Clementine Journal

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Clementine Journal

Clementine is a collaborative storytelling platform whose mission is to kindle and nurture curiosity within the creative mind.

We explore and elevate the subtle and often elusive elements that hold significance in our lives and work.

16/09/2025

Don't be careful.
You could hurt yourself.
Louise Bourgeois

25/07/2025

All is lush. Everything seems at its sensory peak. The crickets. The birds. Twigs crack under unseen hooves. Wind brushing against leaves. The woods are constantly speaking.

But there’s a whole other language out there. Quieter. Stranger. Hidden in plain sight.

A few weeks ago, I took a walk with Laura of the to discover just that: Nature’s little secrets.

I saw a small, speckled orb with a hole in it resting on a bed of moss beneath an enormous tree. A little weird object of imperfection. Nature always seems to have a story.

A wasp lays her egg.
A leaf responds.
The tree, irritated by the intrusion, grows a protective layer.

A gall. Part defense. Part accommodation.

A visible record of an encounter.

With my curiosity piqued, I thought about the importance of investigation. Not as a means to an answer, but as a practice of attention. A way of letting the unknown stretch you open rather than shut you down.

To investigate is to stay with the question. To notice closely enough that the ordinary becomes astonishing.

The discovery isn’t always grand.
Sometimes, it’s small and round and nestled in moss…

…waiting for you to ask what it is.

18/07/2025

You know when you stare at the bathroom tiles, or a knot in wood grain, and you see a face in the pattern. Once it’s there you can’t unsee it. There’s a name for that.

Pareidolia is the science behind seeing faces in every day objects and it seems there might be an evolutionary reason behind it. Babies are more likely to be cared for the more readily they see faces. Carl Sagan is said to have theorized, “Those infants who a million years ago were unable to recognize a face smiled back less, were less likely to win the hearts of their parents, and less likely to prosper.” Putting aside the idea that babies need to smile to win the hearts of their parents, it’s a pretty interesting theory.

Studies show that two types of people are likely to experience pareidolia more frequently. The neurotic, who are often on high alert for danger and more likely to spot something that isn’t there. And women, maybe because they’re more likely to recognize emotions through facial expressions.

I think there’s a third kind of person in the mix: the creatively minded. Always seeing shapes, stories, faces, and possibilities that others may leave unseen.

05/07/2025

Every morning, a red cardinal throws himself against my window.

It’s not a violent crash, just a persistent tapping. Wings fluttering, beak striking glass, again and again.

I’ve read that he sees his reflection and believes it’s another bird. A rival. An intruder. He can’t help himself. He’s trying to defend his territory.
But he’s also interrupting my sleep. Invading my slumber.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Same stubborn rhythm.

He’s not just fighting a phantom. It’s as if he’s trying to pierce the barrier between worlds. A wooden house in his flight path, a piece of glass catching his own gaze, and now, mine.

30/06/2025

Today I was swaying at Vernon-Jackson. We were waiting for the 7 into the city.
I do this as if I’m rocking some imaginary infant.
Recently, I saw a video where a group of women were standing around a kitchen island. They were all swaying.
I’ve seen other women sway, too. And I want to ask them, “How long have you been rocking side to side when you stand? Why do we do this?”

14/06/2025

Biking in New York is a constant, low-grade game played at 15 miles per hour, with opponents and obstacles that don’t even know they’re playing.

You’re always thinking two seconds ahead. Anticipate.

Is the guy with AirPods and his head buried in his phone about to step into the bike lane without looking?

Is the delivery rider behind me, whose battery I can hear humming just enough to register his presence, about to pass?

The light just turned green for the cars on Spring Street. Do I have enough time to cross before they step on the gas?

There’s no autopilot here.
It’s a little bit of chaos, but it’s also clarity.
It demands presence.
You can’t zone out.
You can’t scroll.
You’re there.

Your senses are sharp in a way they aren’t anywhere else. You scan for subtle shifts. A glance that signals someone might jaywalk, a sudden arm movement before a car door swings open, a brake light flashing half a block away. The smallest cues hint at impact.

But there’s something electric in that. You’re moving with the city, not just through it. You start to learn the rhythms. You know the right height of the curb to rest your foot while waiting for your green. You know which intersections feel chaotic and deserve attention. You learn the rhythm of the street lights. Green. Green. Always wait on Houston.

Last night I was coming off the Williamsburg Bridge, and a guy on a CitiBike pulled up next to me.

“Wanna race?”

Not that I would on any other day, and definitely not after two drinks, I declined.

He insisted, “Yes, you do!”

I snapped back, “Are you calling me a liar?”

We both laughed and continued into the night, him yelling, “Have a good one!”

The city moves, and you move with it. So, even if just for a moment, you feel in sync. You go. You stop. You adjust.
_

Share your story of “Seeing the Unseen” for Clementine Issue No.03. Submission instructions can be found on our website. 📸

06/06/2025

I said “we” all the time—We had a meltdown, we skipped nap, we need to put our shoes on!

One day, the librarian saw us coming and called my son’s name.

In that moment, everything shifted.
She saw him, not as part of the bubble of us, but as his own small universe, full of questions about puppets and books.

