I Heart Lyon

Fall Descends

2009-11-05T22:25:00.007+01:00

It has been really cold in Lyon and rainy. I do not love this change as I am not a Winter person at all. After all my years in the beautiful Hudson Valley and after shoveling more snow that I can possibly bare to think about, I have quietly admitted to all the defenders of Winter and the cold, that I don't like it. I don't like it at all. I had Winters in Red Hook, one in particular, where I swore I would embrace the season with great zeal. And I did. I bought the girls, then 8 and 11, new cross country skis. We used them once, maybe twice until one of the girls ended up in tears her hands were so cold, she could ski no more. And I bought Canadian ice skates. We skated on our bumpy pond, which was admittedly fun, just cold. I do love to skate.

Again I am going to try to embrace Winter, but here in Lyon where the season is admittedly milder, I think I have more chance of success. I'm gonna put my Winter on, tout de suite.

On Habite La!

2009-10-08T12:23:00.009+02:00

I have been meaning to post this lovely sneak peek that Grace of design*sponge did of our apartment in Lyon. It's small (and I'm not kidding) but we now call it home! It will soon be featured in Grace's upcoming book project along with our country house in les Monts du Lyonnais.

Is This Really What We have Become?

2009-10-05T09:26:00.002+02:00

All You Need Is Love!

2009-09-27T10:06:00.002+02:00

8miaautres
par scarlet7780

Country Chic

2009-09-13T20:59:00.005+02:00

Halliday just has a way of putting things together that is very relaxed and chic. She has real style. This is laundry day in les monts du lyonnais.

The Shipley Girls

2009-08-27T02:50:00.003+02:00

I love this picture of Tish (my mother,) Gran and Aunt Bun in Beach Haven. Plaid was in then too, tu vois? I predict this to be a big plaid year and my thought is to wear a Liberty of London shirt with a plaid kilt over Paul Smith skinny jeans. The girls will never forgive me!

Raising the Bar

2009-08-26T02:23:00.000+02:00

I sold my house in the Hudson Valley today and I am absolutely thrilled. No regrets. I have moved on. I will though miss with all my heart all the wonderful people I have met, that I've learned so much from—but all those people, the ones that stick, will always be in my life. I am as faithful as my German short-haired pointer, Clementine.

I've been thinking about all of the things I am grateful for. Sometimes I feel really lucky, sometimes I feel really blessed, sometimes I feel like I just work really really hard. But, mostly, I just feel grateful for all the lessons that I've learned along the way, for the love I've received and been able to give in return.

I want to do interesting things for the rest of my life, but more importantly, I want to do good things. I want to love and respect myself and earn others love and respect. I want to go to sleep at night with a clear conscience and know that I made someone else's life better every day. These are my simple goals. I'm raising the bar.

Joyeuse Fête des Pères!!

2009-06-20T23:29:00.007+02:00

My girls + I

have the
2
best dads
in the world!

Bowdie et Dan,
les deux
meilleurs papas du monde!!

Weekend a` la Campagne

2009-06-07T20:06:00.005+02:00

It was so beautiful in les monts du Lyonnais. Hard not to love it. The dogs are happy, the girls are happy, I am happy.

Vide Grenier

2009-06-01T19:53:00.000+02:00

In a little town, Grezieu le marché, on the border of the Rhone and the Loire, this is what I found this morning. I love to go antiquing and yard saleing. I am a born buyer and it gives me such pleasure to find beautiful things and see them come together. I always have a theme, a story, going in my head, which could be color, subject matter, style or some other unifying factor. One week I might be taken by imagery of woman, or vintage typography, things that are silver toned, things that have been stamped, rustic ironstone. And it is only when I arrive home with my basket filled with stuff, that I become aware of the thoughts that lead me around all day, all week, all month, all year.

Tennis Anyone?

2009-05-15T22:22:00.000+02:00

Tomorrow is the bi-annual tennis round robin at our very sweet tennis club in La Croix Rousse, and hopefully we will all be brave enough to play, haha. Not wearing an outfit like this however...

