CRANBERRY JOURNAL N.2

with CHRISTINA CARADONA

I met Christina around ten years ago on a work trip to Jackson Hole that happened to fall on her birthday. Being surrounded by strangers on your birthday does something funny to your insides, especially when you’re the extra-feeling kind of person we both seemed to be. 

There were tears, but the casual wail-on-your-birthday kind. The it’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to kind. The kind where we all understood this was an inevitability with or without our presence.

I immediately loved her and wished I had the courage to be so outwardly true to my feelings. The simple act of her being herself helped me understand more about who I was, or at least who I wanted to be.

Since then, I’ve watched Christina build a career as an actress with the same tenderness and emotional intuition that make people gravitate toward her in everyday life. Her warmth and candor endear people to her within minutes. So magnetic and impossibly beautiful, yet somehow completely disarming.

When we arrived to photograph her at home, standing in her butter yellow kitchen, she told us she had stayed up repainting the night before and still had paint splattered across her legs and under her fingernails. It filled me with the kind of familial adoration usually reserved for a sister.

And like a sister, we can go years without seeing each other and immediately fall back into a comfortable rapport. Perhaps that’s the quality we later discuss that people misunderstand most about her, the assumption that they fully understand the kind of person she is simply because she appears so open and embodied at first glance.

-Alyssa

Photography by Sara Byrne

  • MORNING RITUALS


    AM - Tell me about your morning rituals.


    "I usually wake up at the same time every day. I’m a very early riser, so around 6 a.m., which might be early to some people, but I love getting up early.


    I have a journal that I’m almost done with and I write in it every morning, usually about three pages. Sometimes longer, sometimes shorter.


    I listen to really meditative music or outside bird noises to simulate that I’m outside because I live in Los Angeles and I don’t want to hear the street.


    Then I always make something warm. A matcha or even just warm water. After that I either work out immediately or go on a long walk. I love mornings. It feels so different for your system."

  • PRIORITIZING LAUGHTER


    AM - What’s been making you laugh recently?


    "I just got back from a road trip from Idaho all the way to Los Angeles with my really good friend Grant and he’s just so funny.


    I also really try to surround myself with laughter. I even have this little card in my kitchen that says, “I will make sure that laughter is a priority in my life.” I leave little affirmation things around so when I wake up I see them.


    Life has been nice these days, so every day feels kind of light."



    CREATIVITY, CRYING AND BEING OURSELVES


    AM - What are you working on creatively right now?


    "I just got back from a trip to Seattle with Filson. I’ve been doing a lot more outdoorsy stuff lately. I think I’m really tapping into what I actually like to do, which is being outside and being in nature. That makes me really happy.


    I’ve been traveling a lot for work, but honestly I’m usually more excited about my non-work trips because I get to see family and friends.


    I kind of keep my head down and do my thing and text my friends silly memes all day.


    I don’t even care if they respond. I’m like, “You have to see this."


    I’ve also been working on a lot of commercials. I just had a really big commercial come out that I was really excited about and I have another one coming out in June for the FIFA World Cup, which was one of the biggest commercials I’ve ever done.


    Other than that, I’m just trying to stay happy and stimulated and be myself. Just crying and being me."



    THE UNSPOKEN PARTS 


    AM - Crying and being me. Perfect. 

    Speaking of, what’s something people tend to get wrong about you?


    "I think people assume I’m way more extroverted than I actually am. I’m selectively extroverted.


    I think as I’ve gotten older I’ve really learned to appreciate the quieter parts of myself. The more unspoken parts. I think only really close friends know that side of me."



  • ON THE COLOR YELLOW


    Your kitchen is this gorgeous butter yellow. What’s your relationship to color?


    "I love yellow. It’s always been my favorite color.


    Looking back, I grew up around a lot of rust and yellow tones. My mom was always repainting things in the house. I remember our dining room being this rusty orange color.


    Every apartment I’ve moved into, I’ve painted something. My last kitchen was green and now this one is yellow and every time I walk into it I’m like, “No, this is better.”


    Yellow bowls, yellow clothes, yellow everything."


    The paint color is called Disco Nap by Backdrop.


    SIGNS FROM THE UNIVERSE


    AM - Do you believe in signs from the universe?


    "Completely."


    "My phone passcode is literally 4444. Every time I open my phone I’m like, “Okay God, what do you have for me today?”


    I’m a Cancer. All we do is cry, get chills, and talk about signs."



    SUMMER TRAVEL PLANS & THE IMPORTANCE OF FAMILY 


    AM - FACTS, but you're going to have to change your phone passcode now.. Tell me about your summer travel plans.


    "Every July I go back home to Biarritz for the month and see my brothers and all my friends. I smoke cigarettes and drink wine and it’s amazing.


    I’m literally counting down the days.


    Family is really important to me. It’s one of the things in life that comes most naturally to me. Not because my family is perfect, but because I genuinely prioritize it more than almost anything else."
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