blink-- you'll miss it

photos : by c

the sun set sky blushed
over busy streets wires crossed
birds sang traffic-- slowed--

the balcony scene

loyal waves crash touch

laughter-- pull away with faith--

to return once more

::

and other times life sneaks up like a huge wave knocking me down, throwing me far off course and leaving me there to see the beauty that exists but just out of reach...

all year long i thought the waves that would touch me this summer would be in maratea italy with all my friends to celebrate the marriage of two dear friends maria teresa and christophe.... but headaches and instability in this life of mine left me ashore. maria teresa and christophe have their wedding today and i won't be there.... au moins, later this week my norwegian friend will arrive from the wedding to california to give me the full report over kaffe. but i won't be in italy today and there was not question in my mind, i planned to be there for them. but life has crashed down on me multiple times since then.

and you may remember a little website we were making together for their wedding.. ya... it's still sitting there.. with one entry {ooops}. perhaps we can turn it into an online guest book / photo album for those who were there in person and in spirit. still can't think about missing their day, it makes me too sad.

dear friends that live so far that oceans get in the way and physically divide us, but at the same time, could never keep us apart.

these are photos from the last time i saw mt and chris last spring in paris. last farewell glimpses taken from the window of a train after years of friendship, two weeks of just-like-it-used-to-be, and this lovely afternoon spent in the sunny garden of their versailles house....

::

i'm not super sweet on wedding inspired stories, but their story is simply perfection and cannot be overlooked. two of the most genuine, generous, fun, funny, sweet, adorable, charming, vivacious, delightful people...

literal sunshine in my life and over my rough oceans.

you guys have brightened my life. and i'm not just saying it, i really really mean it. i wish you all the happiness. but it's been there and will be, it's already written for you.....

footprints trace those in

smooth sands deep that time will tell--

the hours-- yours to make

::

love to you mt and chris
et a tres vite j'espere...
bisoubacikisses
x c

{the first & last photos were taken in maratea italy and i absolutly love them :: by design monkey}

flight :: train de nuit :: haiku

in the fresh hours of early light awoken soft from restless warmth you--





image :: train de nuit the new chanel N°5 film
haiku :: by moi :: more here on my new blog

train de nuit

train de nuit the new chanel N°5 film

i know i'm late in writing about this and posting these simply breathtaking images, but i don't think anyone will mind. this new epic chanel N°5 film/commercial came out earlier in spring and though i've watched it many times since... last night/early this morning when i'd awoken with yet another headache, this served as a delicious distraction, i'm completely swept up in the images, and the way that this small breath of a film takes mine with it and holds so many images and sights, ideas that have been sources of inspiration to me for so long....

trains play a huge role in my life and have, literally.. metaphorically.. poetically.. in paris but also in california {i didn't get my license until i was almost 30..eh hem... i'm 29 haha} and i've cherished train station glances and goodbyes, and hellos, and... and rides that went where they weren't supposed to, and train tickets at the bottom of my purse that remind me.....

the orient express. feel as though i've traveled on it so many times in my mind, in my relationships, in my passions and tastes for more... the train leaves paris {the city.. 'the one that got away' for me} and istanbul {the next stop on my travel ticket, where some of my dearest friends live, canim cok optum girls}

the colors... brilliant, muted, reflecting, deep tinged with nostalgia.... signature glow of jean-pierre jeunet {the director of amelie} who i, along with my dear crazy friend, chased through the streets of montmartre in 2001 as he conducted interviews, did press photo shoots and met with members of the amelie cast in the cafe where it was filmed. we even met him and took photos and autographs and les bises... the only two non-press, english-speaking 'fans' that were present, we were still new to paris and hadn't realized that the french don't drool over celebrities as americans do. but quand meme we had an amazing experience, and were far more refined when we sat next to audrey in our favorite cafe months later, or when my parents and i sat next to another of the film's actresses while she ate an omelet and entertained her very small baby, just the two of them, a rainy afternoon in paris, in yet another cafe.

anyway. too much writing, i'm sure you just want to look at the images, as they are lovely. i will post a few of the film stills separately with some of my train haiku from the past that seemed fitting. also, watch the film on here, or check out the chanel website the video and website it's nice to watch it on there.

