Billie's Folly

Lifestyle is a way of life that reflects an individual or group's values, attitudes and preferences and resulting choices, behaviors and habits.  When a society as a whole shares the same values, attitudes and preferences, they adopt the same customs and a culture develops. The community in which a person resides affects the lifestyle available to them.  In the case of France, once you get out of the big cities, the pace slows and a more purposeful lifestyle becomes evident.  (I'm differentiating between a purposeful life and a purposeful style of living.)  I'm talking about going about daily activities with purpose--taking the time to make activities intentional and more meaningful.  It's very much about living in the moment.  This favored lifestyle revolves a lot around socializing and food.   

We're (finally) in the full swing of spring--everything is greening up and showing its colors.  Having a long, dreary winter makes spring all the more welcome and joyous.  I wander around the garden every decent weather day, looking for who's (anthropomorphizing) the latest to sprout a leaf or bud.  It truly excites me.  This is when I miss my mom--she had the heart of a gardener and a passion for nature.  I regret that I never got to share my house and garden with her.  I think she would have loved this Geranium Bill Wallis.

Although I spent years flying from San Francisco to Seattle, it wasn't until I started flying from Portland to San Francisco that the differences in the quality of the sunlight crept into my consciousness.  San Francisco is always bright and sunny, but it's a thin bright--almost like a very sheer white film filters the light.  This compared to the Northwest's richer light, that may not be as brilliant, but makes colors intense and truer.  I'm sure its probably due to atmospheric differences.  And it might also be the relative population and surfaces reflecting the sun in the Bay Area versus so much shadow and green absorbing the sun in Washington and Oregon.  Of course days and seasons make it variable, but it's a sense of the overall density of light that I get.