the busy heart

I'm a sucker for things hanging from the ceiling. I don't know why. I remember going to an art exhibit at BYU which consisted of hundreds of tiny white paper boats hanging from the ceiling, swaying ever so slightly. I stood and stared and swooned. When Sam and I were on our honeymoon in DC, we sat in the Calder room at the ... what, Smithsonian? Okay, I can't remember the museum, but there was a room full of Alexander Calder mobiles and we sat on a bench against the back wall, watching for a very long while. They made these gorgeous, moving colored shadows on the tall walls, and I rested my head on Sam's shoulder, and we whispered about how happy we were to be together and how pretty the room was. That has to be one of my favorite memories. Maybe that's part of why I'm so obsessed. If I had my way (and maybe someday I will), we would have something hanging from every inch of our ceiling. And I would just sit with my head turned up, smiling. All day lon...

A few notes on London. Last night we had dinner at Wagamama with John, Karla, and Chris Bennion. (John was/is my mentor professor at BYU/life.) It was lovely to see them. I don't even know how to say how lovely it was. Sam made John laugh. That was what I hoped would happen. And it made me happy. I talked with Karla as we walked up to Kensington Gardens to see a performance of Peter Pan. They built this special venue for it that consisted of a big cone-shaped white tent, with a theater in-the-round inside. I can't say it was stellar acting, but I enjoyed myself thoroughly. It's hard to explain this part, but they did stuff with projecting up on the top of the tent, so when Wendy, Peter, Tink and crew took off to fly to Neverland, not only were they were really suspended in the air, but it looked like they were flying over London--THE London, with parks and the National Gallery and St Paul's, etc. I couldn't catch my breath during that part; I felt like I would weep...

Short Post Today. We heard that taking the bus might take hours and hours, so we opted to stay around here. Here being the same neighborhood as the BYU London Centre, near Kensington Gardens. I know and love this area already, so I really adored showing Sam my favorite places: Embassy Row, the Round Pond in Hyde Park, Bayswater and Queensway and Whiteley's, etc. It was low-key. We read books and strolled about, and, and, the highlight: Eating a light lunch at the Orangery Restaurant at Kensington Palace. I'm pretty sure this is the most beautiful place I've ever eaten a meal. It's at least in the top ten. When you walk in, it looks like this. Those are small orange trees on each side, and a display of all of their lovely sweets. We started off with tea. This is what our table looked like. Isn't it perfect? We had our own mini orange tree. (Although ours didn't have any oranges. bummer.) It made me feel princessy. I ordered the Tulsi Mint tea, which ...

On a brisk walk this morning, in one last attempt to find something special (your ideas were brilliant/funny, by the way.) before we trained away from Paris, I saw a little old lady walking her dog. And her dog was holding an umbrella in its mouth. It was scheduled to rain today, so this brilliant lady must have trained her dog to hold her essentials. I wished for a dog like that as we waddled through the streets with all our stuff, heading for the metro. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, but I found myself thinking what I always think when I have to carry my own junk: what IS all this junk? I begin to regret packing specific items, like my stack of ten (!?) books, a skirt I haven't had occasion to wear yet, my pair of black shoes, etc. But we got here, to London, sigh of contentment. The train was speedy and it felt decadent to sit for so long on our behinds. I tried to read, but promptly fell asleep. Sam dithered about writing, worried he couldn't write, then wrote....