Janice MacLeod's Blog, page 11

The next book you have to write

I thought I’d write a finance book. A smart little read about saving and making money. *How-To. Clears throat. Straightens tie.* I began in earnest and soon had enough of an outline to know where I was going with it. The problem was, I never wanted to talk about it with anyone. It’s not that it was such a super terrific idea that I wanted to keep it all to myself. Sometimes that happens and it’s nice to mull enthusiastically to self, to cradle an idea until you’re certain about what you’re creating. But that’s not what this was. I didn’t want to share my book idea because to do so made me tired. Meh. Finance book. Who cares.

What I wanted to talk about was my new life in Paris. See, I had saved up enough cash to quit my job and travel. I landed in Paris and stayed to investigate a smouldering look I was getting from a butcher across the street. THAT story had energy. THAT story was what I wanted to talk about with anyone who would listen (my blog readers, mostly). I pondered what the most delightful first line of a book written by me might be. “We met in a café in Paris.” So that’s where my story began, when I met the lovely Christophe at a café in Paris, across from that butcher shop.

I scrapped the finance book and wrote about life in Paris and how I got there. Of course, how I got there had a lot to do with saving up and making the money to buy myself a few years of travel, so I sprinkled those tidbits in the book. A light dusting. I added a fun story of how I painted pictures on letters I mailed out to friends, and eventually to those who subscribed on my Etsy shop. Then I’d go out in the day and discover a little bookshop, overhear an interesting conversation, taste a new cheese or wine or dish. I’d return and weave it all into Janice’s Fun Book About Fun Paris Things, People And Events As Told Through Letters To Her Friends. That long title evolved into a much shorter title: Letters from Paris. But even that wasn’t great. I didn’t like the “from.” It felt flat on the tongue and tiresome like the finance book. I asked myself again: If I were going to give this book any title I wanted, what would it be? Paris Letters. Simple. Easy to spell. Not a mouthful. Fun.

Writing this book for fun, in the end, inspired a lot of people to save up cash and fund their own dreams. So I suppose I wrote a sort of finance book, but with Paris as a backdrop, a lovely opening line, a sweet romance, and a title that still makes me smile whenever I say it.
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We think we have to help the world by writing important works. I think we should just write the most fun book we can. The book that entertains, marvels, and delights the very first reader: The author.
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Buy the book and/or buy the letters. 
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PS My Comments section is still in retrograde. Join the conversation at my Facebook author page .

Ode to September, The June Motel, and FINALLY personalized note cards

“But when fall comes, kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. It settles in the way an old friend will settle into your favorite chair and take out his pipe and light it and then fill the afternoon with stories of places he has been and things he has done since last he saw you.” Stephen King, Salem’s Lot

This quote seems innocent enough until you see that it’s from a Stephen King novel. Then you wonder if the visitor will do something sinister after dark.

Anyhoo. September. There are those of us who think one of the best parts of summer is September. I know. Surprising. But we’re out there. If September was a drink, it would be rosé. If September was clothes, it would be corduroys. Brown and noisy. If September were a wall hanging, it would be a macrame owl. If September were a spice, it would be cinnamon. If it were an act, it would be to grab another blanket. And if it were an office supply, it would be a freshly unpacked notepad. If it was a hotel, it would be The June Motel in Prince Edward County, a simple roadside stop that was renovated to become a chic pink paradise for weekend getaways from Toronto:The light seems to always be at that pre-dusk angle, making everyone look fantastic. The back story on The June Hotel… it was a tired old roadside stop, then two women waltzed in and committed to fixing it up to become a pink-gold 1950s retro motor lodge and BAM! Beautiful old ruin gets a facelift. Read more here. 

So taken as I was by their pretty aesthetic, that I created some pink, feminine personalized note cards for the shop.

