Remembrance of E.B.

Cold in the earth—and the deep snow piled above thee,
Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!
Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,
Severed at last by Time's all-severing wave?

Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover
Over the mountains, on that northern shore,
Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves cover
That noble heart for ever, ever more?

Cold in the earth, and fifteen wild Decembers
From those brown hills have melted into spring:
Faithful indeed is the spirit that remembers
After such years of change and suffering!

Sweet Love of youth, forgive if I forget thee,
While the world's tide is bearing me along:
Sterner desires and other hopes beset me,
Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong!

No later light has lightened up my heaven;
No second morn has ever shone for me:
All my life's bliss from thy dear life was given,
All my life's bliss is in the grave with thee.

But when the days of golden dreams had perished,
And even Despair was powerless to destroy,
Then did I learn how existence could be cherished,
Strengthened, and fed without the aid of joy;

Then did I check the tears of useless passion,
Weaned my young soul from yearning after thine;
Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten
Down to that tomb already more than mine.

And even yet I dare not let it languish,
Dare not indulge in Memory's rapturous pain;
Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,
How could I seek the empty world again?
~ Emily Bronte

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The Power of a Love Story

Joseph Fiennes as Will Shakespeare in "Shakespeare in Love"

The best love stories have this slow and lovely unfolding of moments, where the characters, setting, dress, and dialogue all merge into a delightful tableau, from one scene to the next.

First you meet the lovers separately, see what they look like, what they wear, and how they interact. Is she unhappy or full of life? Does he brood or cavort? Then, after a few scenes, they're suddenly in the same room, the same place. He sees her. She sees him. A moment flickers, sometimes funny, sometimes deep, maybe awkward. But the moment is fleeting. They have a deeper meeting in the next scene, a word or two passes. Maybe she gets the wrong impression of him, or he helps her in a bad situation. After this crucial time together, the audience knows they'll be together and is eager to see how it unfolds. Others interefere - she has no money. He's already engaged. But they want to know more about each other.

So in their next scene together they're speaking more freely. She teases and he scowls, or he teases and she accuses him of being impertinent. But we see that each has something the other lacks. The differences act as magnets, and the lovers move closer to one another. Smiling, a laugh, a first touch. He takes her hand. Perhaps they dance. Perhaps they enjoy a stroll.

Then, the magic scene happens. A moment alone, away from others. No fighting, nobody else. She looks beautiful. He is irresistably handsome, showing a rare smile or a rare silence. Come with me, he offers. She accepts and moves closer. They kiss, a kiss both breathtaking and satisfying. And we know; we know because we feel. They are meant to be. They live in magic and create magic. For a moment, all of us are in love again. In love with love and in love with life. Rare and deep joy, like a drink of golden liquid. It is a moment of perfection.

They have shared it, and shared it intimately with us. But the story will move forward, a river on its pre-determined path. Life does not let lovers alone. Life moves, and thus we move with the lovers. Others interefere. Battles are announced. Her fiance confronts him. She is rejected by his family. Cannot intrudes into their love: you cannot see each other. Cannot be together. But the lovers know you cannot stop the river of love. It moves them along. They fight against others, enemies that were once friends and family, now blocking and damming the river.

In between, startling moments of beauty - fleeting, intimate. She reveals herself to him. He gently touches her. They join as one. Kisses are passionate and swift. A short and tight embrace. But their love is not safe. Constantly prying, others interefering. Nosy, blustering, bombastic. Shouting, fighting, restrictions, trapped. Violence crushes tender love. She can't see him. He must marry another. There is no other way. Forced into the wrong decisions.

Separation escalates. There are wars and storms and crashes and accidents. Loss, real loss. They lose one another. Miscommunication, problems, he said the wrong thing, she does the wrong thing. Choices hang in the balance, love tips precariously. Will they fight or succumb? Is fate too strong? Is love truly enough? A twisting in the stomach; the audience watches in torment as they're torn apart again and again.

