Vacation Time=Wandering

Wandering in any direction I want to...going places in my mind, in actual fact, in books, online. That is one of the freedoms of a vacation I love the most. So here are some places I have visited in the last few days:

Mari Andrews via NapaArtonF1rst

Mari Andrews, her website is here. Her sculptures , installations and works in paper make me want to go right into the studio and experiment.I found her through sfgirlbybay, a blog we all know and love. 

Nantucket garden
 via 2 or 3 Things I know

I love this blog! She finds the best photographs and has eclectic taste I find exciting. This summer she has done some great posts that just make you feel bathed in it (summer, that is). Just look at this garden! I'd like to be sitting in it with a cappuccino right now.

I've been reading. Books. Five at the moment...here are three of them.

When we were in Quebec City last week we went to the top of the city, the citadel, and looked down on the famous Le Chateau Frontenac.

I've also been in the kitchen a little bit. Making watermelon and feta salad, and baking bread with flour we got at a gristmill that has been in operation since 1752.

P.S. John just made these, so I had to revise the post to include them. Warm and good.

We took friends up to Acadia National Park, and looked at the "porcupines" from on top of Cadillac Mountain.

And we've been sitting in the garden, enjoying it, rather than weeding it!

Next week it will be back to work, but for now, it is so sweet to do as we please. 

Vacation

We went to Canada for a few days, to Quebec City and to Montreal, for a short vacation. I loved the buildings in Quebec City. They are so solid and clean and pure. They have beautiful doors and windows. The people seem to celebrate summer with such intensity in the form of flower boxes! I could see how scouring winter is in this city, and it comes through even in broad summer. We tried to focus on that beauty and ignore all the tourist traps! In Montreal we went to museums and ate ice cream. For some reason we could not find the interesting neighborhoods and outdoor cafes we had imagined.

Here are some lines from Magic Doors, a photo essay by John Pearson that somehow seems appropriate.

Of magic doors there is this:
you do not see them even as
you are passing through.

Our destination is never a place
but rather a new way of looking
at things.

The universe swims in light.

Everything is alive and alight. Man

too is the recipient of inexhaustible

radiant energy.

Our life is our most

luminous art form.

This is the real secret of the arts.

Always be a beginner.