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Shifting Gears

Shifting Gears

Tag Archives: Lost in Arles

Winter Nap

29 Saturday Mar 2014

Posted by judithar321 in environment, friendship, inspiration, politics, travel

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

anti-Semitism, Four and Twenty Blackbirds, French municipal elections, Groovy Green Livin, Lost in Arles

Winter Nap

Last weekend we came out of hibernation long enough to drive down to New York City. Our efforts were rewarded by some actual, real-live spring weather. The sun was warm, and there was no snow or ice.

Spring!Bike

As I soaked my sore feet after a day of tramping around on the dry sidewalks, I realized this was the first time in months I’d worn a pair of real shoes. 

We ate pie for breakfast two mornings in a row in an old building in Brooklyn, where the walls were lined with tin.

Patina

Across the bridge, in Manhattan, I sat outside on a bench drinking a fancy tea latte, admiring the symmetry and color of a building across the street, while a woman paced back and forth during what turned into a very long phone call.

Guerin Bronze

A few blocks away, we peered into a cemetery hidden away behind stone walls and a locked gate.

Spanish Cemetary

 

Cemetary1

I was reminded of this cemetery a few days later, when my friend Heather Robinson wrote a post about the results of municipal elections in France, where the Front National—an extreme right party, founded by known anti-Semitic and Holocaust denier, Jean-Marie LePen—is gaining ground.

That what happens in France matters to us all was brought home today, when I saw this post by another friend, Lori Alper. Lori, who lives one town away from me, writes about anti-Semitic incidents involving some of the youngest students at her son’s elementary school.

While hibernation is a fine strategy for staying warm during an endlessly frigid winter, it is not a good way to live. We may wish that prejudice and hate are hidden and locked away like the dead in that cemetery, but in truth they are more like tenacious weeds growing under those dry, New York City sidewalks. They claw their way into the light through the tiniest of cracks.

 

“Full of Winter”

18 Tuesday Feb 2014

Posted by judithar321 in environment, friendship, inspiration, meditation, pets

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Heather Robinson, Lost in Arles

“Full of Winter.” My friend Heather used that sentence in her post today about her lunch in a village that was quiet, empty, yet “Full of Winter.”

We are full of winter here, too. Full up, filled up, fed up.

yogi

Our walks have been white and cold — frigid, in fact. Too frosty to expose already numb fingers to the icy air and snap a photo.

And yet, on a snowy day like today, when the dog has been walked and I have nowhere to go, I have the luxury to sit quietly on my indoor perch and watch the flakes slip from the sky.

I am warm, safe, grateful: “Full of Winter,” Full of Peace. 

Armchair Traveler

21 Monday May 2012

Posted by judithar321 in aging, inspiration, meditation, mid-life transition, travel, writing

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Athenas Head, Dominique Browning, Heather Robinson, long boarding, Lost in Arles, Martha Nichols, Slow Love Life


Yep, it’s a pretty slow day here at the homestead. We’re just sitting around and thinking, cogitating, mulling things over, chewing the fat with ourselves. You get the picture

When I find myself stuck in the mental doldrums where there is both everything and nothing to write about, I look for inspiration elsewhere.

I didn’t have to look far: This morning two beautiful pieces about traveling crossed my screen almost simultaneously.

The first is by my long-time friend Martha Nichols. In her piece, “Why Travel?” she describes what travel does to her “inner landscape.”

“When you go to a new place, you’re more vulnerable,” she writes. “It’s as if a crack of light opens in the clouds, illuminating your inner landscape as well as what’s passing outside.”

This piece reminds me that no matter how far I roam, I can never escape myself. Martha explains why the hard parts of travel are also the most valuable.

Then, over at Lost in Arles, my new friend Heather Robinson tells the story of how she came to live in Arles. She says it’s a story that bears repeating and I say it’s a story worth sharing.

“Inside an abandoned church, we looked at the work of Harry Gruyaert’s ‘Rivages,’ ” she recalls. “We turned ourselves towards beauty and that stirring surged up into tears. We knew. This was where we were ready to be.”

Indeed, Heather’s entire blog is a celebration of the beauty she finds in the landscape, villages, and food around her. Every one of her posts is un petit cadeau dropped into my inbox.

And then, because I also needed a bit of bucking up, I reread a favorite piece by Dominique Browning. “Go where the love is,” she advises.

“That means not only doing what you love, but being where people love you–where they understand what you do, and, more important, where they have an affinity for who you are. Where the wellspring of creativity can be nurtured.”

And that’s what I’ve been doing these past couple of years as I search for new ways of working. Her post reminds me that if I keep planting the right kind of seeds, something satisfying and meaningful will eventually take root.

And finally, I leave you with this video of fearless young women cruising down la Sierra de Madrid. I may have a middle-aged body, but my spirit still soars like a twenty-something’s and I can feel the wind in my face and the road vibrating under my wheels as I watch them sail down the mountain on their longboards.

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