I’d like to tell you about swifts, a magical bird who turns the European twilight skies into vast aviaries. Some swift facts:
1. Like bats, cave-dwelling swifts navigate by echolocation. They call out and listen for their own echoed answer to find their way in total darkness.
2. Many species glue their nests together with saliva. The [...]
“I am so awake,” Ali says into the darkness. Me too. Late night talk ensues: this weekend marks the halfway point {week 20 of 40} of our time here and as such, the mind turns to evaluate how we’ve been doing thus far.
I had many fantasies about nine! whole! months! to do whatever it [...]
is what my boyfriend is.
(he also rarely reads this blog, so I am at liberty to out him while twirling my dastardly mustache…)
I relish a good range, and the Alps are the finest–grand, playful, spooky–but I am not moved to throw myself down in the wild pansies and make grass angels, and that’s precisely what [...]
Book work distracts again, as we will soon trade some days of laptops and pondering for frolicking in Piemonte, Italy. So a poem today, from the man who called grass beautiful uncut hair of graves, Walt Whitman. Plus pictures from a Sunday constitutional up “our mountain,” at the base of the Jura. Everything is beginning [...]
These days I have been pondering the way one gets hooked into certain responses, particularly in the face of discomfort (a flat writing day, a lover’s spat, uncertainty about seeming pipe dreams, or just plain getting wait-listed for Yaddo–again!).
One could simply not tell oneself the same story, could make a choice to experiment with a [...]
Dorothy Parker (who also inspired this title) said, “The best way to keep children home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant–and let the air out of the tires.” The kids are at home by choice this weekend, wheel-less it’s true, but planning an adventure for next weekend…in Milan! Yay!
In response to a few requests [...]
Perhaps I was too glib when the ostrich bit me. In retrospect it seems a harbinger of much that was to follow.
This weekend we explored the Loue Valley, following along the winding Doubs river that runs from Switzerland to France. The Loue river was discovered to be a tributary of the Doubs when in 1901 [...]
Sometimes life gives you exactly what you ordered. This can be good or bad, but probably shouldn’t surprise if you’ve been taking notes or at least not reading Oblivion Enthusiast magazine in class.
“C’est une fraise qui skie!” (It’s a strawberry that skis!) is what the girl said about the prized figurine she pulled from her pocket, in the hopes that I would ask her about it, so I did. We were waiting for the funi to take us back down the mountain after an afternoons adventure, all [...]
The soothing German voice of the navigation system of Christian’s Porsche layered over the angst-ridden oh-so-American yowling of The White Stripes as we roared through our personal mountain range, the Jura. The morning’s snow looked lovely balancing on the pine branches as we whizzed past.
We were heading to Lausanne, but the truth is we would [...]