Some Things Are Just Flowers on the Floor
NAPERVILLE - WHEATON - GLEN ELLYN - ELMHURST - GENEVA - ST. CHARLES - BARRINGTON - BARTLETT PHOTOGRAPHER
Before the Fall by Alicia Staley Johnson
The still life at the heart of this week’s story.
Happy Sunday my friend!
Well, this week was...quiet.
And quite frankly, I am thrilled!
This time of year usually brings a little lull as everyone settles back into school and new routines, and after the pace of the last few months, I was more than ready for it. Add in the ridiculous combination of rain, humidity, and nearly 100-degree temperatures, and I have been perfectly happy spending most of my time inside.
My workweek consisted of a few headshots in the studio and finally making a dent in the editing that has been patiently waiting for me. Nothing particularly exciting. No crazy travel. No overflowing calendar.
Just a little room to breathe.
And it has felt really, really good.
Sometimes I forget how much I need these quieter stretches until I'm in one. A chance to settle down, catch up, refocus, and think about what's coming next instead of constantly racing to keep up with what's happening right now.
Speaking of what's coming next, we officially released all of our Fall and Holiday Mini Sessions this week—and, for the first time ever, every session can now be booked online! We've also simplified our styled holiday session pricing so that digital images are included and there is no longer a minimum print purchase. The structure may look a little different, but the pricing itself has not increased. We've just made it easier to choose what most of our families have been asking for.
And my already-short week became even shorter because Friday morning we headed to Holland, Michigan, for the Found Cottage Mercantile Market—which you'll find more about below in this week's Local-ish.
So that's it.
No chaos to report. No dramatic stories from the studio. Just a quiet week tucked between a very full summer and what I know will be an equally full fall.
And for once, I am more than happy to let quiet be enough.
Some BTS from last week.
Soft Focus: Some Things Are Just Flowers on the Floor
For my birthday weekend, I decided I wanted to do only the things that made me happy.
Nothing grand. Nothing particularly exciting.
I just wanted to do the things that slowed my heart rate a little. The things that pulled me out of my normal routine and made me feel more like myself.
On Saturday, the whole family went out for breakfast, and afterward we walked over to Barnes & Noble and spent some time wandering through the books.
I love shopping for books. I love picking them up, reading the backs, flipping through the pages and inevitably leaving with more than I need—and definitely more than I will ever read. There was nowhere we had to rush off to and nothing we needed to accomplish. We were just together, slowly perusing the shelves.
It was such a simple thing, but it was exactly how I wanted to spend my birthday.
On Sunday, I cooked and baked new recipes I'd wanted to try but could never seem to find the time for. An entire day in the kitchen creating meals for Dan and myself felt like a dream.
And on Monday, with most of the day off, I decided to create a piece of art.
I had purchased flowers over the weekend, including these enormous stems of flowering dill that I couldn't resist. Then I wandered through my own garden, cutting dahlias and gathering whatever roses were still hanging on in these final days of summer.
There were more than I expected.
I had beautiful, emotional classical music playing through the speakers inside and outside the studio. As I wandered through the garden deciding which flowers to cut, the music followed me. There was something incredibly calming about it—the music, the flowers, the late-summer garden, and nowhere else I needed to be at that particular moment.
I carried everything out to the studio and began the long process of creating one of my fine art still lifes.
And when I say long, I mean long.
There is nothing spontaneous about these photographs, even though I want the finished image to feel as though someone simply happened upon a beautiful arrangement sitting on an old wooden table.
It takes hours to gather the flowers, fruit, vases, props and equipment, bring everything out to the studio, and then create the arrangement itself. I move one stem. Step back. Move another. Turn the vase. Pull something out. Put something back in.
The classical music continued to play while I worked, but now it felt less calming and more inspiring. I have always loved the way music can change the feeling of creating something. It quiets everything else and allows me to disappear into what I'm doing for a while.
Eventually, I placed the arrangement on an old weathered wooden table, tucked a few nectarines and figs around the base, and began working on the lighting.
But finally, it was happening.
The music was still playing. The studio was quiet except for it and the click of my camera, and I was completely lost in the process.
And then there are those moments when everything finally comes together—the flowers, the light, the music—and I can feel myself getting emotional.
It happens more often than I care to admit.
I'll be standing there looking at what I've created, watching the light fall across a rose or catch the edge of a petal, with some beautiful piece of classical music swelling in the background, and suddenly the tears start flowing.