Why did personalized note cards take so long? It seems so obvious now. I have so many personalized note card designs in the hopper, and thanks to the glories of my brain coming back after cancer treatments combined with the delights of daycare, I can now pursue these passions. Holy Toledo what fun I’m having.Get them over in the shop. More to come so check back often. I’ll leave you with this September thought:

 

“Don’t you love New York in the fall? It makes me wanna buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.” You’ve Got Mail

PS I’m in the process of disabling the Comments section. It has been too problematic. Having to prove you’re not a robot (You are not). CAPCHAs not working. Me deleting spam. Most of the action will henceforth take place over at my Facebook author page . Head over there for fun good conversations.

Flea Market Finds and the August Paris Letter

The August Paris Letter is all about Paris flea markets. The atlas shown above is a flea market find. Inside there are secret notes: “Peggy loves Ray” scratched out to say “Peggy loves Lenny” scratched out to say “Peggy loves Pete.” I wonder if she ended up with Pete, and if so, did the romance last as long as the atlas. The thank you card in the photo is my latest creation over at the shop. A friend needed thank you cards. I whipped this one up based on another card I created with this gorgeous balloon. A vintage image from another flea market find. Using these finds in my studio is complete bliss.

Why have I not been doing thank you cards all along? I noticed Etsy is packed with cards, but not a lot of folded cards. I like a folded card. I’ve got things to say that require the extra panel. Plus, I like getting all I can out of the cost of the stamp. These cards are in the shop for your perusing pleasure.

In looking for… who knows what… I came across a few flea market photos.

This lady’s portrait was for sale in a frame AND on matches. Remember those days?

Keys and key chains. Somehow I think the big keys on the left did not originally go with the key chains on the right.

Books books books. Always a lot of books at these Paris flea markets. Sadly most of them are in French, but I still dig around for something with pretty pictures that I can gaze at lovingly later.

This is also how I look when I’m at a flea market:

Prowling around looking for something je ne sais quoi.

If you look closely, there are two mini elephants on a mini pillow. What? Why? WHY does this happen?

Feathers. Always plenty of feathers at a Paris flea market. To Moulin-Rouge your slinky outfits.

Normally, I don’t post the content of the Paris Letters, but if you’ve made it this far… all the way through that little flea market tour, perhaps you’d like to read more. I’ve started posting the content of the letters on my site. I’m hoping to post them all by the end of summer. Or autumn. Or 2019.

Dear Aine,

I love a Paris flea market. It’s an outdoor museum of the culture. In Paris flea markets, you’ll always find ornate cutlery, feathers, and books. You will also, inevitably, come across a booth that is absolutely 100% off the mark. And that booth is usually filled with Buddha statues. I imagine the hierarchy of steps that led to the creation of this booth. First, our salesman travels abroad and falls in love with the local souvenir. In Paris, this is the Eiffel Tower keychain until you see it everywhere. Then the spell is broken and you buy yourself a scarf instead. But our salesman falls in love with the Buddha statues, and the low price, especially when converting into Euros. He fills his bags and dreams of the profits to be had in Paris. He invests in his table, tent, and permit; small expenses when he’s already mentally rolling in dough. Locals have NO IDEA how cheap these Buddha statues are in the foreign land and currency. He sets out his wares and stands back, preparing for the buzz. Instead, he gets silence and bored glances by passersby who can’t even be bothered to step inside the booth. Next door is a vintage sunglasses salesman who doesn’t even need to haggle. People are lapping up his offerings, giggling int he wee mirrors he has slapped up around his booth. A selfie station. It dawns on our entrepreneurial salesman that he has committed a pricey faux pas.

– Janice

On the back of my Paris Letters, I usually include a quote from some literary text that relates somehow. I think of it as a bow. A nice little “ahhhh” after reading the letter. A literary P.S. if you will. This one is from Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman, which is a completely wonderful book.

Click on the image to purchase if you’re so inclined.

“I imagine a hierarchy of happiness; first purchased in the 1970s, a couple would sit here, dining on meals cooked from brand-new recipe books, eating and drinking from wedding china like proper grown-ups. They’d move to the suburbs after a couple of years; the table, too small to accommodate their growing family, passes on to a cousin newly graduated and furnishing his first flat on a budget. After a few years, he moves in with his partner and rents the place out. For a decade, tenants eat here, a whole procession of them, young people mainly, sad and happy, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends, lovers. They’d serve fast food here to fill a gap, or five stylish courses to seduce, carbohydrates before a run and chocolate pudding for broken hearts. Eventually, the cousin sells up and the house clearance people take the table away. It languishes in a warehouse, spiders spinning silk inside its unfashionable rounded corners, bluebottles laying eggs in the rough splinters. It’s given to another charity. They gave it to me, unloved, unwanted, irreparably damaged. Also the table.”

