Change is worth the risk

I want to be the kind of woman who can juggle one million things with grace and style. I want to finish off my work this week, say good-bye to our dear friends in Barcelona, pack up the apartment, return emails, do the laundry and maybe even blog a little. The truth is that this perfect woman does not exist (really she doesn't... the pressure is off!) so I'm going to give myself a little break and focus on essentials for the next couple of weeks.

I'll be back here by mid-July, blogging from my ancestral home of Canuck-landia... and also from New York City. There will be Bangkok blogging by August.

In the mean time, here are some images that I shot from inside the Cafe du Marche on Rue Cler in Paris. DP and I were in Paris for three days over the weekend and this was the one and only time it rained. The staff scurried about, unrolling the huge sheets of plastic that protected the diners from the downpour. Waterproofed, we tucked into our meal of roast chicken and lovely profiteroles covered in chocolate and cream... and then I took some cool street shots through the plastic. You never know what cool things will happen (grow, develop, unfold) if you just take the risk. If you leap!


What risks are you taking right now?

Everyday Lovely, Issue 6

Three boys check out the yellow dinghies at a shop in the Costa Brava town of Calella. Oh... how I wanted an ice cream cone! Summer is so lovely.

What's been everyday lovely in your world? (You can link to your blog or a flickr photo... or leave me a comment below.)

Good-byes by Polaroid

Here's another polaroid from the enchanting town of Cadaques which we visited a few weeks ago. We were just beginning our round of good-byes that weekend, trying on that leaving-Barcelona-state-of-mind like a suit jacket you need... but are not so sure you like.

The cycle is almost complete. Our apartment is practically empty... our belongings were packed up by the movers on Wednesday (an experience I enjoyed almost as much as chocolate) and the shipment is now being loaded onto a slow boat to Thailand. The landlady's art is back on the walls and even she agrees that the place looked better when it was filled with our lovely photographs and belongings. Every morning we drop off items in the teachers' lounge... novels and travel guides... a never-used curling iron and a mountain of canvas book bags (how did we ever end up with so many?). These items are claimed before we leave the room... flying off to new homes. Colleagues have started to look right through us, the way people do when you are leaving an international school. You start to be gone even when you are still here. (That never gets any easier.) One of our good friends has cried.

It's official. It's time to buy that suit jacket.

On Sunday, we're off to Sitges with friends. I need to find my hat... I hope I didn't pack it. We'll walk on the beach and take photos and then find a lovely cafe where we'll sit and watch the world go by during the hottest part of the day.

Two weeks left. This morning our Director said, "I hope you are savouring every moment."

We're doing our best.

At Deb Dubrow's blog, Delicious Baby, people are coming and going too. See their Friday photos here.

Everyday Lovely, Issue 5

I have often walked
Down the street before,
But the pavement always
Stayed beneath my feet before.
All at once am I
Several stories high,
Knowing I'm on the street where you live.
- from On the Street Where You Live by Alan Lerner and Frederick Loewe

This lovely street is on our journey home each evening. When we get to this street we're almost there. School... bus down the big hill... walk... train... (sometimes) bakery... lovely street as pictured above... home. I took this photo with my new polaroid camera!

Tonight, DP and I are packing as the moving men (I think they'll be men) arrive at eight o'clock tomorrow morning. We are coming across many lovely things that we had forgotten we owned.

What's lovely in your world? (You can link to your blog or a flickr photo... or leave me a comment below.)

Leaving Barcelona

At the beginning of next week, I'll be meeting with students who are leaving our little yellow high school at the end of June. We will be talking about how it feels to be leaving. I will encourage the kids to create rituals for saying good-bye to their friends, to the school, to the city. We'll talk about organizing celebrations with friends and finding time for one last visit to their favourite restaurant.

Everything I say to the kids is equally true for DP and me. With our move just three weeks from now, I have begun making a collection... of photographs and memories... of my favourite Barcelona moments. These are some of them. (To see the photos in a larger format, just click on them.)

What would you miss most about your hometown if you left?

For more travel photos, Deb Dubrow has invited you to join her for Photo Friday at Delicious Baby.

Everyday Lovely, Issue 4

It's finally summer in Barcelona. The city is bursting with colour. Suddenly the metro cars downtown are crowded with people, clad in sarongs and flip flops, heading for Barceloneta beach. The lines at the Gaudi houses on Passeig de Gracia stretch around the block. Kids find it hard to focus in class... as do some of their teachers.

What are the signs that it's summer in your city?

THE INVITATION:
Please share your everyday lovely bits below. Please note that you can leave a link to your blog or to a photograph in flickr. You can read more about this weekly feature here.

If you are reading this post in a feed reader or via email, please click through to my blog to view all the photo links for this week.

