head in the clouds/ toes in the earth

 Summertime, and the livin' is easy.

The living is easy, indeed. I've never known a summer like it. 

Once September hits and its back to work I know my heart will pine for these long, drawn out days of sun-chair lounging and Vonnegut reading, picking and choosing my waking hours and navigating the country lanes with only the wild horses for company.

I've been taking an hour long stroll most evenings. I love the natural euphoria that occurs when you mix cardio with visual stimulation and Sigur Ros ^.^

There's something about these ice cream flavour skies; blueberry blue and cherry-whipped, I wish I could take a giant spoon and eat up a scoop...

Such magic to be found in summer, 

especially for a daydreamer like me.

I'd love to hear your favourite parts of this season!

don't mind if I do, Mercury

Are we all here? Everyone make it out alive?

You're here reading this so I'm guessing that you did but I'd just go ahead and check your wit and wisdoms are all in order if I were you.

In case you're wondering what the hell I'm talking about, until a week ago Mercury was in retrograde.

For us earthly folk this occurrence signals all manner of personal and professional jiggery pokery.

Since the planet Mercury symbolises truth, travel, communication and clear thinking and when a planet goes 'retrograde' it appears to travel backwards in the sky, these things can start to go a bit cuckoo bananas for some us. A bit of a planetary shit storm if you will.

Scan back in your memory between June 26th and July 20th. Anything seem a bit "off" to you?

Were you feeling cloudy and tongue-tied? Experienced problems with travel plans or electrical equipment?

Trouble communicating in your relationship or on the receiving end of wrong information in your personal life?

These are all effects of the pandemonium caused by that little silver planet going retrograde.

BUT, my sources tell me, Mercury in retrograde can also present an opportunity for major emotional and intellectual breakthroughs. A chance for us to, essentially, "get our karmic shit together".

During those weeks that the cosmos spent tripping out I spent a lot of time walking the back-roads behind our house at the magic hour, catching some terrific captures of the sun sinking down behind the treetops along the way. As I pounded the pavements, listened to my music and drank in the sunsets I had ample time to think. To mull over my past and ponder on my future and mentally karate chop some of the doubts and fears holding me back from moving forward.

The outcome? I have a one-way plane ticket booked for London Gatwick in a few weeks time.

It's been nigh on four years since I last lived in the Big Smoke and my heart swells whenever I think about moving back.

So many haunts to revisit, streets to trample down, curry houses to frequent.

How do I begin to describe London? I'd say it's a bit like trying to grab hold of the wind... but here are a few snapshots of my favourite bits + pieces from the place that I am, once again, proud to call home...

<<Brick Lane>>

{{The Shampan curry house on Brick Lane~favourite ^.^}}

When I was 25 years old I announced to my Mom that I was finally ready to fly the coop. A week later I had moved in to a teeny wee bedsit in a tower block near the bottom of the infamous Brick Lane in East London. 

While it can err on the side of being too urban/hipster for it's own good, I will always and forever love this little corner of London for it's utter and unapologetic diversity. You can walk through a multitude of cultures, colors, styles, foods and tastes on just one single cobble-stoned street.

 Pop-up vintage markets and street festivals, book stands and street food riddle Brick Lane on the weekends and you can treat you retinas to Banksy art and graffitied walls, your taste buds to curry house fare and bagel stores and your ear drums to boom-boxed jazz to live Jamaican kettle drums.

In particular I can't wait to refresh myself after an afternoon's browsing with a mint tea in one of the several spit-n-sawdust tea rooms where you can take your pick from worn leather armchairs or Indian-style floor pillows. As I said, diversity definitely is the key word where Brick Lane is concerned!!

<<Notting Hill Carnival>>

I'm seriously happy that I will be back in London this year in time for the annual carnival in the streets of Notting Hill. 

Sequins and jerk chicken and calypso music, oh my!!

Plus the local upper crust loosen up for a few days and throw open the windows of their million pound apartments to have jamming sessions on their windowsills.

Can't beat that, friends!

<<London Fields Park>>

The sunshine suits London to a T and she wears it like a slutty dress.

The only thing to do when the summer is doing what it does best is to pack a picnic and go people watch in the green grass of London Fields. 

Strawberries, clotted cream and scones are non-negotiable!

If it's possible I just made myself even more excited to return!

So thank you for the mind-buzz, Mercury. An open invitation to take your future bull by the horns? Don't mind if I do!

London's calling...

Toot Toot!!

>.<

june bug

You know it's officially summer when you've taken your first lick from your first ice cream cone of the year.

