Snapshots of Summer

Posted on July 13, 2010

Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.  ~Henry James

I love summer and its carefree days. Summer has been good when days become timeless, leaving snapshots in my mind of the things I treasure most. Like boats bobbing like corks upon vast azure water. Splashing and fun in a pool. A dog shaking off from a quick swim. Summer sunsets, and colors reflected upon the water. Flower stands near the Sea. Yes, to me, these are the Snapshots of Summer.

Summer arrived in all its splendor this week: bright sunshine, cloudless skies, and water everywhere. To celebrate, I’d like to share … a few photos I’ve dug out from the images lodged in my mind. To me, this is Summer in all her beauty:

Flowers for Sale, Countryside, USA

Rowboat, Waiting

Summer Evening on the Coast of Maine

Shake after Swim

Setting Summer Sun, Maine

Starting the Conversation: What is Summer to you? What are your favorite parts of Summer? Are you stopping to enjoy these this year?

London

London


Posted on July 7, 2010

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,

This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

This other Eden, demi-paradise,

This fortress built by Nature for herself

Against infection and the hand of war,

This happy breed of men, this little world,

This precious stone set in the silver sea,

Which serves it in the office of a wall

Or as a moat defensive to a house,

Against the envy of less happier lands,-

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

~William Shakespeare

King Richard II

Vacation: I define it as a time to leave routine behind and do something new–or do nothing at all. After a year of living as expats in Czech Republic, we needed a break from the post-communist atmosphere, a change from the life we’ve managed such a long way from our native Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. We needed to spend a few days speaking English, eating “normal” foods, and enjoying a place more similar to our own, in lieu of the journey and expense of treking our family of five back across the Ocean. Instead, our family ventured out and had an extraordinary vacation, refreshing and relaxing and rejuvenating, in the heart of London.

 

The sights in London were magnificent, as was the weather. All a gift.
We didn’t know many specifics of London before our trip. But the crown city of London holds vast treasures like the set stones in the Royal jewels. Many thanks to our fabulous tour guide who narrated the significant sites while we cruised atop a double decker red bus …

The famous Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the Thames and the recent London Eye– all beautiful, polished, and drawing throngs of tourists like us.

I remember watching Princess Diana’s wedding in 1981 at a friend’s house … the dazzling dress, the innocence and grandeur. The unforgettable ceremony took place in St. Paul’s Cathedral, below.

Our boys loved the hands-on displays inside the White Tower, where they could try their hands at swords and long-bows and cannons. Of course, with dungeons and lore of prisoners and brutal torture, London held their attention quite well!

From nursery stories and children’s books, of course we know of London Bridge, and the Tower of London, but I didn’t know that the Tower of London was actually a castle originally called the White Tower. Beside it, my favorite, the Tower Bridge spans the Thames River (below).

 

We loved London, her treasures and the friendly people. We look forward to someday returning again …

 

So grateful for the gift of a grand trip to London with our family, and the chance to be recharged.

Starting the Conversation: Where do you enjoy taking vacation? What recharges you from the wear of daily life?

The Alps and the Impossible

Posted on June 29, 2010 

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul. ~John Muir


Saturday, we hopped in the car and set off for Austria, for a day of hiking the Alps. To feel the colors, breathe the views, experience a moment in paradise. As I sit now in my writing chair, the views we saw, the whole Alps experience seems surreal and impossible, in the grandest sense of both words.

Dreaming up driving to the Alps from Prague just for the day sounds like the old saying: “You can’t get there from here.” But we can. And did. I’m so glad I brought my camera to prove it to myself.


The difference between Austria and Czech could not be more stark, though they are neighbors. Compared to Austria and its sunny disposition, Czech Republic still frowns from its years under Soviet communism. Austria’s optimism seems to bring an extra sunshine at the border. We ventured to the Salzburg Lakes region, near Wolfgangsee to the town of St. Gilgen.

From there, we rode a cable car to the next peak, high above St. Gilgen. With some of the world’s most amazing views, we ate at the Hut. Clouds scraped our heads as they passed, and cowbells clanked from the herd grazing on the steep meadow below.

At the peak meadow, paragliders took flight in throngs around us.

And we hiked trails winding among peaks, and stood in awe.

My belief still stands that the Austrian Alps are the closest place to paradise I’ve ever experienced. Where else does heaven meet earth in such a grand fashion, where humans and nature have coexisted for centuries … where paragliders fly, and sailors grab at wind, and hikers may tread among clouds and meadows?

Can the Alps be more beautiful?

Truly, we not only gained the impossible view of the world, from Austria’s eternal beauty, but gained hearts filled and refreshed. These images will have to remind me until the next time we venture … to the Alps.

Starting the Conversation: Do you have a favorite place to hike, walk, or experience nature?

Prague's Summer Countryside

Flowers… are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844

Field of Poppies, Prague

Just a little down the winding road, on the edge of the mountain overlooking Prague, Summer stretches out and quilts the ground in all her loveliness. It’s as if the sky squeezed every drop out of the color of lemon and poured it out over the landscape.

Lemon-squeezed Field, Prague

But just across the road, lined with ageless fruit trees, the sky painted blinding crimson into a field of Poppies.

Poppy

Though I wrote about the swirling yellow fields a few weeks ago, I cannot escape that I am continually captivated.

Poppy Field, overlooking Prague

Years ago, on the tiny oceanside town of Somesville, Maine, I stumbled upon this field of lupine. Somehow, indescribably, the beauty in these flowering fields clings to me. And I am inspired, and moved, and refreshed. I wanted to share, in case these photographs might instill Summer and refreshment and vast beauty into your heart as well.