Then the tides turn. Or do they? It is up to the storyteller to decide. Will love win or fate? It is the question of every love story. An awakening, a renewing of strength. One last push. The lovers find a way to fight, or succumb while trying. Love is worth fighting for. The audience feels a resurgence of inner power, a shift in their determination. Separation doesn't separate love.

An ending of beauty, of heartbreak, of lives wholly changed and love completely felt by each. Memories live on in heartfelt tributes - something she is left with to remember him, something she gave him that he keeps. Their love has spilled out of their hearts and into real, tangible objects. A painting, a jewel, a flower, a handkerchief, a letter, a poem. And the audience cherishes it as much as they do.

Now that is a love story. It is the most magical of stories, an innocent fantasy for adults. We may lose our childlike wonder of the world, but we can regain it when we read a love story or see one on screen. We all follow the same love story in our own lives - the first look, a touch, a kiss, a joining, then separate again. Real life swallows magic, others come and brandish us with opinions and obligations. Chipping away at the newness with sharp picks. Jabbed and hurt, we want the magic again, start not believing it. Was it ever there? Did we ever feel it?

Yes, we did. Stories are true, because they come from truth. Even fictional stories are true, because you feel the way the characters do. Details blur, but feelings remain strong and deep. What is the ending to your love story? Did love win or fate? What choice did you make? What memories do you carry? Are they too painful or have they become the steadily burning ember inside you, heating your life with lingering magic?

An' away we go, my love and I,
Along the river's shore.
Waters brought us to where we are -
In love forevermore.
~ Meg North

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The Quiet and Strong Heroine

My favorite heroines in stories are quietly strong. They bravely and dutifully try to make the best of their situations, no matter how difficult the circumstances may be. They are orphaned or alone, somehow disconnected and cut off from the people around them. But they find the inner strength to carry on, and eventually find the love in both romance and family they needed all along.

Elinor Dashwood - 1995 Sense and Sensibility and 2007 Sense and Sensibility

The 'sense' in Sense & Sensibility, Jane Austen's first novel, Elinor Dashwood is the eldest of three sisters. Her quiet and unassuming nature is part of her inner strength, as she does her level best to make the most of her reduced circumstances, father's death, and the loss of her love. But her kindness and good heart win her love over a jealous rival and cruel family members.

Griet - Girl with a Pearl Earring

Forced to become a maid in the house of famous painter Vermeer in 1660's Holland, Griet bears her circumstances as best she can while being at the bottom of the social class. She works in the kitchen alongside maid Tanneke and endures the cruelty of Cornelia, Vermeer's snooty daughter, and Catherine, his jealous wife. Her artistic eye and soft feminine features catch Vermeer's eye, and she ends up helping him mix colors for his paintings and is eventually his subject as well. An unlikely muse, she is soon caught in a web between powerful men. But she manages to escape and returns home with her pride and sense of self intact.

Ada - The Piano

Mute by choice, Ada is whisked from her Scottish home to become a mail-order bride for an authoritative husband in New Zealand. Her voice is her piano, where she plays self-taught haunting compositions. But her strength and opinions come forth even despite her lack of speaking. Baines, a local New Zealander, becomes intrigued and obsessed with this unusual and highly talented woman. An original film with an original heroine.

Jane Eyre - Jane Eyre

One of my favorite heroines, her story one of passion, strength, endurance, and hope. Orphaned and raised by a cruel aunt and cousins, Jane is eventually shipped off to Lowood School, where she becomes a teacher. An advertisement for a governess lands her at Thornfield Hall, an impressive manor house run by the brooding, moody Mr. Rochester. His dark past is revealed after a lively and lovely courtship, where Jane falls deeply in love with him. She cannot be with him, though, and flees his home. But a proposal from a cold-hearted and intellectual man leaves her longing for passion and love again. A return to Mr. Rochester and their beautiful reunited love is one of the best endings in all literature.

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Learning Literary Lessons

Her family and friends administered comfort and commendation liberally; yet it was a hard time for sensitive, high-spirited Jo, who meant so well, and had apparently done so ill. But it did her good, for those whose opinion had real value gave her the criticism which is an author's best education; and when the first soreness was over, she could laugh at her poor little book, yet believe in it still, and feel herself the wiser and stronger for the buffeting she had received.