:: missed chances taking you where you belong, on an old train found with the one you'd never dreamed of until today ::

a tout.... x c

ashes and wine

been a bit ailleurs this week {ie somewhere else} was literally supposed to be in santa barbara visiting my sister... and then the jesusita fire started, and everything got...smokey, so to speak. so i didn't go to santa barbara and instead kept my eye on the fire, the evacuations, the devastatingly captivating images of the fire in the mountains and streets of a place i'd once known as home. beautiful and nostalgic images in my mind of my years spent in the gorgeous town of santa barbara were dominated, more than anything, by my constant concern for my sister's safety. and i twittered a lot. and i don't mean anxious chatter or jittery fidgeting {though restlessness abounded} but i mean literally twittered about the fire, read constant updates on twitter, and got way too much information for my overly active imagination that proceeded to run away from me.

anyway, during the worst night of the fire, sometime well after midnight as they were still evacuating people, i needed distraction but couldn't look away long enough to find one. and my dad, lost for any way to really help me calm down, said in a serious-bordering-on-exasperated tone "why don't you, just, write some poems or something." alas it's not easy for an engineer integrated circuit designer dad to have an overly creative, imaginative, emotional, sensitive {etc..} daughter, but he tried. and in fact, about a half an hour later i found myself absorbed in turning the verbose, redundant thoughts that were overwhelming my mind at a furious rate, into simple, sleek, perfectly shaped haiku poems.

if you haven't noticed, i've been a bit obsessed with haiku lately. it all started just with me attempting to find a fun form of poetry to work on with one of the girls i tutor {hi olivia ;)} and then i got kind of hooked.... because the challenge of streamlining my thoughts into seventeen syllables became fascinating, and rewarding. and helped to clarify, and speak louder than i'd anticipated, and set these thoughts to a new rhythm. then i worked on haiku with another one of my students {hi abby :)} and we were all hooked. at times the rhythm lulls me into..something...somewhere else...

and especially on this fiery night, it soothed my fears a bit. and took me away. i posted the haiku on twitter each time i wrote a new one, one after another, hoping that anyone else who was worried about the fire, might too, find some element {other than fire :)} of comfort in the brief words. and how gratifying to hear from readers that in fact, they did.

here are some of the poems i wrote during those tense days in the beginning of the jesusita fire in santa barbara, and a few of the spectacularly calamitous images of the fire. the flames were all along and above the 101 freeway, and my sister said that while driving on the freeway beside the fire, it was hard to look away {though dangerous, as she was driving} from the dramatic view.

and all along, the song ashes and wine by a fine frenzy has been playing in my head... {santa barbara is known for its vineyards} and in fact, funnily enough, it's playing on my sterio as i type this. 'don't know if our fate's already sealed. this day's a spinning circus on a wheel ... there is nothing left to say but is there a chance, a fragment of light at the end of the tunnel, a reason to fight? is there a chance you may change your mind? or are we ashes and wine. the day's still ashes and wine, or are we ashes..'

it's the not knowing
and knowing what you know won't
stop fire from burning

a sky so dark, thick
air, smoke hard to remember
yesterday's calm blues

we sit and wait, i'm
here on twitter while she's there,
watching fire and news

it's the little things
you want to hold on to when
it's time to let go





she sees fire light the
mountains, sky, smoke in her eyes
close mine, i see her





ash falls from the sky
gentle like snow nothing's as
it seemed anymore




you don't feel until
it touches you, don't see 'til
you look in their eyes



images via latimes and noozhawk

train music

© Eni Turkeshi Photography

wow, i wrote this poem years ago on a train {imagine that} going from bordeaux back to paris, i scribbled it down on an old piece of scrap of paper in my purse..... at the time it meant something completely different to me than what it whispers to me today as i read it over and over after having found it tucked away in the files of my old laptop. it's startling how much it still relates to my life in yet a completely different way... almost prophetic.... big thanks and teşekkürler to eni, it's your gorgeous albanian train photo that reminded me to look for this in the first place. the way past and present, future and memory all blur together - suspended - speeding past in slow motion, through an air that's both very much the same, familiar and yet transformed - changed - leaves me sitting here perplexed, yet i can't help but feel some breath of hope. and this image, this photo, inspires another poetic sentiment within me, which i will share another time. perhaps that whisper i heard was destiny, or maybe just a haunted whistle of trains past.

