We can hear the bells from our living room. Every time they ring I get a tiny thrill. I glance outside at the pigeons and red clay rooftops and just for a second, it’s another era. It’s time travel (no sacrifice of electricity or indoor plumbing required). Our oldest, grandest neighbor, the collegiate church Notre-Dame-des-Marais of Villefranche-sur-Saône began to take shape in the 13th century. … Continue reading if walls could talk
I like my hair to submit to MY will, not the other way around. Continue reading act in haste, repent at leisure: a cautionary tale in four haircuts
For all my love of cities, there is something unspeakably touching about this simplicity, about the kind of place where your child could still ride their bike all around town and promise to be home for dinner. Maybe we shouldn’t be too quick to mourn these places; maybe they will evolve and survive. A town’s soul, after all, has more to do with its people than with places to buy artisan bread or local beef. Continue reading old soul: on the charm & melancholy of small towns
Question: how many people does it take to stuff a voluminous wedding dress into a modest carry-on suitcase? Answer: two, if one is unsentimental and can bear the agony of rolling, folding, and crushing the garment into a form one-quarter of its original size while the other watches in horror. The non-sentimental character in this scenario is my mom. She knows how to get things … Continue reading the runaway bride
I have a fiancé? I felt like I was acting, like Mom and I were doing undercover research for an exposé on the bridal industry. Continue reading a modest proposal
Croissants & Conjugations 