elements

i think you might be looking for post about europe, work and play and i apologize for again putting those posts off for a little longer.

I am sitting at the dining table a mix of grey clouds made brighter from a sun that is trying to pierce through. this weeks rain,  wind storms and fog brought clarity and somehow there is both a lightness to my step and  a heaviness that allows me to know that i am in the moment. I avoided so many things in the last few years in the hopes of protecting walls i had painstakingly put up but the last week i walked towards those and attempted to shake them to see that they will still stand if attacked and i think they will, yet one can not know for sure. so instead i decided to carve out holes like look outs in it's facade and by doing so the sun came into my being and it felt warm and kind and raw but without edge.

dear readers i do not often express wants of physical objects since i hardly want such things but i have had a deep desire to learn the cello or even more so the bass and would like to find one that might have a story, one that has been allowed to age naturally, if anyone should know of such i would love to know about her, it's time for me to no longer put it off. you  might like this, i have listened to it  for a few days now.

the photographs were taken once again with my phone a tool that sees how i see and i have come to except it as such. i hope you are well and that your weekend will be good i have been craving the ocean and will make a good attempt to see it and ask why she let the wind get the better of her, NY i am sorry for the heartbreak.

fog and fire.

it is early sunday morning and the sun begins to rise and i again wake feeling lucky but also a little fragile yet calm. i learned a few things this weekend about myself that were pieced together with thought, a listening ear and a friend speaking the same native tongue, perhaps i have known those things before but i again wanted to make them clear to myself. i believe i can change so much of  me but what i am realizing is that somehow how i have not been given the same tool box of emotions, coping and know how as others around me have and that makes some of my being feeling as if i will always be a certain way. I am not sure if  i am sad about it, i do not think i am except when i accidentally get lost in my own fog or when i set fire to my insides which i work so hard to not let that happen even though as i am writing you i hardly am thinking of it at all, while forgetting that certain things are not for me.  if i stay quiet enough i can see i have everything i want  need and that is not worth trading what is needed for what is wanted specially when i do not think i could possibly begin to articulate what that would be, although this song that i borrowed from says it perfectly.

not from the hill, but all so lovely

i had hoped to leave you with a hill post before i departed for france but time did not allow for that, so instead i write to you from the medieval village of Beynac in Dordogne. it is early morning here, still dark and i can hear the rain from my open window. Days have been filled with work, meeting new people, making new friends and all things french. I have eaten my weight in baguette and figs. the above photographs are  just a quick few as we shot and picnicked in a walnut grove. chickens and geese made me think of the hill and the animals, i am told all is well with them, (thank you sarah).

i hope you are all doing well and that the early autumn is good to you, a bientot! 

seeing the light, opened by friendship

early this morning, after a good sleep which is very rare for me i grabbed a sweater and a hat, a dog and my camera i set out for a walk, i needed it. the cool air greeting my lungs and i felt every breath. that my dear readers is also how the last few days have played out, i have purged so much unwanted clutter that has been piled in the walls of my heart and mind that every inhale and exhale has been felt.

this is not the post i promised to write about other peoples lives, the city and their success and i will but today i needed to write about being in the shadows and how i never minded it, in fact i have been pretty good at it my whole life, but as of late their has been such an unbalance that i am afraid i woke up and felt smothered by the lack of light i have received. I have for the very first time in my life a group of people  in my life who care for me, this perplexes me for truth be told i have not done anything for them in comparison to what i have done for others yet they somehow when i am speaking with them put me first and for some reason keep me there, i feel the difference and it is incredible feeling one that is both overwhelming and so kind that my heart feels the bittersweet ache of what true genuine loveliness is.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for believing in the possibility of good in me dear friends.

i read this quote yesterday and although i admit to hating to tell you  who said it ( keira knightly) i found it to be so true.

I don't think that you can fake warmth. You can fake lust,

 jealousy, anger; those are all quite easy.

 But actual, genuine warmth? I don't think you can fake it.

