Bellarke AU

If other universes exist I hope we’re happy somewhere. That there are universes where history doesn’t pull us apart and we become a tragic story full of sorrow and regret, ones where we don’t become our own undoing that only history would remember us for. I know in this story we could never belong to each other, but if there is another universe, another story, another us I hope we can love each other until our dying day.

You are. Epilogue 03

Just keeping that story going!

My friends say "Oh you know, keeping busy." This means they are having a hard time but making themselves survive it. I ask them to help me walk me dog; this is me telling them it's okay sometimes to just be present and talk about young adult fiction. When I cancel again because I can't get out of bed, she tells me she's on her way with cookies.

I point out the sunset. She shares her fork before I ask for it. He calls me at 1 AM just because I'm on the road alone, we talk about stupid shit. She waits for me to get indoors safely before driving away. He says - nah, forget it, I'm happy to do it for free.

I’ve lived a lot of lives, but I’m done running from my past.

Please remember that Lush is a fair trade company. This means that all they pay ALL of their workers a livable amount, and don’t take advantage of workers and harvesters in third world countries like many brands do. They test none of their products on animals as well.

constant checks on their resources - They will drop any company that they are partnered with if they learn that they are gathering ingredients in an inhumane way, harming the environment, or puts their people at risk

charity work - if you’ve ever heard of Charity Pot, it’s called such because 100% of the cost (not proceeds) go to charity. It’s not what’s left over after they’ve paid the workers or bought the ingredients, it’s every single cent. 

kitchens instead of factories - They dont have a big warehouse of stock. They don’t have processing plants. What they have are buildings with industrial kitchen equipment, where all products are made by hand. 

fighting animal testing - a lot of companies say that they dont do animal testing, but they don’t do anything to prevent animal testing and may use ingredients sourced from animal testing. Lush leads protests, creates bills, and spreads information, as well as only work with those who don’t use animal testing, in order to fight the system

helping their sources- If they find out that something is wrong with one of their companies, they’ll do what they can to fix it. That means, if something is broken, they will fix it, even though it’s just someone that they’re partnered with. 

(swings boom mike over to cat on the bed while leaving)

“A fox’s teeth are very sharp.” (2013-2019) Silk filament on silk-hemp blend with hand-dyed silk chiffon scarf.  Text is Sandman: The Dream Hunters by @neil-gaiman, design inspired by illustrations of Yoshitaka Amano.  Dress by L.L.K.  Photo credit to Kenneth Williams.

Six years ago, my unbelievably talented wife decided to undertake a ridiculously long and complicated project: to embroider a story onto a dress.

We live in a very casual college town where no one ever dresses up for anything, so we began a tradition of throwing formal New Year’s Eve parties, and L being L, she made a dress every year. In 2013, she decided to take it a step further: she would create a dress inspired by Neil Gaiman’s Sandman: The Dream Hunters and then embroider the entire story onto the dress. The dress itself was the work of a few weeks and looked beautiful on her at the party, and then the real work began: planning, mapping, embroidering and embroidering and embroidering. She estimated it would take approximately ten years of doing needlework an hour or two each evening, leaving plenty of time to take nights or even months off. She finished in under six.

I can’t summon words to describe how proud of her I am right now. I mean, I am always proud of her, as she is an exceptionally kind and caring human being as well as a polymath (seamstress, carpenter, baker, programmer, naturalist, and tenured professor of biology), but she has created a true work of art and I hope it ends up in a museum somewhere to immortalize her talent, skill, and patience.