Happy May

Today for the first time in a while, I got to take my lunch break in the park behind the office. And it was wonderful. The temperature is pushing 80 degrees but there’s no humidity yet so it was perfect for lolling in the grass with my shoes off.

Oh hello, blue sky. Won't you stay for awhile?

Spring is slowly working its way across the creek.

Dandelions and sandals make me smile.

Other reasons to smile today:

-Sleeping with the windows open. (Until 4 am, when the bird choir began to practice in the tree next to the house.)

-In exactly one month, my sister is coming home for a visit, hooray!

-Snapchat is my new favorite app. If you have a smartphone, please download it and add me (eelycarols), I promise to send you hilarious and strictly SFW pictures.

-An unspent gift card to my favorite bookstore burning a hole in my pocket

-Some much needed words of encouragement:

"Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God."-Isaiah 50:10

It is indeed shaping up to be a happy May. 

PC: Day 17

Relaxation

Yes, I post photos from Rocky Woods like three times a month but if I find relaxation anywhere, it's definitely there, particularly at Echo Pond. And today was the perfect day to head out there after work: clear blue skies and a pleasant 45 degrees. 

My body is tired and my mind is clear--ultimate relaxation. 

Ohhhmmm...

One squillion photos of fall

Ok I'll be honest. I kind of love my schedule. Even though I may whine and thrash around every morning at 5:15 when that blasted alarm goes off, I really shouldn't complain. Being done with work by 2:30 most days is pretty awesome. Now that I'm finally used to the early mornings and early nights, I don't come home every day absolutely dead on my feet.

And even though my work week means I'm busy Tuesday through Saturday, it is super cool to have Mondays off. I can get everything boring I need to get done out of the way on the least busiest day of the week. You know, errands, laundry, blah blahh. Or I can ignore all that and go shopping. Or paint. Or lie on the floor and do nothing. There's no one to hang out with, and no plans I'm missing out on. I have a day all to myself and I'm in love with it. 

But back to my original point, it's fantastic to have the whole afternoon after work to do stuff, now that I don't feel the need to nap until dinner, eat, shower and go back to bed. 

Which means on the rare days when the weather is nice, I can go home, throw my camera in my bag and head back out to do some hiking and take approximately one squillion photos of fall before the sun sets.

Which is exactly what I did today. 

And then I came home and put all the nice, fancy photos through a Polaroid filter to make them look old and blurry. 

Don't ask me why. 

Don't you know that hipsters don't have to explain themselves?

Anyway, enjoy. Or don't. Whatever. I'm still going to love myself at the end of the day.

Roses on a Friday

Days like today,

where the rain drips into every corner of my jacket 

and mind,

these are the days that I seek happiness in the form of flowers.

But let's be honest. I don't limit my bloom obsession to rainy days.

I like them on sunny days,

windy days,

days where I eat a ham sandwich,

Tuesdays,

Fridays,

pretty much any day I get out of bed,

but even more on the days that I don't.

Farmer's market flower stalls, wildflowers growing by the side of the road, even the refrigerator case at the grocery store....all sources of temptation. 

Someday when I have my own place, I'm going to be that person who even has a bowl of flowers in the bathroom. 

Yeah, just like your Grams.

Anyway, today presented itself with a 100% legitimate excuse (aside from the rain) for spending my money on an armful of plants: the 34th wedding anniversary of my dear aunt and uncle, who are so graciously letting me live under their roof here in Massachusetts.

Now I don't normally indulge, but for you two crazy kids in love, I opened up my pockets with wild abandon and bought roses.

Dusty pinks, warm vanilla, and a pop of tangerine petals....nothing quite so satisfying as taking a pile of unassuming buds and creating that perfectly arranged centerpiece. Throw in a few sprigs of baby's breath and we have ourselves a work of art that smells as good as it looks.

Happy Anniversary, Aunt and Uncle. 
And Happy "just because it's Friday" to the rest of you. 
Now go buy me yourself some flowers.

A Sunday Stroll

Hey people. 

Clearly, the updates are few and far in between lately. To be honest, I'm not in a writing mood. When I'm not working, I'm sleeping. Seriously. I'm tired all the time. Not sure what that's about, other than I'm a big baby and am having trouble getting used to working over 40 hours a week (a.k.a. "real life").

Anyway, went for a fall-ish jaunt through the woods this evening with some friends.  I say "fall-ish" because even though the leaves are turning, the temperature was firmly in the mid-80s. It was lovely to get outdoors and of course, get some more mileage out of my new camera. ;)

"Toute la nature crie qu'il existe"

Title translation: "All nature cries out that He exists." -Voltaire

step outside, close your eyes, stand completely still, barefoot in the grass.
feel the gentle sun rays seep behind your eyes, filling the space with a warm red orange light.
wait for the smallest of breezes, like a soft hand plucking the loose strand of hair from behind your ear to barely brush your cheek.
let your mind empty out as your head fills with the sound of the earth moving around you. a bird twittering, a cricket sighing, the faint rumble of tires on the highway a few miles away.
smile at the small hole in the soundscape, the silence left by absent cicadas, signaling a surprising mid-August reprieve from oppressive summer humidity.
calf muscle twitches unexpectedly as an unassuming ant moseys up the back of your left leg. keep your eyes closed, but lift your right foot to casually brush him off.
breathe deep, pushing out your stomach to fill all the corners of your body with outside air.
drop your head, open your eyes, just barely, to see the blur of colors between eyelash fringe.
open wide, focus and then narrow again, taking in the detail in blades of grass between your toes.
then head tipped back to drink in the sky, a perfect circle of blue and white at once right above you and at the same time, untouchably distant.

