Athena Dreams Design

One Year of Corner Views

Over away there in Spain, 
lives a champagne woman named Jane. 
Rarely arcane, tho sometimes urbane 
 Jane explains and would like to make plain 
That an image linked chain 
Of views will remain 
A lovely (tho never mundane)
way to travel sans train,
or plane, or even a lane.

Not quite a limerick later, but what a fun way to waste about a half hour on a wednesday morning, thinking up words that rhyme with Jane... (thankfully your name isn't Veronica, or some other multi-sylabbic concoction). I thought a second-grade-esque style poem was somehow a fitting way to say that Corner Views at Spain Daily has been going for a year now, and Jane, what a cool and lovely thing you've created.

This week is all about our favourite Corner Views post, and you can find mine here: Places of Reflection. It was my first Corner Views post, and as I looked back through the CV posts I had done in the last 8 months, still my favourite.

To visit more corner views from around the world, visit Jane and the Corner Views group HERE.

{thanks Jane!}

Spring .:. Corner Views

Spring always seems to arrive in fits and starts. One minute warm, sweet breezes are blowing and showy, breath stopping flowers are popping out all over; and moments later cold winds from the north, some hail and more rain drops. But here is what spring has looked like in the past week in one northern California town:

 

A little madness in the Spring
 Is wholesome even for the King,
 But God be with the Clown —
 Who ponders this tremendous scene —
 This whole Experiment of Green —
 As if it were his own!

-Emily Dickinson

For more Spring views, visit here.

Front Door .:. Corner Views

I couldn't just photograph the front door, not when there is a peach tree in bloom at the bottom of the front steps. OK, so now the front door...

We actually have 2 front doors, the double door red one, and then the big wooden white one, inside the front porch. Isn't it funny when you start taking photos of something that you see all the time, and you realise that you haven't been actually "seeing" it in quote some time. I realised we still have flattened boxes and just plain junk, on the front porch, that we haven't dealt with since we moved in at the end of September... some happy porch making must commence now that it's getting warmer. Love those red doors though... and now for some more peach blossoms...

Have a visit here for more Corner Views.

Personal Style .:. Corner View

I think I have less of a personal style, and more of a what's-my favourite-thing-to-wear-these-days style. I realised as I thought about my "style" that things really haven't changed much since the second grade when I would have worn my lime green dress with the {big} 60s-70s orange flowers on it every single day if my mother had let me. At least I got to wear it on picture day, so me and that dress were immortalized, along with several missing teeth. 

This winter has been cold, and my personal style wardrobe of choice has been brown cords or purple velvet trousers, and mauve cashmere turtleneck pullie, with scarf à la Liz Lamoreux, and bead-y charm bracelets that I made one winter. And, yes, I wear a variation on this outfit every single day (I do have other sweaters and trousers in rotation, these are just my faves), but I do alternate the leather boots, the doc martin shoes, or the wellies, depending on the weather.

Style, well, that may be an overstatement of my interest in thoughtful wardrobe planning, but cozy in winter with warm earthy colours, and some shiny bits, that's all me.

Want to visit more personal stylistas? See Jane here.

Out the Car Window .:. Corner View

I have always loved a road trip. Perfect snacks, perfect tunes, perfect company and the time just flows by like water, like a happy creek. I took these photos from the car window on a trip to the High Sierras this summer, and at 10,000 feet, there is not much more than this for greenery, or scenery. Being able to see that far almost always makes me feel like I have space to relax and breathe more deeply. 

Can't you just smell the scent of sage on the hot dry air?

See how the foreground looks like it's in motion too, while the background is just standing still, watching. It makes me remember road trips when I was a kid, with the whole family in a station wagon and the world just flowed by while I looked out the window. One of my brothers pointed out that if you laid your head back on the seat, the trees looked like they were spinning too, keeping time with our wheels.

But this landscape didn't offer any trees tall enough to spin, just sweet fat high desert ones that hunkered down on the ground, all cozy with the sage and the tumbleweeds.

Want to see more corner views! Visit Jane here!

