Meri's Musings

I don't have any travel plans this fall and I'm feeling the urge. Where would you escape if you could?

What gives me JOY? Traveling to intriguing places. Things that remind me of exotic places. Yummy food exquisitely presented. Shadows that make me look tall. Lots of things, really. . . . What gives YOU joy? To play along and share the joy: 1. do a post that tells and shows us  what gives you joy. 2. capture the URL of the specific post  and paste it into the  Mr. Linky box along with your name. 3. Then click the NEXT box If the "next" box doesn't pop up, click the link to go to the page to select your image -- choose one from your post so you'll entice people to visit. (If you just can't get it to work, email me and give me the URL of the post you're adding and I'll take care of it). 4. visit other players -- as many as possible --  and let their joy infect you.   5. Leave them a comment about their post because everyone enJOYs getting positive feedback. Let's start an epidemic of joy!

If you make your own personal list called "The Best Things in the World" you'll find JOY. Here are some of the things on my list Girlfriend Time. Live Theater (sorry I couldn't enlarge these -- camera pics aren't amenable to large format displays) pretty reflections in the water memories of gliding along the Nile and just soaking in the feeling of timelessness taking photographs.  What says JOY to you this week? To play along and share the joy: 1. do a post that tells and shows us  what gives you joy. 2. capture the URL of the specific post  and paste it into the  Mr. Linky box along with your name. 3. Then click the NEXT box If the "next" box doesn't pop up, click the link to go to the page to select your image -- choose one from your post so you'll entice people to visit. 4. visit other players -- as many as possible --  and let their joy infect you.   5. Leave them a comment about their post because ...

Joy can be found wherever friends gather. New friends, old friends, blog friends. Beautiful spirits, each of them. Beautiful souls who fill me with joy.   Where have you found JOY in your life? This is the place to show and tell. To play along: 1. do a post that tells and shows us what gives you joy. 2. capture the URL of the specific post and paste it into the Mr. Linky box along with your name. 3. visit other players -- as many as possible -- and let their joy infect you.  Leave them a comment about their post. Let's start an epidemic of joy!

I'm feeling a little stymied right now, waiting for something to happen. I'd like to be able to take a trip while I wait, but the timing isn't right. So if you could travel anywhere right now, by plane, train, or the powers of your mind, where would it be (and why)? I think I'd choose Paris. Why? flea markets perfectly turned-out women and men who can't compete lovers strolling along the Seine patisseries the Eiffel Tower at night people watching hoping the "City of Love" will sprinkle its fairy dust on me.

There's something about Venice, the bride of the sea, that draws me back, that pulls me as if it were my home in some time long forgotten, in another life. "The Heart of Venice" © 2005 Meri Arnett-Kremian Perhaps it's the gentle lapping of the water, the mist that makes things vanish and reappear like magic.  Mist means spirit to me - spirit made visible,  dancing in light, muting the sounds of the everyday world. Maybe it's the rich sense of history, the turning a corner into surprise, the visual s mörgåsbord   beckoning   through every passageway and across every bridge. It might be because I went to Venice with someone I loved truly, madly, deeply. I can't disregard the possibility that my dreams of Venice are tied up with him even though that romance, riveting as it was, and that journey I was blessed to take with someone so woven into my psyche, are just memories from my past. Perchance it was the sense I had that each new place was somehow...

I am obviously feeling the bite of the travel bug. Italy beckons. Its siren song is nearly irresistible. Left (top to bottom): Sirmione, Milan's Duomo, Murano Center: Murano, Cinque Terre, Venice - looking through  an arch toward the Doge's palace Right: Venice's Doge's Palace and San Marco, Venice,  Venetian Painter To visit the other sites participating in Mosaic Monday, visit Mary at Little Red House. And if that doesn't give you enough inspiration, check out my friend Cathleen Shattuck's  Flickr slideshow  celebrating the Year of the Tiger festivities in Seattle's International District and Chinatown.

One of my favorite things about the Egypt trip was the writing (and reading) circle. Here's a piece that explains the magic. Left to right - Margaret Kachadurian, Laura Janesdaughter, Nettie Eldredge, Piliaka Peter, Denise, Pat Chesser, and just the merest hint of Joyce Brady's peach-colored sleeve. Not visible: Nicki Scully, Mark Hallert, Gloria Taylor-Brown, Normandi Ellis, Barbara Lindsey, Kathryn "Raven" Ravenwood, Vera Kaplan, Cathleen Shattuck, Jane Wodening, Alma Donato, Donna Swindells, and of course me (the photographer). The group sat in rapt concentration, bringing to a close the scribing of words that described alternative selves, alternative realities. Eighteen women and a lone man sat on chairs, sofas, the floor, with journals in laps and laptops on tables or perched upon their knees. The air conditioner exhaled a steady stream of air above our heads but we barely noticed the cool breeze caressing our shoulders, the sacred energy was so vibrant and comp...