it's times like these when I want to stretch out on the ground and pull the sky down over me like a blanket and just listen to the earth's heartbeat as she spins and turns through days and seasons, constantly repositioning herself around the sun. and then rise above, to run my hand along the ridge of worn mountains and dip my fingers in the churning seas, stopping to rest in a forest to watch a seed grow from tiny sprout to a towering tree, in real time.

it's times like these when the glory of being alive sinks in, a delicious sensation of feeling, hearing, smelling, seeing, tasting everything and nothing at the same time. when every shade of color ever created by God and named by man is right in front of your eyes if you look hard enough. when the tiniest details are magnified and the biggest, most obvious things disappear.

it's times like these when I realize it's a blessing and a curse, my deep love for this earth.
a blessing in that when all else is lost, Nature is there to lay a comforting hand on my soul. in that, even when it rains for days, when there's casing of ice and snow on everything aboveground, when tremors, winds, and waves rip through cities and homes and lives, I cannot be angry.
but a curse in that I am far too attached to my temporal dwelling and often unwittingly fall into the trap of worshipping Creation and not her Creator. that I forget the most beautiful, most worthy landscape is entirely unattainable by human power and might: God's kingdom.

but then what a heartbreakingly lovely thought occurs: if this is the magnificence made for our physical dwelling, think how much more exhilarating and incomparable Eternity must be!

and these are the things I think about, with my chin resting on my knees, in a backyard on a golden Tuesday afternoon in August.

Green thumb? Maybe

The response to my last post was overwhelming in a wonderful way. What a lovely bunch of people in my life! Thank you all for your kind words and thoughts. That's not the last you'll hear of my time in Switzerland. So many people and places I have to introduce you to! There are a few posts in the works, but none ready at the moment. 

Oh flowers.... one of my favorite things about Lausanne were the fresh flowers sold at the weekly Saturday morning farmer's market.  Every week it was a feast for the eyes, the stalls bursting with armfuls of jewel-colored blossoms. I never indulged but only because I would have had to buy them before the market closed at noon and carry them around until my evening train ride home.

But it wasn't just in the city, all the families I knew had such beautiful landscaping and vegetable gardens, regardless of how big or small their yard. My host family had the loveliest array of potted plants.  They do not have a large garden by American standards but they made excellent use of the space. Aside from the flowers there were potted herbs, zucchini, tomatoes, even a fig tree. Not to mention the amazing variety of fruit trees and flowers in the lush garden of another of my favorite Swiss families.

I've always enjoyed plants but have never been interested in growing them myself, for two reasons. One, we have a huge rabbit problem. They eat everything remotely delicious looking, meaning any blooms are gone soon after they appear.  Two, maintaining flowers means pulling weeds, and pulling weeds means potentially infecting myself with poison ivy. Which means temporary facial disfigurement and the use of steroids to make them go away. It's just a long, itchy slope into drug dependence.

But now I've been inspired.  May has been rather rainy and cool, so not many nice days to get out and plant things. Today was not especially pleasant but my mom and I went to a local nursery and wandered about, immersed in all things flora. What looked to be a small patch of trees from the road turned out to be an enchanting woodland paradise. I immediately pictured the front porch surrounded by white and pink English tea roses, or in the back under the windows, a stunning rainbow of purple dianthus and blue hydrangeas. The dream was shattered as soon as I saw the prices of these nursery gems.  Since I'm not operating on Martha Stewart's budget, I was forced to fill my floral needs at the garden center of the nearby grocery store.

Nevertheless, we came home with a pleasing carful of verbana, salvia, fuschia, as well as ranuculus and dahlia bulbs, and a few of them even made their way into the ground before the evening was done. It's early yet, but this could be the start of a future in award-winning gardening for me. Or it could be a really expensive waste of time. We'll see.  In the meantime, I'll be sitting out in landscaping with a shotgun in case the rabbits get any ideas. Wascally wabbits.

That's right, I'm the Elmer Fudd of the Home and Garden Network.

La Belle Paysage - VIDEO

Still trying to get out of my head and into a blog post. 

I don't know where my rhythm has gone or when it will come back but for the moment, I will spending lots of time outside.  The minute I step out of the house, the glimpse of sky and earth is like a breeze that clears out the clutter in my head.  

Today, took a little ride in the countryside with a small child by my side. No, this is not the start of a country song.

The village is a claustrophobic cluster of houses and barns and tractors and flower boxes but just past the horse farm, you break out into wide open fields. In the valley of the hills is the main north-south motor way of Switzerland, yet cars glide by without making any noise, respecting my need for quiet. Across the valley is a jumbled huddle of red tile roofs and the sharp peak of a clock tower, marking another village, though slightly larger. The Jura Mountains create a ring around the horizon but only when the view is not hemmed in by the fog. It's a dynamic landscape that defies description, but that doesn't stop me from trying.

Today's jaunt outdoors was a glorious excursion into the late afternoon sun.  Rather unexpectedly, it began to snow in the sunlight and everything was cast in an ethereal glow. What I can't write, I film, so what follows is a rather hastily edited video of our walk, set to a Carla Bruni tune.

A few qualifications:
1) I'm not Jean-Luc Godard so this is not cinematic greatness.
2) Filming while on a scooter, probably not the best idea. At one point I fell off. I'm sure you'll figure that out.
3) My fingers are in the shot to block the glare of the sun, which my highly-technical Flip can't handle. 4) Whatever, enjoy it.