For various reasons, it has been a bit of the Summer that Wasn’t. No visits to the beach with sandy puppers in tow or rosé-drenched apéro’s in a flowerly bower. In a certain sense, we knew it would be so–it was in the Planning as Remi is knee-deep, slowly pushing a three year long project into home, leaving me a loopy amount of time to reason and read. And so I have been taking in the words, taking in the words until I am full and restless. Quand c’est trop, c’est trop.
In this lull of in-between, I have let myself get trapped in amber, like a prehistoric fly. In my emptiness, I have built up a routine to create structure in all of this floppy space. A very relaxed version of métro, boulot, dodo. Dullness weighs my body down and thoughts cease to swing. Yes, there are elements of routine in Arles that have a perfume of gorgeousness about them but if I am not seeing them, well, I might as well be sleepwalking anywhere. Luckily my camera can rearrange my focus when I cannot.
The streets of Arles are solid but also shady and shaking. I have lived here for eight years now, quite some time for a nomad like me. I walk them in patterns and loops, where the dogs lead, I follow. That too can be dulling blind until the light shifts and on the wall in front of me and an angle aligns or a sign is revealed, one that I had somehow never seen. A bit of magic and blink are the must of these little gifts. It is a moment that inevitably makes me smile and snaps the amber quick to set me buzzing free.
“I rather would entreat thy company
To see the wonders of the world abroad,
Than, living dully sluggardized at home,
Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness.”
To see the wonders of the world abroad,
Than, living dully sluggardized at home,
Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness.”
–The Two Gentlemen of Verona, William Shakespeare
So no great adventures for the moment, friends, just little, local ones.
Thanks for being along for the ride.
Have a wonderful weekend.
I feel a bit like you. I know that summer has happened, but now that we're on the cusp of it being over, I don't feel like I've gotten enough out of it. It kind of whirled by without me noticing. I'll be savoring these last few weeks x
Why rove into the distance when the good things are so close? or…Sometimes we think we must find the better cherries in neighbors garden. I hope my translation is understandable.
Dear Heather,
In your wanderings, as the light of the day changes, you seize the magic for us!
xoxo
Karena
Featuring:Artist Anne Harwell
What a beautiful post … and the quote from Shakespeare is perfection. Sigh … thank you for this.
lovely lovely lovely
especially that stonework and the ironwork lamp
gorgeous.
thank you for the quick trip to arles.
enjoy the musings in your head 😉
heather your photos are breathtaking…and leave me feeling guilty for not visiting the south of france as planned! we ended up staying on martha's vineyard instead..i have no regrets as it was a wonderful for summer however, who gives up the south of france?? i will get there.
and we've never lived anywhere longer than 5 years..i'm always wondering where we'll be next.
best of luck to remi and his project!
xo
Earlier in the year, when my life was very 'sluggardized' and the weather was dreary, I bought a pair of amber earrings, a necklace of amber beads and two amber rings. The amber seemed to hold all the warm, golden goodness I wanted from the world and the earrings caught whatever light there was, and danced. Amber, like your photos, makes me feel happy, as do your visits to my blog. And even though being sluggardized is dreary, I have to smile at such a wonderful word. Gallivanta
Hey Heather?….
Not entirely beside the point?…
I went to an Episcopalian college (Sewanee; The Univesity of the South)which has always been rather famously, and quite self-consciously, anachronistic in many ways.
I was once at a dinner in Charlottesville (seven hours north and a considerably less affected place) where someone, having learned I was a Sewanee graduate, said "Oh, I just LOVE Sewanee! It's like the 'old' South..encased in amber!".
Another, less sentimental guest, rolled her eyes and said "I don't know about that…it's more like 'encased in aspic'….on an afternoon that's getting hotter by the minute".
Presumably, I don't have to explain the humor ofthe second comment. The woman was RIGHT, by the way (in the years since, the University has done all it could to rid itself of potentially embarassing, self-conscious nostalgia for the Confederacy)
Lovely posting, by the way…..
—-david terry
http://www.davidterryart.com
It's funny you speak of amber. We have lots of dragonflies in our garden now in Holland looking for the pond where their ancestors were born but no longer exists. Enno dug it out a few years ago. Still, they come and I sit and watch then circling in on the sunbeams of late afternoon. I am restless, too. I wonder if the garden is enough anymore for a Tumbleweed? Your shots are beautiful. xo Jenny
It seems that in your moments of restlessness and loneliness, Mr Shakespeare has stepped in to keep you company! Perhaps he was hovering in the shadows when the image came to you of being suspended in amber! A beautiful word image! And beautiful images of colour and shadow made real.
You have your own work separate from Remi. We all love receiving it and wait for the next one! Perhaps there is a book waiting to emerge from your work, of photographs with your poetic musings scattered amongst the images…
Cheers, Deborah from Melbourne.