“There’s nothing––absolutely nothing––half so much worth doing as messing about in boats.”
– Kenneth Grahame
Travel, Essays and Poetry
Mi Perdoni?, A Photograph and Plea in Italy
“I don’t want just words. If that’s all you have for me, you’d better go”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald
I leave Verona Saturday with plans to drive into France. I’ll stop in the coastal town of Noli, here in Italy, for a few days first and plan a route from there. It very well could be that I stay on the beach writing and hiding, or perhaps return home a few days early. I’ve decided against a plan and instead, do what I do best – or used to do best – just feel my way about.
I took the photograph below while on a late afternoon walk along the river. I like the graffiti here in Italy. It’s either words of love, words of politics or desperate pleas. So many words. It’s not so prevalent as the miles and miles of graffiti in Rome, but it still carries mostly all the same messages.
Maybe the Veronese will be offended that instead of showcasing the beautiful pastel colored city in photos, I chose to showcase the graffiti. But please, good people of Verona, Mi Perdoni? I promise to share the bright, beautiful ones as well. Eventually.
Trees, A Photograph of Italy
“I am at home among trees.”
– J.R.R. Tolkien
Girl, A Photograph of Italy
“Never did the world make a queen of a girl who hides in houses and dreams without traveling.”
– Roman Payne
A Garden To Walk In, A Photograph of Italy
“A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in–what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.”
– Victor Hugo
Rare, A Photograph of Barcelona
“Those who create are rare; those who cannot are numerous. Therefore, the latter are stronger.”
– Coco Chanel
I much prefer to be rare than numerous, an individual than part of the collective.
Train Travel, A Photograph
“‘Yes, yes, I know. Life is like a train, Mademoiselle. It goes on. And it is a good thing that that is so[…] Trust the train, Mademoiselle,’ murmured Poirot again.”
― Agatha Christi, Hercule Poirot – The Mystery of the Blue Train
Trust, A Photograph
“Deciding whether or not to trust a person is like deciding whether or not to climb a tree because you might get a wonderful view from the highest branch or you might simply get covered in sap and for this reason many people choose to spend their time alone and indoors where it is harder to get a splinter.”
– Lemony Snicket
Fair Verona, A Photograph of Italy
“Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.”
– William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.”
– William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
I leave for Verona, Italy in a few short weeks – a much overdue visit. Verona, the scene of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, is an amazing little town. This photo, taken at Giardino Giusti, is one of my very favorites from my last visit.
Color, A Photograph of San José Del Cabo, Mexico
“Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways. ”
– Oscar Wilde
Although I prefer black and white photography, there is something about Mexico which demands the colors be honored. Consider even the Day of The Dead (which coincidentally falls on my birthday each year) – a celebration of the deceased that calls for the coloring of skulls and skeletons of all kinds. Like this little street I photographed in the art district (artcabo.com) of San José Del Cabo, every shop is full with local colors and artisans work – you just have to leave the secure resorts to experience them. And please do. Here you will be challenged to find items NOT made in Mexico. It’s entrancing. It’s homegrown. It’s authentic. I know that many people prefer the pristine beaches and upscale shopping of the Hawaiian Islands, but give me the perpetual underdog of Mexico and artists that follow her and I’m more than content.
Two Women, A Painting
“There were always in me, two women at least, one woman desperate and bewildered, who felt she was drowning and another who would leap into a scene, as upon a stage, conceal her true emotions because they were weaknesses, helplessness, despair, and present to the world only a smile, an eagerness, curiosity, enthusiasm, interest.”
― Anaïs Nin
I’ve spent the last several days working on a series of paintings using new mediums, techniques and colors. It’s been unseasonably warm and sunny the last week or so here in the Northwest. Not wanting to forgo painting, I’ve spent a great deal of time in front of the open window, trying to get the best of both worlds – the outdoors and indoors…
Time, A Photograph of Spain
“The memory of everything is very soon overwhelmed in time.”
― Marcus Aurelius
Door, A Photograph of Madrid
“A very little key will open a very heavy door.”
