a match made in heaven

a simple little photo for a simple little reason: purple and yellow.
there's a new week (and a new month, for that matter) on its way: may it - they - be happy.

*a bike of a different colour yesterday on lala*land: thanks, lala!

a question of questionable priorities

if i were a proper housewife, i would be using these extra two days off to shake domestic sloth: i would be dusting and polishing, tending to laundry, filling the fridge with delicacies.
but i'm not.
the skies are finally blue. no socks are about to be matched today, no feasts prepared. i feel slightly guilty about the basket of undone ironing and the neglected bouquet of cornflowers, but i'm off to the city.
the sun may not linger long, so i have other things to do.

drifting past the hours

she is halfway to everywhere, blowing with a dozen winds, her best intentions
entangled in dreams and dissatisfaction.
her sails are transparent, though. in them, and through them, she sees sky, and spectrum, and the essence of illusion, and so much beauty will carry her, adrift or not,
to contented shores.

when skies are blue

"painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting with the gift of speech."
- simonides (556 BC - 468 BC)

today a real sun - not golden brushstrokes, not fond memories of other summers, not desperate optimism, but a REAL sun - smiled, and life moved outside, and the monochromatic palette of the past few weeks was replaced by brilliance, making amsterdam a wonderful place to be: for honeymooners, and for unreasonable souls like me, who do not, and will not, ever, thrive on grayness. long live.
*and a postscript: there is unlimited beauty out there, and bruno, for one, is a daily inspiration. his photos ARE poetry. this one is my special favourite. i can't imagine anyone not being enchanted.

and jubilations

she spent her last birthday in boston - my daughter - and the one before that in dublin, and she would clearly rather be somewhere equally exciting today, somewhere exotic and new, anywhere but bo-o-oring alkmaar.
i know this, and i understand it. i remember being 22, and standing at the brink of a thousand adventures, and thinking that i had to discount the past and the present to fully focus on the future.
i know this, and i acknowledge it, but i am nevertheless selfishly delighted to have her here at home, on this special day, where i can put my arms around her and wonder at the beauty of the years gone by, and admire the delightful young woman she's become.

heart and shoulder

her little stretch of heaven is, here, now, the colour of dawn and dusk and glory and the blushing softness of peaches. if she could, she would fling it tenderly across half the universe, draping him in light, warming his thoughts and dreams into exquisite words, and soothing his elusive stories from the dark.

cover to cover

a confession: the last film i saw in a movie-theatre was "billy elliot". the one before that was "titanic".
television, then? well, i did catch a few minutes of jamie oliver whipping up something stimulating two saturdays ago when i went downstairs to pour myself a second cup of coffee...
and a third: i've forgotten how the video works.
i read a lot (AND i commute, which means that i have two hours a day to immerse myself in a good story). and, though i don't always judge covers well, i have been blessed, in recent weeks, with a succession of excellent books.
the most recent gift - literally! - was "the five people you meet in heaven", slipped into my shopping bag by rachel at the end of a fine afternoon in amsterdam.
it was a captivating little tale; i have a weakness for perceptions of the hereafter, and this one moved me. it lingered in my thoughts when i put it aside. i finished it, and then i started it again.
it is quite possible that my stack of books, beckoning, has kept me from other things, like HERE.
but i hope -and assume, somehow - that all this insight and inspiration will keep me on my creative toes.

the fortune teller lied

is it not JULY? is it not SUMMER?
sometimes - truly, truly - i wonder what we have done to the world.

you win some

she gathers the tales told, the tales left untold, and the tales intuitively understood, and intersperses them with sighs of recognition and smiles of understanding, before she slides them onto a stubborn but lenient thread.
there will be wholeness before she is done.
every added colour firms her resolve, and even the tiniest touches of brightness nudge her into certainty.
recovery can be an art.
and nothing heals like friendships do.