California

Ninety Days outside the Schengen area – good-bye California

Eve Neuhaus 5 Comments
THX MoM - a carving on a park bench at Lake Merritt, Oakland, CA.
THX MoM
Lake Merritt park bench, Oakland, CA

Though I’m sad to be leaving California behind, I’m filled with gratitude that our long term French visas, good for one year, have come. Dual Austrian/American citizenship is still in process, but I’m optimistic about that too, especially as reading The Viennese – Splendor, Twilight, and Exile makes me feel so very Viennese.

Coffee at Linnaea'sCoffee at Linnaea’s Cafe, San Luis Obispo

Once, when I told our retired psychoanalyst friend, Joe Abrahams, that it was my mother, my very Viennese mother, who finally pulled me to the top in a long series of dreams about mountains, he responded without hesitation, yes, that’s your purpose, to fulfill your mother’s dreams.

I’m deeply thankful that my mother passed on her dream of living in the south of France to me, as well as for my rich life in the United States till now. THX MoM.

My mother, Trudy Baumohl, in California, near the end of her life

You know the sensation you get when you feel profoundly thankful – when the tests come back and you’re okay, when the car doesn’t hit the dog, when you realize what you’ve got, that tingle that spreads outward from the back of your head as the hypothalamus releases all those healing hormones? As the possibility of putting down roots in Cordes for a good while becomes more real, I feel deeply grateful more and more often. When I am there, I feel it every day as I open the shutters.

Sometimes there’s a hot balloon out there

Such gratitude cannot be conjured, though it can be courted. Like meditation, it isn’t something you do; it’s something that comes. Practice readies the heart, the mind, and the body; but true meditation and deep gratitude are states that arrive only by grace.

The cycle of giving and receiving gratitude is at the heart of the Iroquois belief system – the prime responsibility of the people to keep the cycle turning.

The yearly cycle of Iroquois Thanksgiving Ceremonies

The next few days will be our last in California for a while. I am grateful to so many of you for your love, laughter, and light during our years in San Luis: twenty years of learning, sharing, and growing.

As things seem pretty much in order for our departure, Tom and I plan to spend our two last afternoons in San Luis at Mama Ganache, where you are welcome to join us. One or the other, or maybe both of us, will be there between 2 and 5 on both Tuesday and Wednesday, January 8 and 9. Stop by.

We’d like to say thank you.

Ninety Days outside the Schengen Area – Cordes and a California Christmas

Eve Neuhaus 8 Comments

After four weeks in Morocco, outside the Schengen area, Tom and I were home in Cordes-sur-Ciel for two delicious, story-filled weeks. How that place fills my heart!

window view Nov 2018
The view from our bedroom
le sentier bleue
Walking to the hardware store
reading corner
My reading place
Porte de la Jane
Full moon over Porte de la Jane
garden gate
A garden gate in Quartier du Bouisset, Cordes
A drive-through bakery in Albi.
Only in France.
Our first Thanksgiving in Cordes
The vibrant Christmas Market in Toulouse

We visited the market just before the yellow vest movement ruined it, disappointing holiday shoppers and devastating the vendors, many of whom depend on the holiday season to pay the whole year’s bills.

The yellow vests have legitimate complaints. The rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. Surely change is needed – indeed it is upon us in full force – but I grew up in a mom and pop store, and I just spent several years pouring heart and soul into Mama Ganache. I feel for those vendors who just lost the years’ profits. A peaceful vigil would not have caught the attention of the world, but violence is not the answer.

Saying goodbye to Cordes. Mocha is staying with neighbors.

The next steps in our long term visa and my Austrian citizenship process required flying back to California, also outside the Schengen Area. We spent the holidays with beloved family and friends.

Pismo Pier
Visiting Eva and her new brother Noah
Decorating the Christmas tree in Berkeley
The beginning of a gingerbread Hogwarts
Fluffy sunning in Josephine and Frank’s garden
Santa Maria BBQ for lunch with Tom’s family
A Danish lunch in Solvang
Almost ready for Christmas dinner at Joanne’s
Christmas lobster!
Relaxing at our Airbnb.
At last!

Farewell Tour – California and Oregon

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A week on the road and I thought surely I’d have something profound to share, but this series of pictures and a simple record of the events will have to do.

