Sitting Down a Lot

The Great Outdoors, to me, does not mean ten mile hikes up challenging mountains, with water and protein bars strapped on my back and heavy boots laced on my feet.  Instead, it speaks to me of a lovely sidewalk café at which I can sit, near an amiable bookstore, with notebook and iced flamingo chai, or tables such as these aging French bistro tables in the (domesticated) wilds of my own garden.

My attitude is much like that of Colette, who writes with great wisdom 

The true traveler is he who goes on foot, and even then, he sits down a lot of the time.

—Colette

image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Writing Tables

Joies de Vivre

Espadrilles!

(than what could be more summery?)

image:  Striped Espadrilles, Brittany Boutique

Ode to June

To the Cherokees, June is Da tsalunee, the Green Corn Month.

To me, in my memories of childhood, June was always the month of spiritual abundance, a gift of time (with school over; no work required of me until late in highschool; horseback riding at Bishop’s Lodge to look forward to, on my favorite palomino, on cottonwood-shaded trails), the month when I could come out barefoot in the morning and find the doors open, the sunlight mellow all throughout the house, the sound of sprinklers on the lawns in front and back (days of abundant water as well), and maybe a wealth of just-cut Peace roses in a low glass bowl on the dining room table.

Appropriate, then, that this is the month named for Juno, goddess of the well-being of women.  I still feel happiest, most full of energy, this time of year.  Maybe because it is my birthmonth too, and has my mother’s name?  So many reasons to celebrate it.

(And now, I see, June has become Goat Trauma Awareness Month!)


Enjoy my month for whatever gifts it gives you.

image:  Peace Roses, Blissfully Domestic

More on Being Yourself

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Let's all be pleased to be fun cross-breeds!  (Cute and winsome is good too.)

image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Cockador

Thought for the Day

Today you are You, that is truer than true.  There is no one alive who is Youer than You.

—Dr. Seuss

image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Figure in the Margin (Lago di Como)

What Astonishes

This poem (by a just-discovered poet) for the end of May, the wakening of those summer mornings that we feel beginning inch by inch while we 
sleep . . .

Horses at Midnight without a Moon

Our heart wanders lost in the dark woods.


Our dream wrestles in the castle of doubt.


But there's music in us. Hope is pushed down


but the angel flies up again taking us with her.


The summer mornings begin inch by inch


while we sleep, and walk with us later


as long-legged beauty through


the dirty streets. It is no surprise 


that danger and suffering surround us.


What astonishes is the singing.


We know the horses are there in the dark


meadow because we can smell them,


can hear them breathing. 


Our spirit persists like a man struggling 


through the frozen valley


who suddenly smells flowers


and realizes the snow is melting


out of sight on top of the mountain,


knows that spring has begun.

—Jack Gilbert

image:  Horses at Night, tinypic.com

Mayhem and Momentary Dismay

May is fast waning.  The month of possibilities, of come what may. 

Of may bees, of aye may (Juliet’s soft-breathed ai me!), of “yes, of course you may,” of maydens and mayhem and even momentary dismay.  Mayonnaise too, on little sandwiches carried in a basket outdoors.

We may find some of the same qualities left on into the next month, mayhap a smidgen in things Mayan, or even mayoral.  So let us continue on gladhearted, undismayed!

image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Tiffany Window

Quiet Afternoon Thoughts

It’s nice to spend an afternoon working quietly at home, with the sun coming through my hundred-year-old catsup bottle (yes!—or in fact a hundred and twelve or so by now) and my small Tiffany stained glass pane; a wren popping in and out of the honeysuckle hedge outside; Earl Grey white tea brewing in the glazed green pot; and no one interrupting me but myself, as random thoughts occur and take me somewhere far away.

I’m trying to figure out what to have for dinner, too, and whether I have the energy to stuff an eggplant with lamb and sage and feta.  I say no, but will probably be sorry later.

image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Catsup Bottle Catching the Sun

Sacred Idleness

Another weekend gone, even though longer than most.

I do like the quote which I found yesterday, "Work is not always required. There is such a thing as Sacred Idleness, the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected."

—George MacDonald

We ate lamb and trout on the sidewalk outside the Turkish café, and remembered Crete; and had a nice, long, lazy day off, cultivating that Sacred Idleness.

And I was pleased, and touched, that my hundredth friend on Facebook, timed so appropriately, was my best friend in first grade, who I’d lost contact with over the years.  On Memorial Day, remembrances of things long past unite with those more recent, even fleeting.  Life is strange and rich in its workings.  My mother would have been pleased about my reconnecting with my childhood friend as well; and I missed (and miss) my parents so much, not just on days of celebrating what is past.

image:  August Macke, Turkish Café

In Memoriam

Let us remember all those we love, who are with us or not; all those who make and have made life and love memorable.

In one of the stars, I shall be living.
In one of them, I shall be laughing.
And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing when you look at the sky at night.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince

images:   Imagine Mosaic, Central Park, Shannon Marie

Christie B. Cochrell, Shakespeare’s Grave, and Weathered Tombstone in Stratford-upon-Avon