Les Ados + being an Expatriate

2009-05-15T10:28:00.001+02:00

Oh la la to be 14 again (no thanks :) I never pictured myself living on my own with 2 teenage girls and 2 dogs in France. But, here I am and while this is truly the most challenging experience I have every had, it is also the coolest and most fulfilling. Every single day, I am stretched in ways I have never been before. fascinating/hard/lonely/amazing/thrilling/frustrating/allthat

Mowing the Fields

2009-05-12T09:15:00.000+02:00

I am really behind on yard work and when I say yard work, I mean really field work. When we arrived this weekend at Balmont, I was flabbergasted by how high the grass had grown (and is it really grass?) Surrounding our house, all the way up to the front steps was knee-high green. "Je dois tondre les prés," I say to the farmer next door, who looks at me like I am absolutely out of my mind, images of Carrie and "Sex and the City" flashing through his head. My daughter, Abbie, asked me if I had ever owned a pair of Manolo Blahniks. I must draw the line somewhere. These days, I can be found exclusively on the weekends in my old pair of leather Vejas, painty, ripped pants and comfy "le love" shirt {a Basic French exclusive,} cutting down les lilas to offer in bouquets to my neighbors, pulling up the endless mauvaise herbes, and mowing the fields...

Night Sky

2009-05-11T21:46:00.000+02:00

It's staying light until about 9 at night. I love that.

Le Printemps

2009-05-10T21:20:00.000+02:00

I have become such an urban girl again, living in Lyon over the last 20 months that I truly have a hard time dragging myself out of the city to our amazing little country house only 50 minutes from the center of the Presqu'ile (almost island.) But wow, when I do, I can't believe how unbelievable it is and how truly rural France is. And the funny thing, after a day or two, I truly have a hard time dragging myself away from our little hamlet. I am blessed with my lovely, blossoming girls, my sweet and loving dogs and this dual life I lead. I am so grateful.

Trop Fun!

2009-05-09T13:45:00.001+02:00

It was so beautiful in les Monts du Lyonnais and we just had too much fun.

Home Again, Home Again

2009-04-27T23:08:00.001+02:00

And then there was Basic French Tees...

2009-03-12T16:07:00.000+01:00

A Room with a View (sur Lyon)

2008-11-24T17:25:00.005+01:00

Wild Thing

2008-04-30T09:04:00.014+02:00

I have really had my brain full recently. This has been one of the most therapeutic few weeks for me and I am feeling really incredible, after feeling really crappy. Again, I think it's the Spring thing, the rebirth thing, but for me it is also silently, quietly a reminder of 3 major springtime losses that I have had in my life, that I have never been able to grieve properly, or is that what I am doing now, this Spring in Lyon that feels so intense?

The loss of Michael, my closest friend in Philadelphia, who really got me and loved me the way I was, who whistled outside my window on summer nights, beckoning me to go out and be wild. He was stabbed to death on South Street the night before he took his architectural boards. He was a John Doe at the morgue because he didn't have his wallet on him. He was mad at me because I had left him behind and moved to New York. He would barely speak to me. He never forgave me, even though I tried to break through. The loss of Manny, my big brother in the city, Cajun boy, amazing chef who smoked cigars, shared my passion for France in a car, taught me about foie gras and Monbazillac, defended my broken heart (post Jean-Luc.) He drowned, scuba diving. He had just fallen in love. We had talked the week before. And, the illness of Halliday, my beautiful older daughter, which left scars on my life that will never go away, and on hers. Spring just feels so painful yet beautiful to me.

At 2 in the morning, when I could not sleep because I was so flipping angry at another male friend of mine (that, an entirely other story) and mostly angry at myself, again, I began making sense of all of these crazy feelings.