If you would like this letter addressed and mailed to you, visit my shop. It also makes a great gift for flea marketing friends.

French stamps, another glorious notecard set and tackling unfinished business

I have finally fulfilled a philatelic fantasy. I created a new notecard series inspired by my favorite thing: French stamps.

Get ’em in my shop. Free shipping forevah.

As you likely know, each month I send out a new Paris Letter… an illustrated little ditty about life in Paris. For a handful of people, I add a special note. It’s nice to send a letter to your pals and include a little something extra. Each month I think, Gosh I wish I had a new fun notecard every month to write my little messages. Well here we are.

Also in the shop, for the sailors among us.

If cancer teaches you anything, it’s that you can’t wait for things to happen.

Also, you guessed it, in the shop.

Cancer has also taught me that many survivors proceed to live life as if they were in a video game. You feel like you’re being chased by wolves and you have to collect all the coins and tokens. One such token is tackling the list of unfinished business. No going back to get it later. No time! And for me, one token was to make a note card series inspired by French stamps. It’s a little thing but oh so satisfying.

Get them all together or separately, say if you’re more of a balloon person than a car person.

These, of course, are not the original stamps. I think technically you can actually make notecards from stamps of a certain age without getting into legal hot water, but my creations have a more modern twist. They are inspired by a series of stamps from the French postal service called Journée du Timbres. Basically, the story of stamps.

Gotta get those bills to the people, otherwise they’d never get their visa dossiers approved.

The visa office in France will not even look at you if you don’t have your name on an electric bill. This sweet bicyclist is smoking a pipe and delivering “les facteur” for the people. This stamp commemorates improved postal services for the rural communities of France. I love that they included the pipe. This was deliberate to “illustrate the original, human character of the rural mailman” and that he is “a man of the earth.”

This is another of the same series. Before our bicyclist was delivering mail, you could see this guy coming with his top hat and blue jacket. He was often the only link to the outside world and was therefore always welcome to rest and warm up along his route during bad weather.

The army delivering mail during World War I. No spy activity there. *smirk*

This stamp honors the Roman roads that advanced postal delivery. Side note: My street in Paris, rue Mouffetard, is part of the original Roman road into Paris. The road is still there underneath the current layer. You can see the actual Roman road through a glass wall in the Métro at Place d’Italie. A side note on the side note: Place d’Italie Métro is also close to the sewer system, so it can get stinky. Best to walk fast. A side note on the side note on the side note: You can take tours of the Paris sewer system, which was so highly advanced back in day that royalty from other countries came for tours and to implement similar strategies back home. These royals also adopted many aspects of the advanced French postal system.

Oh how I wish the Omni bus was still in action in Paris. The top would be filled with photo-taking bloggers, bien sur.

You can often find me here, sifting through dusty old papers and stamps. Bliss!

Order this new notecard set in shop:

Early summer: Radishes, Strawberries, Cherries… and the July Paris Letter

Each morning I walk out to my cherry trees and CLAP CLAP CLAP. Birds scatter after feasting on my cherries. They tend to eat all the cherries that are one day from perfection, beating me to the punch by 24 hours. Enough was enough. A tall friend came by, climbed up the ladder and harvested what was left. CLAP CLAP CLAP.

Yield: 2 jars of compote from 2 large cherry trees.

So I went to the cherry farm nearby and bought more. Then made a pie and sat outside to eat it in front of the birds. Take THAT.

Even though yields were down, the cherry trees are a delight. They blossoms in spring, follow with fruit in early summer, and provide shade for the rest of the summer. CLAP CLAP CLAP.

Before I mashed my bowl of cherries, I made a painterly study of them.

