Here I sit on a friend’s terrace in southern Switzerland’s Lötchental, enjoying a postcard view of the Alps…
Tag: nature
Forest Bathing
Today, I did something that for me was once unremarkable but nowadays isn’t: walking in the forest of southern Sweden. For most, it was a stay indoors kind of day—chilly, thickly overcast, windy, and intermittently drizzly…
See with Your Heart
The first time I saw Gustaf Fjaestad’s magnificent pastel, The Boy Who Sees with His Heart (1898), it was love at first sight…
Gardening
I am happily surprised by the joy I derive from gardening. My father would have observed dryly, ‘I told you so’…
Walking to Spitzkunnersdorf
Inexplicably reluctant to break my writing procrastination streak, instead of writing my Monday blogpost, a ritual I enjoy, I decided to spend the cool, sunny morning taking a short hike….
Caspar David Friedrich
I currently find myself residing at a house in a rural German village tucked into the corner where Germany meets the Czech Republic and Poland. It’s a region where one of my first art historical loves, Caspar David Friedrich, often wandered. He captured the rolling hills, distinguished by pale nuances even at sunset, in many of his paintings, although Cross in the Mountains (painted in 1808 and now in Dresden) depicts the nearby, pointier, red sandstone peaks a few kilometers southeast….
A Walk in the Park
Since arriving in Warsaw at the beginning of April, I’ve often found myself too distracted to write….it’s partly the fault of Łazienki Park…
Impulse Control
A few weeks ago, I dined at a Purgatory restaurant known for its creative cocktails with a fellow I’ve known for a few years but have seen only a few times, and not since the COVID-19 pandemic’s denouement. Eighteen hours later, he’d made plans to join me for my first week at a rustic hacienda on a Pacific beach in Costa Rica. It didn’t strike me as an impulsive gesture until I mentioned it to a friend…
That’s Entertainment
Curious about several of this year’s Academy Award nominees, last evening I watched Triangle of Sadness, touted as a comedy and nominated also for a Palme d’Or….
A Happy Reunion
I arrived at my little paradise of Playa Lagartillo on Costa Rica’s west coast a few days ago, where I resumed my cherished simple routine of rising with the sun and strolling the dusty, 150-meter-long path to the beach…