Friday Evening at the Beach

“If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.”
~Loren Eiseley

A Taste of Autumn

the colour of autumn on Pender Street in the Strathcona neighbourhood

a day at Kits Beach

I am Canadian (taken on Pender Street in Strathcona)

the view from here, at Kits Beach

seagull, at Kits Beach

I'm Baaaaaaaaaack

Well I had quite an adventure. Some of it horrific (that entirely due to my choice of travelling companion), and a lot of it wonderful. I love France. Much more than the UK (sorry to my blog lovelies in the UK). The people are friendly, and even the children have manners (wow, I know). The food is to die for. The architecture is breath-taking. The Eiffel Tower does not disappoint. She is grand. And the Louvre left me overwhelming and in awe of human capabilities. There are hundreds of museums in Paris, many that have free admission! One of these, The Museum of Romantic Life, has a plaster cast of Chopin's hand. Yes, the Chopin! Place de Concorde left me in a continuous gasp ... I could not seem to close my mouth, which gaped at that famous water fountain we have all seen on-screen (even if we don't know we have). 

The carry-on experiment was a success. I didn't need any more things than I travelled with, and laveries were all over the place, enabling me to launder my clothes as frequently as I needed. I ended up buying a new suitcase, one of those with a hard shell that you can pull. I got it for a steal at the Cora supermarket. As far as clothes go, I got a very few items. And a lovely long cardigan sweater that would have cost a bomb in Canada (pictures of that to come). 

I didn't spend all my time in Paris, I also visited a place in the country called Auxerre on the recommendation of a Parisian. It's a quaint and tiny city with a really old part to it. 13th century cathedrals catch your eye on the skyline as you walk across the bridge from the train station on the way to centre-ville. And there are narrow old streets (well, they're lanes, really) and all the buildings are ancient. The river Yonne cuts through Auxerre and there is a charming little marina with many houseboats for sale. In many ways Auxerre looks like a city whose future is behind it ~ I noticed many abandoned buildings as well as businesses for sale. Also, true to small cities, everything in Auxerre closes at ten or eleven pm. Still, I certainly don't regret going. In fact, I made a couple of friends while there and also got the inside scoop on living life as a local. More on that in a future post. 

Well that's just a little bit about my time in France. More to come!

Paris

1. the view from our hotel window; 2. Psyche and Cupid, by Canova inside the Louvre; 3. the Louvre, under the pyramid (lobby).

The Passage of Time

I've waited ... waited for so long. Four long years. In some ways I find it hard to believe that much time has passed. In others, each moment of each day of each year has felt infinite. My bag has been packed for 2 days now, except for the small last minute bits. I have only 2 more sleeps until I fly. I keep looking at the clock this evening, as though that will speed up time. Time feels sluggish. And it grows more sluggish with each glimpse at the clock.

Paris ~ My Carry-On Experiment

Paris by Wilhelm Lappe

In 3 sleeps I will be flying to Paris, France. I am getting really excited. Not only to see Paris, but to see, feel, taste the man who will be waiting there for me when the plane lands. Inspired by Susannah Conway and her recent experience travelling across the pond with only a carry on, I am doing the same. Here's my list. Keep in mind that it was longer, and I've had to cut it down, to decide what not to bring.

1 pr trainers ~ WEARING
2 pr of socks ~ WEARING one
1 pr yoga pants ~ WEARING
3 tops ~ WEARING one
1 hoodie/cardigan ~ WEARING
1 pr yoga capris
1 pr capris
1 pr sandals
2 prs PJs
6 prs of knickers
2 bras
1 towel
1 89 ml (see-thru) container of shampoo
1 89 ml (see-thru) container of condition
2 disposable razors
1 comb
1 toothbrush
kobo e-reader with cable
2 books
camera/card reader
2 journals
hair accessories
my mobile with charge cable
my laptop with cable
individual pouches of Crystal Light

The photo above is not mine, but I hope to take one just like it in a few days' time. And I will post them, oh yeah I will post them.

I Am Still A Child

I made some arrangements with my parents, who live three provinces away, for today---Thursday. When these did not happen, I called Mum and Dad. They weren't home. Since my dad's stroke 4 years ago (from which he recovered excellently, you wouldn't really know he ever had a stroke) he can no longer drive, and so my parents have sort of become homebodies ... in Winnipeg you cannot go far without a car when you are an octogenarian. That's simply the nature of Winnipeg. And so if I call them and they are not home, I wait a half hour and call them again. If they don't answer, I start getting worried, envision myself telephoning the hospitals' patient enquiry numbers and having the operator forward me to a nursing station, where a nurse tells me something utterly devastating, which I find myself unable to handle because I am so far away and feel so helpless and do not by any stretch of the imagination feel ready to lose my parents. {whew that was a long sentence, wasn't it?} Well, I feel very grateful for mobile phones, because that is how I reached my dad on his, to find out they had an outing to the shopping centre this afternoon and were about to call my uncle for a ride back home.

