flown by

"well," says my daughter, "just so you know: i would be very hurt and totally insulted if you didn't post something special on my birthday."
i sigh. i've had a very long day. after rummaging through box after box of family
photos, i climb the stairs and knock on his door.
"how would you feel if i didn't put a birthday piece up on the site today?" i ask.
"relieved," he answers.
*
but i'm a mother. i couldn't not.
happy 25th, thijs..
may this year be filled with fineness!

that's all it took

the tin-toy-store appeared here a while back, and the butterfly houses over at rachel's.
some subjects are so simple and so sweet that a revisit is inevitable.

crimson and clover

my life's sentimental journey has unfolded, gracefully, to its own eclectic soundtrack:
the songs i wasn't asked to dance to in high school, the songs that crackled into my darkened bedroom when i should have been sleeping, the chips-and-gravy
songs on the individual jukeboxes in the cosy grill, the first-time-tipsy songs and the first-time-high songs, the only-living-girl-in-vancouver songs, the songs interrupted by numbing news - kennedy, kennedy, martin luther king, john lennon: a collection of recollections, so to speak.
i would so like these strains - my personal symphony - sidling through my little white earhones, but alas: i may be canadian, but i don't live in canada, and i am only permitted downloads from the dutch iTunes store.
i did try. tommy james & the shondells: huh? leslie west, thunderclap newman: wha?
the ronettes: some numbers, okay, but not "be my baby", and "be my baby" is, as far as i can see, the whole point.
i am dodging the potholes pitting my particular memory lane, and i am mystified by iTunes' refusal - paid, nota bene - to fill them.
this is the internet, the world-wide web.
we should be able to sing, and dance, and reminisce, together.

hit the lights

every saga harbours a worst-case scenario, and ours involved an unsellable home: months on the market (imagine!) but - endless washed windows and walloped doormats later - not a single prospective buyer among the cast of characters.
happily, our screenwriter opted for a happier ending, at least for this episode...
the first viewers were smitten, it seems, and our house was sold the very next day.
we can sit back, and nibble popcorn, and anticipate june.

why they call it the blues

"these," said my lovely daughter, shuffling through the dozen squares, "feel almost like winter warming into spring."
i'll cross my fingers that she's right - but i won't take off my gloves just yet.

by chance, by choice

"friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'what! you too? i thought i was the only one!'" 
- c.s. lewis (british scholar and novelist, 1898-1963)

indeed.

treading water

i was feeling, yesterday morning, like taking a long walk off a short pier: blame dark-
to-dark workdays, calamitous commutes, and stubbornly sullen skies.
yesterday afternoon, though, the weather turned, and my mood turned, too, as it tends to do, in the clear cold healing light.
i have the next five days off, and fine friends to meet, and enough film to see me
through these final strokes of winter.

keeping the faith

this careful eating has me craving sweetness; this full agenda has me lost for words; this weary winter has me longing for the scents, the songs, the colours of spring.
my disgruntlement is minor, though, and my distress negligible, so a kind email -
and an envelope of images that looked just as i'd hoped they might - was more than enough to make my day smile.

worse through a window

a patch of blue sky sidled by, yesterday, almost imperceptible between the hailstorm and the rain.
this has been a vacuously dreary winter, weather-wise, and i wish it would make up its mind: for better or for worse.

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.