Jim Haynes,and His Fabulous Sunday Dinners In Paris

Every week for the past 30 years, I've hosted a Sunday dinner in my home in Paris. People, including total strangers, call or e-mail to book a spot. I hold the salon in my atelier, which used to be a sculpture studio. The first 50 or 60 people who call may come, and twice that many when the weather is nice and we can overflow into the garden.
Every Sunday a different friend prepares a feast. Last week it was a philosophy student from Lisbon, and next week a dear friend from London will cook.

Jim Haynes, Paris Sunday Dinners.

I'm not sure I can even begin to give you a sense of how incredible tonight was ...

I met a magical man who invites complete strangers into his home, disarms them somehow, like a wizard who works his magic for good ... who invites total strangers to leave their egos, their barriers, their 'stuff' at the door, and simply get on with meeting whoever is there at that Sunday dinner.

If I had to sum it up, tonight, before the photographs have even been viewed ... I would write of a talk-fest that simply made my heart sing.  So ... once my camera card reader and I are reunited, there are stories to tell and photographs to post.

The photograph below ... unrelated and yet, it is all about a little bit of magic that happened in Berlin one day and therefore, it seems like an appropriate placeholder.

More to follow on the morrow.

 

France ...

You must learn one thing.

The world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds
Except the one in which you belong.

David Whyte, extract from Traveling With Pomegrantes.

I was in France these last 5 days, near Lyon, for a beautiful wedding and was startled to realise that not every hotel offers good internet connections.  The one I was on was pre-Flintstones and I was unable to reach the back-end of my website.

It was disappointing because I use my blog like a journal on occasion.  I was reading a superb book full of ideas that I would love to have noted and there were photographs like the one below, taken that first evening.

And now, two full days to process a few hundred wedding photographs before flying out unbelievably early on Thursday.

Tot straks.

Laura Young

Laura's words have been haunting me ...

Sometimes I find myself wondering what it would be like if our only labels were our names and all we had to do with our life was figure out how to flesh that out, just that one name.  Stop worrying about being a good mother, daughter, son, neighbor, grandfather, and all the rest of it and just figure out what it means to be "X".

Seems it could take a person their entire life to figure out how to do that well.

She's a photographer, a writer, a river girl, so she writes ... and so much more.

 

Sometimes I find myself wondering what it would be like if our only labels were our names and all we had to do with our life was figure out how to flesh that out, just that one name.  Stop worrying about being a good mother, daughter, son, neighbor, grandfather, and all the rest of it and just figure out what it means to be "X".

Seems it could it could take a person their entire life to figure out how to do that well.

- See more at: http://laurayoung.typepad.com/photography/2013/06/day-38-scraps-all-over-the-cutting-room-floor.html#sthash.xc43GKV7.dpuf

Sometimes I find myself wondering what it would be like if our only labels were our names and all we had to do with our life was figure out how to flesh that out, just that one name.  Stop worrying about being a good mother, daughter, son, neighbor, grandfather, and all the rest of it and just figure out what it means to be "X".

Seems it could it could take a person their entire life to figure out how to do that well.

- See more at: http://laurayoung.typepad.com/photography/2013/06/day-38-scraps-all-over-the-cutting-room-floor.html#sthash.xc43GKV7.dpuf

Sometimes I find myself wondering what it would be like if our only labels were our names and all we had to do with our life was figure out how to flesh that out, just that one name.  Stop worrying about being a good mother, daughter, son, neighbor, grandfather, and all the rest of it and just figure out what it means to be "X".

Seems it could it could take a person their entire life to figure out how to do that well.

- See more at: http://laurayoung.typepad.com/photography/2013/06/day-38-scraps-all-over-the-cutting-room-floor.html#sthash.xc43GKV7.dpuf

Sometimes I find myself wondering what it would be like if our only labels were our names and all we had to do with our life was figure out how to flesh that out, just that one name.  Stop worrying about being a good mother, daughter, son, neighbor, grandfather, and all the rest of it and just figure out what it means to be "X".

Seems it could it could take a person their entire life to figure out how to do that well.

- See more at: http://laurayoung.typepad.com/photography/2013/06/day-38-scraps-all-over-the-cutting-room-floor.html#sthash.xc43GKV7.dpuf

Sometimes I find myself wondering what it would be like if our only labels were our names and all we had to do with our life was figure out how to flesh that out, just that one name.  Stop worrying about being a good mother, daughter, son, neighbor, grandfather, and all the rest of it and just figure out what it means to be "X".

Seems it could it could take a person their entire life to figure out how to do that well.

- See more at: http://laurayoung.typepad.com/photography/2013/06/day-38-scraps-all-over-the-cutting-room-floor.html#sthash.xc43GKV7.dpuf

Sometimes I find myself wondering what it would be like if our only labels were our names and all we had to do with our life was figure out how to flesh that out, just that one name.  Stop worrying about being a good mother, daughter, son, neighbor, grandfather, and all the rest of it and just figure out what it means to be "X".

Seems it could it could take a person their entire life to figure out how to do that well.

- See more at: http://laurayoung.typepad.com/photography/2013/06/day-38-scraps-all-over-the-cutting-room-floor.html#sthash.xc43GKV7.dpuf

Sometimes I find myself wondering what it would be like if our only labels were our names and all we had to do with our life was figure out how to flesh that out, just that one name.  Stop worrying about being a good mother, daughter, son, neighbor, grandfather, and all the rest of it and just figure out what it means to be "X".

Seems it could it could take a person their entire life to figure out how to do that well.

- See more at: http://laurayoung.typepad.com/photography/2013/06/day-38-scraps-all-over-the-cutting-room-floor.html#sthash.xc43GKV7.dpuf

Fields of Gold, Bourgogne

You only are free when you realize you belong no place — you belong every place — no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.

Maya Angelou.

I was looking for words to post with the photograph that follows and I was going to write something long about wandering in France, about finding fields of gold, about how I almost melted with joy when I found this field but maybe the photograph speaks for itself.

The Parapenting Blokes Next Door.

Gert and I were out on the terrace, here in Doussard, enjoying the last of the day and watching the light change on the mountains in front of us when a parapenter landed out there in the field.

It happened too fast.  I missed photographing him landing.

A little bit later and I realised another guy was about to land.  This resulted in a bit of a Di Frenzy.  I gifted Gert my dessert (threw it his way really), grabbed my camera, ran to the fence and asked the blokes on the other side if they thought their friend would mind if I photographed him landing ...

Why ask them you might well wonder.

Well, they had walkie-talkies and the first parapent bloke had wandered over to their backyard after landing.

Bemused, I suspect, they said they thought it would be fine.

Two more came down afterwards.  Lured, I was told, by the fact that the beer and the BBQ was set up out there.