train music

empty parking lots and street signs
my reflection and reflections
looking out looking in
music and time melt together
not sure how fast we’re going
empty words and broken dreams
looking forward
signs in the distance
going back
not sure how fast we’re going
music and time melt together
looking out looking in
my reflection and reflections
empty parking lots and street signs

happy 1er mai and bon week-end

ahhhhh the days when i was young and free in paris {haha, uh...about two years ago} i loved 1er mai. it usually rained {hey paris in the spring} but everyone had the day off which meant that the night before was an extra night to go out to some soirée until the wee hours when april turned softly {or often, not so softly} into may........

then in the morning {when i was on my way home, ahh to be young again...haha} and all day long, vendors would sell {they still do, i'm just not there, so i'm using the past tense to capture the bitter..sweet... nostalgia that sets in for me...and in case you didn't sense it, that was purposefully overly dramatized, perhaps on account of the amount of coffee i've had thus far today...but nevertheless...back to my musings..}

vendors stand about the streets selling small bouquets of the precious lily of the valley {en francais: muguet} that friends and family exchange on 1er mai. {certain people close to me at the time weren't french and were rather oblivious to this amazing tradition, and thus every single year, i'd have to nudge and hint and finally say, "get me some of those flowers on your way home" well, it always worked, quand meme}

so anyway, just wanted to quickly post these longings before running off to press the coffee that's been sitting in the pot for far too long already.........yes, more coffee.

et s'il te plait, get me some of those flowers on your way home. merci.

bisou bisou ♥c

for what it's worth

© Eni Turkeshi Photography

...and as shakespeare wrote

{every time i repeat this quote to myself
it finds new meaning somewhere within me}

"fortune brings in some boats that are not steered"

haiku is a city and laundry looks best drying out the window of an old building, weathered and worn and painted a beautiful shade of green...

© Eni Turkeshi Photography

funny and intriguing the things, places, people, images etc. one stumbles across on the internet in this current social media explosion.

the other day, in the midst of a blossoming love affair with haiku poetry {after trying to inspire my students to play around with it} and sharing a bit of it on here, i noticed a visit on my blog from a place called haiku, hawaii. i thought to myself how rather ironic it was that, in my current obsession with writing haiku, haiku had paid me a visit! as fate {i mean it must have been fate that brought that visitor here on the particular day i made my haiku debut, what else could it possibly have been..?!} thus, as fate would have it, my haiku was visited from someone in haiku {call me ignorant, but i didn't know such place existed, learn something new every day!}. so then i went on twitter to tweet around a bit, and sure enough, had a new follower from haiku, hawaii {by this point i thought fate must be working overtime..} well come to find out just today, a week after all of this, this individual who resides in haiku, sent me a message that she had seen my blog show up in her google alerts for haiku {as in the city}! how very cool, and kind of funny, and now i wonder if i should question the role that fate played in all of this, or simply see it, from any angle, as a sign to share another haiku today. and so here we go:

and with those few words
i'll never be able to
unless you listen

and one more thing, while on this subject, i also had brought to my attention by another twitter follower, the website twihaiku where you can post haiku on the site that simultaneously appears on twitter as well. @twihaiku it's kinda fun. {the first haiku i posted was made haiku of the day yesterday..hmmm so ya that is kinda fun, kinda cool..}

and about the green building laundry part of this rambling post's title {if the picture didn't give it away yet} i discovered a new very fav flickr friend yesterday {ok well it was more like 3 in the morning today, but who's keeping track} her name is eni turkeshi of eni turkeshi photography, her photos are fantastic capturing 10.5 years of color, movement, light and character in istanbul and also her beautiful hometown of tirana the capital city of albania. check out her photostream and also her blog. she has a poignant view of place and a warm and kind spirit. love her images, you will see more of them on here in the very near future.

ok, that's enough out of me for a while. as you can maybe tell, i had a headache earlier and took two different kinds of my prescription headache medications, so i'm feeling a bit...well, better on va dire...

bonne journee, tesekkeur eni, and more haiku to come...i'm sure. x c

special delivery

"inspiration arrives as a packet of material to be delivered." john updike

opened the front door yesterday and there was a package from santa barbara on the steps. my sister had sent an overnight delivery of croissants from my fav french bakery in sb. a french pastry chef and his wife moved to santa barbara last year and opened a very small, always bustling, line-out-the-door bakery called renaud's patisserie and bistro. these are hands down the best croissants, pain au choco etc... that i've had in the states. mmmm had one for breakfast today. merci nini!

