Looking onto the courtyard of the Musee du Louvre.
On the threshold of old and new, past and present; where art meets the political, and clear panes of glass reflect time-worn stone. The threshold of the Medieval and the Renaissance; Revolution, Restoration, and the Third Republic. Surviving two World Wars and the ravages of time.
If you’re interested in the Weekly Photo Challenge, you can check it out here.
I actually ventured outside while it was snowing for this shot. Taken with my iPhone using the Hipstamatic app with Diego lens & Dixie film.
It begins as a whisper.
A few tiny flakes whirling and twirling. The Boy and I (back when he was a little-B boy) called them snow fairies. I don’t mind this kind of snow. The light hangs like a pale scrim softening the sky. Eventally, the snow fairies become a pageant, the twirling, whirling becomes more boisterous, like happy children dancing, their wild hearts aflutter, while bubbles of laughter cling to their lips.
It is a glorious music, like the joyful tinkle of piano keys.
But it doesn’t last. The cloud cover chases the scant light away. Burlier snowflakes barge in like tipsy uncles with round cheeks tottering through a party. They stumble and fall one on top of the other at a steady tick, blustering protest. They are the noisy jokers who must be heard. Splop. Plop. “Out of the way.” “Move aside.” They shout at one another, still clumsy, falling this way and that. Piling up. Piling up.
And then, nothing. They are asleep in their piles, dreaming, quietly breathing, dampening the sound of passing cars with their plump presence.
I have been watching the performance, and listening, trying to find something new, something a little creative in yet another bit of polar vortex melodrama. A meager attempt to bolster my already tenuous hold on sanity. It’s kind of soothing to look at a snow storm this way.
Until it begins to rain.
P.S. I did get some lovely pictures and a bit of fresh air, so there’s that.
Cardiff Bay.
In the dark,
with the noise of
howling wind and spitting seas
at your back
you stumble and fall
face first
on a braided rug of stones.
Ah, well, lass. Rest awhile.
No one will mind
if you have a wee nap.
There is time enough
for repair
when you wake.
While visiting the Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff, Wales last summer with friends, we passed this lovely woman. I wondered about her, she looked so peaceful where she was. Whoever she was, she looks the perfect object for this week’s photo challenge.
This morning I thought my death might be imminent. I hadn’t finished my first cup of coffee yet when the carbon monoxide alarm started beeping. I called my husband at work. He didn’t seem too worried, and said he’d come home at lunch. “If I’m dead by the time you get here, you’ll know why,” I told him.
I poured another cup of coffee and turned to the internet. Then I called my husband back and told him, never mind. By then, we’d both figured out that the intermittent beeping meant that the device itself was dying (not me!). So I ordered a new alarm.
There is nothing that lifts your day so quickly as to think you might be close to death one minute, and discover in the next that, nope. Not today.
And nothing says juxtaposition like the stones that mark a passing as they stand in witness to the life that carries on.
You can check out the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge here.
I like these weekly photo challenges. They’re quick, I can get on and get off, and still feel like I’m not spending quite so much time on the internet. Plus, they give me a new way of looking at a word. Today’s word is family. A word, which for me, is sometimes so fraught with drama I want to run away and hide, or talk some kind person into adopting me. And yet, I know that my family of origin loves me no matter what, as I do them.
But family is such an expansive word, and when I read the challenge I thought of this photo, taken at least a decade ago. Because sometimes family is also a word for the friends who will get up before dawn and ride an hour-and-a-half just to stand beside you to watch the sun rise over Walden Pond.
A Wilderness of Words 