We made a short trip to the Coombabah Lakelands nearby to see wild kangeroos upclose.
the road leading in also serves as a runway for the aviation club located within
creeping closer and closer
the closest I tried
A daytrip up to Tamborine Mountains on a sweltering hot day where we went a little crazy at the playground, shopped craft stores, and mostly got happily (most of the time) lost.
scrumptious brunch and Devonshire tea at a quaint cafe built like a log cabin
with a really cool alfresco area it was too hot to sit out in
right outside this shop that had all types of cuckoo clocks hanging from every inch of its wall...
was this pretty vision out front
Well, there's not going to be a slew of pictures because I didn't take that many and poor Bridget lost her camera in Blue Mountains. But to start things off, here are photos of what was home to us folks in Gold Coast, Australia for much of December and the early days of 2010.
tinsel around the letterbox, not so much Christmas decor but for my aunt to identify the house when she drives back!
the birds gather here at 5 every morning and make a huge racket right outside my window
where I spent a lot of time reading
right outside the backgate is this sprawling parkland
having fun with Harry on our daily evening walks
It starts out innocently enough, the wandering of streets, the girl speaking in lilting french. A melody struck on a xylophone. Some strumming, some drumming. Night falls, and you see the merry band scamper up onto a roof. Ah now, that's where you get me, I thought. Rooftops. They suggest to me a sort of levity. A new threshold one enters, from the denseness of daily life and its inhabitants, and then, sudden levity. They are seated on the edge of the roof now, and the twinkling of the lights below dazzles. Ah Paris, I vowed to visit soon. These lights, they cast a spell on you, they do. The guy sings, a refrain the xylophone and her repeat, words I can't make out, but the tone is tender, slightly melancholic. This is beautiful, I remember thinking. The violinist starts up on a particularly insistent turn of phrase that shifts the mood. It is urgent, and brings with it a sliver of foreboding. Perched, poised atop the tiled roof, her white lace dress has a peculiar luminance against the dusky sky. She is swaying now, and her voice gains strength from the coaxing of the violin. It rises and rises, her voice carrying with it all the love, anger, desperation and sadness of the world it seems. It has somehow managed to capture, I marvelled, all the tragedy that plays out in lives past, and lives to come. What one has occasionally glimpsed in the tremors of the heart and the flight of the spirit. Yes, I am convinced now, with my eyes closed and chest still tight, this is it, I have stumbled upon a piece of the sublime.
And that is how I've come to share this enthralling song and video with you all today.
Happy New Year.
May we live each day in such beauty and luminance, and let it steer us, and steady us amidst the confusion and drudgery inevitable in life, and have it inspire when we are tired of the persecution by our detractors.