Under the Moroccan Sun: Restoring a Holiday Home

The house is a metaphor for the self, of course, but it also is totally real. And a foreign house exaggerates all the associations houses carry…. And, ah, the foreign self. The new life might shape itself to the contours of the house, which already is at home in the landscape, and to the rhythms around it.–Frances Mayes, Under the Tuscan Sun I love…

Past, Present, Future Dickens of a Christmas

I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. –A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

Kids, Chaos, and Puppy Love

No joke.  I truly thought when my children left the nest I’d fly away, too.  If I didn’t make it as far as Italy or Ecuador, I’d migrate south to Seagrove or west to Big Sur.  I’d park my vintage camper (circa 1959) and chase seagulls, collect shells, and make a mermaid my muse.  I’d bake pies like Sylvia Plath and burn rubber if…

True Blue

I’ll have a blue Christmas. But not the kind Elvis sang about. I had those blues all spring as I fretted over fall when my nest would empty. I’d always said that when my chicks left, I’d fly away, too, preferably to anywhere under the Tuscan sun. Or, if I stayed in town, to a bungalow in East Nashville. But when the whole Metamorphosis-…