rolling down the years

i could propose a dozen toasts:
to the new house, to the old house, to the well-being of those i cherish, to peace, love, and happiness (i'm a child of the sixties: i may always have flowers in my hair), to friends lost and friends found, to winter sunshine, to summer shadow, to ventures and adventures and pets-come-home, to bravery, and tenacity, to the glow of a perfect light, to good luck and less luck and the generosity of strangers, to tales, to wonder, to potential realised, to those who dare and those who don't dare just yet, to those with goodness and compassion, for they make the world a finer place to be.
and then:
one more glass - for here, this place, for two-muses-now-one, for harmony pursued, for the challenge, and the simple joy of creating....and for you - welcome, appreciated - who visit and share your thoughts.
we are three years old today.
thank you.
and proost.

luring the wispy ghost

i have not disappeared: i am merely invisible in the fluster of an undefined future.
i am hovering, though, transparent in the whiteness, and hoping - for inspiration, and, especially, for a swift sale, so that everyday life can resume its familiar homely stance.

and come what may

in the exhilaration of the where-we-are-going, of the moving to, i somehow forgot the where-we-are, and the endless inconvenience of moving from.
buying one house means - in our case - selling another, and for a tense while, our main reality will be uncertainty, and strangers strolling our private spaces, and tedious tidying, and the realisation that we have - tsk! - accumulated far too much, over the past years, of far too many things.

rung down the curtain

it wasn't so much the auction-site cosmic 35 that i coveted, but rather the three rolls of expired-38-years-ago film that were included, possibly as an afterthought, in the sale.

the first one, trusted lovingly to the ricoh - the best possible opportunities and all that - and dubiously processed, made me dance, foolish and jubilant, around the scanner.
as gayla said not long ago: film is magic.
*
but, just for curiosity's sake, where were you in 1968?
or, rather, were you at all?

high time we went

my apologies for the quality of this image (cold day, very cheap polaroid*)...but do you see that sign in the upstairs window?
it reads "te koop" or "for sale"; at least that's what it read this morning.
tomorrow it will read "sold".
we move in june.
and yes: it is that house.

*i don't suppose anyone has - or has come across - a nice polaroid 680 longing for a good home?

hi ho silver lining

i wish you good health and happiness...

time enough to stop and smell the roses...

and sunshine after each inevitable storm.
*
may 2006 be your finest year yet.

'tis the season

some of my very favourite people have posted tree-ornament shots, so i find myself, this festive december day, in excellent company...
*
happy holidays!

long time passing

"how did it get so late so soon?
its night before it's afternoon.
december is here before it's june.
my goodness how the time has flewn.
how did it get so late so soon?"
- dr. seuss (american writer and cartoonist, 1904-1991)

in a month or so, tender snowdrops will nudge their greenness through the frost, and the neverending cycle of growth - flourishing, fading - will begin again.
in the meantime, though, there is mimicry.
and there are memories.

just around the corner

come summer, i leave the north sea beaches - one of which is just a quarter of an hour away - to the vacationing throngs. crowds, sand, and very loud transistor radios: it's a combination i avoid with total conviction.
when the season is low, though, and the tide, and the sun, too, and when the view stretches spacious into another province, i can be tempted into a late afternoon stroll along the coast.
this is the camera i pocket when i anticipate vistas. i'm its second owner - we're still getting aquainted - but sometimes it seems to perceive the wide world exactly as i do.
(a larger version is here.)

winter branches and old bones

it rained, of course. it is december, after all.

but - by times - there was lamplight, and sunlight, too.

there was even, finally, in laon, a bit of rust and peeling paint.
colour me content.