With much reluctance, almost some grief, I cancelled our summer trip to Greece in March for obvious reasons – the destructive power of an invisible enemy that led to drastic measures being imposed in the country.
Author: Isabelle
The Elderly Lady With An American Accent
She may have passed away a long time ago, the elderly lady who taught me how to pronounce “refrigerator” with an American accent. I wonder if she could hear my whispers, the unspoken words. Continue reading “The Elderly Lady With An American Accent”
The Young Man
It was a warm and beautiful summer afternoon. I remember it so well. I was wandering along the narrow streets in Lübeck, a northern German city.
The glow of the sunset fell lightly on the colourful high windows of St. Mary’s Church. The small round iron tables outside a vintage café looked familiar. Weren’t they of the same style of those portrayed in Van Gogh’s Café Terrace at Night?
A brief encounter
“Are you Japanese?”
I raised my eyes from the book I was reading and looked at her, an aged woman with thin, grey hair and deep lines on her face. Her light-blue eyes looked kind and curious.
Continue reading “A brief encounter”
The crescent moon
Kappa Art Gallery was my retreat in Potos, a small seaside village in Thasos, Greece. Paintings, sculptures, woodcuts, jewellery were arranged side by side. Such an eclectic mix of mediums, yet so harmonious.
The Aegean Sea
I went on a treasure hunt in the blue-turquoise Aegean Sea.
Neither for diamonds, nor for gold coins left by the pirates.
I longed to bring with me a cream white shell to my home in the far north.
The lost ring
I don’t own a jewellery box, and haven’t had the desire to acquire one. Not yet.
“If you were left on a deserted island for a month, what would you bring with you?” The little prince looks at me. Continue reading “The lost ring”
Tricks
“I’ll die“, said Robin, “I’ll die if they don’t have that dress ready.”
Tricks, from Alice Munro´s short story collection Runaway, opens with Robin´s rather dramatic announcement, which immediately draws the reader´s attention to the item, “that dress”.
Loving Vincent
Hiding myself in the corner of the cinema hall, with the lights turned off, I have been thrown into the life Vincent Van Gogh lived in Hague, Paris, Arles and Auvers-sur-Oise more than a century ago. The mind is struggling to follow the plotline; it is lured into every scene that makes the heart tremble. The thoughts are wandering from Starry Night over The Rhone to Café Terrace in Arles on a September night in 1888, and from The Yellow House where Van Gogh shared rooms with his painter friend Paul Gaugin to Wheatfield with Crows, which is believed to have been painted shortly before his tragic death. A story about Vincent is taking shape, slowly, in my mind, and in my heart.
A dreamy soul
On a cold winter day, she was born in the city of Shanghai. It was snowing, and snowing, as if it would never come to an end. Her dad, looking out of the window, absorbed in his thoughts. It rarely snows here, must be a meaning hidden in the magic of this beautiful moment, so he thought.