How quickly my imagination runs away on me, totally red-lining it, nearly sending me into an emotional tail spin! The bottom line is I love my Mum and Dad loads and loads and losing them is my greatest fear. When I start to think how it will be like, how it will feel, I get anxious, and a suffocating darkness seizes my soul. A friend of mine once told me, "Roxanne when you lose your mother, you're gonna lose your mind." He based that simply on the ease and depth and intensity of my telephone conversations with her, during the few months he couch-surfed at my flat. No truer words were spoken. However, just because I don't have really long, intense, heart-to-heart conversations with my Dad, doesn't mean I don't love and cherish him just as much. In fact I was a daddy's girl growing up. And still am. In many ways my heart belongs to him, and his to me. Every day I am thankful that I still have my parents: many people at my age (43) do not. I am thankful that I have generous, loving and supportive parents. I miss them loads and loads. And I cannot ever take them for-granted. Ever.

A Journey Into Love

They told us to pack a small bag. So I did. I packed my short fuzzy housecoat with matching fuzzy pj pants, a towel, one change of clothes, and a few toiletries. And a book. And a journal. And a pen. And my camera. And that's it. And the house was so lovely. And the yard/land was so quiet. No sirens, no skyscrapers. No smelly alleys. No traffic noise. No glaring city lights. And bathtubs. The house had bathtubs. Big, deep bathtubs. With plenty of hot water. The kind that makes your skin turn tomato red. And pink towels. (I love pink, in case you didn't know, LOL).

The food was to-die-for. Seriously. And the table setting, so elegant and formal and pretty. There was a gathering room (called The Great Room) with six comfy sofas, complete with pillows and soft blankets. To lounge on, nap on, to curl up and read a book on. The people at the house are amazing, wonderful people. Love fuels that house. It's palpable, from the moment you first cross the threshold into the house. 

I feel so rejuvenated. Like, I'm seeing the same, familiar things differently. I feel inspired. Really inspired. In every area of my life. Including the mundane ones. Like food. So, late this afternoon I went shopping for some baby spinach, dried cranberries, almond slivers and raspberry vinaigrette. And I made myself a bedtime snack of salad with these ingredients. I feel transformed. And I had no idea how much until I got home, and started to seep back into my regular life. I am that butterfly. And that one, too.

To learn more about this place and what they do, check out their website.

The Secret Life of a Serial Insomniac

Okay. So now I've got me some industrial strength air freshener that smells like cotton blossoms. Well, that's what the can says, anyway. Let's just agree that it smells good. And so now my pink Shox no longer stink like something rotten. Yeay for small victories, right? I've changed the scenery of my blog for a few reasons: (1) because I have this pathology that makes me want to change my blog; (2) because Love is Louder had 393 posts on it; (3) because getting my MacBook Pro seemed like a momentous enough occasion to celebrate by starting my blog afresh; (4) because I simply fell in love with this template and had to, had to, had to use it somehow. (Had to.)

What I'm Reading: Love and Other Four Letter Words, by Carolyn Mackler. Yet another Young Adult novel. Yeah, I'm currently on a YA Fiction binge. Maybe it has something to do that I'm writing a YA manuscript? Yep, I've sort of immersed myself into the YA culture .... straaaaaange .... as in, started watching Pretty Little Liars, Degrassi, The Secret Life of the American Teenager, The Secret Circle and The Vampire Diaries. Weird, huh, how I totally lost my historical fiction fixation for the YA genre? Yup, I'm quirky like that. I think it all started with watching the pilot episode of The Secret Circle. And, oh yeah, I've discovered that the DVR thing isn't like taping stuff with a VCR. Like, I can't record one show and then decide to record another show after the first show, without watching that first show. Grrrrrr. Yeah, that's me, learning things the hard way.

I have become an expert at avoiding working on my manuscripts in favour of shiny, pretty things on the internet. Maybe I am some kind of mutant magpie? Definitely I am some kind of procrastinator! Here are some pretty things I bumped into:

Music For Your Mood, A Magical Mystery Tour, Music Mixes, The Awesomest Book Cover EVER, My Favourite Susannah, Eye Candy, Sand Becoming Art, Something For Photographers, Some Nerdy Stuff About Feelings, Soundcloud.

Here's what I'm listening to tonight.

A Few Rhetorical Questions

1. Why do people insist on dressing their pets? Pets already have their own clothes; it's called fur. If you really need to be dressing up your pets then you should get therapy! Seriously.

2. Okay. So the dude's dead. Will someone please tell me how to spell his name? Kadafi? Qadaffi? Gaddafi? Gadhafi? Which one is it?

3. The late news featured the world's biggest cheeseburger. OMG, AYFKM?? Like, the patty made me think of a giant hunk of sh!t!!!!! What's up with that, anyways? Why waste all that food?

4. Why do people use Facebook to spam others with every single graphic they come across???

5. Why do people feel the need to twitter that they are paying their bills? Do I really need this level of detail?

6. I have started making short films/videos from both still and moving shots .... I love my MacBook Pro ..... my vimeo is here.

7. Do I really want Captain Morgan to pilot the plane I'm travelling in? What if Captain Crunch was his co-pilot?