I added radishes, which I’m glad to report, birds don’t like to eat.

And strawberries, which the birds ate before I could even get a photo. This berry is from the farm nearby:

I popped the trio in the shop, which now features FREE shipping FOREVER on EVERYTHING.

It is nice to be hanging out in Norfolk County in Canada. It is called “Ontario’s Garden,” and it really is living up to its tagline. I moved away when I went to university and never fully moved back until now. Back then I was more interested in socializing with my friends to care about the charms of Pick Your Own Strawberry signs. Plus, I didn’t have wheels or money for any of it. Even last year when I was here, I was too tired with chemo treatments to venture far. But now I’m back, baby, full head of curls, a few scars, wheels, time and energy.

Bring on the berries.

I don’t even dare tell you what I spent on strawberries for fear that my husband will read this. But he likes the jam. He also likes the pie I made yesterday so I’m not telling you how much those cost either. It’s not that either of these fruits is expensive, per se. It’s more about volume. So. Many. Berries.

As I was pitting cherries yesterday, feeling the breeze from the lake waft in, I was thinking about how much fun I was having. Pitting cherries! It was a delight. I suppose the birds did me a solid by eating most of my harvest. I might not think it so fun if I had thousands of cherries to pit. As I was pitting said cherries, I was pondering how we don’t make much time for fun these days. We buy things for fun but we don’t use them. Instead we buy more storage solutions to house the fun things. I’ve been really concentrating on not buying for fun but instead playing with what I’ve already purchased. (Flats of fruits aside.) Lucky for me, I’ve got a great teacher who knows how to have fun:

Yes she’s dressed as Santa’s Little Helper, and yes it’s July. But it still fits… in all the ways. Today we went to the cemetery and had the best time. We weren’t there to visit anyone. It’s just a nice shady place to go for a walk. We came across a baby bird who was as curious about Amélie as Amélie was about her. So I softened my stance on birds. They aren’t all cherry hungry scallywags. Back in Paris, I visited the cemeteries in summer because they had the most shade. This of course, is said to change. Paris is planning to plant more trees to keep the city cool as world temperature rises. It can’t come fast enough.

Speaking of heat, I sent out the July Paris Letter. The original art is also listed in the shop:

I spotted an art student drawing this lamp once. It was so good.

A very nice shady day activity.

If you haven’t received your Paris Letter yet, the post office tells me it’s due to holidays in July. If you’d like one, go here. Speaking of, I believe the Paris Letters will end with the December 2020 letter. That means a countdown hath begun. 18 letters remain. This is not a decision I’ve come to lightly. Last year, when I was diagnosed with cancer, before I knew exactly what was where, I quietly unlisted my 12 month subscription just in case I… gulp… died. But after the scans and tests, and the discovery that the chemo was working very well, I decided to relist the 12 month subscription. (I also had a renewed vigor to outlive my enemies, but that’s another story.) I never mentioned this slight, silent move. Not to anybody. Not even Christophe. Not even to my mom. A year later with all that behind me, I can make a sound decision and plan based on something other than… death. I’ve got another 18 letters in the hopper. It’s going to be a great time, and ending the series will open up time and energy for another project. I’m thinking by then it might be time for another book.

So if you’d like to subscribe, allez to the shop. There is a special link for 18 monthers, only until the end of July.

The June Paris Letter and a disdain for white asparagus

Paris markets are showing off their spring veggies. Most of the time I gasp with glee when I see the mounds of radishes and cherries. But then this jerk comes along:

White asparagus is just regular asparagus that has been buried deeper or covered with soil so it can’t reach the surface for a breath of sunlight to help it turn green. For more information, go to this handy article:

Already I feel suffocated just looking at this monstrous injustice.

And people buy it… loads of it… and it’s pricey. The bunch shown above was 15 Euros. If they only knew it was just tortured regular asparagus, available at the next booth for 2 Euro. White asparagus doesn’t even taste as good as green asparagus… I bought an entire lunch including wine once for 15 Euros with white asparagus on the side. What. Is. All. The. Fuss?

