a crowning glory

"that vertical thingamabob," we asked the gentleman weeding his driehuizen
garden, "what is it called?"
(our new house - in broek op langedijk - has a perfect steeped gable, and we rather think that a typical north-holland embellishment would make it even lovelier, much to the chagrin of our children, who would prefer that we focus our attentions on buying a dishwasher.)
that's a "makelaar", he told us - in this case meaning, for some obscure reason, "the
honest division of possessions". builders, he explained, used signature spires,
representing either their own business, or symbolising the trade or profession of the
home owner himself. every curve, every angle, has a meaning.
we may need to do a bit of research.
i wonder if there's a finial for photobloggers?

the eves of distraction

jan - one of the many exceptional people i have met through the rangefinderforum - is absolutely right when he says, in a comment on an earlier image: "but enjoy some of the season before it slips into fall!"
i am aware of how neglectful i have been. i see the light at the end of the alleyway, and i see the colours; i just need to get the focus right.
i will, in the end.

from the chaos

i am not feeling particularly serene, nor particularly focused, but our old house is past tense, and our new house is present tense: it is starting to feel, sound, and smell like us.
there is equanimity in unpacked boxes, i am assured, and in tidy cupboards, so i shall unpack, and tidy, and count on an inevitable calm.

when you're having fun

our move is alarmingly imminent; i am going to have neither the hours nor the inclination to update here until we are settled into there.
it's time, i think, to hang out the "moving house" sign, but i couldn't find one of those,
so a "gone fishing" sign will have to do.

goat, gotten

"i really dislike nikons though - i've never held one that wasn't horrible," he said.
*
he may have been bantering. he may have simply lacked enlightenment. but if he hadn't been sitting safely in another country, a good swift tug on his beard would have been my instinctive response.
as it was, i merely bleated.

circle these dates

i had no idea, when i took this picture a few months ago on the haarlemmerdijk, that the subject matter would ever say more to me than "lime window, lime bike"; now, however, it does.
this funky little gallery - an annex of galerie buuf - is where the participants of the europephotobloggers 2006 meetup (september 22nd-24th) will get acquainted, and exhibit their photographs, and toast to an inspiring and rewarding couple of days together.
if you have a photoblog, you are van harte welkom: you can read more, and sign up, over at the wiki.
please do; more is definitely merrier, and amsterdam - as you may have guessed - can be a veritable photographer's feast!

no rest for the weary

a smooth exit here, and a supple entry there - just two weeks from now - rather hinges on me doing my daunting duty: sifting through stuff, endless stuff, so much stuff, and making it all shiftable.
*
i'll get a move on, then, shall i?

unlimited cake

"i had three chairs in my house: one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society."
- henry david thoreau (american essayist, poet and philosopher, 1817-1862)

a found friend, fine and fortuitous; a faceless twist of happenstance:
i am a happier person today than i was a month ago.

four score with fervour

my mother always told us stories.
while she stirred, and sewed, and sang, and brewed lemonade-from-scratch, and spun the clothesline out to the far edge of the garden, she told us stories, and this was one of our favourites:
she and her two teenaged sisters shared a room in their ottawa home, and they were - all three - desperately untidy.
my fiery little grandmother soon tired of the total disarray.
"i will take measures," she warned them. they paid no mind. they shed their finery, kicked off their pretty pumps,and went their merry adolescent way. "if i find it on the floor, it will fly out the window", my grandmother reiterated.
snow fell. they began to miss things: a blouse here, a scarf there.
"where is my blue sweater?" my mother asked. my grandmother shrugged. "whatever happened to my tweed skirt?", demanded her sister. my grandmother shrugged again.
their wardrobe continued to diminish. my grandmother continued to shrug.
and then spring arrived.
and the snow melted.
and the thaw revealed a garden splashed with sodden garments, strewn with ruined footwear. the lost had been - uselessly - found.
my grandmother? she, a woman of her word, shrugged, and clucked.
*
happy 80th birthday, mom! (i usually call her ma, but for this one time.)
i wish you were here. or that i were there.

remind me

the errant strands of auburn, the comely curve of ear, the glimpsed gold, dangling, delicate: he stops short.
"margaret?", he whispers.
and when he stumbles, and she turns, he realises.
he feels old, and flushed, and foolish, but oddly exalted. she was so near, and she has been so far away for such a long time.