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

everyday

John Updike was a writer of the everyday, of the everyday person in everyday situations. Though Obama has somewhat recently elevated his own 'everyday' status, and that of his family, I saw these photos of moments, snapshots that capture this everyday family in a most endearing, a most understated light.

annie leibovitz

"A leader is one who, out of madness or goodness, volunteers to take upon himself the woe of the people. There are few men so foolish, hence the erratic quality of leadership in the world."
j o h n u p d i k e





"Inspiration arrives as a packet of material to be delivered."j o h n u p d i k e






"Truth should not be forced; it should simply manifest itself, like a woman who has in her privacy reflected and coolly decided to bestow herself upon a certain man."j o h n u p d i k e








"Creativity is merely a plus name for regular activity. Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better."j o h n u p d i k e







annie leibovitz

"You know how it is with fathers, you never escape the idea that maybe after all they're right."j o h n u p d i k e





"To be President of the United States, sir, is to act as advocate for a blind, venomous, and ungrateful client."j o h n u p d i k e


...and with the words of Updike intermingling in these photos of a family, bringing us all back down to earth, where images, inspirations, perseverance and dreams do, at times, walk amongst us, where the new arrive and the old find some well-deserved rest. everyday.

in his words

The writer John Updike died today at age 76...... I started looking through some of the words that he shared with the world, and these few felt rather poignant today.




"Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them."


"A narrative is like a room on whose walls a number of false doors have been painted; while within the narrative, we have many apparent choices of exit, but when the author leads us to one particular door, we know it is the right one because it opens."



"We do survive every moment, after all, except the last one."

j o h n u p d i k e