Even if green asparagus was bad for me I’d eat it. A little heat, a little butter, a little salt and you’ve got yourself a party on your palate. But the white version? Non merci.

So that’s what this month’s June Paris Letter is all about. A rant about tortured grasses against the backdrop of the lovely Place Monge market in the 5th.

Avails in the shop, and more specifically, this listing.

In my youth, I would have examined the possible projections. What is it REALLY about white asparagus that I loathe? What does the white asparagus represent? (YA… obvs.) How can I learn to FORGIVE the white asparagus? To even love it?

I would have done self inquiry up the wazoo. Worked out some kinks in the psyche. But now, either with age or life or time, I just eat my green asparagus and have a good time. And pat myself on the back for painting a fountain that turned out well. Painting water can be tricky.

Also, I’m slowly listing more original art in the shop. Some of it was featured in the books, some in letters. And a few made their one and only splashy debut in my shop. It’s time for them to leave my binders and go find the sunshine on walls around the world. Ahhh now there is the projection. Knew it was there somewhere.

More original art will be posted all summer long, but for now, it’s time for lunch and green asparagus is on the menu.

Book Signings: What does an author do before the event?

I used to imagine what an author got up to before a book signing. The night before there would be a gala. Photos. Nylons. Shiny faces. Polite nods from the author while people gush. In the hours before, they’d have press junkets and events. They’d take interviews and meetings in a quiet corner of the Ritz. They would meet with the publisher to run the numbers. All good, obviously. The BBC would show up to pitch the miniseries. The author would nod. Considering. The author’s people would talk later to the BBC’s people. Handshakes. So-pleasing-to-meet-each-others would flutter by in the thick air of the hotel lobby.

This Mother’s Day weekend I had a book signing. In the hour before, I was cleaning my wedding ring. Some people like to see it since I wrote about it in Paris Letters. During this, Amélie had spilled my huge water bottle all over the kitchen floor, then ran through it, leaving little footprint tracks through the house. Christophe was wiping, she was running, I was trying to fluff up my weird hair. It came in curly after the chemo and I don’t know what to do with it. I was hoping for a Shakepeare & Company’s Sylvia Beach Whitman look…

But I felt I was closer to…

What I have learned in these situations, when one isn’t feeling great appearance-wise, is to wear a happy dress, lots of makeup and a big smile.

So that’s what I did. Then I kissed them goodbye, walked around the puddle and said, “Mommy has to go be famous for the afternoon,” which even made Christophe laugh as he was mopping up the spill.

The book signing was great. I’m always amazed at how people will show up for these things. My niece Grace was my assistant and I’m even amazed that I actually required an assistant but I did. That’s how many people were buzzing about buying books and showing up with their well-loved copies. Oh how I love to see a beat up old copy of Paris Letters. Oh how I love to discover how it got someone through a tough time or inspired them to action. Oh how I love to learn that A Paris Year became a guidebook for a trip to Paris. I find guidebooks generally boring, so I take this as a high compliment.

Here I am with… the hair.

Oh dear. Dori of Cottage North Soapworks was so kind to create the event, take this photo above, and generally push me to get back out there and be authorly after my year of being sickly.

Will my hair ever relax? You know, you survive cancer and you’re grateful and happy you get to raise your kid and hang out with your husband without dying on them early in the game. And yet, there is still this stupid hangup about hair and weight and age. Oh to return to how I looked before… when I was actively judging myself with all the same things.

I guess that’s life. A deeper understanding when going through big life events. To feel all the things. Astonishment that people drive so far to get your signature. Astonishment that you’re still hung up on your looks. Astonishment that part of the dream includes spills.

I was on a city bus in Paris a few years ago. I was going with a friend to the hospital where she was to undergo surgery the next day. We were nervous. The bus drove by the Eiffel Tower and we remarked that we never thought the dream of living in Paris would include driving by the Eiffel Tower on the way to the hospital for surgery. But there it is. Both glee and stress in the same breath.

