Beau Miles has published a book. Now would you look at that cover photograph? I sigh. I admit, I’m a fan of his Youtube videos, my favourite being Run the Line: Retracing 43 km of hidden railway because it touches on history. But often, after watching any one of his videos, I want to go out and shoot my own adventure. I get a feeling akin to jealousy…

While thinking of this post, I started wondering why I found Beau Miles particularly inspiring, and thought of other YouTube videos I’ve enjoyed, a bit dismayed to come up with Casey Neistat’s channel, which I followed for awhile when he was living in New York. I panicked a bit… Aren’t there any women’s channels I like? Yes! In fact, Bernadette Banner’s vlogs on the subject of Victorian and Edwardian dress offered a fascinating glimpse into corsets, for example. And Ariel Bissett introduced me to “book tube” a few years ago. Liziqi blends a kind of tireless productivity with almost graceful romance in her vlogs, in which furniture is built, fields are sown and harvested, harvested materials are transformed and every day ends with an extraordinary meal.

So what is it about Beau Miles that I find so inspiring? I think there are two things: the first, is a sort of recklessness unfamiliar to me. I was raised with carefulness. That’s neither good nor bad, and I don’t mean Miles goes and risks his life for views. Rather, I think, I grew up feeling like things around me were fragile and that things had to be handled properly. This lent itself to ideas of perfectionism and scarcity. So, when Miles assembles things using found materials for example, the viewer gets to feel both the freedom of experimentation and a mastery of the tools that are handled. The results is therefore satisfying without being caught up in ideas of perfection. The older I get, the more I am intrigued by this idea of patina and lived-in spaces. (I mentioned that here.) Eventually, there comes a point, I think, when you’re not striving for an ideal image but rather, having acquired experience over the years, skill replaces self-consciousness. And this brings me to the second point. I think Beau Miles is an extraordinary storyteller. This is something you can glimpse in an interview he recently gave here, specifically, when he says: “As a storyteller, I know that you can come across a bit more loose and ad hoc and it’s just a bit more fun that way. But in my heart of hearts I kind of know what I’m doing.”

If you are unfamiliar with Beau Miles, I highly recommend his videos! See if you find them as inspiring!

Dear Gabrielle Blair (Design Mom)

I’ve been following the blog for a modest five years or so and I wanted to tell you that I’ve always appreciated your voice on the blog. I’ve always appreciate the Living With Kids feature and some still stand out in my mind. I remember reading Laura Hall’s comment in 2013 when she wrote “motherhood, though… that’s hit me like a double decker bus” and finding such comfort in it after a hard day. We still have toddlers in our house but I’m now beginning to feel as if the hardest adjustments have been made and we are gathering the happy moments now. I reflect on the questions you ask your readers and applaud you for sharing them. I appreciate the crafts you post, the recipes too, and your own thoughts on beauty and clothing. We’ve started to take pictures of school outfits last year when our girl was going in to grade one. If it does indeed take a village to raise a child, I just want to say that I’m delighted to count you among my online village acquaintances I can trust!

Dear Stephanie (NieNie Dialogues)

I’ve been following your blog for a few years now, and can’t unsubscribe because I feel like having news from you is like holding you in my heart. Reading your blog posts satisfies a gentle curiosity about life in Utah and provides me with the chance to empathize with someone who’s life’s journey is different than my own. Sometimes that’s all the encouragement I need, to know that we’re travelling together on this road, both mothers, both in love with men named Christian. Thank you for blogging. I continue to wish you and yours the very best,

Dear Maggie (Mighty Girl)

I found your blog in the extreme boredom of a desk job that required mostly my pretty face and happy voice. I’ve followed you ever since, through product recommendations, book quotes, life lists and life changes and I don’t know anyone who has such consistently perky writing. It’s always a delight to read you, no matter what you write about. Cheers!

Dear Heather (Dooce)

Reading you for the past number of years was like having that one rebel friend that made you cooler just by association. Between the sarcasm and the heart-rending confessions, I got to learn a little how hard it must be to have the internet as boss and supervisor. Thanks for the laughs, thanks for the tears, thanks for the truth in your words.

Dear Elan Morgan (Schmutzie)

I’ve been following your blog on and off since 2009 when I found you thanks to an article in the Globe and Mail. Sometimes I would think we had little in common other than our province of origin, but I’ve since come to appreciate you for being you. I like knowing that you are muddling through the day to day like me. Your finding grace helps me find grace too and I further appreciate the creative way you do so. Sometimes I think of you the way Francine Prose describes Beckett… She uses Beckett to describe “how much authority he achieves in the process of telling us about confusion and doubt” how he manages to do so with humour and how Beckett, by necessity, must have had to get over the worry about what his mom might think if they read his stories. Now I’m not saying you are like Beckett because I haven’t even read his books yet, but rather that I notice that thanks to your writing, I’ve learned to appreciate the grittiness in life. I don’t usually care for gritty things because I’m a romantic-comedy kind of person, but you write from a place of truth and there’s such value in that. Thank-you. Thank-you also for the Five-Star Fridays and the Five-Star Mixtapes.

Dear Tina (Swissmiss)

It’s a treat reading your blog. There’s always something to make me smile or inspire me to better work. I appreciate the links you post that make me feel like I’m a little more in the know here in Winnipeg where winters are long. Thanks for sharing your discerning eye with me. Thanks also for Tattly… it helped me connect with my niece last summer. All the best,

Dear Jason (Kottke)

Thank-you for your blog. I can so often credit you for finding interesting long reads, for coming across Ferrante’s fiction, for having a more educated view of the issues in the United States in general. A few years ago when my brother rented a room in our house, we started recognizing each other’s topics of conversation and thought it was amusing when we discovered we were both reading your blog. Thanks for keeping me connected to all things cool!