I am tired of being treated like I am invisible. I am tired of trying to get the attention of people who are too busy to be present. I am weary of those who cannot talk about what's really going on, or think deeply. I am sick of hearing myself talk. I am embracing the amazing young girl that I was and am trying so hard to be proud of my inner wildness and my unbridled creative spirit that has often been criticized, condemned. I am trying not to criticize myself. I am trying to look at the whole picture and not stumble into superficial holes. I want to tell the truth about a lot of things. I want to speak my mind even though it's just my mind. I am finished with my old story and am starting a new one, but I am reintroducing a character that I was told to leave behind, because she was so challenging, so untamable. I know that is the only way I can go forward and write my next chapter. I must wear myself like a badge of honor. Manny and Michael loved me as I was, crazy, wild, raw, emotional, so deeply sensitive, spontaneous, vulnerable, dependable, true...and selfishly, I feel such a loss without them in this world. My springtime loss, a deep hole I am trying to fill with reflection.

At 2 in the morning, I read my weekly horoscope. Here's what it said:

"He who cannot howl
will not find his pack."

{Charles Simic}

Joyeux Anniversaire

2008-04-29T14:51:00.010+02:00

The loveliest 11 year old I have ever met!

2008-04-28T19:52:00.006+02:00

L'absence n'est-elle pas, pour qui aime,

la plus certaine, la plus efficace, la plus vivace, la plus

indestructible, la plus fidèle des présences?

{Marcel Proust}

En Exile de la Presqu'ile

2008-04-25T18:27:00.002+02:00

We are in exile (does that mean "out of the island"?) from the "almost island," the Manhattan of Lyon, the 2nd arrondisement, 69002. I rented our apartment to a friend from New York for a few days and now am in forced exile in the country. Poor me, going from one amazing, chic city apartment to one bucolic, peaceful hamlet, with only 48 minutes in between. What's remarkable though is the difference in me. I feel like I am equally country girl and city girl, split in two.

I am sitting on an old stone foundation, crossed legged, in my gym clothes (from 2 days ago) and my favorite Vega sneakers. Haven't taken a shower, brushed my hair or put on lip gloss in 24 hours. Forget why I even do this. Hmmmm. I'm listening to the Charolais cows mooing and the echoes of that in the valley below, the trickle of water, a spring perhaps, the birds singing happily, a bee pollinating clover. Things zoom by, insects, lizards peep their heads out of stone walls and run quickly in the last rays of the sun. I can see miles away, nothing but open farmland, cultivated in patchwork green, mountains in the background, a magical forest on one side, rolling fields on the other. I am too lucky. C'est trop beau.

I haven't accomplished much today, or rather feel that way. We're sort of on vacation (I'm never on vacation—workaholic that I am,) but I did make vegetable soup, bring loads of logs inside, light a fire, keep it going all day, check emails and make web changes, call an electrician, text an old boyfriend, make pasta for the girls, gossip about men with Flo. I get into a different rhythm here and I love it—but I do feel less productive. I am out of contact even though I have a cell, landline and the most absurdly slow internet possible. We played tennis this morning and jogged, forgot that. It felt so good to be outside, I love to be outside. And now, trying to soak in those last remaining rays of warmth, I realize, this is my home. This house is so comforting to me, just the way my house in Red Hook has been for 16 years. I feel safe here. I feel blessed with all that I have in my life.

Things to get at the épicerie in Larajasse: chevre, lardons, du lait frais, de l'ail, oignons, les fraises (garrigettes) et un bouteille d'eau.

Le soleil, le soleil

2008-04-19T12:59:00.004+02:00

Had the most wonderful time at Cyril's the other night, the Bistrot du Boulevard, our Thursday night hang out. It's the neighborhood restaurant that you always dream of having in your neighborhood. In my case, it's not in my neighborhood, but rather in my friends' neighborhood, kind of the way Bolgen + Moi was when I lived in the Hudson Valley. Wow, just love having a place to call mine, where I walk in and people know me, yet it's filled with everything new and the possibility of hearing many life stories, of telling your own once again, of being heard, of making yourself understood. I've been telling my story a lot lately and it feels really good.

I am here

2008-04-18T09:40:00.002+02:00

I feel like jumping up and down, it is so gorgeous today!