"Not being a genius, like Keats, it won't kill me," she said stoutly; "and I've got the joke on my side, after all; for the parts that were taken straight out of real life are denounced as impossible and absurd, and the scenes that I made up out of my own silly head are pronounced 'charmingly natural, tender, and true.' So I'll comfort myself with that; and when I'm ready, I'll up again and take another."

~ Literary Lessons, "Little Women"

Ah, Louisa. I'm not a genius either, though it was heartbreakingly beautiful seeing Keats' genius in "Bright Star." What a film! And though I'll always admire him, I'm a different kind of writer, like you.

My own poor little book is out in the world, waiting for readers. It's offered on Amazon and ready to grace the bookshelf of anybody who'd like to read it.

So, I'll comfort myself with what I've accomplished, and it's time to take up another!

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Daniel's Garden is on Amazon!

Look at that!!

Pretty cool, eh?

Now you can link to my novel and purchase it directly from Amazon. I'm thrilled to be able to offer this!

Thank you to all my loyal readers!

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The Story of Titanic

With the new James Cameron film "Avatar" out and sweeping Titanic box office sales into the dust, I thought I'd celebrate my favorite film.

Titanic came out when I was fifteen, and I saw it for the first time the day after Christmas, 1997. I saw it a second time in January 1998, and received the soundtrack for Christmas and the sheet music for my 16th birthday in February 1998.

To say Titanic had an impact on me is to say so much and yet so little. It's thanks to this film that I fell in love with the Victorian/Edwardian era. The film also inspired me to want to write an epic story, so I chose the Civil War and wrote Daniel's Garden. It changed my personal writing focus from children's fantasy to historical fiction.

Titanic made the past come alive for me, in a way history class and textbooks never could. I'm still tickled that so many people say they don't like history, yet their favorite movies are Titanic or Braveheart or Pride and Prejudice. Titanic took history - real history - and made it something I wanted to live in. I never thought about history that way before. And, to this day, I can't NOT think of history as alive.

Whenever I need to feel the past again, I watch this extraordinary movie. I sit down and play the gorgeous piano songs "Rose" or "My Heart Will Go On" or "Hymn to the Sea." Titanic pulls me into a world I don't ever want to leave. It's touched my heart in a way that can never be erased.

For years, I wanted to live a story like this movie. I wanted to live that kind of love - so brief, so passionate. I'm thrilled and astonished to say that I have. I didn't even recognize it until a few weeks ago, but I lived this story. It wasn't on a ship, but I'll never be the same again.

The stories we fall in love with, either on screen or in a book, DO live in us. And if we want to live in that story, all we have to do is want it. It will happen. Some characters are no longer merely fictional, since I know how they feel. My love of their story came first, and then I lived that story, too.

I have been blessed with writing talent, so I take the stories I love and the stories I live, and shape them into new stories. I've already begun two new novels, and a third idea came to me this past week. I'll never run out of story ideas, since I live them and they live in me, too.

Titanic is not just a film, nor is it just a best picture film or a box office blockbuster film or even a period piece about a tragic ocean liner. It's a portal into a way of living and loving the sheer magic of storytelling. The real Titanic was a ship of dreams, and a ship of souls. I like to think those souls have helped me, just as the great New England writers have helped me.

Ode to Titanic

When I hear that fiddle play
A song to dance with thee ...
I cannot help but think today
Of an Irish third-class party.

Beneath a sunset sky we kiss,
Waves splashing down below.
Those times we shared I still miss;
Your hand I'll never let go.

A woman's heart is a deep sea
Of secret loves now gone.
From our love I live life fully,
For I know I am never alone.

The jewel I have is mine to keep,
Which opens memory's door.
Tonight, when I lay down to sleep
I'll be in your arms once more.
~ Meg North

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Under the Irish Tree

Have returned from a week in Florida -- and all I could think of was Ireland!

