Soar-Dream-France

Dog Trots Globe-by Sheron Long

 

Seeing Chula with the wind in her face at the market and on her many adventures between Provence and Paris, you'll know once and for all that La Vie en Rose exists for everyone in France. Chula is a perfect ambassador for our canine friends and family.

If you're not a dog person when you start Sheron's book; you will be by the time you finish. Chula is smart, funny, adventurous, mischievous, and sometimes manages to do things I would never even consider. I confess: I fell in love with Chula.

 Sheron's blending of photos, music, videos, and illustrations carry us along with Chula as she's out on daily routines that become  adventures and attends special events that anyone would enjoy.

 But, my favorites were the illustrations by Darius Detwiler. You just can't catch all these antics on film. Whether Chula is letting the cats know who's boss or sneaking a baguette out of a passing woman's basket, Detwiler captures the light-hearted grab and the canine pride perfectly. How dare they not sell dog biscuits at the local patisserie? I'd bet you might discover special "Chulas" dog treats coming soon!

 

 

Then, there are the moments you can catch on film. Dirty socks at a Paris gallery opening...Mon Dieu! But don't worry, Chula won't let that happen a second time!

 

By the time you finish Dog Trots Globe-you'll be ready for some French antics of your own! I can see it now...off comes that tie...off comes that leash...put those high heels in the trash can-we'll see you in France!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Dog Trots Globe is available in a variety of formats: print book (OIC Books and Amazon); standard eBook (Amazon and in the Apple iBookstore) and enhanced eBook with audio and video embedded (Apple iBookstore). The hardcover edition is available only in the USA. Images copyright by Sheron Long. All Illustrations by Darius Detwiler. For more information email: sheron831@gmail.com

 

Journaling to New Orleans Magic

Celebrating mythousandth blog post earlier this year, I shared that I rarely look back at my blogs. I can't say the same about my journaling. I look back at my journals regularly, especially if I'm struggling with something in the moment that remembering something similar from the past might help.

I've always loved writing, but didn't begin to journal seriously until 1997. There are times in my life when I wasn't journaling and I wish I had. I'm writing in journal #88 at the moment. The funny thing is, that I don't even have to write in my journals to learn from them. If you look at this beam up in the loft bedroom, you'll notice that there is a very definite dividing line. Prior to moving more of my books to the beam, I had my journals up there alone. The center beam divided my journals so that one side was "before the storm" and the other side was "after the storm" including all of my journals I've written here in the Lot. It was as if I'd made that huge middle support beam Hurricane Katrina, a very clear line of demarcation in my life, and the life of everyone in New Orleans. And so, as I worked around, moving books, moving journals, getting up and down from the chair, getting everything straight, and catching the ones that fell from time to time; I realized when I was finished that I now have all of my journaling life in one place. I've managed to symbolically wipe out that line of demarcation, and take another step in the continuous moving on process. Not only have my journals joined, but I now have a room chock full of New Orleans by family and friends...photos, water colors, acrylics, garlands, collages, pen and ink, and poetry.  When I sit in this room and journal in the morning, I am surrounded by New Orleans memories and the magic she made in my life.

Books on the Beam

Back when I first started the blog in 2009, I began "Books on the Beam" to share and showcase books I've read and loved over the years. The plan was to review at least one book a week. (Frankly, I didn't think I'd have enough to write about every day if I didn't.) Here I am three years later, and the last Book on the Beam that I reviewed was "Where the River Splits", by Jeffrey Penn May...in 2009! How did that happen?

I will be resurrecting Books on the Beam in the week ahead. I've been asked to review a book by one of my readers that I'll be writing about soon. I promise, you won't be disappointed. I leave you with a few shots of some of my favorites-beamed on the blog or not!

Flying Across the Bridge

Prior to the levee breaks in New Orleans, I saw myself working to bridge two places I loved. I'd return to New Orleans from France, and I found myself wanting to take the bus, ride my bike, walk, shop in the neighborhood, and capturing my place in photos. As I was trying to put those pieces in place, it felt as if one side of my bridge had been bombed. Everything I knew was different and fragile. I found comfort in those bridging activities, but everything around us had changed. I had changed. Throughout all these years, I have tried to make that bridge. But this trip, my bridge materialized out of the mist just when I stopped trying to make it happen. I see the pieces clearly. This is the meant to be in the moving on. I expect that once the house sells, I will continue to come back to New Orleans to visit family and friends. I know I can stay with Stew and Eric. I'll be: riding Eric's bike every morning, taking the bus and chatting with the locals, roaming the French Quarter, shopping at Terranova's, loving on City Park, taking photos, and enjoying visits with my friends and this place who has played a huge part in making me the person that I am.

Feeling my bridge has been important. Riding my bike the other morning, I watched a huge, beautiful pelican fly over the bridge across Bayou St. John. I remembered Faith RInggold's memoir called: "We Flew Over the Bridge", and I was flying with that pelican. As I head to St.Louis this morning, then return to France at the end of the month, I leave you with a quote that says it all:

"Anyone can fly, all you have to do is have somewhere to go that you can't get to any other way and the next thing you know you're flying among the stars."-Faith RInggold's Tar Beach

Museum Memories and Musings of the Moment

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Biking again through City Park yesterday, I remembered that Thursdays at the Art Museum used to be free to Louisiana residents before the storm. I stopped in to check, and discovered that it's now Wednesdays. I wasn't prepared to go in at that moment...sweaty, breathless and all. So, I headed home, changed my clothes, and decided to walk up, visit some old friends, and get groceries at Terranova's on the way home.

