All sounds like good news to me, Katie. Yes, a good truism to live by...just listen to your body and shut down when you need to. Your garden sounds wonderful. Adjusting to a new sense of season takes time, but it's also wonderful to experience. My wife and I have successfully launched our immigration to France. We (along with our 3 dogs) arrived May 2. We are staying at an Airbnb in the southwest of France. We spend most of our days struggling through the bureaucratic wars related to immigration, health insurance, car purchase, car insurance, and (last but not least) house purchase. We have an accepted offer on a lovely house in Léran, again in southwest France in the foothills of the Pyrenees. We hope to close on the purchase in mid-August. In the meantime, we are in the lovely medieval village of Villelongue. Since our space is limited, we spend much of our time walking the dogs (and, with that, getting to know the area). The fields are awash in poppies and other related wild flowers. These will turn to lavender once summer hits. It's all quite amazingly beautiful. I am continuously feeling as though I'm walking through a Renoir painting. And, now 4 weeks into our stay here, I've written my first French-based poem. My poetry is very place and season oriented, so I had been curious as to how this rather radical change might effect my writing. So far, I am quite pleased with the results. Have you noticed a change in your writing since you have relocated to my beloved Scotland?
Oh, it sounds like you’ve chosen a gorgeous part of France! Some day I hope to visit during the lavender blooming season. And dog-walking also can help you meet people, as it did for us here. :) I have written a few poems about native UK trees and their associated folklore—a couple of those will appear in the July issue of The Plant-Human Quarterly!—but I’ve also circled my usual themes, including my old longing for the boring flatland of central Illinois where I grew up. I think it’s always going to be about loving this new place and missing my old places, as well as friends and family. I am also writing differently these days, with more fiddly revision than I used to do, which I’m hoping is due to my urge to slow down my life and enjoy it rather than being due to age and illness making me less mentally agile.
Oh, I love tree poems, Katie. I will look for those in July. I recently wrote a poem focussing on a very old, very large sycamore tree that stood by itself at the edge of some pasture land in back of our house in the States. It would always catch the late afternoon sun slanting against its paling bark until it veritably glowed. It should be coming out in the Shine International Poetry Series sometime this month. It's fun to be finding a new voice suited to a new place isn't it? And yes, I love the idea that my slower writing is a function of my slower life here.
All sounds like good news to me, Katie. Yes, a good truism to live by...just listen to your body and shut down when you need to. Your garden sounds wonderful. Adjusting to a new sense of season takes time, but it's also wonderful to experience. My wife and I have successfully launched our immigration to France. We (along with our 3 dogs) arrived May 2. We are staying at an Airbnb in the southwest of France. We spend most of our days struggling through the bureaucratic wars related to immigration, health insurance, car purchase, car insurance, and (last but not least) house purchase. We have an accepted offer on a lovely house in Léran, again in southwest France in the foothills of the Pyrenees. We hope to close on the purchase in mid-August. In the meantime, we are in the lovely medieval village of Villelongue. Since our space is limited, we spend much of our time walking the dogs (and, with that, getting to know the area). The fields are awash in poppies and other related wild flowers. These will turn to lavender once summer hits. It's all quite amazingly beautiful. I am continuously feeling as though I'm walking through a Renoir painting. And, now 4 weeks into our stay here, I've written my first French-based poem. My poetry is very place and season oriented, so I had been curious as to how this rather radical change might effect my writing. So far, I am quite pleased with the results. Have you noticed a change in your writing since you have relocated to my beloved Scotland?
Oh, it sounds like you’ve chosen a gorgeous part of France! Some day I hope to visit during the lavender blooming season. And dog-walking also can help you meet people, as it did for us here. :) I have written a few poems about native UK trees and their associated folklore—a couple of those will appear in the July issue of The Plant-Human Quarterly!—but I’ve also circled my usual themes, including my old longing for the boring flatland of central Illinois where I grew up. I think it’s always going to be about loving this new place and missing my old places, as well as friends and family. I am also writing differently these days, with more fiddly revision than I used to do, which I’m hoping is due to my urge to slow down my life and enjoy it rather than being due to age and illness making me less mentally agile.
Oh, I love tree poems, Katie. I will look for those in July. I recently wrote a poem focussing on a very old, very large sycamore tree that stood by itself at the edge of some pasture land in back of our house in the States. It would always catch the late afternoon sun slanting against its paling bark until it veritably glowed. It should be coming out in the Shine International Poetry Series sometime this month. It's fun to be finding a new voice suited to a new place isn't it? And yes, I love the idea that my slower writing is a function of my slower life here.