Haha, such is the topsy-turvy way my mind works. Had a fantastic St. Patrick's Day celebration dancing at Bull Feeney's here in Portland with good friends, seeing a Dropkick Murphy's concert in Boston, and enjoying colcannon. Have decided we'll visit the Emerald Isle either this fall or next spring. I'll look for wee folk and keep my literary ears open for strange tales, for more Nobel Prize winning authors come from Eire than any other country.

Aye, sing me a song of grand ole Eire -
The country that lights my literary fire.
Me family's from county Kerry long ways
Tho' we've been on this side forever and a day.
I'll dance the jigs and sing the songs
While hoisting pints all night long.
Aye, Ireland lives deep in me bones
And I'll visit her, my one true home.
~ Meg North

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Love Ode to Ireland

Upon a stony mountain-top
Drifts a song of yore.
I hear it when I dance again -
The elegy of lore.

Come, St. Brigid, douse my mind!
Feed me tales o' green.
O'er cups of tea I sing with thee
Of where our people's been.

I have me home; ye have yers, too.
Aye, Erin's where we dwell.
I sail on seas and worship trees -
Nature's poetry is what I tell.

Across the waters, back we go.
Words in olden tongue.
I pray to God, push hands in sod -
The land here keeps me young.

Green hills, brown peat, and silver seas:
The colors dance like fire.
On Irish stone I gaze upon
My home - my beloved Ire.
~ Meg North

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In Praise of Home

Click on this amazing photograph to see it close-up!

I wrote about Autochromes in an earlier post, but I've come across another and I just love her! I knew you ladies would, too.

Photographed with her sweet puppy on a sunny day, this lady rests on the most gorgeous couch, summer breeze blowing through her lacy curtains. Pink geraniums enliven the windowsill, and a bouquet of red and yellow roses is by her side. I love the squishy pillow, rich patterned wallpaper, and embroidered fancy-work decorating the back of the sofa.

This photograph, 100 years old, shows the beauty of a woman at home. I love being home, and daydream of the day when my writing income will enable me to close the doors forever on outside jobs.

Then I, too, will sit on my sofa by the window in my living room, new puppy Rufus on my lap and Janie pug by my side, laptop quietly whirring, music softly playing, pink geraniums blooming.

Of all the Things I'm Meant to Do
My goal is to stay at Home.
Never far from its walls Shall I stray,
Never far from its Yard Shall I roam.

I May Get Restless and Cross the Seas.
I Still will Explore this Wide Wide World.
But cozy blankets, coffee, Dogs, And
A Book Comforts this Antique Girl.

My pen will be the Ship I'll Sail.
For Mental Adventures I forever Yearn.
As Captain Author I set the course ...
Yet to Home I'll Always Return.
~ Meg North

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Spring Bling!

Such beautiful spring bling!

These gorgeous earrings and necklace from AmberSky on Etsy are so beautiful. Vintage style dresses up everything from a white shirt to a shimmering green cocktail dress.

Welcome spring with floral accents - a pretty flowered shirt, a flower clip in your hair, or spring bling! Search on Etsy and treat yourself!

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The Maiden and her Pet

Dress'd in bedecked Jewels,
With gold and Silver Threads
Raphael's Lady with a Unicorn
Still turns Modern Heads.

A strange Equine on her Lap:
This Mystical Horned Beast
Does not Seem to Faze
This Maiden in the Least.
~ Meg North

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Warm Weather calls for Hot Thoughts!

Spring is coming!

Too bad the fashion colors in the department stores this spring are not to my liking. That's okay. I can always look at former spring dresses!

I'm also steadily working on my new beauty book for the shop, listening to the Lord of the Rings soundtrack (favorite track - Evenstar), and thinking maybe, at last, I should read the books. Maybe a new classics challenge?

Oh, and trying to get actual work done at my job, too. Sssh!

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Famous Historical Beauties

I'm putting together a new book for the shoppe - a frugal guide to looking gorgeous. It's called: Beauty and the Budget!