The Unveiling .:. Corner View

The word Veil always makes me think of belly dancing, and my brief career segway onto the dance stage when I was living in Athens - once upon a time, a long time ago. 

My housemate was a belly dancer and she taught me enough hip shaking, snakey arm moves to use me as a shill in the audience in order to make the tourists at the taverna feel like they too could get up on stage with her and, for lack of a better phrase, bust a move.

These days I dance in my living room, not with any skill or nuance, but just to dance out the day, and get up from my computer and move. These days as well, the veils are less literal and more figurative: I spend more time working to part them, to brush them aside, so as to be able to see life a bit more clearly, a bit more closely and a bit more keenly.

And so we part another of these shimmering layers, and come upon our rings which we will be exchanging next weekend in a ceremony that will not replace, but will enhance, the one we performed with just the 2 of us on a beach in Maui 11 years ago. This time we will not be on a beach listening to the whales singing, but will be back east with our families to celebrate the parting of another veil in our lives, and step through to yet another layer of the journey, just as beautiful and mysterious as all the others we have passed through, together and individually.

For more Corner Views visit Jane in Espagna.

Place of Reflection .:. Corner View

Just as some of my best thoughts come to me in the shower, my best reflecting happens when I am out walking on the mountain. The air is sweet, the grasses rustling, birds in conversation, the sky opening out in front of me, and the dusty trail keeps my feet on the path. I usually bring a small notebook or sketch pad, and write down ideas for paintings, possible solutions for a design job that has been troubling me, or just some words about the present moment. These thoughts and reflections that happen when walking, almost always get used in some way, shape or form.

Some days the skies are clear, some days the fog is laying gently on the hills, and other days there is a misty rain: but each and every day that I make it out onto a trail, my day is better for doing it. Getting away from the phone and the computer, and my never ending to do list, and the general distractions of a life; and putting one foot in front of the other, moving through the landscape, and remembering that breathing is essential for keeping my head clear and my heart light, then let the reflecting begin.

Now if only I could develop a waterproof pen and paper that is impervious to water, and all my great shower thoughts could be remembered in detail instead of forgotten in the foggy midst of waking up in the morning.

Where do you do your best reflecting?

For see more Places of Reflection, visit here.

Corner View .:. Music

In our little corner of the world the summer music festival season kicks off with the Fairfax Festival. What is that phrase? Something about where have all the "old" hippies gone? Well, all the hippies, young and old, seem to congregate in Fairfax in the month of June.

 

It's a wonderful weekend of music and dancing and tie-die and little tents filled with wares from local artists and crafters, and if you stand very still and smell the summer breezes, you can catch a whiff of that green herb floating through the air.

This is the weekend that always feels like summer has officially begun: barefeet, summer dresses, hawaiian shirts and dancing in the park.

Mmm-hmmm, music and summer are in the air.

Want to see more corner views around the world? Visit Jane here.

Corner View .:. "Street Fashion"

Street fashion . . . usually you think of what people out and about on the street are wearing, this street fashion is all about what the streets were wearing in my neighborhood this weekend . . . 

The Italian Street Painting Festival! The center of downtown is all blocked off to traffic and artists move in for 2 days to create amazing work on the street with chalks. I always spend a few hours walking around while the artists are still "painting" and hordes of people are milling and watching, but truly, my favourite part of the event is Monday morning when the barricades are taken down and the cars and bicycles start driving on the roads.

Yes, a little eerie, especially early in the morning, but there is also something quite magical and freeing. It's kind of akin to the tradition of the Tibetan Mandala Sand Painting where a beautiful piece of art is created and then destroyed - all to reflect the impermanence of life.

In this case, perhaps the symbolism is less about demonstrating the impermanence of life, and more about life just goes on, and people have to get to work on a Monday morning . . .  

I have never driven on top of these paintings, but I do go downtown almost every year on the Monday morning after, to look at the images fading and watch the car tires turning all different colours of chalk. It's kind of fascinating to watch, but I don't think I could drive my car over them.  

And, the one piece remaining mostly intact, in the driveway of the Mission School . . .  "street fashion" in my neighborhood this week.

For more Corner Views, visit here.