Maybe one of these days, I’ll be having quiet talks with press people in the lobby of a fancy hotel in Paris before being whisked off to a book signing. I wonder what will be on the margins of that event. How old will Amélie be? Will she be heading off to the park with daddy for the afternoon while I sign books? Or will she be off with friends for the day, too old for the park. If so, I’d like to think Christophe is in the hotel lobby, too, but sitting at the bar watching the scene. Smiling over and blowing me a kiss, both of us remembering the spill in the kitchen and Amélie’s little footprints all over the house.

Hemingway: A Moveable Feast (of book covers)

I’ve been collecting old copies of Paris-themed books for my new collages.

I’m having SO MUCH FUN reading these old paper treasures. I particularly love reading what others before me have underlined. Some of these underlined passages are poignant and lovely. Others are a mystery. Why did the reader underline THAT? You start to judge the anonymous underliners as either people with great taste whom you could befriend, or people who are weirdos. There is no in between.

In gathering these told treasures, I’ve come across a slew of different versions of A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway. Feast your eyes on this… I had no idea there were so many. AND I only investigated the French and English versions. Incroyable.

 

Shakespeare & Company, one of the English bookstores in Paris, sells more copies of A Moveable Feast than any other title. However, I like to zip around the corner to the Canadian bookshop, The Abbey Bookshop on 29 rue de la Parcheminerie, 75005 Paris. The reason for this is simple: It has MANY COPIES of MANY BOOKS and if they don’t have it, they’ll order it for you.

Many, many books.

In other news, I completed my 100th Paris Letter. (Cue the trumpets!)

This letter began with a commissioned to create a collage including some of those lovely old papers from those ratty (but lovely) books.

The commissions are good for my brain and spirit. They help me see Paris from a different point of view and they distract me from wondering about health and the future and fires and politics and weeds. If you’d like a painting or collage of Paris, let me know over at my shop. It might become a future Paris Letter. It definitely makes for a fun Mother’s Day gift. Speaking of, I’ll be doing a book signing in Port Dover, Ontario at Cottage North on Saturday May 11th You can purchase books to sign, and bring whatever books you’ve already acquired. I’ll sign anything… except body parts and animals. We might go for drinks after… we’ll have our own moveable feast.

Notre Dame: So many photos

It’s happened too often. Christophe arrives home. I say, “Did you hear about… Paris?” He looks at me and almost visibly withers. “What now?”

I tell him.

“Gone?”

“Don’t know. Still on fire.”

And since then we’ve been TV zombies. A quick scan of my photos shows countless images of Notre Dame I’ve taken over the years. Seems every time I walk by or stop in, another photo gets added to the collection. She’s just so gosh darn pretty. I also really like the photos when she’s peering over in the background, like a benevolent mumsie. Here’s just a few photos of our pretty lady.

Hey, y’all. Come on in.

Oh just another regular day of looking fabbie.

I wonder if the trees are still there or did the heat get to them. They frame Notre Dame so very nicely.

 

You can’t help but take photos from every angle. This is from a boat ride on the Seine.

My Uncle Brad and I when he came to Paris.

This is one of my favourite photos. My Aunt Mary and Uncle Brad look like true aristocrats zipping around town. Fancy.

St. Denis holding his head in disbelief.

 

 

 

Emmanuel the belle bell.

 

 

Even the graffiti is pretty.

 

 

The nieces surveying the scene.

 

 

 

 

After all those photos of blooming trees, I had to make a Paris Letter, obviously. It ended up in my book PARIS LETTERS a few years later. It’s had a renaissance over in the  shop since the fire. Everyone wants a piece of prettier days. The May letter is going out early since the event. You can’t write Paris Letters and NOT include the events this week.

Photos of the interior break my heart, too. Many broken things.

That St. Denis is everywhere.

I’ve always liked this statue. A serene moment.

These statues flew away last week for safekeeping during the renovations. All isn’t lost. This photo of the bookstalls by the Seine makes me smile. Notre Dame in the background surveying the goings on about Paris.

 

 

 

 

There she is, pretty as a (thousand) pictures.

I painted this up and popped it in the shop. I also popped this original in the shop:

She’s featured in book PARIS LETTERS and A PARIS YEAR. It’s time she heads off to a nice home to add a little serene maternal nurturing.

