at long last

it has taken me a few years - the havoc wreaked by the hack and the lack of backup
seemed insurmountable - but i have spent the last three days giving here some first aid and some much-needed tlc.
some happened-upon old back-ups turned out to contain many of the first photographs,
so i finally reinstated almost all of the early pictures (save a dozen that are probably
lost forever). the anxiety that overcame me at the mere thought of all the empty
images has lifted.
this feels like home again.
and i tackled the spam comments (that's 778 on one entry) that had me so frustrated that i couldn't even face moderating any more.
*
thank you for sticking with me.
i am grateful. and happy.

hip, hip...

hooray, for me, today, even though i stopped celebrating my birthday a few years ago, when i stopped counting the fleeting years.

we thought they'd never end

I took ballet lessons as a wee pony-tailed-spindly-legged lass, and, when my hour was over, I pirouetted myself downstairs to Lattimer's Drugstore and perched myself on a stool till my Mum or my Dad picked me up to take me home. I was given 35 cents to buy a soda or a sundae while I waited, and I remember spinning, alone, to the hiss of the fountain, in my leotard and my ballerinas, on scarlet leatherette, and feeling very Grown Up indeed.
I thought of this, decades later, in Penang, when I saw these fluted coupes: my mind jeté'd back to then, when "chocolate" or "butterscotch" was pretty much the most important decision I had to make.

een lentesymphonietje

Sophie is so beautiful that all the pictures taken that afternoon at Schiphol are stunning.*

I just know, though, that she is going to see them and sigh, and drat that errant lock of hair and that ever-so-slightly crooked necklace.

The young lady is a perfectionist; I hope they please her despite.

*well, except for the ones shot on Retro 80s: I optimistically loaded the GW with it and then the day turned very dim, and then I neglected to slow the shutter speed down, so those are a wee.bit.underexposed..

semicolon.space.

"This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back in again."
-Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet, Novelist, Dramatist and Critic, 1854-1900)

There will be an English and a Dutch version of the Secret Amsterdam book come September or October, and I offered, in a mad moment, to proof-read both versions - the first because I am, after all, Canadian, and I did, after all and once upon a time, study journalism; the second because...well, just because.

64,979 words later (and not done yet), I am not exactly cursing that mad moment, but I am looking longingly at the sun between my noughts and my crosses.

cream of asparagus

we three had finished our starters. tante, though, who is three years shy of her 100th birthday, savoured her soup at her own sweet pace, and when she perceived the waiter approaching, intent on preparing our table for the next course, she chuckled into her spoon.

"take your time!", she muttered. "we old ladies are abominably slow". as the waiter turned on his heel, she sipped - unruffled - further.

we do love her.

the 13:15 at 13:25

if you're on your way to an appointment in, say, arnhem, and your train coupé bears a striking resemblance to this one: get off at the next stop.
this - the granny-smith-green-one - is the train to maastricht.

you want the mauve one.
trust me.

for the sake of posterity

my husband's parental home - a little self-made wooden house on the edge of a farmer's field - has hardly changed since i first made its acquaintance  as "the foreign girlfriend", 30 years ago.
it is still an oasis of old-fashioned "gezelligheid", small but with its space used well, full of light, a little less tidy since my father-in-law sadly found himself alone in his golden years.
and because it is on leased land, it cannot be inherited, so i wanted, needed to try coaxing the essence of it onto film.

that soothe, and heal, and bless

last year on his birthday, our friend sander was so weakened by his multiple myeloma, and the severity of the treatments he was undergoing, that he could manage no more than an hour of quiet participation in his own festivities.
this year on his birthday, following a successful bone marrow transplant and months of therapy, he was radiantly and joyously in the limelight, opening gifts, uncorking wine, conversing...
...and piling his own party pizzas enthusiastically with parmesan and prosciutto, a feat undreamable just 12 months ago.

relentless restlessness

this length of blue and gold and aqua, draped over this chair, or - for that matter - any chair, means that my daughter is home between adventures.
when i took this, she was.
she'll be back from norway, though, in a mere week, scarf and all.

imminent flight

i've been so looking forward to this holiday, and it begins, happily, in an hour.

i'll be back in april.

thicket by thicket

"never continue in a job you don't enjoy.
if you're happy in what you're doing, you'll like yourself, you'll have inner peace. and if
you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined."*
- johnny carson (american tv host, 1925-2005)

i not only need to like the work i do, i also need it to like me. i need to be sure that i can - and will - do it well.
it's not the first time i've followed my instincts, and made a decision like this.
i hope it's the last, though.

*quote encountered on myla's flickr

nips and tucks

two-muses is five years old today.

five years sounds fledgling, but it is actually quite venerable - elderly even - in this world of webcreativity, and i would be the first to confess that some restorative and corrective surgery is in order.

it's not so much our demeanor - although the possibility of posting larger images would please me no end - but functionality is faltering, especially since the hack: whole pages have gone missing, for instance, and we (meaning i) can no longer update the "inspiration" links.

help seems blessedly at hand. the lovely myla has offered to guide us through some changes (thanks, myla!) as has the cleverest of my colleagues (thanks, börge!).

within weeks, we may be looking fresh and feeling sprightly again.

until then: cake, anyone?

i know not whither

on a fine fall morning last year, out with my friend sander in his boat, gliding
gloriously through this water-wealthy village we live in, there was hardly a cloud - literally and figuratively - in the sky.
the same heavens - literally and figuratively - are looking slightly more somber just now.
*
all i can really do is go with the flow, as they say, and blow, believing, in the wind.

only in a quiet mind

my wish, for you (and, truth be told, for me, too):

clear skies.
smooth seas.
time, wisdom, perception.

happiness.
don't let the good get away.

i hope your 2008 exceeds all expectations.

the season bright

"for somehow, not only at christmas, but all the long year through, the joy that you give to others is the joy that comes back to you."
- john greenleaf whittier (american writer, 1807-1892)

amen.

merry christmas, everyone.

like sapphires in boxcars

"adversity is the diamond dust heaven polishes its jewels with."- thomas carlyle (scottish historian and essayist, 1795-1881)

it's been a rough few months.
but - surely, surely - it can only get better.

worse things happen at sea, y'know.

looking on the bright side - my nature, ordinarily - has become more and more effortful as an unsatisfactory ending to my bus situation becomes more and more inevitable.
these are circumstances beyond my control, and they are compelling me into a worst-case scenario: back into the employment market, despite having a job i enjoy and do well.
frustration and anxiety - and my futile attempts to change the course of events - have kept me from doing the things i love to do.
*
taking pictures is what i miss most of all.

that's what friends are for.

"we'd never know how high we are, till we are called to rise; and then, if we are true to
plan, our statures touch the sky."
- emily dickinson (american poet, 1830-1886)

it was to have been a bit of photographic heaven: my best buddy, the beauty of the norfolk coast, the crisp fall light and colours, the endless sea and sky.
two days before my arrival, however, he stumbled in his stairwell and fractured his foot, so the dozen days became a totally different kind of holiday.
i turned nurturer. i cooked, cleaned, bottle-washed.
i encouraged.
i took no more then six pictures.
*
i didn't mind, though, at all.

from a) to b) and back.

i have been distracted, and distressed, these weeks gone by.
"my" bus service - the one that gets me to work for my (preferred) early early early shifts - may, may be discontinued.
(international airport? accessible? whyever?)
*
i can hardly cycle. can i? i can't drive, and i certainly can't swim.
i can hope, though.
*
i have proven myself good at that.