Everyone needs a place where time can’t find you, where the landscape swallows time the way the water gulps up the shoreline every second of the day. This corner of the world is detached from time, wholly present, endlessly still, yet always in motion. The water sees to that.
It’s good to disappear sometimes.
I’ve always loved maps — the delicate wandering lines, the stars and circles hovering over city centers, the softly-worn paper folds creating ridges and peaks where the creases bisect latitude and longitude.
Maps, to me, are about more than just distance.
Maps hold stories, and remind me how connected we all are.
I’m thrilled to say you can read more of my thoughts on this over on the Sonlight Curriculum blog, where I recently had the chance to talk more about the human connections maps hold, and why I believe a global perspective is absolutely essential for not just homeschoolers, but for all Christians.
Head on over, and leave a comment, if you are so inclined!
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Image Credits: Priscilla Barbosa Photography
1. Fruit shop in Naples, Italy // Photograph by André Benedix on Flickr
2. Fish shop in Naples, Italy // Photograph by André Benedix on Flickr
3. Cafe in Seoul, South Korea // Photograph by handsforholding on Flickr
4. 19 Alexandra Road, United Kingdom // Photograph by Lou Archell on Littlegreenshed
5. LOKL Coffee Co. in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia // Photograph by Loo Jia Wen as seen on Bloesem
6. Julianna’s Coffee & Crepes, Atlanta Georgia // Photograph by In Honor of Design
7. Fatbird Cafe in Bangkok, Thailand // Photograph via BKKMenu
8. Hara Donuts (하라 도너츠) in Seoul, South Korea // Photograph by the Seoul is for Lovers blog
9. Purple garlic stall in St-Vivien-de-Médoc, France, during Market Day // Photograph by Oddur Thorisson for Manger
10. Bakery in Ghent, Belgium // Photograph by klaartje on Flickr
What a delightful discovery! Aveline is an art gallery on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, specializing in objets d’art from the reigns of various Louis.*
Thanks to Follow Lauren — who’s currently happily roaming somewhere between Barcelona and London — for the sighting. (Photo via 1-cities.)
*If the lack of proper pluralization here bothers you, 1. you are likely an astute pendant, and 2. you may wish to peruse this.
Sometimes I stumble upon a photographer’s portfolio and immediately, I am lost inside the photos. I can be sitting right here in my living room, but it feels like I’ve been transported to another world. Such was the case when I found Zachary Su’s photographs of Taiwan. Plus, I’ve been drawn to images of windows lately anyway (case in point) so I was especially enraptured by his work with light and windows.
Aren’t those incredible? I haven’t posted them here, but he takes a lot of black-and-white Taiwanese street scenes too. You can view all of Zachary Su’s photos on Flickr.
Portugal by Dacian Groza as seen on ish & chi
Even more Monday’s Pretty Things…
When I was little, I knew my grandparents through letters and home-recorded cassette tapes. I used to dream of hugging them, of spending long days beside them, of just looking at them and listening to the sound of their voice.
And one day, a long time ago, we showed up from another continent, from across the ocean, and “by the time we were at the bottom of the hill and had parked beside the house, my grandmother, my grandfather, and Aunt Margaret were all outside, looking exactly the way they had in the calendar picture. I ran right into my grandmother’s arms as if I’d been doing this every day.
‘Welcome home! Oh, welcome home!’ my grandmother cried.
I hadn’t known it, but this was exactly what I’d wanted her to say. I needed to hear it said out loud. I was home.” -Jean Fritz, Homesick pg. 138
All those memories came flooding back to me, this month, when I set Aveline down on the airport floor and watched her run at top speed into my dad’s arms. She latched onto him, she threw her arms around his neck, she pressed her cheek to his shoulder, and I felt it again. I felt I was a girl with one foot here, one foot there. A girl to whom home was a many-splendored thing, altogether here and there.
And in between the here-ness and there-ness is a place that can’t be pinned, a place that can’t be caught or ordered around, a place that can’t be pushed into a map’s tight little squiggly lines. It’s a place I can’t visit whenever I want to, but only when the road we’re on lets us go there, and maybe that’s the beauty of it.
Grandma never stopped smiling and Grandpa buckled her into her very own seat in his truck, and we all piled in. Looking at this scene, I didn’t know if it was 1991 or 2013. I didn’t know if she was being buckled into the seat or if it was me. Here and there passed each other so closely they became one, the one thing that can’t be held down.
Home.
“I paid no attention to the road. I just kept looking out the window until all at once there on my right was a white picket fence and a meadow, fresh and green as if it had just this minute been created…the whole scene. The perfect greenness. The washed-clean look. The peacefulness. Oh, now! I thought. Now I was in America. Every last inch of me.” -Jean Fritz, Homesick pg. 133
Every last inch.
Thanks to these images from Toast UK’s Spring/Summer 2013 Home+Home Catalogue, I’m dreaming of a nice seaside picnic — one that involves crusty bread and jam. And maybe a nap in a breezy riad, waking up to Moroccan mint tea before a boat ride where I just sit on a heap of cushions and don’t have to row at all.
Hey, there aren’t any rules against dreaming, right? :)
The Oaxacaborn Blog 