June has arrived and blessed this damp little island with the bluest skies and a sun-kissed garden.

I've been padding around with bare toes and winter-white legs shamelessly out on display for all to see!

Dates with myself, a blanket and kindle have been on the Specials menu daily just recently and Jess can hardly believe her puppy luck with all the walking her little legs have been getting ^.^ 

Ice cream floats are also doing the rounds, as are red runny noses from the darndest hayfever allergies.

I can't even with hayfever. Streaming eyes and itchy nose for days.  Ack!

No matter. Swoony, sun-filled afternoons still shoot the moon. Balled up tissues or not.

Happy June sailors!

x 

☩ smells like spring ☩

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The rain reigns supreme on this Irish Isle, punctuated by flirty peep shows from the warmest sunshine.
Lady Spring is trying her best to nose her way through the grey skies and smile on the earth below.

Baby wild Primrose are starting to appear, scattered flecks of pretty yellow among the foliage that lines our country back roads.

 Whenever we get the chance we are throwing open the windows and letting the clean, sweet smell of green, wet grass fill up our home.

The puppies are seeking out the sporadic sunny patches on the floor and collapsing onto them for a few minutes of content sun bathing.

This faux-spring fever has my hands twitching and fingers itching to be dipped in plant pot earth or kneading dough. Something in the air, the sweet freshness, the smell of a new season always has me clucking to clean and bake and create.

I can't wait till the earth is warmed up enough for picnic dates, loose dresses, bike rides and trips to the blackberry bushes.

Until then I'm hunting new blooms through the raindrops on the car window, curling up with good reads and the sound of birdsong from the garden, and walking little puppy legs through freshly mowed grass.

Move along Winter, the smell of Spring is here ^.^

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on turning thirty

Hello there April 2013, how on earth did you get here so quick?

You're sudden arrival marks the month I will say so-long to my twenties and turn the big three-o.

I told my body to stop at 25 but it seems to have stubbornly marched on with the aging process anyhow.

It's with a certain ambivalence that I approach this milestone in my life.

My twenties has been a reckless decade, filled with abandon and reverie, travel and experience, passion and love and friendships and heartaches.

 It's been wild, it's been beautiful, and I regret nothing.

At this tipping point between my final few weeks as a twenty-something and becoming a thirty-something, I'm less preoccupied with getting older than with refocusing my life goals.

I'll take that first wrinkle, the extra cellulite and the random hairs that start to spring up in unexpected places.

That's the unending march of time and there's not one of us that can do anything to change that.

What I can do is look back on the last ten years and learn from them.

While my twenties were wonderful, they certainly weren't without faults.

 There were mistakes and bad judgments, naive decisions and just plain wrong choices. There were times were I presented myself in a way that I have since been ashamed of.

However none of those were a waste as long as I learned a little something from them and use them as a marker in my future choices and decision making.

This is my first promise to thirty year old Louise...be accountable and learn from your past mistakes.

I feel like I dealt with my twenties the way I'd deal with a large bowl of salty caramel ice cream with hot fudge sauce. Savoring every spoonful, enjoying the flavor and the smell and the coolness of it and licking the bowl out at the bottom.

I've reached the bottom of the bowl.

So that flavor was amazing, but what do I want to try next? I'd like to use this new phase of my life to take care of myself, my mind and my body could do with a little less recklessness and a little more TLC.

I want to be kind and to love and to show appreciation.

 To practice acceptance with the past and to always remember that all of my experiences to date, the bad and the good, have shaped the woman I am today. 

I want to focus on the things I am good at and shape them into a career that I will love and be passionate about. I want to marry my love and be a mama and fulfill that ache I've been feeling for the past few years whenever I see a beautiful baby. 

I want to write and create, to surround myself with beautiful people and things and above all to make myself proud.

If my twenties were caramel and hot fudge I'll take my thirties without the hot fudge.

Still delicious, still to be savored and enjoyed, but a tad less unhealthy.

And that, friends, is something I'm ready to celebrate

 ^.^

heart sabbatical

This past year since I arrived back in Korea has been a full one, packed like a bulging suitcase with  extremes; extreme highs , extreme lows, landmarks and downfalls in both my personal and love life. Things of which I have alluded to on here but not given the full un-edited version.

Sadly, for the past few months the bad moments have overtaken the good, and while I could brush them off like raindrops before, now I feel as if I'm caught up in a full blown rainstorm. 

For these reasons I have made the difficult decision to cut my contract with my school early and take some time off to go home and be with my family. To give myself the time and space for my heart to recover, for wounds to heal.