Here are some gorgeous ladies who've inspired me:

• Helen of Troy - The face that launched a thousand ships, an immortal epic poem, and besotted a prince so much he chose the goddess of love over a queen!
• Nefertiti - An Egyptian queen and inspiraton for the most beautiful bust. Decked out in gorgeous jewelry, she epitomized classic beauty in one of the most successful civilizations.
• Cleopatra - Was she a firecracker or what? Recent research has determined she was rather plain, but she still had Roman emporers wrapped around her powerful finger.
• Joan of Arc - A striking combination of power and purity, as a 12-year-old farm girl she experienced visions she could not ignore and took to the battlefields.
• Guinevere - Her existence may be doubted, but her power over both a knight and a king cannot!
• Eleanor of Aquitaine - Damn, was this woman ahead of her time! Two royal marriages and eight kids couldn't stop her from being a powerful ruling force centuries before women's rights.
• Mona Lisa - Her captive smile has held men enthralled for centuries. Why? Men love mysterious women, and this painted lady is the most mysterious of all.
• Juliet Capulet - While fictional, no other Shakespearean heroine experiences love in quite the same way. Romeo instantly fell for this sweet and wide-eyed innocent.
• Marie Antoinette - Thanks to the popular film by Sophia Coppola, this French femme fatale has gained a new following. Her fashion sense and courtly manners made her irresistible.
• Josephine Bonaparte - Passionately adored by Napoleon, this empress received love letters from the battlefield. Beautiful, strong, and iconic, she was the only one her husband listened to!
• Jane Morris - The iconic face of the Pre-Raphaelites, she captivated both William Morris and Dante Rossetti, immortalized forever in their paintings and poems.
• Mata Hari - Her very name is synonymous with seduction. An exotic dancer and courtesan, she was the Madonna of her time.
• Audrey Hepburn - One of the great beauties. Her kindness and compassion showed through her lovely face, and the way she carried herself was graceful her entire life.
• Marilyn Monroe - The most famous sex symbol of the 20th century, she was a knock-out combination of voluptuous and virginal. I love her breathy voice, and her sexy walk!
• Jackie Kennedy Onassis - Impeccable, regal, gorgeous, and graceful, Jackie's known by her first name alone. Her exquisite style, strength in the face of tragedy, and personal poise made her a 20th century Helen of Troy a modern Greek couldn't get enough of!

Which one is your favorite? I like Audrey Hepburn. The enchanting lady at the top is Guinevere, an extraordinary beauty!

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The Beauty of the Book

This young lady takes my breath away with her lovely and simple beauty. Her summery straw hat tied with a sash and her sweet blouse make her one of the best Edwardian photographs I've ever seen. It would be quite easy to copy, too, with a summery straw cloche and sash, and a wide-necked blouse of white, pale sage, sky blue, or even lightest pink. When I came across this photograph, I smiled and said: "That's her! That's Olivia!" Olivia is the name of the heroine in my new novel, The Tate Legacy.

Wouldn't she make a fine heroine?

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Feasting on the Classics

Me (as a blond, I guess!), Janie pug, a cup of coffee, and a beloved novel

I'm taking the Classics Challenge 2010!

From April 1 to October 31, 2010, I'm going to read classic books. It certainly gives me a reason to pick up old favorites or start new ones. For this challenge, classic can mean an older classic or a newer one. :)

Here are the three levels:
1. Classics Snack - Read FOUR classics
2. Classics Entree - Read FIVE classics
3. Classics Feast - Read SIX classics

I'm definitely going to be a FEASTER! I rarely spend less than an hour a day without my nose in a book or scanning an online article. Here are the six I'm going to read, in no particular order:

1. The Meaning of Night, by Michael Cox- I bought this awhile ago and actually haven't read it.
2. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde - Right up my alley, yet I've never read it.
3. The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas - Haven't read it since my teens, so a reread would be fun.
4. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by Victor Hugo - I've only read a little bit of it, so am going to fully enjoy the whole thing.
5. The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde - There's a movie coming out about this one with Colin Firth. Yummy!
6. Antony and Cleopatra, by Shakespeare - I've never read the play nor seen a live version. It should be interesting!
7. BONUS: The Crimson Petal and the White, by Michel Faber - an alternative if I'm not in the mood for one of the other choices.