It was a quick trip. I passed by the cafe where I'd had many lunches with colleagues and friends over the years. Dropped into the gift shop, where I used to discover unusual art book purchases from the Surrealists, to the Flauvists and many more. Even though I'm an Impressionist girl at heart-their color and imagination pulled me in to learn more about them.

I enjoyed this special exhibit that began with Matisse and was full of French Artist's and some others' responses to working with text, but it was the opportunity to visit some old friends that made my day and made me feel at home.

The New Orleans Museum of Art will always be important to me. First, it was right there in my neighborhood. Second, it's full of creativity, history, romance and things that I love...things that stir the magic! I've shown my photos there in their annual "Underexposed" event for local photographers. And, almost all the years I lived here before the storm, I was a sustaining member.

I leave you with a few of my old friends (who were shot "flashless") to enjoy. I bet you know who they are. Do you have a favorite? Can you guess my favorite? Happy Thursday!

A Lender and Borrower of Books

I am a lender and borrower of books. Since I've come to live in France, I borrow and lend more now than I ever have in my life. Books in English are at a premium...first step is finding them at all, and then if you do; they are expensive. I try to be considerate of the books I borrow from my friends. I have noticed that the way I hold the book lines the paperback bindings, and if I'm having a chocolate or cheese attack I sometimes dirty a page. I don't think they'd have ever sent the borrowed book police out after me! My copy of Rick Jarow's-Creating the Work You Love, sat in the trunk of a friend's car. It was returned to me with a crinkled plastic covering and reaking of gasoline-I guess I should be happy it didn't go up in smoke! I recently got a stack of books back that I'd lent to a friend here. I haven't quite figured out what happened to this book. Nothing was said to me like: "I'm so sorry Laury, it fell in the pool"-or, "I'm so sorry Laury, my water bottle emptied on to it while it sat on the passenger side floor of my car." I had no idea it was as wet as it was, till I took it out of my backpack when I got home. I sat it on the stone sink near the window hoping it might dry. 24 hours later-no luck. I next tried opening it up and hanging it out on the clothes line. Amazingly, half of it dried. I then decided to apply clothes pin magic...I doubt you'd ever expect to see Kiss My Tiara hanging from anyone's clothes line, but it seems to be working petit à petit, or in this case-page by page!

 

Epiphany of Exhaustion

I don't always think about how hard I'm working, or how much I'm accomplishing when I'm in the middle of a project.  Back in my workaholic days, I had lists, lists, and more lists that never ended. I'd just check off, and keep adding to, until they took on a life of their own.  I stopped. Today, I only make lists when: there is a limited amount of time, I'm coordinating between places, or I am coordinating times between important rules and laws with deadlines.  No lists were made for the Barn Apero or the Vernissage.  It wasn't until I was totally exhausted the other day, that I realized looking back: I worked at hard manual labor every day up to the events, I had house guests, and I had training manuals to read and exams to complete for work. No wonder all I wanted to do was retreat to the sofa with Ruth Rendel's Adam and Eve and Pinch Me...and let our Lotoise light recharge my energy. 

Friends Among the Pages

Waking up to a few inches of snow this morning, I realized that I'm down to my last novel...Ian Rankin's "Complaints".  My hotel book shelf reflects the evolution of subject matter throughout my life.  I began with romance and have moved on to American and UK crime authors.  I like being able to pick up a book and feel like I'm getting together with old friends.  It began for me with Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum numbered series during the summer of 2006, and has now grown to Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley, Donna Lyon's Commissario Brunetti, Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus and many more. I've teased over the years that it sometimes feels like the characters have moved into the Chatette and are actually hanging out there with Dal, Sam and I.  It's not quite the same as visiting the Chatette, but it's nice to feel like I can bring my old friends along with me or find them somewhere nearby when I travel.  I'll let you know who's dropping in next.

A Bag of Marbles-by Joseph Joffo

Ever since I put A Bag of Marbles-by Joseph Joffo on my beam, I have been intending to write about it.  It's been months, and I'm just getting around to it today.  Each time I'd think about it and stop, I'd ask myself what was going on for me to be so blocked about writing this piece?  It is a memoir about two young brothers, 10 and 12 years old, whose parents send them from Paris to elude the Nazis and find their older brothers.They criss-cross France with their knapsacks on their backs, by train, on foot, and in wagons. Along the way, they meet new friends and foes alike.  It is a story of love, family, war, hate, evacuation, danger, unknowns, survival and being forced to grow up prematurely during times of crisis and trauma!  The impact of the loss of innocence screams in these passages:

"Now I can walk for hours without getting blisters.  The soles of my feet, the skin of my heels have hardened.  I no longer feel those pains I used to get in my calves and thighs.  I can tell by my shirt sleeves and the hem of my short pants that I've grown.