Lupine field, Somes Sound, Maine, USA

Here’s to summer, and to the loveliness that can be found on the less traveled trail …

Continuing the Conversation: What is your favorite flower of Summer? Do you have a memory of summer beauty that has stayed through time?

PS. I’m in the process of migrating my blog to my site hosted page on WordPress. I love it on WordPress already! Thank you for being patient in the changeover, and a huge thank you to the developers at WordPress. -JK

Moving to WordPress

Hi Everyone,

Thank you for reading and following my writing and photography here at my blog. I love hearing from you, whether on email or through comments. What a privilege to be able to connect!

a photo of Poppies, from my latest piece at www.jenniferlynking.com/blog.

Thank you for your support and encouragement, and for leaving comments and writing through www.jenniferlynking.com/contact. I love hearing from you!

Hopes for a Sun-filled Summer,

Jennifer

Blueprint for a Great Summer

"A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing,

and the lawn mower is broken."

-James Dent

Northern Michigan camping trip, my four boys

Few things excite me more than summer vacation. Especially a wide-open summer vacation with my boys.

Last summer (2009), summer became a crowded time for selling our house and cars, tending to one of our son's severely broken arm, and moving across the globe to Czech Republic. We still made time for swimming (though it became a series of hotel pools), and experienced many new countries and cultures along the way, but we missed the unstructured time so essential for Summer.

I love the James Dent quote, above, because of its truth ... Summer, if we don't actively guard the time to refresh, becomes an active time in entertaining ourselves, our kids, the neighbors' kids-- a merry-go-round of busyness. And soon, we slip our jackets on and step back into school-time rhythms, the summer is gone, but we haven't really had Summer.  Where does it go, so quickly?

A few years ago, I read Gordon MacDonald's excellent book entitled Ordering Your Private World. It grabbed me at the beginning chapter, defining his personal experience with achieving, ambition, and "the day he hit the wall." I think most of us in this busy world can relate to that, "hitting the wall." And we have to seek out finding a life-balance or risk a lifetime of hitting walls.

Gordon MacDonald's father gave him this excellent advice (p 96):

"Your challenge will not be in separating out the good from the bad,

but in grabbing the best out of all the possible good."

The norm of our era makes an art out of jam-packing our days and our lives, making it feel normal to compress our days into efficient square boxes of daily chaos. And so enters the concept of Summer.

How can we use this Summer to create a season of play, of refreshment, and of grabbing the best out of all the possible good?

In our house, we've been actively making a list on a wipe-board, accessible to see it, follow it, and at a height so that everyone in our family can make their contributions. We might call it our Blueprint for a Great Summer. It says, "What Do We Want to Do this Summer?" And below, a running list of the things we want to do--swimming, basketball, hiking, biking, reading, etc.--along with a few key places we want to go. Because if we don't mark it down and check it off as we go and act intentionally with our days, too soon they are gone.

"It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

This summer, I'm looking forward to making time for the best of all possible good (family, quiet, travel, adventure, laughter), and to working more toward that balance in life that Ordering Your Private World describes. To days recharging while watching the grass grow ... to all things best ... to the broken mower ... and to Summer.

Starting the Conversation: What do you look forward to doing this summer? What does all things best mean to you?

The Story of a Rose on Both Sides of the Ocean

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet."

Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

-Shakespeare

About six years ago, anticipating a roadtrip vacation to Maine from our home in Cincinnati, I saved up many pennies and bought my first SLR camera. (For those who don't know SLR, it means Single Lens Reflex, which means what the photographer sees behind the lens is also the same image captured by the camera, with no delay. Or the big kind with detachable lenses...) This SLR was nothing fancy--actually I even bought at Target, but I squeaked by with enough money leftover to buy a decent macro lens to attach to it. I had always dreamed of a having camera to capture what I saw, and the trip to Maine was the perfect opportunity to give more serious photography a try.

The weather in Maine couldn't have been better the week we were there-- brilliant skies, azure sea pounding up against beaten rocks, whitewashed lighthouses sparkling in the sun. This photo of Portland Head Light is one of my first favorites.

Portland Head Light, Portland, Maine

One misty morning, I captured a photograph of the intensely fragrant Rugosa roses which thrive amongst the Seaside rocks.

Coastal Maine Rugosa Rose

Ever since that photograph and that trip, I have become captivated with photography and the ability to capture the world that I see, to share. And also, I became a fan of the resilient roses doused in heady fragrance, the Rugosas.

A Rugosa, just on the other side of our Prague fence

Since moving to Prague, Czech Republic, last summer, I noticed many unruly roses growing wild in the vacant land surrounding our home. And this week, I discovered just what those roses are: Rugosas. Even now as I type, windows and doors wide open (as the air-conditioner-less Europeans do) I can smell the lusty fragrance lingering on the breeze, from the Rugosas next door.

Czech Rugosa Rose

Though I also enjoy cultivated roses, the finicky delicate ones which unfurl in passionate spirals, I must admit to my hope to be like the Rugosas-- those who can bloom and thrive despite difficult growing conditions, on both sides of the Ocean ...

By the way ... my website has just emerged from a redesign and updating. I'd love to have you stop by, and would also love to hear what you think. http://www.jenniferlynking.com/  Thanks!

Starting the Conversation: What plant / flower do you appreciate for its durable disposition? Do you have a favorite "difficult to grow" flower?