Stories Collected While Living in France
Photo and text by: Corey Amaro
Serve it up sweet.
Nothing bitter.
Without counting how many spoonfuls
That is the task at hand.
To give without without wanting more.
You would think I would know that by now.
Those darn lessons on love.
Hauntingly real.
You’ve got a lock on the sainthood department, ma chère. There’s no way I could keep that up.
Good luck on getting the children launched in both directions. At least they will be within shouting distance of one another in NoCal. That ought to be of great reassurance.
I can hardly wait to see what you will be pulling out of your hat in your, apparently, empty nest, although that seems a misnomer in your case given all your visitors!
Happy launching and don’t forget to save some of that sugar for yourself!
my son is away..
I feel the house is empty..
it’s awkward..
because I feel it even when I’m not at home..
I may borrow a spoonfull of sugar.. and send you some honey instead..
but I really would like to listen to this “cocotte en sucre” valse..
Tough times call for a cake. Keep spooning out the sugar sweetheart. Yann will comfort eat the whole cake so be quick when it comes out of the oven x
Wow!!! That first spoon with the heart shape in the handle is amazing!!!!
You will learn ALL of love’s lessons I know it! 🙂
Artfully elegant as always! I know there is a message, but I’m stuck on the loveliness of the silver!!!
I agree that serving it up with sugar at this point is the only way to go. You are a wise woman. When you come to visit, you will get some of that back.
Courage.
Oh sweetness and sorrow…shadow and light.
Chiaroscuro brings depth and richness to works of art as well as to works of life.
Tackle that book project with a vengeance now, Corey!
major hug….
Those of us have charted the way for you. We are still breathing, albeit a little more labored with the weight of life.
Oh Corey, I just put my ten year old son on a plane this morning to visit his Grandmother on the East Coast (yikes!), and came home to find this post. You just know how to make me laugh and cry all at once. Thanks for being a strong inspiration to us all! God bless.
Haunting, too, is your hand reflected in the spoon on the sheet music. Lovely.
Best wishes to your children as they go on their new ventures. They will be fine and so will you. I think of the day when my 14 year old ventures away and it already brings tears to my eyes. He is starting High school this year and that gets me choked up. Can’t wait to see what you will be up to in the coming days.
On another note on ‘ love’…what has happened with Mimi and friend?
Your bittersweet words and photographs capture such feelings. Food for thought wth this music engraving: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k397191g.image.f1.langFR
Thinking of you, sweet Corey.
Hope you are ok? Sending you my best thoughts.
These words are just lovely and speak to me for different reasons.
Just lovely.
years ago, my advisor at school said that every morning he turned the sussleffl on its side in the bowl so as to let his wife know when she came into the kitchen that he was ‘thinking about’her.
she hated it.
he later was the president of two colleges.
The future is full of possibility…wishing you promise and hope for all good things to come! 🙂
You’ll handle it with grace just like you do everything else. Think of those mothers past and present who send their sons off to war. You boy will be safe and in great company. Now’s your time to dedicate more to your book and yourself and Yann. Time to Rejoice!
*thinking of you* made me think of Emily Dickinson and her poem:
“I Cannot Live Without You”
I cannot live with you,
It would be life,
And life is over there
Behind the shelf
The sexton keeps the key to,
Putting up
Our life, his porcelain,
Like a cup
Discarded of the housewife,
Quaint or broken;
A newer Sevres pleases,
Old ones crack.
I could not die with you,
For one must wait
To shut the others’ gaze down,
You could not.
And I, could I stand by
And see you freeze,
Without my right of frost,
Death’s privilege?
Nor could I rise with you,
Because your face
Would put out Jesus’.
That new grace
Glow plain and foreign
On my homesick eye,
Except that you, than he
Shone closer by.
They’d judge us – how?
For you served Heaven, you know
Or sought to;
I could not,
Because you saturated sight,
And I had no more eyes
For sordid excellence
As Paradise.
And were you lost, I would be,
Though my name
Rang loudest
On the heavenly fame.
And were you saved,
And I condemned to be
Where you were not,
That self were hell to me.
So we must keep apart,
You there, I here,
With just the door ajar
That oceans are,
And prayer,
And that pale sustenance,
Despair!
-E. Dickinson
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