I own all of these books, so that makes it easy! Did I ever mention I'm lazy? But, my personal library would make any English teacher swoon.

Anyone else want to join me?

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Petals, Blossoms, Blooms, and Buds

Belle Epoque ladies were besotted by flowers. Their personal fashions, decorating, advertising, books, magazines, and letters overflowed with abundant florals. They even had a language of flowers! Part of a woman's proper education was to learn to draw and watercolor-paint flowers. Popular flowers were the rose, lily of the valley, violet, tulip, iris, lilies, hollyhocks, wisteria, forget-me-not, foxglove, morning glories, sweet peas, and mignonette. Petals, blossoms, blooms, and buds kept these ladies enshrined in the beauty of an eternal summer.

Today, my eye was gladdened by the sight of a lively group of lavender crocuses, happily blooming by the side of my house. I think no other flower cheers me quite as much as this first spring visitor. Soon daffodils and narcissus will poke up their trumpeting faces to greet me, then the full-skirted lilac with her honey-tipped blossoms and ageless purity. We have a lilac bush at the Longfellow House that Anne Longfellow planted in the 1870's. Such a long-term companion!

My favorite flower is the white rose. I carried a white rose tussie-mussie as my wedding bouquet, and my handsome groom wore one upon his lapel. Rugosas in deep fushia and white grow here in Maine, bushy, thorny, and scenting the sea-tinged air with their faint perfume. One has to admire a flower so rugged and lovely.

In the above photograph, an Edwardian lady wears the same warm pink as the peeping roses; her shawl and cuffs remind me of lacy-edged petals. She daintily steps down a beautiful curving staircase, sweet curls framing her face, a willow basket of cut blossoms the ideal accessory. Framed by profuse blossoms, she seems perfectly at home.

Would a woman in a T-shirt and jeans look as lovely in this setting? I don't think so. Try as I might to appreciate the modern era of comfortable clothing, sometimes it just won't do. As the weather warms, this is the best time of year to indulge in lovely fashions for yourself. Think of flowers, whose beauty attracts the bee, and pretend you are attracting a seeking visitor. Bring out the flower's beauty within you, not only to attract the bee, but to cheer any passersby as the crocus cheered me.

Let me close with one of my favorite poems:

A White Rose

The red rose whispers of passion,
And the white rose breathes of love;
O, the red rose is a falcon,
And the white rose is a dove.

But I send you a cream-white rosebud
With a flush on its petal tips;
For the love that is purest and sweetest
Has a kiss of desire on the lips
~ John Boyle O'Reilly

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Through Love's Eternity

XIV

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
"I love her for her smile - her look - her way
Of speaking gently, - for a trick of thought
That falls well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day" -
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee, - and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry, -
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.
~ "Sonnets from the Portugese"

Happy birthday, Elizabeth Barrett Browning!

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New Stories are Never New

I've begun a new novel.

Did you ever realize "The Phantom of the Opera" is another rendition of the "Beauty and the Beast" story? "King Kong" is as well.

So, my 'new' story isn't new at all. It's a combination of Phantom, "Girl with a Pearl Earring" (fantastic historical fiction), "The Count of Monte Cristo", "Shakespeare in Love", and a dash of "The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle."

Set in a theatre, in a seaside city, with a clasically beautiful heroine ... a mysterious man with a dark past ... a gentle and strong carpenter ... and the self-destructiveness of greed.

Titled: The Tate Legacy.

It's fun when creating a new story to mix and match my own favorites, whether they be films, classic literature, or new historical fiction.

Daniel's Garden, my first novel, was a combination of "The Secret Garden," "Paradise Lost," "Glory," "Far and Away," and "Love and War." I took elements of each and created something 'new'.

New stories are never new, which is something I learned when putting together my 8 Plots Book. Only 8 plots that have ever been used.

So, if you're looking to write a story, try finding inspiration in many things ... then combining them!

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The Feminine Way ...

If a Lady of the Modern Time
Wished to Change her Ways,
She'd Best Start with Simple Things
To Brighten up her Days.

