Meri's Musings

Here are some of the things I learned on my trip to Italy. 1. Women in Italy take their footwear seriously. I'm not sure about the men.  Seriously. . . . Seriously? 2. Ordering a margarita can bring surprising results. 3. Every meal should start with gelato, preferably Creme Caramel, Caffe, or Bailey's though this Limoncello was pretty good too. 4. There are service gondolas used by Venetian locals that cost only half a Euro, a darn sight cheaper than the tourist version. One is just past the Rialto Bridge on the side of the market. It just takes you from one side of the canal to the other, but hey -- I've ridden in a gondola! 5. The after-hours tour of the Vatican museum was worth every dime. 6. The Amalfi Coast is breath-taking. 7. Store windows in Venice are show-stoppers. 8. It's best to go to Italy with your bags already full if you're on a budget. 9. The mosaic tile floors in Rome are simply amazing. These are in the Vatican museum. (Th...

Sometimes it's the little things   you notice when you look closely. Did you see she's making music despite her limitations?

Some mornings the merest hint of light  creeps in through the cracks and begs you to crawl from your bed to see what you'd have missed if you stayed too long in the land of dreams. Water Like Glass © 2010 Meri Arnett-Kremian If you listen to your heart, if you pull on your clothes despite your inclination to snooze just a few minutes more, you just might find near-perfect light and calm waters. First Light Over Rialto Bridge © 2010 Meri Arnett-Kremian There. Picture perfect.

The photography workshop has been fabulous. Here’s a hint of things to come . Copyright 2010 Meri Arnett-Kremian. All rights reserved.

i found this at  Emma Tree , and she found it at Julochka's , and    I thought I had something to say along the same lines,   So. . . . if i were a month i’d be september the month of my birth,  september in all her splendor, going out in a blaze of glory if i were a day i’d be the last day of school, with summer spread out before me like frosting on a cupcake. if i were a time of day i’d be  the moment the first star appears, that instant when you wish  something you want to come true if i were a font i’d be   Mariah   or maybe  Mistral,  though you really can't tell the difference between them. if i were a sea animal i’d be a seahorse because my husband would tend the children while I floated around curling and uncurling my dainty spiral tail, flirting with every guy  floating nearby. Photograph © National Geographic ...

A lot of you seem to love super-saturated color like those you see in Dale Chihuly's masterpieces. And since I'm in Venice, so near the island of Murano where glass making has been a way of life, I am inspired to feature photographs  of my favorite snippets of Chihuly color. Enjoy! (All these photos are closeups of small sections of Chihuly's Bridge of Glass in Tacoma.  To photograph them, you have to shoot up, so stiff necks go along with the territory.) 

When you're looking at the world through a camera lens, what kinds of things catch your eye? What makes you choose to capture one vignette over another, makes you smile, touches your heart,  pours a stream of calm into your day? Is there a theme, a mood, a character of light or twilight , something that unifies your work?    In other words, do you have a vision?   Or is it a random thing? I love: shiny things feathery things reflections & light bouncing off water sleeping babies artfully arranged store window displays repetition and visual rhythm lots of color and Chihuly's glass.

I've posted an earlier version of this piece before, but it's been reworked after a few astute comments in a manuscript group session in a writing workshop I attended a while ago.  So here it is again, posted in its new incarnation. Hope you don't mind. Love is a Bella Thing Sometimes I think that love is an extraordinary guy dressed in everyday clothes, a wily clown that springs tricks and slaps his knee in delight at lovers' silly pratfalls. I'd love to greet him, "Ciao bella!" the moment he turns the corner, sticks out his foot and trips me up, skinning my knee, the one that's puffed and swollen, the one that bumps and grinds just like a stripper. I'd love to serenade him with a song or beggar Rumi's words recounting - how fierce like a lion, tender like the evening star - love dribbled warm and moist in the tender cracks of his soul. I know, I know, he was ta...