Starry Sky Ranch

A Moveable Feast

 

Because it is said that Paris is always a good idea. Even when you are packing for a transatlantic move.  Even when the tiny girl who wanted so badly to go may well not remember it clearly.  Even if it's bitter mid-winter cold.  Paris seemed like a very good idea before we left, at least for the girls.  

Tess has longed to see the Eiffel Tower for as long as she could ask to go anywhere. It was her particular bucket list trip.   We earnestly desired to make this happen but since we had already had a couple trip early in the Euro-adventure and no boys were quite as excited about the City of Lights, it became a short Dad-daughter road trip.   

 

It's hard to say what an 8yo will remember. I hope she remembers crepes and looking out over the city in the tower, and walking by the Seine.   If not though, I hope she remembers adventure and family and the importance of making dreams come true whenever we can. 

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” - Hemmingway

Ultimately this was the whole point of the past five years. The moveable feast. To instill adventure and curiosity and awe. To be brave and open and to say yes to the unknown.  It was never about a particular destination, but about journeying, about taking that fascination with people and places wherever you go. 

Time will tell how these years will shape them.  Us.  My prayer is that we meet each day with the same enthusiasm that little face radiates. Embracing it all. 

Water's edge, Clovelly

So just when you think you are never reaching bottom, you turn a bend and there it is right beneath you. 

 

The reward

and your's truly, all wild haired and old lady arm-ed, but hey, I was there and in the frame.  

Clovelly by the Sea

 

Without a doubt I will run out of time in England long before I run out of stories to tell. This was a good one.  We found Clovelly late in the day and decided rather ambitiously to hike down its cobblestones to the Bristol Channel.  We saw the maps and elevations.  It still seemed like a must do. 

 

Clovelly clings to the cliffsides of the bay.  Wattle and daub cottages clutch the hillside with no two on the same level.  In fact, you cannot find a place to stand where your two feet are level. 

 

Because of this there is no car or bike traffic permitted in the village and historically donkeys have been used to transport people and goods up and down.  Donkeys or other ingenuity...

Charles Kingsley of Water Babies fame spent part of his childhood in the village.  Rumor had it a band of cannibals once hid out in the hills nearby.  My beloved Turner painted the harbor.  And idyllic spot for sure.  

 

Tomorrow I will show you around the harbor. 

a few moments in Rome

(another in a series of random, non-chronological tale telling) 

 

The ragged flag flying alone before those old shutters caught my eye while we sat and ate our lunch purchased from a small shop in Rome. Our feet were killing us. Ok me, mostly.  I noticed it wasn't just me though.  A lady was walking holding her sandals, wincing as she went. If I hadn't been so freaked about the germs and sharp objects that amass after millions of feet walk over pavement I might have been tempted. 

Shortly before our break we had been walking down this street lined with vendors hawking their goods.  In a split second a crowd came running at us like a scene from a zombie apocolypse movie. They darted around the corner before they reached us.  There had been a scare that inspectors were coming around to check for licenses. It's nothing short of amazing how quickly those tablecloths can be gathered up.... and laid back out again as though nothing occurred.  

And really nothing did.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  In moments all was calm.  People went on shopping.  We went on eating.  And a wedding carried on at the end of the street.  

Life in old Rome. 

Where 2014 Took Us

 

Pulling together these images from this year that has been amazes me. We have stopped storing the suitcases far from reach. Someone has needed one every.single.month.  But oh the incredible places we have gone.....

January: 

London

Cambridge

Blakeney Point

February:

Eastern Colorado

One of my first childhood homes in Wisconsin

 

March:

Nebraska

Colorado

 

and back to England

April:

Wimpole Estate, UK

 

May:

Ely, UK

Thetford Forest, UK

June:

Wicken Fen, Suffolk, UK

 

Leeds, UK (Medical Museum)

 

  

Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, UK

Southwell Workhouse, Nottinghamshire, UK

 

July:

Dover, UK

Hastings Abbey, UK

 

Ickworth Estate, Suffolk, UK

August:

Framlingham Castle, UK

Lydford Gorge, Devonshire, UK

September:

Vilseck, Germany

 

Dartmoor National Park

Coastline, Devonshire, UK

Clovelly village, UK

October:

Rome, Italy

November:

Manchester, UK  (Go Man City!)