I also have been listening to Jonsi and he my friends can put fairy dust to your every day dream and make your daily life even more magical

the water, the flesh and the flame

perhaps it was the heat and the stillness of the air but as i stood in the pasture right before day became night i felt as if everything around me was spinning. it was not a fast spin but slow moving, i could see the horses finish the last of their supper grain and birds flying by, it took me a minute to realize that it was i that had been turning.  yet inside i felt as if a rush of emotions and thoughts had come to the surface all at once yet they struggled pushing against the inner layer of my skin, wanting desperately to get out. without a rush my steps became a steady run, i took off my hat and pulled my shirt over my head, my jeans fell to the ground and i barely slowed down to step out of them, within a minute i was in the pond. my life a quiet routine that has become  as precise as the ticking of a clock,  but now horses lifted their heads and dogs sat up from a resting positions, was their "roommate" having a breakdown.

no, no i was not in fact the complete opposite was taking place.  as the water moved around me and the sky became darker i knew that for far too long the flesh that covered my body was too thick and i had used it as a guard against heartbreak now that the layer had become thinner the inside call, yell, scream that had been trapped and silenced could penetrate through my flesh and make it out to be heard. maybe it was the cobblestones streets and deep laughter or the reflection in shop windows of who i once was and am again but something made it that even though this is strange sounding, as i was almost completely submerged in water i felt like my fire did not go out after all, there was doubt of course, but there would be none anymore.

the life outside my door

the weather is now a perfect. a big stunning storm came and took away all the humidity.   it has a been all about the outdoors here on the hill.  special moments that feel as if they have been choreographed just for me, like deers giving birth in our long grasses and even though only through binoculars can i experienced it, it is still incredible. baby swallows hatch and fly away as i hold my breathe hoping that  their mama does not leave one behind. discovering and eating tiny wild strawberries from the fields. picking my first few radishes and eating them instantly, my vegetable garden growing in perfect and not so perfect rows. butterflies, fireflies, finches, chipmunks with babies who be friend a birds . bouquets of wildflowers scattered through the house, daisies, bachelor buttons, corn flowers, yarrow, black eye susans and these flocks that can be seen everywhere even through town and by road side. there has been two wasp bites within seconds, medicine and sleepiness. lemonade, hammocks and walks in tall grasses. there has been evenings by windows, cool breezes and sounds of tree frogs and stories from radios. all this is the goodness that make's it clear , i live in the country down a dirt road, on a large patch of earth that feels so far from everything but more real than anything else i know.

when rain stops for a moment to see the blossoms

Dear friends, i did not think i would post today. rain has fallen all week long but a few moments ago it stopped and the cold air changed into a warm balmy one. i went outside to spray the horses against the bugs and as i walked in long grass and flowering weeds ( how quick fields grow) i spotted  the apple and pear trees blossoming. the big orchard will soon follow and this weekend between the opening of the brattleboro outdoor market, the nicest market to go to as you drive through the green mountains and the flowering trees, i suspect i will be taking many photographs to share. yet i find myself posting a few  i just took because it the best way i know how to wish you a happy weekend.

Oh although i have not spoken about this yet and hope too real soon on La Porte Rouge but last week the hill was busy with  the making of the video for Aran's book trailer  with the talented Ryan Marshall you can see some of my photographs along with hers here.

happy weekend dear readers

the woods, a pond and the listening moon.

i had waited for k to come home, it had been two weeks. two weeks of being here on the hill on my own, two weeks of watching over everything. i thought for sure once he got home i would get in the car and go somewhere. what happened instead is i realized i did not want to be anywhere else but here, that what i really wanted is to share this space with him. saturday morning he ran errands, even then i wanted to stay back so off he went and i went to explore. a light dusting of snow had fallen but had already begun its melt. i went off into the woods, took photographs and looked into tree holes, mossy rocks and leaves gently covered in snow. k came back and joined me. later on we took a walk to our pond and back into the woods. how i love the woods.  back at the house i cleaned up the outdoors, treated the chickens and ducks to leafy greens and shared a snack with k. a few minutes later Joe the farmer arrived with a half a cord of wood.  this made me happy for two reasons, knowing we will not run out, since i heat the house with it and the fact that i would end the evening stacking wood underneath the moon and a star filled night sky. a weekend that is balanced with things that must be done and things we want to do in the company of people we love. that night as i lay in bed i stared up through the skylight at the moon, she was lovely, i told her things and asked her for a few things, she graciously listened till my eyes grew heavy and closed.