have love, will travel

This is my amazing sister Emmy and I yesterday, in the sunshine.

I'm moving to the high Arctic. Her road's going a different way.

I don't know where or when we'll see each other again, but I can't wait.

We'll always be close.

PS. For the next six months, this blog is going change in ways I can't predict. The next report will be from Resolute.

with me far away

9.

Who was to know what should come home to me?

Who knows but I am enjoying this?

Who knows but I am as good as looking at you now, for all you cannot see me?

I'm in my favourite place, which is actually no place, it's a place between places and it's always on the move.

I'm with a comrade who is certainly the most earnest, he in antique military garb heading out of the wind to re-load his camera.

So now I'm here alone in the greatness, in the wind, in the sound of ice and water turning into each other, and all I can think of is this, and I can't get the order, and I can't get the words, but what I have is this boat in this no-place and Walt Whitman in the sunset.

2.

The similitudes of the past, and those of the future;

The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings--on the walk in the street, and the passage over the river;

The current rushing so swiftly, and swimming with me far away;

The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them;

The certainty of others--the life, love, sight, hearing of others.

Walt Whitman

86. Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

Leaves of Grass

today in songs that sound exactly the same

1993

2007

This is way closer than that whole Men at Work/Kookaburra drama. 

city of lights, city of love

rue Cler sunset

evening lovers at Place de la Concorde

love birds at Jardin Des Plantes

Rodin's rose

keeping my skates sharp

Last spring, I bought some framed pictures at the Salvation Army for $1 each. I discarded or crafted most of the pictures, keeping only the frames--except this one.

A crowd of colourfully dressed mid-nineteenth century skaters was too good to throw away. There's so much going on there. Left foreground, a man chases a young woman who looks alarmed as she skates away. On the right, a man pushes his wife on a sled while a little dog barks. I can count at least four people who have fallen. And all around, scarves, muffs and all manner of Victorian winter dress abound.

It was printed in 1862 by Currier & Ives, a large New York City printing company that advertised their products as "coloured engravings for the people." An artist would draw the image on the printing stone, the page would be hand-pressed, and according to the Met website, "handed to the industry of women at home who filled in the scenes with watercolors." Pretty romantic. 

I stored it away, and after returning home to a Canadian winter after a long trip, amidst all the unpacking and setting up life again, I set it on the mantle. It's been there ever since, a reminder that a winter day is not a wasted day.

 www.centralpark.com 

a little something

 

I have no idea what this is or where it came from. I found it in my backyard, and I'm prepared to accept it as a gift.

winter triptych