Dreaming of Cadaques on the Costa Brava

Our friends took us to Cadaques to say good-bye. (This trip was the first of a round of dinners and excursions in our honour.) It's funny how a thing can be so lovely and sad at the same time. Bittersweet.

Cadaques is on the Costa Brava of the Mediterranean, two and a half hours from Barcelona. The people of this region say that you cannot turn a rock over without finding an artist. Salvador Dali had a house here, at nearby Port Lligat, and artists Pablo Picasso and Joan Miro spent time in Cadaques as well. I can certainly understand the draw. I asked DP what he loved about the town and he said, "It's pretty. Even the name is pretty." (It's true... we took a load of photos of this picturesque town.) I would add that the town is laid-back... I felt relaxed from the moment we arrived. Visiting Cadaques is like being inside a postcard... but in a good way. The day was sunny... there was a breeze coming off the sea... and the temperature was 23 degrees Celsius. So lovely.

One friend told us that Cadaques is definitely THE place "to see and be seen" for los Barceloneses (people from Barcelona) so we laughed right out loud when we bumped into friends from our school.

Our itinerary:
1. Arrive in Cadaques. Find table for five at sea-side cafe belonging to El Casino. Drink coffee. Take photographs.
2. Eat lunch at Casa Anita which is an institution in Cadaques. (Dali was a regular here. He told the owner that the place was perfect and that he should not change the place.)
3. Take gentle stroll around town. More photographs.
4. Drive up to Cap de Creus (8 kilometres drive). Take in astonishing view. Sit down at cafe. Order coffee.
5. Stop at the tiny town of Port Lligat. More photographs.
6. Drive home.

It was a perfectly perfect day in Cadaques. We wished we had stayed the night.

Mara at Mother of All Trips is hosting Monday are for Dreaming. You can check it out here.

Everyday Lovely, Issue 3

Photo Credit: DP

Everyone in our household (well, that would both of us) has their own thing. A shining thing that is their own. DP has an abundance of brilliant ideas. He has so many ideas that I am forced to put buckets down all over the house to catch them in. Today I want to tell you about one of his great ideas.

A couple of weeks ago, DP realized that the birthdays of two close friends were just around the corner. (This is one of the hardest things about being so far away from our beloved ones... missing these celebratory rituals... birthdays and Christmas and Easter... the lovely marking of time with our tribe.) DP wanted to do something lovely for his friends and so, on the morning of their birthdays, he grabbed his camera and took a long, leisurely walk around our Barcelona neighborhood of Gracia. He tried to capture the everyday lovely moments of a morning in our neighbourhood. But not just any morning... the morning of the anniversary of his friends' birth. When he got home, he downloaded the shots and chose the best ones. (I think even DP was surprised at how good the birthday photos were. My theory is that they were composed with love.) Then he attached them to an email and sent them off to his friends that very day.

It's true... it's not the same as being there but his photographic birthday gift is a lovely way of saying, "this is what life looks like today (on your day) in the place where we live... where we are missing you and loving you and wishing you the happiest of birthdays."

Isn't he brilliant? The shot above was taken by DP yesterday in celebration of the birthday of Littlest, my youngest sister. She emailed to say that she loved them all... that she could not choose a favourite... that she would start a "Day in the Life of Barcelona" gallery in her new home. I do have a favourite. It's featured above.

My gift? I make things happen. Weekend trips to Paris, little blogs with lovely readers, packing and renting new apartments and moving across the world. DP would say, "It all works out!"

THE INVITATION:
Please share your everyday lovely bits in the COMMENTS section below. (Mr. Linky is not working right now.) Please note that you can leave a link to your blog or to a photograph in flickr. You can read more about this weekly feature here.

If you are reading this post in a feed reader or via email, please click through to my blog to view all the photo links for this week.

P.S. Here's the link to a lovely video entitled "The Beckoning of Lovely." Enjoy!

P.P.S. Please visit Photo Friday at Delicious Baby for more lovely photographs.

Dreaming of The Tuileries Garden, Paris

I love THIS garden.

The Tuileries Garden covers just over 60 gloriously green acres in the middle of Paris. Louis XIV, the Sun King, resided at the Tuileries Palace while Versailles was under construction and, in 1664, landscape architect Andre Le Notre designed the spacious formal garden that provided a view along the axis known as the Axe historique. The Tuileries Garden is surrounded by the Louvre (to the east), the Seine (to the south), the Place de la Concorde (to the west) and the Rue de Rivoli (to the north).


Oh.. and it's gorgeous. The garden is leafy green and dappled with golden sunlight. Couples walk here, hand in hand, and kids sail little read boats that their parents have rented from the boat man. There's a technicolour carousel and two lovely art museums (one big and one small) that book-end the garden. A large round fountain is surrounded by dozens of perfect green metal chairs made for leaning back on sunny spring days. People (even people from far away) meet there to have their photos taken by lovely French photographers. (I've heard it's true.)

