L' Oeuf Magnifique

 Today we drove up the mountain north of St. Julien to do LAND ART with the artist Christophe Eppe. Homer couldn't come with us.


 He would have been in the way.

Two of our sculptures began as spheres and then collapsed. It was a little discouraging.

This is Christophe checking out our ultimately successful rock egg.









And this is Jaclyn and Christophe and me after all of us completed the egg. (I will add more photos soon--had trouble uploading them just now).

Espar?

La Muse in Labastide Esparbairenque

Even the flight attendant on my Air France flight who was from the Languedoc had trouble pronouncing the name of the town which was my destination..But after missing my first flight to Toulouse, then barely making my train to Carcassonne, I was picked up at the train station by John Fanning, the director of La Muse.La Muse is a Writer's and Artist's Retreat in the Aude "department" in the Languedoc region of Southern France.

I was so pleased to be given a residency here. The above is the hallway to my room.

This is the street side of La Muse.

This is the back, which faces the valley. When the weather is warm, the patio is a great place for dinner.

The town is in the middle of the "Black Mountain" region. Basically in the middle of a huge chestnut and pine forest---no one ever knows what part of France I am talking about when I try to describe it.

on the map!

Poetry is Cool Part Deux

Welcome to Southern France, where for the next two and a half weeks I am at La Muse Artists' and Writers' Retreat in the Languedoc village of Labastide Esparbairenque.

I am lucky to be on a sabbatical from my job as a writing professor at Central Washington University and very lucky to be here at La Muse right now.

My friend in the photo above, Homer, La Muse's pet spaniel, has been accompanying me on my long runs on the mountain roads that surround the village.

I will be blogging about poetry, writing, running, food, animals and other loves of my life. There will be a daily poem and a running journal. Say hello!