Above, always stunning, Mount Shasta as we passed it on our way from Berkeley to Ashland.

We spent our first night in Santa Rosa, where we left our sweet Olive with our friends, Monica and Mark. Olive moved right in.

On Sunday we spent a delightful day with Denise, and an equally delightful evening with Linnea, her fiancé Justin, and his family at Justin’s place in Pleasanton.IMG_2733

Monday was a day of rest at Elisa and Martin’s place in Berkeley, including a walk down to Shattuck Ave. for lunch at Saul’s and coffee at the original Peet’s. It’s heartwarming to see so many of our things at the homes of our children.

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On Tuesday we retrieved the things we left in Santa Rosa by mistake. The cat had no need for my laptop or Tom’s shaver though she probably liked the bag of dirty laundry. Certainly we’re carrying too many things with us, but those weren’t the right things to leave behind. We continued on to Sebastopol where Susan and Steve made a beautiful and delicious lunch for us.

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That evening we enjoyed a Chinese meal with Martin’s mother and aunt, and Linnea and Justin. Great conversation and food!

The following day we took to the road, arriving at Steve and Melinda’s in Ashland, Oregon, in time for a light dinner and a relaxing evening in their beautiful home and garden, followed by a day of great conversation and a little travel to a winery in Jacksonville and a walk sadly shortened by the heat of the day.

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By Friday afternoon we were in Portland at Shelley and Keith’s.  The next day we went to the farmers market and appreciated the green of the campus of Lewis and Clark College.

The hardest thing about giving up our home in California is leaving friends and family. The best thing about our farewell tour is seeing friends and family.

Especially in their own settings.

Two Suitcases and One Pallet

Eve Neuhaus 2 Comments

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The current state of the pallet.

We’re experimenting with what to take and what to leave behind, and piling up various configurations of it on the driveway. Pretty soon we’ll have a good enough idea of how and what will fit and the pile will move indoors.

Since my project is called Two Suitcases, I took the idea of moving to France with two suitcases pretty seriously. Well, with two suitcases apiece. Eventually it came to me that, though it would offer me to opportunity to partially replicate my parents’ arrival in the same part of the world in 1940, it was a thoroughly romantic – and therefore impractical – notion. We shifted our thinking to shipping one pallet of boxes.

Right now the boxes making the cut contain: the library I’ve collected to use as background material for Two Suitcases, a few boxes of my papers and other books, some of Tom’s papers and books, framed photos of the family, art, kitchen things, winter clothes, and some items to make our new home feel like our old one. Carpets, my computer, Tom’s keyboard, and more art will be shipped separately.

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Most of my days are filled with sorting and packing. This box has our favorite mugs at the bottom, some delicate pieces of art and glass in the middle, and at the top, some of the birds that lived in our houseplants or flew around the ceilings in our home here.

At its center, packed very carefully, is the crystal bell my father bought my mother with his first paycheck in 1943, less than a year after they arrived in Philadelphia. He always said he bought it to remind her of what is important.

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A thoroughly romantic notion.

 

 

 

 

 

Slowing down in SLO redux

Eve Neuhaus 6 Comments

Guests enjoy themselves in the dining room.

Recent pictures of the Airbnb part of my life

all three rooms and Lily Bear too
Lily Bear is finished inspecting Juliet’s room. Trudy’s room is on the left, Linnea’s on the right.
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I just moved Meg Johnson’s pretty little table into Juliet’s room.
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The sun pours in Trudy’s room in the afternoon. The print above the bed is new.
Linnea's roomLinnea’s room is ready for tomorrow’s arrivals.
Aras's girlsSome guests play in the dollhouse
Monday Night Dinnerand others join us for Monday night dinner, a potluck Tom and I host once a month.
Pillowcases on the linePillowcases dry on the deck
IMG_4396where sweet peas bloom.
Easter tableGuests from Vienna join us for Easter dinner. Tom makes a spectacular meal: fresh local pastured leg of lamb, ratatouille and pommes dauphine.
ClafoutisFor dessert there is clafoutis with raspberries and apples and gently sweetened whipped cream on the side – as delicious as it is beautiful.

 My cup overflows.