Living in a foreign country has the most amazing benefits in terms of life experience and rich memories to treasure but when things turn sour it can be a lonely, lonely position to be in.

Right now I'm looking forward to returning to the familiar, the loved ones, the comfort of my real home.

I hope you guys keep following me while I'm on my healing heart sabbatical.

My parents live in the rural countryside of Ireland, the perfect place for relaxation and wound-licking!

And gosh how I can't wait to give my parents a big koala-bear hug! 

➳ desert dreams ➳

desert dreams by louloubelle51

I'm letting my mind flutter and float to more clement climes.
No more heavy coats and cable knits... I long for the feel of floating dresses against naked legs, bare arms and sandaled feet and vintage thrift finds.

I pulled together this outfit inspiration on Polyvore today to appease my longing for summer dress weather.
I've also been pinning outfit ideas like crazy...

...are you guys this achy for summer too?

chasing sunsets

Happy monday, friends!

I feel I should say that to you, because Monday is such a bugbear isn't it?

Of all of the 7 days in our week Monday is the bête noire, the nuisance, the one to just get out of the way.

As I sat in my empty classroom at 9am this morning eating my porridge from a Sesame Street bowl I was already dreaming of 6 o'clock when I could put my coat back on and go home.

Wishing my life away, in effect.

When that golden hour arrived and I rushed out of the school and onto the subway with my mind set on getting home and putting my yoga pants and the kettle on I didn't stop to people watch, to reflect on my day, to be present. 

It was only when I exited the subway and was stricken by this beautiful, whipped pastel dream of a sunset that I stopped, stood, appreciated and contemplated.

One moment, in my entire day, that I did that.

And that, friends, wrapped a great blanket of melancholy around me.

Because I realized in that one solitary moment that I have been failing miserably in two of my aspirations for this year; learn to be more present and in the moment and practice mindfulness.

I shouldn't chase the sunset.

I should be present for all of the moments in between me getting out of bed in the morning up until I see that sunset.

I shouldn't count the minutes but be an active observer of them: paying attention to every emotion, every sight, sound and smell. Every child's smile or teacher's words, every 5 year old's hug or the way the light reflection changes through the window with the passing hours.

What a sad thing to let these moments pass by unnoticed, to let them fade un-acknowledged and unappreciated into another Monday 'done and dusted'.

Presence.

It sounds so easy.

Tomorrow I will try harder.

<<< tiny >>>

Welcome to my 7 am morning view as I wait, bleary-eyed, for the elevator to collect me from the15th floor and spit me out into that metropolis of high rises where I will become another tiny ant on the sidewalk, marching alongside the others to work.

I love the romance of this craggy mountain and the way it lends its poetry to Korea's typical white apartment building landscape.
I love that no matter where you travel in Korea, there is a looming, omnipresent mountain never too far away. Reminding us just how tiny we are.
They are the silent, giant observers of our day to day business. They witness scores of sunrises and sunsets, rain clouds and fogs and snowstorms. They are the harborers of stories and superstitions and lore.
You can look at a mountain and feel at once how small your worries are, how immaterial your cares.

When I look through the window and see this mountain every morning I can't but picture myself atop it, sleeping ,cooking, walking  it's crags and battling it's lonely wilderness like Kerouac in Big Sur.
Mountains are commonly used to symbolize obstacles, but I see a mountain and feel only reverence and transience. The thrill of it's loneliness and solitude, the awe at it's magnitude and the longing for it's wild expanse.

Mountain, Field or Sea?
These days I am comforted living under the watchful eye of the mountains.

{{via}}

castles in the air

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I've been dreaming up visions lately, of a place I'd love to spirit away to and bury myself during this season of frost and snow.

A perfect hideaway deep in the forest where I could read Kerouac and Nin by day and sip on Jack Daniels and listen to the hell hounds howl at the moon by night.

Wrap myself baby blanket-tight in huge woolen throws, spin the Doors, smoke woody cigars and flip through black and white photos found inside dusty old boxes.

Read Tarot in front of the dancing fire, smell the pine and sage and the outdoor fog.

There would be a big old wooden porch with a worn out rocking chair where I'd sit in my jacket and boots shelling lentils for soups and stringing dried herbs to hang over the door to keep the place safe.

A place of peace and isolation, endless water boiling for mugs of tea and hot stew bubbling in an iron pot... meditating, night wandering, moon gazing and star counting, deer hoof tracking,  story writing and forest trinket gathering.

Just me and the silence of the ancient forest... nature at her mightiest.

What a great escape.

                                             
                                                    

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