My daughter skipped ahead, alive and separate in her world.And I stood there, just me.

For a brief moment, we were untethered from each other—
not one blob of “we,” but three distinct selves.

Then, like gravity pulling a comet back into orbit, we rushed back into “us.”

The strings between us are stretching looser, farther apart, even though I still think of us as one.
Within the blob or the bubble of us, the individuals still exist.

23/05/2025

My grandmother used to say, “When you walk in Prague, you have to look up.”

She meant it quite literally. She loved to flâneur. Wandering the city, admiring the ornate moldings and intricate carvings that crowned the buildings above. Beauty lives in the details. You just have to notice.

In New York, I think the equivalent isn’t just looking up. It’s slowing down. We’re always rushing from one meeting to the next, from X to Z, without a breath between. But this city, just like Prague, has secrets. And if you let it, it will show them to you. It will show you small, almost secret moments that feel like they were placed just for you.

You just have to allow yourself a moment.

Look up.

Or down.

And sometimes, straight ahead.

Discovery is about presence. And presence takes permission. When you give yourself even a moment of awareness, the city responds.

So, this Memorial Day weekend, try this: Slow down. Look up. Notice what isn’t trying to be seen. What quiet detail is waiting to be found?

_

From decoding secret messages to seeing ghosts or simply appreciating what we ignore, there are many ways to play with our proposition: “Seeing the Unseen.” Is it a superpower or simply a matter of perspective? Share your story of “Seeing the Unseen” for Clementine Issue No.03. Submission instructions can be found on our website.

14/03/2025

They say we’re in the deceptive part of late winter. The part that starts to look like spring. When the snow melts and the sun is out, making grey skies blue. A triangle of geese flew overhead and my son asked if they were returning from being “south for the winter.” “I think they just stick around all year,” I responded unsure. I’d look it up later, despite having seen geese flying over the marsh daily since we moved here. But I’d look it up anyway, just to be sure.

In the grocery store, the Easter aisle is almost empty. As they run low on candy, baskets with bows, and headbands with bunny ears, they stock up on sidewalk chalk and bubble blowers, prepare for sweltering front porch times.

But the ground beneath the swingset is still thick with snowmelt mud. We see it coming. We prepare. We believe. But the truth is, it’s still winter.

__

From decoding secret messages to seeing ghosts or simply appreciating what we ignore, there are many ways to play with our proposition: “Seeing the Unseen.” Is it a superpower or simply a matter of perspective? Share your story of “Seeing the Unseen” for Clementine Issue No.03. Submission instructions can be found on our website.

07/03/2025

Clementine Contemplation: Why We Can’t Sleep

Last night, I woke up at 1:17 a.m. Then again at 4:03 am. And sometime after 5. I can’t remember the last time I slept through the night. Maybe all year. I know its only March, but three months of this feels long enough.

In her Golden Globe acceptance speech, Demi Moore said, “When we don’t think we’re smart enough, or skinny enough, or successful enough, or basically just enough, just know: You will never be enough.”

Lying awake, I think about all the things left undone. The emails I meant to send. The eggs I forgot to buy. The workout I skipped again. How, once again, I have not done enough. Ada Calhoun writes about women and their angst in “Why We Can’t Sleep”. I finished the book in a day.

In the stories she shared, I felt seen.

But outside those pages, we are often unseen. As women age, our presence dims. Not because we have less to offer, but because the world stops looking. This phenomenon, known as the “invisibility effect,” isn’t just a minor inconvenience; it’s a symptom of a culture that erases women the moment they are no longer deemed relevant.

And so, every day, we fight. Not just to be acknowledged but to be truly seen.

05/03/2025

In dark times the eye begins to see - Theodore Roetke

21/02/2025

This week, we’ve been handling a cranky kindergartener. I read all about tantrums years ago and naively expected this kind of behavior would be behind us by now. But when have I ever been right about these things?

If he’s not in the room already, my husband will ask me what set her off. But the answers hardly give us a clue: the TV goes off; her favorite purple, shiny, stretch leggings are in the wash; no one believes her that fish are really reptiles.

I can offer her a favorite snack or warm her towel in the dryer after a bath, but there’s only so much I can do to manage the environment. Circumstances inevitably change.

Everything shifts as if it’s all completely beyond our control. And then I think, well, sure, that would bother me too. And does, at times, lead to my own temper tantrums.

What triggers me isn’t all that different from what sets her off. Not really. As an adult, I can name things like taxes, mortality, and a rare government coup. But what I’m truly lamenting is how the utter lack of control we have in our lives can be blissfully overlooked until some small, annoying fact emerges and shatters the illusion.

It’s so easy to see a cranky kindergartener and her unskilled choices regarding emotional regulation. But it doesn’t take too much deeper a gaze to notice a plain-ol’ person just like any other plain-ol’ person grappling with the realization that we are not driving this bus. We are simply along for the ride.

**

From decoding secret messages to seeing ghosts or simply appreciating what we ignore, there are many ways to play with our next proposition: “Seeing the Unseen.” Is it a superpower or simply a matter of perspective? What do you want to pay attention to and unravel?

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