spring - stone - sky

can i post too many cloud photos? (i am guessing yes, but they never cease to be beautiful to me, especially over the ocean). also the largest poppy ever (probably my favorite flower, followed by lily of the valley). some amazing rocks that are omnipresent here, mitzi was an expert finder of the most amazing ones with perfectly round holes. we also made a rock house last week as the tide crept back up where we had been exploring tidepools and snail activity. when the tide finally chased us away, we ran off the park across the way and romped in the blossom dotted grass. i climbed a tree (and then twisted a muscle in my leg jumping down, that's what i get for being a show-off)

we had some beautiful little moments with the snails and the tide pools. The snails attached to dry rocks appear to be all dried up, as if dead, when you pick one off. But I wondered if they were dead or just waiting for water so i decided to put into in to the shallow tide pool and lo and behold, it's little leg starts to unfurl and extend from it's shell upon contact with water. it seemed to be searching a place to latch onto, to orient itself. it was a bit like those mini-sponges you got sometimes as a kid that would swell up in a full sink of water, magically growing upon immersion. but then, as miette reached toward the snail, wanting to help it to turn itself over, her shadow fell over the snail and it recoiled, shrinking immediately back into itself. no contact whatsoever, just a shift in light. when she moved her hand back it came out from it's shell again. over and over we watched as we would block the sunlight over the snail and it would shrink, remove our hand and see it come back out. and it responded similarly to touching the water's surface or vibrating the ground next to the pool. i was so amazed at the sensitivity of this little creature.

Plug for unplugging

http://www.adbusters.org/metas/psycho/mdw/

Well, its no longer "mental detox week" but I thought I'd put a blurb here anyway having noticed that my brother in law Sean had posted to his facebook profile that he was offline for the week. So I went to the adbusters' site and read more. Though I don't have a TV I have spent more time in front of the computer this year to stay in touch, and as a sort of companion substitute since I'm on my own after bedtime this year. But sometimes it feels like a vacuum and can be a distraction from more fufilling things. So check it out, think about it, turn some things off for awhile, and relax. (you too, Ry!)

I am going to blame my visitors

Yes, I know I haven't been keeping up with the blog and I didn't even really get into telling about Paris or our travels in the Loire Valley. But to my defense, my friend Mitzi showed up here in La Rochelle only one and a half days after our return from Paris. We hadn't even gotten all our bags unpacked yet and we all had little colds and felt kind of tired. But we did a few things around town together until she ate a bad egg and got food poisoning and spent the better part of 2 days between the toilet and the bedroom. During this time her boyfriend joined us as well. They waited for her to recuperate and visited La Rochelle a bit more and then headed off to Paris and Berlin this past Thursday. So this weekend is only my second weekend without visitors or traveling in 6 weeks.

Starting with the present- Finally I can't gloat about our gorgeous weather while imagining the snow being dumped on Chicago. It is absolutely beyond beautiful here but I get the feeling it is for everyone everywhere. People are flocking to the beaches and strolling along the port and one just feels happy to be alive and outside. There are flowers in bloom in every imaginable place- pushing through the cracks on sidewalks, overflowing the walls of yards and adorning vines that creep up the buildings. Miette and I have especially been enjoying the fragrances. I love the way springtime overwhelms all the senses- the wind like soft hands on your skin, smells from blossoms that are so intense it's as if you are eating them, digging in warm sand on the beach, seeing the range of colors exploding everywhere, the magical light at the end of the day, eating sweet little strawberries that are in season again, and hearing birds chattering up a storm. Yesterday walking into town as we crossed a little bridge over the stream in Park Charruyer, we heard a crazy sound and looked over to discover tons of frogs swimming and hopping around and making the wildest noises. So this is probably the real reason I am not blogging, I'd rather be outside!

Since I spent two weeks non-stop with the kids during vacation, starting back to school and work this week actually gave me some alone time again and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and time by walking to my Thursday school rather than biking as I usually do. This school is actually in a suburb of La Rochelle and is thus the farthest away from our apartment. It takes me 25 minutes pedaling fast on my bike to get there so I gave myself ample time to go on foot. Well, this was a great theory, walking and all, but I was wearing my knee high boots and work clothes and after about a half-hour I started feeling the pain of blisters, especially one on the underside of my heel. And I still had about 45 minutes to walk before arriving. I thought of my friend Lynn and her reflections on pain and the precious human body. (She has just started a blog which is already inspiring me but I will talk more about that later). Anyway, I had to seriously meditate to make it 45 minutes uphill with a huge painful blister to get to my classes on time. And then I took the bus home :) (Next time I will wear gym shoes and change when I arrive at work!)

Yesterday we went to the Ludothèque to return some things and walked out with 2 scooters for the kids and a skateboard for me! Julian is bugging me to go outside and use them now and I think that's a good idea so I will wrap this up for the time being. I will note briefly all the things on which I hope to update later today:

-I have started learning a little German with a (German) friend of mine in exchange for helping her practice French (?!) We are going to meet weekly for this exchange.

-I have been running a little bit and biking a ton this year but have been inspired by my friends Juliet (who wrote to tell me she did her first race recently) and Lynn (who is training for a 5K) and I have decided to do the same and run a race in La Rochelle. It is on May 31st just for women called "Les Filles de La Rochelle"and you can do either a 5 or 10K. My friend Florence (with whom I go the gym from time to time) is going to run with me twice a week to train.

-I am trying to educate myself about French music and singers and am borrowing and checking out CDs from the Mediathèque.

-Last night we went to Miette's school's "masked ball" a fund-raiser with dancing and lots of food. It was a lot of fun and made me appreciate what a great group of families are in the school / neighborhood here.

So I am internally dealing with a whole other set of questions relating to the imminent shift that will occur as our time here draws to an end. I am so happy here and the kids are really flourishing. They have lovely friendships, are speaking the language, and are in amazing school communities. I am torn about leaving these things behind and returning to the big city hustle. Miette's teacher and the Directrice want us to stay. Her teacher can't say enough about her astonishment at her level of French and success in school here. But we miss the papa so much and all of you friends and family and I think that the answer is that you should all just move here. What could be simpler? Anyway. I am going to go make a fool of myself trying to skateboard and enjoy the present.

Continuing

Happy April- Jokes, Travels, Visits and MORE!

So there is much to catch up on, apologies for lack of blogging recently but we've been out of town for more than a week and before that was the end of the term. We've had the Hennessys visiting in La Rochelle and then traveled through the Loire Valley visiting the famous castles with them. We ended our time together in Paris and then the kids and I stayed there for 5 days with a friend and revisited the city for my first time since I was there as a student almost 10 (!!!) years ago. The order of the pictures that I've posted is a bit random and there are tons more- it was hard to decide what to put up, over the next few days I will probably add more as well as some tidbits and stories. I just got another visitor, my friend Mitzi, who arrived last night from San Francisco, so my time is still pulled in more than the usual directions, but I want to catch up on blogging before I start back to work next week. Stay tuned....