It's true that I dream of the Tuileries... that I dream of Paris. The best part of this particular dream is that my sweet DP, a man who does not dream of Paris, has agreed to accompany me to this City of Light at the end of June. A farewell tour, if you will. A farewell to Paris, to Europe. Adieu for now.

Mara at Mother of All Trips has invited her blogging friends to join her for "Mondays are for Dreaming." You can check it out here.

Polaroid Memories

Today's photographs feature the little school at which I teach in Barcelona.

I know these are not the best photographs I've taken but I am proud of them anyway because these are my first (real) polaroids. I took these shots yesterday on a Polaroid One camera which I ordered from a store in Vienna, Austria, along with 7 packages of film. There is, as I blog, another Polaroid camera - a sexy vintage SX-70 Land Camera - winging its way to my parents' home in Canada.

I confess to loving polaroid photographs. I will not try to hide it or deny it. I love how they look, how they feel, and how the colours are not quite right but in a gorgeous and surreal way. For close to a year, I have been talking/dreaming about buying a Polaroid camera. While I realize that the purchase of this camera (and the film it requires) is not a smart financial decision (DP sometimes gently reminds me of this), art is often unwise and imprudent (DP agrees with me on this one). And yes, it's true that Polaroid no longer makes that lovely instant polaroid film which has made it scarce and even more expensive to buy. This reality means that my new Polaroid cameras are not going to replace either of my digitals cameras or even my good old Canon Rebel on which I shoot film.

But when I am after a certain kind of image... something dream-like... a through-the-looking-glass kind of photograph... I'll be using a polaroid for as long as the film is available. (I remain hopeful that one of the photo companies will begin producing film for polaroid cameras. There is definitely a market. Leave me a note below if you have any information about this!) These cameras are also part of my crusade to be more creative. More on that some other post!

On Tuesday evening, I freed my new Star-Trek-looking camera from its plastic packaging. DP and I figured out how to load the film and then I got the bright idea to turn the flash off... except that I had not read the Owner's Manual (I NEVER read the Owner's Manual) so I did not realize that what I was pushing was actually the button to take a photograph. My very first polaroid was bad. Very bad. Don't worry, though... I got over it quickly! Yesterday morning, I tucked the camera into my school bag and brought it to school. Truth be told, I am having a LOT of feelings about this little school right now. Five weeks from today, DP and I will finish our work here. This is our third year at our butter-yellow-coloured school and our jobs have been a labour of love. I took nine photographs of my school (a couple of them are TERRIBLE!) but I don't really mind. What I wanted most were some little Polaroid memories to take with me when I go...

Below, you can see the view from my office window. I think of this as MY palm tree. I wonder how many other people feel the same way about it.


This is the high school building. On the veranda sits a bench painted bright pink in memory of a grade ten student who died last summer. It's Margo's bench. The bench reminds us to live and laugh and love NOW... and not to take a thing for granted.



Have a lovely weekend.

For more Friday Photos, please join us over at Delicious Baby. Thanks to Deb Dubrow for hosting.

Five Days in New York

Photo Credit: Rob Brink

I haven't visited New York City in twenty years. I was in university in Ottawa when three friends and I hatched the slightly insane Times-Square-for-New-Year's-Eve plan while working the night shift over the Christmas holidays. None of us had been before. "We'll rent a car" we said. "We'll drive down." "How hard can it be?"

When we reached Albany, we realized that no one had made a hotel reservation. (Oops!) From a pay phone, I booked the last two rooms available at the Howard Johnson's near Times Square. That was our idea of calling ahead.

Of course we got lost driving into Manhattan. (All of those bridges!) We were four wide-eyed Canadian kids, barely out of adolescence, with a rented van and a poor sense of direction. We had no sense of the BIGness of New York... how we four were like bite-sized appetizers for such a city. The curious thing is that we were not at all freaked out. We were in the BIG APPLE and just as happy as we could be.

As we pulled our bags out of the back of the van, a bell hop in a bright red jacket said, "Hey, miss! Your bag's open there. You gotta be more careful cuz you are in New York City now!" (It was a lesson that I never forgot!)

We watched the ball drop in Times Square as one year rolled into the next. I spoke to a couple of police officers and they seemed like Super Heroes to me. I ate a hot dog with mustard and relish on a street corner as the whole world rushed by in a blur of navy suits and yellow taxi cabs. I walked and I walked and I walked. I loved New York. (Don't worry. Nothing bad happened.)

And now, two decades later, I'm going back.