Do your Hair in a Maiden's Style:
Cascading Waves all About.
Add Rouge and Lipstick, too
To Entice Others to your Pout.

Soften Your Outlook on Life,
For the Hours are What you Make -
Love with your Whole Heart.
Give Far more than you Take.

Then you will Find, Dear Heart
Life shall Pave the Way
For Any Dream You've ever Had
To Come True some Near Day.
~ Meg North

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Getting Sporty ... 1910's style

Edwardian ladies were the first openly active and sporty women. Riding bikes, playing croquet, swimming, hiking, and tennis were popular sports the first decade of the last century.

And they did it all in skirts!

A favorite Edwardian outfit is the pretty top and long skirt. It looked great on them and looks good on us, too! It was also surprisingly comfortable, versatile, modest, and suitable for active ladies.

With her jaunty striped skirt (I'm guessing navy and white), comfortable but feminine lacy blouse, and pretty hat, this lady looks radiant beside her bike.

This outfit could easily be replicated with department store button-up shirts and long skirts, with a straw sun hat for shade and a pair of comfortable clogs or low sandals. How simple is that? But you will have replicated a beautiful and timeless outfit that will make you look so chic running errands, walking the dog, and going to the grocery store.

Yay for sporty Edwardians - showing us how to exercise and move in pretty clothes.

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In a World of My Own ...

Cats and rabbits
Would reside in fancy little houses,
And be dressed in shoes
And hats and trousers
In a world of my own ...


All the flowers
Would have very
Extra special powers.
They would sit
And talk to me for hours,
When I'm lonely
In a world of my own ...


There'd be new birds!
Lots of nice and friendly
How-do'ya do birds.
Everyone would have
A dozen blue birds
Within that world of my own ...


I could listen to a babbling brook
And hear a song that I could understand ...
I keep wishing it could be that way
Because my world would be a wonderland!


Thanks to Alice in Wonderland coming out this weekend and to the dear heart at Bookish Kind, I'm in an Alice mood. The Disney film version is the one I know best since I watched it dozens of times growing up, and this was my favorite song.

If you want to know what Meg was like as a child, this was me. I would spend hours in nature with my toys, making up stories, playing in trees, and swinging on our swingset, dutifully watched over by our pet sheltie, Mac.

"Goodness!"

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Edwardian Bohemian Chic!

One of the things I love most about the Belle Epoque is the clothing! A combination of practical, beautiful, quirky, and over-the-top, Victorian/Edwardian fashion is instantly recognizeable by its corsets, hoop skirts, voluminous dresses, and gobs of accessories like hats, parasols, gloves, shoes, and flowers.

I have a gorgeous collection of photographs and want to talk a bit about Belle Epoque fashion - updated for today. I think there are many elements that could beautifully segue into modern-day life.

This pretty lady, for instance, is wearing Edwardian bohemian chic. Her hair has been caught up in a sweet patterned kerchief, curly tendrils peeking out. Her dress is rather plainly fashioned, long-sleeved and I'm guessing is either sage, pink, or pale blue. It is ornamented at the neck with a line of cotton, but one could substitute lace or crochet. But her real eye-catching accessory is her rose shawl, gathered about her shoulders and pinned in front, with a bouquet for ornamentation.

Fast-forward to 2010 and I think you could easily replicate this look! Any long-sleeved top with an embellished neckline would do - not too low else your great-aunt Millie roll in her grave! Tuck your hair into a kerchief, making sure to frame it about your face. Wear a shawl or capelet, gathered low in front, and embellish with a brooch.

We don't know what this lady is wearing from the waist down, but I'd guess it would be a suitably long dress and casual shoes. You could complete this outfit with a simple long khaki or denim skirt and leather footwear - either sandals or low clogs. It would also look wicked cute with jeans and tall leather boots!

The trick with this kind of Edwardian bohemian chic dressing is to keep it both casual and feminine without becoming sloppy or the accessories competing with one another. She looks beautiful AND comfortable - tough to pull off in the early 1900's!

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