– Charles Dickens
Autumn, A Painting
Autumn is my favorite time of the year. Originally this painting was to be my representation of the Red-Light district in Frankfurt, Germany. Although for some odd reason it morphed into a painting of fall, or autumn, with all of the reds, yellows and browns – which I happened to finish on the first day of Spring. Odd..
“Zu keinem anderen Zeitpunkt (als Herbst) bewegt sich die Erde lassen sich eingeatmet werden in einem Geruch, der Reife Erde; in der Geruch ist in keiner Weise eine Verschlechterung an den Geruch des Meeres, bitter wo grenzt es an Geschmack und vieles mehr süss wie Honig, wo sie das Gefühl haben, dass sie den ersten Tönen. Mit Tiefe in sich, Dunkelheit, etwas von der schweren fast.”
“At no other time (than autumn) does the earth let itself be inhaled in one smell, the ripe earth; in a smell that is in no way inferior to the smell of the sea, bitter where it borders on taste, and more honeysweet where you feel it touching the first sounds. Containing depth within itself, darkness, something of the grave almost.” – Rainer Maria Rilke
The Part, A Photograph of Ibiza Spain
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
– Kurt Vonnegut
Rest, A Photograph of Spain
“The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of room, not try to be or do anything whatever.”
– Mary Sarton
People, A Photograph of Life
“Out of the millions of people we live among, most of whom we habitually ignore and are ignored by in turn, there are always a few that hold hostage our capacity for happiness, whom we could recognize by their smell alone and whom we would rather die than be without.”
– Alain de Botton
Play, A Photograph of Phoenix Arizona
“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”
– Plato
Life, A Photograph of Spain
“Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke
Shadows Deep, A Photograph of Books
WHEN you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
– W.B Yeats
Wanderer, A Photograph of Verona, Italy
“We are all wanderers on this earth. Our hearts are full of wonder, and our souls are deep with dreams.”
― Gypsy Saying
Bird, A Photograph of Cordoba Spain
“The reason birds can fly and we can’t is simply because they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.”
– J.M. Barrie
Milling, A Photograph of Tacoma WA
Thinking, A Photograph
“Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.”
– Kahil Gibran
Normal, A Photograph
“It seemed an advantage to be traveling alone. Our responses to the world are crucially moulded by the company we keep, for we temper our curiosity to fit in with the expectations of others…Being closely observed by a companion can also inhibit our observation of others; then, too, we may become caught up in adjusting ourselves to the companion’s questions and remarks, or feel the need to make ourselves seem more normal than is good for our curiosity.”
– Alain de Botton
Confined, A Photograph
“Whenever I happen to be in a city of any size, I marvel that riots do not break out everyday: Massacres, unspeakable carnage, a doomsday chaos. How can so many human beings coexist in a space so confined without hating each other to death?”
– Emil Cioran
Guitar Park, A Photograph
“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.”
– Plato
Sideshow – A Photograph
“I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.”
– Ray Bradbury
I spent the last weekend in Friday Harbor, in the San Juan Islands. As always I brought my little camera and snapped a ton of photos. We traveled by boat and moored up right inside of the Harbor. Anyone who’s from the Northwest knows that the San Juan Islands can be cloudy and brisk, even in the summertime. We, however, were greeted with the most amazing sunshine, warm breeze and calm seas.
Friday Harbor is a quaint little town full of fish houses, trinket shops and expensive clothing boutiques. The ferry-boats come right into town and bring lots of income for the town with them. I must’ve taken twenty photos just of the ferries.
And yet…I found this Doll Face photo one of the more interesting. For someone who gets the willies from old dolls, I sure do take a ton of photos of them. While I should be posting some serene photo of the Harbor or a passing ferry-boat, here I go again with the sideshow creepers.
Enjoy…
Bold Water, A Photograph
“Freedom lies in being bold.”- Robert Frost―
Fear, A Photograph
“Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.”
– Jim Morrison
One Street Shy 