I'm overcome by the beauty of it.
Maybe that sounds a little dramatic. But there are moments when creating art feels less like making something and more like witnessing something. As if all of these ordinary things—flowers I clipped from my garden, a piece of fruit, an old wooden table, a beam of light—have somehow come together for just a moment to become something more.
And I get to be there for it.
This was one of those moments.
The right side of the arrangement was photographing beautifully. There was an almost-backlit quality to the flowers, and the light was catching everything exactly the way I had hoped.
One of those giant dill flowers was bending downward, hanging over a nectarine and a fig with roses tucked behind it.
It was imperfect and droopy and absolutely beautiful.
I shoot tethered, which means every photograph I take immediately appears on a large computer monitor in the studio. I can walk over and study the image, notice the tiniest details, make an adjustment and photograph it again.
After working on that side for a while, I decided I wanted to photograph the arrangement from the opposite direction.
So I moved my light.
I thought I had it exactly where I wanted it and turned around to walk toward the monitor.
And behind me, the studio light kept moving.
It swung directly into the vase.
The vase toppled.
Water went everywhere.
And the arrangement I had spent hours creating landed in a heap on the studio floor.
There were my dahlias.
My roses.
My beautiful drooping dill.
Nectarines and figs.
Four and a half hours of work lying in a puddle.
I said a few choice words.
Rather calmly, I might add.
And then I started picking up the flowers.
I put them back into the vase. I rearranged them. I tried moving stems around, hoping somehow I could recreate what had been there just moments before.
But I couldn't.
It just wasn't the same.
The dill didn't fall quite right. The roses had shifted. The shape was different. Whatever little bit of magic had been happening before that vase hit the floor was gone.
I took a few more photographs anyway.
And then I threw in the towel.
What surprised me wasn't that the arrangement fell.
Things fall.
What surprised me was me.
There was a time when something like this would have made me furious.
I would have been angry about the wasted time. Frustrated with myself for not securing the light better. Determined to put every single flower back exactly where it had been.
And when I inevitably couldn't, I probably would have allowed it to ruin the rest of my day.
But this time?
I basically thought, Well. That happened.
And as I cleaned up the water and gathered the flowers from the floor, I started thinking about how much of our lives we spend trying to put things back the way they were.
We do it with relationships.
With families.
With our bodies.
With our homes.
With our gardens.
We want our children little again.
We want our parents the way we remember them.
We want friendships to feel the way they once did.
We want to fit into the jeans we wore ten years ago and have the energy we had twenty years ago.
We want the garden back in June, when everything was lush and green and the roses were exploding instead of sending out their final few blooms before fall.
We want to put everything back into the vase exactly where it was.
But we can't.
And God knows, we try.
Maybe that's one of the hardest things about getting older. We accumulate enough years to remember so many versions of our lives that no longer exist.
But perhaps one of the gifts of getting older is finally understanding that we don't have to recreate them.
Something can have been beautiful without needing to remain.
A season can end without having gone wrong.
Something can change without needing to be fixed.
And maybe peace isn't getting everything back into the vase exactly where it was.
Maybe peace is being able to look at what remains and say,
That was beautiful while it lasted.
I don't think I've suddenly become endlessly patient or enlightened. Let's not get carried away here.
I still get frustrated. I still want things my way. I still have days when something ridiculously small can irritate me far more than it deserves.
But I do think life has taught me to become a little more selective about what gets my emotions.
There are losses that deserve our grief.
There are injustices that deserve our anger.
There are people and relationships that deserve our fight.
There are moments that deserve every ounce of our attention.
But a vase of flowers falling onto the floor?
It doesn't get to take the rest of my beautiful day with it.
Which, now that I think about it, may have been the most fitting lesson I could have received during a birthday weekend spent doing things that slowed my heart rate.
I thought the gift was having the time to linger over breakfast with my family and wander through a bookstore.
To cook.
To bake.
To wander through my garden clipping the last roses of summer with beautiful music playing in the background.
To spend an entire afternoon creating something simply because creating it made me happy.
And those things were gifts.
But maybe there was another one waiting for me on that studio floor.
The realization that somewhere along the way, without even noticing it, I've gotten a little better at letting things be what they are instead of desperately trying to make them what they were.
The flowers fell.
I picked them up.