The cold I brought home from Cairo is cramping my style. Just going out to buy food exhausts me. My get up and go has got up and left. To pick up my spirits, I just have to remember the fun of browsing in the Khan el-Khalili. It was built in 1382 by the Emir Djaharks el-Khalili and was part of the market tradition that established Cairo as a major center of trade . Like at Alice's Restaurant, you can get anything you want (or nearly so) at the Khan: gold, silver, brass, trinkets, clothing, shoes. There are fragrant spices, pipes for smoking strong Egyptian tobacco. There are carpets, lamps, art and artifacts. There are gorgeous scarves and shawls, billed as Pashmina that are really wool and silk fibers, shawls that can be had for around $8 if you drive a hard bargain, hard enough that the shopkeepers will tell you you're trying to make them go broke and then delightedly close the transaction. More than anything, the Khan's a dandy place to people watch. Young, old, locals...

This morning, thanks to the relentless door bumping of my cats who thought I was a laggard, I was up before the sun. On a wet Pacific Northwest morning, with heavy overcast and leaking clouds, there is scant reward for being up so early, except not having to hear the cat thumps and bumps. Ah, but in Egypt it's a different story. "Luxor Sunrise" © 2009 Meri Arnett-Kremian No matter where you are, no matter how gloomy the skies, I wish you the colors of a Luxor sunrise.

Our Egyptian tour guide gave us a special treat one night, a tour of the streets of Luxor that tourists don't generally see. These goats have taken up residence on the street where he was born and where his parents and grandparents lived before him. This house is painted with scenes showing the sights the owner saw on his pilgrimage to Mecca. This is the way that people tell others about their holy pilgrimage, publicly reveal their devotion to Islam. The end of his old childhood street used to be walled off so there was no direct access to the market area. They had to take a several-block-long route to reach the market. The wall of the neighborhood barber shop tips us off as to the proprietor's religious affiliation. A wide variety of goods is available in local markets. The horse, by the way, is pulling the cart upon which we were riding, Seeing American tourists riding on a farm cart was a source of great amusement to the citizens of Luxor. We were more than happy to have the...

"Neon Minarets" copyright 2009 Meri Arnett-Kremian Neon minarets dance in the dark, spinning tight little Sufi spirals, leaving a vapor trail of energy to mark their path of devotion. "Sufi Spirals" copyright 2009 Meri Arnett-Kremian.

In our little dahabeya, we cruised from Aswan to Luxor, mooring alongshore in relative isolation, far from the bigger river boats. We spent a total of eight nights aboard the Afandina so the daylight hours (when we weren't at ancient sites or participating in writing sessions) afforded us a chance to sit and chat and watch Egypt go by. The area alongside the river is verdant. But, as you can see, the desert is never far away.

How do I explain Egypt to you? It's both the expected and the unexpected. I didn't expect, for example, that traffic in Cairo would make Manhattan cabbies look like models of civility. I didn't anticipate that every place I looked I'd find a visual feast. I didn't know that I'd take a whole series of photos of beautiful weathered doors in Esna and Luxor. I expected to find photo ops in abundance and I wasn't disappointed. I didn't expect that when Egyptians asked if we were English or Canadian and found that we were Americans, they'd burst into grins and flash a thumbs up and say "Obama! Good man." But they did. What a trip! I'll be showing you more glimpses of Egypt in days to come. I hope you won't get bored.

Springtime 1996. Being in Paris for the first time with someone I love truly, madly, deeply (even after we've been together for more than two weeks already, driving all over Italy and France, having a great time even though everyone said that more than three weeks of constant togetherness would make us both crazy ) Romance. Sidewalk cafés and wonderful little restaurants. Staying at The Royal Monceau, dining in the restaurant there and stealing sideways glances at Omar Sharif and his two lady companions, both elegantly dressed and of a certain age. Being delighted that the French were so friendly despite my rusty French language skills and the many holes in my vocabulary. (I could make myself understood in the present tense -- at least most of the time -- be polite, and order food for both of us. Merci beaucoup Mrs. Fletcher, Ms. Smith, and Mrs. Forrest, you taught me well.) History. Art. Musée d'Orsay   on Mother's Day when I know the kids are safe at ...