DP starts his Masters on the west coast this summer and so I've found myself with time to spend and travels to plan and, although I was not expecting this particular invitation, New York called my name and I said, "Yes. Yes!" I've booked my trip (flight AND hotel) for the middle of July after most of our worldly things have been sent on a slow ship to Bangkok, after the end of the school year, after the good-byes to kindred spirits, after the flight to Canada (my ancestral home), after I've caught up on my missing sleep (is that even possible?)... after so many afters. But before the intensity of life in Bangkok begins. Before the traffic, the head-sweating, the new job. New York will exist in the land... in the space... in the time in between.

Tell me, lovely readers, how shall I spend my five New York days? What should I do, see, eat? Where shall I walk? What are your favourite corners of New York City? Please leave me a comment below.

Everyday Lovely, Issue 2

Our school's International Food Fair was scheduled for last Friday night but it was postponed midweek due to reports of wildly inclement weather. On Thursday evening, while DP and I were walking along Gran de Gracia, the grey skies cracked open. The whole city had been waiting for it. People stood in doorways and waited for the rain to let up. We did not wait, DP and I. We bought falafel to go and took photographs and walked home with our jeans made heavy with rain drops.

Please share your everyday lovely bits below. You can read more about this weekly feature here.

If you are reading this post in a feed reader or via email, please click through to my blog to view all the photo links for this week.

Art and Life at the Louvre

It was early afternoon on the first Sunday of May and the line for admission to the Louvre reached all the way to the Seine. (This is only a slight exaggeration.) We remembered Rick Steves' advice about using the (secret) entrance from the mall below. A lovely guard pointed us in the right direction and within ten minutes we were inside the museum... poof!... like magic. We found ourselves flowing along a wide river of tourists, all of whom had evidently heard about FREE SUNDAY at the Louvre. It was the first visit for DPs parents and they wandered through the Italian Renaissance section punch-drunk on saturated pinks and blues. I remember my first visit... I fell deeply, dizzily in love with the Virgin Marys and their cotton-candy-cheeks. (I have never fully recovered.) This time, however, DP and I hung back. We sat and watched. We photographed and documented and played with light and motion. Life as art.

Photo Friday at Delicious Baby
This post is part of Photo Friday hosted by Deb Dubrow at Delicious Baby. Check out other travels here.

Everyday Lovely here on Tuesdays
On Tuesdays, I will be hosting a similar feature called Everyday Lovely. You can read more about it here.

Today's Game: Spot the Monna Lisa
Can you spot the Monna Lisa? If so, comment below. Tell us which room she is hiding (and smiling) in!

Everyday Lovely

Truthfully, I rarely allow myself a cup of coffee. It makes me jumpy and a little nuts. The problem is that I love (LOVE!) the taste. When DPs parents were here last week, I took the leap and had coffee with his mom at breakfast. A large cup of coffee with milk and two cubes of sugar. It was lovely.

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what is everyday lovely?
Today I am launching a new weekly feature at Teacher Meets World... one that will allow us to explore the beauty and complexity of every day life. If you are a regular reader at TMW, you already know about my love of travel and photography. These travels, and interactions with new cultures, will continue to be at the centre of my little blog which, at the end of July, will be making the move with us to Bangkok, Thailand.

Here's the thing. Most of the time, DP and I are not preparing to fly off to some lovely European city. Most of the time we share a little (some might say tiny) apartment in Barcelona with laundry hanging on a rack in the dining room and mismatched dishes piling up beside the sink. It's not glamorous life (by a long stretch!) but I believe there is something quite beautiful about our routines... and the way we live our every day lives.

in creating this little project, i've been inspired by:
*3191 Miles Apart
*Habit
*Shining Egg
*Noticing Project 2009
*Today is Pretty
I'm filled with gratitude for the everyday loveliness these bloggers share with us through their blogs. Their photographs are extraordinary but what's more significant to me is the weight their photos and words lend to the realm of the everyday. Their posts encourage readers to consider our routines and habits... and to appreciate the small moments that make up a life.

how it works:
On Tuesdays, I will post a photo and a few words about some small moment from my life over the past week. If you've participated in a meme such as Photo Friday at Delicious Baby, you'll be familiar with the procedure. For first timers, this is how it works:
1. Write your own Everyday Lovely post
2. Pop over to Teacher Meets World
3. In the wee boxes provided below record the following:
a) your name/blog name (or both... it's totally up to you!
b) your URL. (Please note that you should record the URL for that specific post. For example, the URL for this post is:
c) Hit enter
4. Voila... your post becomes part of Everyday Lovely and we can then visit each others' posts.

Let's see what happens! Have a lovely (every) day.

If you are reading this post in a feed reader or via email, please click through to my blog to view all of the photo links for this week.

Life is a Carousel