They weren't the same.
And I was okay.
Because some things deserve to break our hearts.
And some things are just flowers on the floor.
*This essay and more can be read on my Our Cozy Compound substack
The beautiful victim, before she became the still life—and before her accidental demise.
WHAT I’M LOVING THIS WEEK
Inspiring Follow: @freedomhavenfarm
I originally started following @freedomhavenfarm for all the things I love—gardening, natural living, animals, and their beautiful life in the Blue Ridge Mountains. They share their journey of organic gardening and caring for their land through regenerative practices, and there is something so peaceful about watching their little corner of the world.
But if I’m being completely truthful, it’s their family—and especially their adorable older daughter Sophia—who keeps me coming back.
She is somewhere around two or three, and her little conversations, observations, and very strong opinions about life absolutely make me smile. There is something so sweet about seeing the world through the eyes of a child who is growing up surrounded by gardens, animals, dirt, fresh air, and parents who seem genuinely happy to have her right there beside them through all of it.
The entire account just feels wholesome in the very best way. Not perfect or overly polished—just a young family building a life centered around family, nature, caring for the land, and being together.
And maybe that’s what I love most about following them. In a world constantly telling us we need more, their little family is such a lovely reminder that sometimes the richest life is simply the one happening right in front of us.
What I’m Loving: Anthropologi NVLT Plaid Double-Breasted Blazer
Apparently the calendar turned to September and I immediately decided it was fall.
Never mind what the temperature outside has to say about it.
I saw this plaid double-breasted blazer from Anthropologie and instantly started building the entire outfit in my head: relaxed boyfriend jeans, a crisp button-down, loafers, and a beautiful silk scarf tied at the neck.
And because we're fully committing to the fantasy here, obviously there is a pumpkin spice latte in my hand.
I love the slightly oversized shape and those muted shades of green, camel and navy. It feels classic and a little preppy without being too serious—the kind of piece I could throw on with jeans and immediately feel pulled together.
This is exactly how I want to dress in September. Even if September isn't quite ready to cooperate.
Local-ish: The Found Cottage Mercantile Market
If you count Holland, Michigan—about three hours from us—as local-ish, this is where you will find me this weekend.
We went to The Found Cottage Mercantile Market for the first time last year, and before we even left, I had already decided this needed to become an annual tradition.
The market brings together vintage collectors and vendors from around the country, and it is exactly my kind of place. There is something so fun about wandering from booth to booth, never quite knowing what you’re going to find—and, of course, convincing yourself that some old, perfectly weathered thing absolutely needs to come home with you.
This year marks the market's ninth year, and it takes place September 4th and 5th in Holland, Michigan. So yes, I will happily drive three hours for a day of treasure hunting.
If you're anywhere near Holland this weekend—or you're like me and believe a good vintage market is absolutely worth a little road trip—you may want to add this one to your plans.
FROM MY KITCHEN
I realize that directly above this recipe I am dreaming about plaid blazers, loafers, silk scarves, and pumpkin spice lattes.
But apparently September did not get the memo that I'm ready for fall.
With temperatures still climbing toward 100 degrees and an abundance of cucumbers coming out of the garden, reality says we are not quite ready for soup season—at least not the warm kind.
So, chilled cucumber soup it is.
I shared this recipe on Instagram this week, and it is one of those wonderfully simple recipes that comes to the rescue when the garden starts producing faster than you can possibly eat. It's cool, creamy, fresh, and requires little more than throwing everything into a blender.
Which, on a nearly 100-degree September day, is about as much cooking as I want to do.
Chilled Cucumber Soup
Ingredients
1 large cucumber, preferably thin-skinned
½ cup fresh parsley
1 tablespoon shallot, plus more for garnish
1 small garlic clove
⅓ jalapeño, sliced (optional)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 cup plain Greek yogurt
¼ cup sour cream
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon coriander
1 tablespoon olive oil
Directions
Add everything to a blender and blend until smooth and creamy. Chill before serving, then finish with a drizzle of olive oil and whatever pretty little garnishes you have on hand.
I used fresh chives and parsley, along with a few edible flowers from the garden—because apparently even my soup needs flowers.
Save this one for the next time your garden gives you more cucumbers than you know what to do with.
And I'll be over here eating mine while patiently waiting for blazer weather.
with love and light,
Alicia Staley Johnson
of Alicia’s Photography
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