{image by a new flickr fav littlegirlblue}

exile is not an easy art to master...

debi treloar

bits and pieces of the latest..
long weekend in santa barbara and other things i found along the way....

music i loaded on my ipod for the ride:
....a fine frenzy {great lyrics for listening to over and over while looking out the car window at the ocean} and lady gaga {to distract me from what those other lyrics made me think about...} and yes for my walk tonight...kelly clarkson....among others like lily allen and the killers are the songs that for one reason or another seem to repeat on my ipod again and again these days...and again..


katya de grunwald

books i discovered in the corners of chaucer's
{my favorite bookshop in santa barbara}:

poems of turkish poet nazim hikmet, wonderful book,
words from the pages therein floated into my subconscious like...

"it is my fate
to roam the world without you,
what can we do..."

"exile is not an easy art to master..."

"all i wrote about us is lies
all i wrote about us is the truth"

and sweet words that melt off the pages like honey.....

"because of you, each day is a melon slice
smelling sweetly of earth"

and

"suddenly i cling to the day
i started out as if it wouldn't end,
and every time you float up to the surface..."

i also found a new collection of updike essays and literary criticism called due considerations and another book called other colors essays and a story by the brilliant turkish writer and nobel prize winner orhan pamuk. good stuff. reading all of them at once. and listening to my music.
and drinking coffee. and walking. had to come in from my evening walk early as the sun was shining so bright {now that we've advanced an hour here in california} at 6:30 {and with a headache}
the sun can be painfully strong. on my way now to recover
and get coffee with the algerian...more later.


hessa alfalasi on etsy

143 friday

"that time was like never, and like always.
so we go there, where nothing is waiting;
we find everything waiting there."
pablo neruda




ok so this is a photo from santa barbara, only it's not from today, but from a few years ago, as i forgot to bring the cable that connects my camera... and despite four years of college life and thousands of sb photos since those days, this is the only photo i had of sb on my new macbook dearest {didn't really transfer anything yet.} anyway, regardless, it's 1:43am, {hey 143, when i was in university back in the day we still used pagers ..before cell phones.. and had to use numbers to write messages, remember that anyone? 143 = i love you, am i the only one who remembers that?? haha i still think of that every time i see that number} anyway.
same hours, different place...
enjoy your friday. 143 c

00h56

debi treloar


packing for a long weekend in santa barbara with my sister...well, no, actually, it would appear that i'm instead sitting here writing this at 12:56am....yes, comme d'hab, things as usual falling into place in the early hours of the morning...putting it all off until the very last second. well i'll write more later from sb, just wanted to thank everyone who's sent kind words lately, much much much appreciated. and it would seem that after almost a day's break, the rain has just started falling out my window, increasing in momentum with every second, but that's fine with me, i quite like the sound of it. bonne nuit, c

friends for all seasons

it seems as though my very favorite statue in the vigeland sculpture park in frognerparken oslo, norway (my norwegian friend {and oslo correspondent} lives right near it) is covered in snow, poor girl must be cold she has snow in her hair!


(the girl i'm refering to is this statue, my favorite, i love this girl! marianne {my norwegian friend} is, i'm sure, cold as well and most likely has snow in her hair, but i'm not sure it's as dramatic as this!!)


apparently it's been snowing a lot everywhere (except here in california where there's a possibility of rain today...but that's about it).. my olso correspondant sent reports today of 'it's been snowing like crazy here the last couple of days' and i've heard similar remarks from paris and toronto.. but i only walk through it in the warmth of my mind and the pictures i'm sent, and i'd venture to say it's a more pleasent experience like that.


this is my girl basking in the warmth of an august afternoon in oslo.


and i'm including some more of the images she sent of the statues in the snow..


i love how they look covered in snow!!


though these guys look like they've had just about enough!