 

More goodies at the shop.

Italian postcards, lemons and lovers

A postcard falls out of a notebook. There’s the restaurant where I ate clams in linguini, and the bar where he, and they, sized us up and paired themselves up with this week’s crop of tourists. We all had long hair, sundresses and across-the-chest bags. Our bags were filled with cameras, phones, and trinkets we bought along the way. In this town, the trinkets were usually small bottles of limoncello. In my case, a postcard purchased but never sent that became a forgotten bookmark marking a place in a forgotten book. Just in case I came back.

The limoncello was from local groves of large, gnarly lemons that were peeled, pulverized, and revered. The rind is what gives limoncello its pucker. Restaurants give you a shot of it after your meal. You’ve paid but not left. The limoncello is their version of handing you “a coffee and a coat.” Please, please accept our liqueur as our thanks for coming. Translation: Our thanks for leaving.

But on this night, swarmed by local boys, the prosecco ended the evening. This is their way of saying, “Stay, please sit and sip slowly until we’ve decided, divided, and lured you to quiet corners.”

And so we went. My travel companion with one boy down the beach, and me with another, walking slower to let distance stretch between us. And that it did do. Soon, I was kissing this someone I just met and wondering why I don’t feel at all how I look, rubbing against someone like we’re two sticks hoping for a spark.

My mind started to drift back to those gnarly lemons. I didn’t take enough photos of them. I didn’t get that one shot, the one that, as I push the button, I know I’ve got it. At this point, he’s mumbling against my neck, telling me I’m bella this and bella that and that I should return to his little Italian town to stay with him when my travels are complete. I gave him an encouraging squeeze because that is what this moment calls for, pretending that I like where this is going, but it’s really just a way of deescalating a situation and buying time so I can find my friend and return to the hotel to sift through photos.

That’s the fantasy at this early hour of the morning. Yet if I were doing that instead of this, I’d be wishing I were doing this. Finding love, or something like it, on the Italian Mediterranean. This lip dance on the beach is what I was told to want from some book or song or cafeteria table. Yet here I am at the apex of what I thought a successful evening should be for someone my age traveling through Italy, and all I want is that lemon photo I couldn’t capture.

And now, I sit at my kitchen island, years and miles from that night, taking photos of lemons from the market. I will zest these lemons, squeeze out their juice, add sugar, butter and eggs to make lemon curd. And this is when I realize that the yellow I craved, that gorgeous bright aureolin yellow of lemon meringue, wasn’t so much from the lemons. It was from the egg yolk. All this time I thought I’d get what I needed from an exotic lemon, but in reality what I needed was a simple egg.

The next morning we checked out of our hotel and hopped on a bus that would take us far far away from this stretch of the Italian coast. I spotted him outside a grocery store. He had told me he owned a market. He was inspecting a load of lemons on the back of a small faded blue pickup truck. Back to business.

I sat back in my seat. There it was, the shot of the yellow lemons on the back of a blue truck, but I couldn’t stop the bus so the shot was left floating for a moment in the sky before evaporating forever.

A few years later, traveling with other friends, I ended up back in this town. I never expected to see him. Why would I? But on my way up a narrow staircase of that same beach restaurant, he was walking down the stairs.

You think it’s nothing. Then you question fate.

I could tell he didn’t recognize me. Perhaps there was a faint recollection of events. I suspected at this point that I was merely one in a long line of long haired girls that he took for evening strolls along the beach. He was cordial, as most Italian men are in this tourist town. He immediately asked where I was staying, for how long, and if I was on my own. Back to business. It was clear that he didn’t remember me, but that wasn’t so important to him. But I was just passing through, or doubling back. Even I wasn’t sure.

What do you do when you run into someone like that? In a way, you want to honor the coincidence, investigate further, probe. “Here we are. Is there something you need to know, ask or tell me?” And the biggest question of all: Did he see me as the perfect shot he didn’t take?

New note cards in the shop, inspired by this particular memory… and a hankerin’ for tarte au citron.