Grown, hardened, changed...Perhaps my heart has also accustomed itself; has inured itself to catastrophes; perhaps it has become incapable of feeling real sorrow...the child I was eighteen months ago; that child lost in the Métro, in the train carrying him to Dax-I know he isn't the same today.  I  know he's been lost forever in some country thicket, on some back road in Provence, in the corridors of the hotel in Nice; each day we were fleeing, he crumbled away a little more...I wonder if I still am a child...I doubt if playing jacks or marbles would appeal to me now; perhaps a soccer match or maybe...But these things do belong to my age; after all, I'm not quite twelve years old."

Joffo goes on to say: "Perhaps I've had the idea up to now that I was going to come through this war  unscathed; but that may be my mistake.  They haven't taken my life; they've done something worse-they've robbed me of my childhood.  They've killed the child I might have been."

I've studied World War II, and always considered myself well-read and knowledgeable on the subject.  At a distance...from "America"...I've always believed that I was "aware", if not at best able to understand the experiences of those times.  Now that I'm now living in France full time, I've come to understand that "awareness" and "understanding" are impossible for those of us who weren't here. I've recently read so many more books about England, France, the resistance, and other happenings of those times.  My heart broke as I read "The Rape of Europa" and I cried many times during the documentary of the same name, but especially as I watched the staff of the Louvre dismantling the Winged-Victory piece by piece to transport it out of Paris to safety.  Being here, each piece feels more real and more personal for me.  Joffo's book magnified those times even further through the eyes of himself as an innocent child.

As Americans, we have been attacked on our soil: Pearl Harbor off the coast of Hawaii and the first mainland attack on 9/11. But, we do not have a clue what it would mean to fight on our own mainland or face the occupation of a foreign government. Once I faced the fact that I couldn't have had a clue about what actually happened here during WWII, I was able to sit down and write this piece.  At the time of the printing of this book, A Bag of Marbles and Anna and Her Orchestra, were the only two of Joffo's books translated from French into English.  I'm going to have to look up one of his other titles, so I can work on my French and enjoy another piece of his writing.

I fell in love with the photo on the cover of A Bag of Marbles...the soft, sweet, innocence of two brothers in Paris, holding a handful of marbles but wearing the yellow stars...the protective hand of the older brother on Joseph's shoulder!  It seemed only right, that I bookmarked with my Nannie as I read along and came to understand more of myself.

And, What is Your Purpose in Life?

Dali and I walked Jan up to the bus this morning so she could get to Cahors in time to catch the 12:30 train to Paris, and wrap up her trip there with friends before heading back to the states.  I picked up a bug somewhere along the line these last few days, and am not feeling my MOST creative. So, I've adjusted something for you that I wrote yesterday for my Member Abroad Column that appears in the newsletter of the Louisiana Association of Clinical Social Workers (LACSW)...I had only one day in New Orleans on this last trip, so I told all of my friends: I will be at the house on Columbus Street between 9am and 5pm-I'd love to see you if you can make it by!

The first friend who arrived had just been to his 50th high school reunion out of town.  As we all tend to do at those things, he and his friends were very philosophical.  They asked a lot of those very broad questions that we try to answer when we are at a place in our lives where we truly can look back and see the paths taken and not taken.  He was interested in my thoughts on the same questions.  Of course, there was the question about regrets.  Frankly, I don't believe in them.  Regrets are a waste of time and energy, because that moment in time will never return again.  Hindsight may be 20/20, but you just can't return to your past and know then what you know now.  But the question that gave me pause was the following:  What is your purpose in life? 

I really had to think.  A number of friends had recently told me that they didn't feel like they had any purpose in life.  It reminded me of a favorite excerpt from one of my books on the beam: The Fall of Freddie the Leaf-A Story of Life For All Ages, by Leo Buscaglia.  Freddie is questioning his best leaf friend Daniel, as Daniel is trying to explain death to Freddie.  Freddie asks:

"Then what has been the reason for all of this?" Freddie continued to question.  "Why were we here at all if we only have to fall and die?"

Daniel answered in his matter-of-fact way.  "It's been about the sun and the moon.  It's been about happy times together.  It's been about the shade and the old people and the children.  It's been about the colors in the Fall.  It's about the seasons.  Isn't that enough?"

I realized that: on my path; at this stage of my life; with the luxury of being able to look back-I would have to scream at Daniel: YES, THAT IS ENOUGH! So, I told my friend that I believed that I had already met my purpose in life.  I believe that I have been good to people.  I believe that I have made a contribution to other people's lives; and that I will leave this earth a better place than when I found it.  I continue to make my contribution my own way, but it's also time to enjoy the sun and the moon, to remember the happy times and make more memories with people I love, while respecting and reveling in the seasons of our lives!  It was funny.  My friend said he liked my answer.  I would like to leave you with Daniel's question to answer for yourself...isn't that enough?

The photos are the tow-path between St. Cirq Lapopie and Bouzies and the Porte de Rocamadour in St. Cirq Lapopie.  Jan and I certainly enjoyed the sun on her visit and made more memories together that I'll share with you soon!