...they make me smile, as does that girl, and this time, i mean marianne ;)))

blogging amoreeeee.

remember the italian wedding i was talking about a while back?
well here they are, literally too cute for words,



my italian friend maria teresa and my french friend christophe




they're getting married this summer in maratea, italy, the
beachside village where maria teresa spent her childhood summers......



this is not only a destination wedding, but a destination to which friends will be traveling from all over the world ((yes, this is the group of friends i love to talk on and on about...we all met in paris over the course of about five years..a lot of stories to be told....)) anyway, since this destination wedding is a big deal for so many of us, i took cue from maria teresa's lively emails loaded with information on where to stay, what to do there etc.... and offered to make them a wedding website. this is common practice in american wedding culture ((not that i'm an expert, but i've noticed a trend..)) largely on account of the wedding industry i assume, however in this case, i really thought it could be beneficial, and fun. and after trying to figure it all out, i decided that with a group as social and socially networked as ours, a blog format would be the most exciting format to present the information, post photos before, during and after, and for everyone to interactively follow the path up to the day. a sort of gradual guest book/journal if you will. and an easy way for both mt and i to post from different continents.

and thus i'm on my way, creating it and gathering info, i will share more when i know more
((or, i guess, when i've done more)) but think we're gonna have some fun.

ciao bellas, c

second look: images in my mind

★★today was spent encountering new blogs, as i'm still a newcomer to this game (thus blogs new to me, but otherwise well established) and through these blogs, new photographers were discovered as well, and many excited exclamations muttered. anyway, my mind was working overtime, as were my fingers typing stories on my glowing keyboard and scribbling notes on the paper mouse pad beside me and all at once images, ideas, thoughts and personalities encouraged by multiple cups of coffee interspersed with my favorite black tea in which i soak dried sage leaves and honey.... all made for a delightful day, but i'm exhausted. and i'm rambling. lots of images are roaming about my fatigued consciousness, here are a few that stick with me.

images in my mind. you know how sometimes you see a picture and you're somehow mesmerized -- you simply adore the image, sometimes you can say straight away why it is you can't take you're eyes off it, and other times, you can't put in words why you're so utterly taken with this particular image...

at hei astrid i discovered her colorful photographs like this........

and this..............

complete with her warm commentary direct from chilly norway.

★★

and then i came across this bike basket, and fell entirely in love.

i went to design house stockholm where the basket can be purchased for only $39, and, well i haven't fully recovered yet. look around this fantastic site. for tonight i'll let the products speak for themselves, but i will show you more later!

★★

the day actually started with a lingering look at unruly things, where i discovered photographer jennifer causey's blog simply photo and these perfect images available for sale in her etsy shop.

((i really want them all.))

★★

and also another blog with photos that are stuck in my mind, bliss...

this last one is first on my list in her etsy shop, i can't find words to tell you how much i adore this image and the feeling that i get from gazing up at it.....

.....i found so much more today, this is all off the top of my head as i try to digest what i took in today. and yes i realize you all probably know about these blogs and photographers but i'm a new girl in town, feeling my way around...and really liking what i find myself bumping into!!

★★

oh yes and another delicious 'edible idiom' that fits right in with my own little life, found today on clotilde's c&z..."mi-figue mi-raisin." which she translates as "half fig, half grape," basically implying ambiguity.. and that's me in a nutshell. read more about her description here amongst infinite recipes and beautiful images that you can almost eat..

like this one..

and a polaroid at that!! great taste.

★★yes, i'm getting tired, almost time to swivel my executive chair around from my desk to my bed..

but one more thing, i've also, in the past few days, had a starteling number of encounters with talk of portland. ya, portland..as in oregon. i'm suddenly intreagued with this city and want to know more. many of the blogs i read today were located in portland, beautiful photographs taken of portland, i watch the movie feast of love the other day which took place in portland, and i can't remember what else right now, but now it's on my mind...so tell me, if you know, what's it like, this portland?...

ok, i'll stop rambling now..bonne nuit, dream of these images as will i. i mean, why stop now, i've been doing it all day au fait!★★c