both strong invocations of nature's ineffable infiniteness  (that's totally a word, right?) because they represent opposites--the mountain is height, the result of two massive chunks of earth crashing together; the fjord is valley, formed by the movement of giant ice chunks carving passageways through whatever stood in their ways. height and light, water and valley. two extremes that reflect human capabilities to achieve when harnessing purity of mind and heart. i told you it was a pretty cool blog name.

to give you some visual aids and illustrate the most important reason for the blog name (because fjords and mountains are insanely beautiful):

Hardangerfjord in Norway

i'm a huge art history nerd (because those who can't make art, study it, right? just like those who can't teach, teach gym). so i use art to express what i'm trying to say pretty frequently.

Caspar David Friedrich, The Wander Above the Mists, 1817-18

this Friedrich painting expresses this duality of nature's overwhelming power and human beings' ability to create while inspired by this overwhelming power. this wanderer is in the presence of natural forces, insignificant, humbled, yet also possibly inspired and alive, imagining all the possibilities that infinity has handed to him.
...right now i feel like i'm writing a pretty poorly organized term paper, so i'll end this digression and leave it on this note: nature inspires art and life and everything else. A+.

if you managed to cut through the density and wordiness of all my explanation and read to this point, we should probably be best friends. so just send a list of your favorite things, biggest fears, favorite ice cream flavors, and favorite harry potter quotes to me and i'll get the paperwork going. i promise that not every post will be as dense as a Vietnam jungle. and not every post will be about how awesome nature is. the possibilities blogdom opens up to me are endless.

this is pretty much a place where i can post stuff about art and music and design, photography, sometimes food, and anything else that comes my way. but overall, it will center on this idea of authenticity and pure living. not that i'm that wise and experienced to be conveying any trust-able information about how to live, but it'll still be at least entertaining (no money-back guarantee).

it won't be a constant glorification of nature and how much i like hiking (it's kinda fun). i'm not really into the whole birkenstock and refusal-to-shave aesthetic, at all. i like whole foods and all, but i probably wouldn't last two hours in Boulder. (no offense to people who do live in Boulder). i just like mountains and fjords and all. i just try to live authentically with forces bigger than us on my side.

oh, and the headlining quote underneath the title of the blog is from a hollywood movie, yes (Gladiator), but it captures part of the essence of what i hope to blog: live positively in this life, and use creativity and imagination and make the world a better place so that your legacy lives on forever.

that's just an introduction, because there's lots more i could throw at you right now. but that's to come. i'll throw some crazy your way in little helpings. this is just the big, huge welcome banquet.
to sum up: nature, eternity, umbrellas, inspiration, art, life, and russell crowe.

stand by for more concise and helpful posts. this is just the entrance to the fjord. the first step in the climb up the mountain.