December:

Paris, France

 

in pace

One of the most moving visits we made in Rome was to a portion of the Vatican museum which held the earliest Christian artifacts.  The sarcophagi were decorated with biblical symbols from the Old and New Testaments and engraved with prayers beseeching God for the eternal rest of the Christians buried within. Often these were inscribed by visitors to the catacombs as they offered their prayers for the deceased.   

It's a powerful thing to run your fingers over those crude inscriptions knowing that nearly 2000yrs ago other hands touch that same scold stone, hastily engraving blessings in a world hostile to faith. In November we carry on with these ancient prayers, remembering our own, now gone. 

nasoni di Roma

So what's a boy to do when it's 80something in Rome and the water's run out? Well one's mind immediately turns to these....

and these....

 

What are they?  They are nasoni, a slang word for the public fountains all over Rome, which turned out to be more than decorative.

 Yes I see that green stuff.  But for realz, we saw a lot of people doing this....

 

Even the dogs were in on it.  The dog on the right was playing with his owner at the dog park which is off left and down two stories.  The guy sent him up for a drink and he knew just where to go. 

So yeah, I caved which is really huge for me.  I can handle a lot of mess in my own home but get REALLY weirded out by other people's germs as a rule.  It turns out though that the water is safe, potable and just a courtesy of the city for the past 2000 yrs. You can even pick up a map plotting out all the nasoni in the city center. Which is way better than paying four euro for a bottle of water.  Kid you not.  

When in Rome....

 

 

walking through Rome and other miscellany

This is the self-guided tour since it's super late here.  After nearly two months of away from the house activities we are bringing our focus back to home.  We have one child who recently arrived on the continent and another who recently left for a short time.  Homecoming weekend took all our energy for the past week and now we are winding up the fall sports season.  Home stretch!  

Home.  It's definition is ever expanding and contracting.   : )

While my energy is there right now I am stealing a few moments to walk through Rome before hitting the hay. Hoping to just keep bringing bits of my random comings and goings to this space as I can for whomever may be out there wandering along. 

 

Apartment in Rome

I love seeing how other people live around the world so in that spirit I caught a few pictures of the flat we rented in Rome to share with you.  The white walls were so nice.  The white sofa....less nice.  I think I am officially over my white slipcover obsession.  Ok not really but they'd need daily washing in my world and I AM over that. 

It was a wonderful sunny bright space.  Definitely Euro-sized but fabulous for our needs. 

 

(elevator going down past the window and from the front, entering)

a room with a view

We have been in Rome and my camera card and my brain are both completely full up at the moment.  Such a different world.  Maybe that is a continuing thread weaving through my life right now. 

There was a discussion I overheard recently about population - over population specifically.  Two individuals were debating the data, one completely certain that space and resources were nearly gone and the other that vast open spaces still existed and that people were being paid to leave fields lie fallow or to dump harvests to boost markets.  It turned out that one of them lived in one of the world's most populated cities and did not see even a patch of grass from his apartment.  The other looked out onto the open prairie. 

Perspective.  

They were both right, in speaking about their own realities, but could not speak well to each other's.  This is the irony of living I guess, the challenge of it.  How do we come together and see out of another's window? To look at things from a different angle.  To incorporate that perspective into our framework of truth.  This is my personal challenge right now. To hear more, care more, and speak less. To focus less on being right and focus more on being there. 

I will come up short.  Guaranteed.  Still, I left Rome certain about embracing some Franciscan ideals:  To watch thoughtfully enough to actually see.  To listen for the things that aren't said.