Page 60 - Flaunt 170 - The Phoenix Issue - Kiernan Shipka

EEddi ittoorr’ ’ss LLeetttteerr I was on a hilly walkabout in Malibu at the weekend. It smelled of mud and jimsonweed, the Pacific glowered below. It had been raining and wet for a couple days. Then it appeared: a shrub oak, crisped reedy black, burnt 16 months ago in the Woolsey Fire, which destroyed over 150 square miles here, now skirted in mustard seed, sage, fennel, and purple verbenas. Here’s my chance to be illustrative. Here, I consider. Oh shrubbery: this, The Phoenix Issue, where we consider rebirth, rising, and cycles. Oh dark bark: where we remember things shall pass. Oh ill-advised neural pathways, you, too, shall heal. Finally, photo shoots herein: please aim to peak at dawn or dusk to remind us as much, and the photo shoots said: sure. May there be rebirth, but also reflection. For without a moment of appreciation, who’s to say where it starts or ends, where it’s time to plant gardens or go town-paint with friends? And does it matter? Nothing feels more dead nor alive than this perch here on the edge of this gnarly beast of a city, yet the traffic back home knows only only the dogged slug forward. As such, I’d normally shout out all the features in this edition, pat the back of our clever editorial squad, and leave you in a bundle of stitches and prophetic shivers, but I’m gonna sit and enjoy the gray, gobby sunset, before I get back on it tomorrow. Enjoy the Phoenix Issue, and may you rise to meet your feet (a yoga pose you pay a deposit on before class), and cycle onward, unencumbered, and much the better for it. Warmest Wishes, Matthew