So I finally did it. I bit the bullet and finally left ariestrash behind in the dust. Well, as best as I could, really…
And I went back to the beginning.
Remember when this blog used to be called “aerial love?” And I used to blog about love? The name has always been there, patiently waiting for me to accept it. It’s taken five years and some tweaking (damn you aerial acrobatics!), but I’ve finally made it here: aerialovely.
Here’s the story:
Back in 2012, way before this blog even existed, I wrote a song called Wanderlust.
In the second verse, I wrote:
Here we go on the road off to nowhere
to the place where the wind blows through your hair
an enchanted aerial love affair
When my dad passed away later that year, five years ago tomorrow morning to be exact, I was an utter mess (naturally). I went through a lot of changes, and in January 2013 decided to start a blog to chronicle my journey of exploring life and love after loss. I had just finished reading Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body and had many thoughts swirling inside of my head that I felt safe enough to share on a personal blog. I was never really good at keeping blogs, so it’s quite a surprised this one here lasted so long.
Well, I named that blog “aerial love” after the line in my song. I loved the idea of love swirling about in the wind. It was very romantic and dreamy. It was also very different, so different from my personal website, ariestrash, that was full of angst and very artsy. At the time, I had had the ariestrash moniker since high school, where I was a self-proclaimed “art deviant” and super into rock n roll. I was creating these digital collages from junk scans–ripped paper, scanned ephemera, grunge photoshop brushes, textures, you name it–all from sites like horizonroad, lemonend, discoisdead, and 99mockingbirds (all of which don’t exist anymore). I was coding web templates and drawing a lot of Johnny Depp. I kept a small blog on there via cutenews and fanupdate (anybody remember those?) and was very into sad poetry and Harry Potter roleplay.
At some point, I decided to combine the two. For awhile, I had “ariestrash | aerial love blog” in the header, but eventually it shortened to just “ariestrash” and that was that. Years went on and one day, I decided to share some original content on the blog besides my writing. I began to take photos of my life, of my scrapbooks and art journals, and well I began to discover my own personal style. I joined different websites and online communities far different from the ones I had in high school and in college. I began to travel more and learn outside my comfort zone and I began to share those things. “ariestrash” took on a whole new life.
But lately, I’ve been feeling that I’ve lost the meaning behind the name. What is “ariestrash?” who is “ariestrash?” A few of my followers shared with me how the “trash” part can be a turn-off and not really me, and I couldn’t help but agree. The name just didn’t fit like it used to; it was time to change.
Change is hard, I’m definitely one to know. But it can also be very exciting because it’s something new and uncomfortable. I had been thinking about changing the name to this site, the blog, my social media, everything for a while now. It wasn’t until coming back home from my latest trip to make me see that maybe it’s time. The struggle now was finding a name that fit.
I always gravitated back to “aerialove.” I actually did own that domain once for awhile for my music, but after deciding on Tiffany Julia as a stage name, I let it go. Unfortunately for me, the phrase is now heavily associated with aeroacrobatics. Women doing aerial acrobatics on ropes (I know, this has to be a new thing). So I really couldn’t use “aerialove” the way I wanted to. So after choosing a few words to focus on and reaching out to my followers and friends, it seemed fitting to still go with “aerialove” but expand it in a way that no one had yet, and that was still true to me.
And that’s how aerialovely was born.
I once wrote on my blog (actually this is still in my “about the blog” page), “I suppose that’s the thing about love. It permeates through even the deepest of places, reaches into the darkest of caverns, and can heal the saddest of souls. It manifests itself in everything and everyone. It’s completely aerial.” This couldn’t be any more relevant to who I am and what I share now.
I feel the word “aerial” encompasses that ethereal, wandering soul of mine. It’s movement; a journey through the air. It’s full of light and wonder. “Lovely” is for all of the pretty things I love: the florals, pastels, and the like. It’s the delicate and the sublime. I feel like aerialovely fits better with my aesthetic and what I make and share more than ariestrash does now. And I hope you all continue to follow me on this journey, this aerial love affair, with life, love, art, and wanderlust.