Trees of Christmas Past

Wanderings

Weaver family Christmas tree

When I was a kid, after the holidays ended and the new year had begun my dad would often take our Christmas tree out in the yard and plant it somewhere near the house. Once in the ground, however, these trees which had occupied a magical place in our home and our hearts were soon forgotten about, lost in a landscape with a thousand other trees. 

It sounds a bit sad, this Christmas amnesia. But maybe that’s when the real magic begins. 

Weaver family Christmas tree

Think about it. Independently of our care and love, the trees continue to grow, taking on new proportions of size and strength, their warped and natural beauty forged by winds of time.

In the house, our Christmas trees contort to our wants and wishes. Outside, they are free to grow wild. Inside, we believe in their promise of good things to come. Outside, our myths have little consequence on what tomorrow might bring.

Weaver family Christmas tree

There’s a Christmas story here.

The fir tree doesn’t lose its needles, symbolizing the enduring, everlasting power of Love. It’s a Love that sustains, takes away, and gives new life – and it’s completely outside our control. But what happens when we bring this Love inside? Suddenly we remember, and even celebrate, something beyond ourselves. We act differently until a short time passes and we inevitably forget to pay attention and stop seeing it for what it is.

And that’s when, like the wind that shapes the trees, the real magic quietly begins its work on us too.

Etretat: A place to remember

Wanderings

Photos by John Weaver

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “Granpaw, are you still there?” All I said was that I would be in Normandy for a wedding when… silence. 

“Etretat,” he finally said, faintly, before disappearing again in thought. It had been more than sixty years since he was in France, but that day on the phone I could tell my Granpaw had been transported back.

It was late summer, 1944. Fresh from the front lines, twenty year old Private First Class Bruce Wiegel arrived in Etretat, a tiny Norman village neighboring the beaches that bore the brunt of the D-Day invasion. He hadn’t come fight, but rather to make peace – peace with the war, peace with the land, and, no doubt, peace with himself.

The invisible hand

Wanderings

Yarnbombing along the Melaan in Mechelen
Photos by John Weaver

When we moved to Mechelen two years ago, one of the first things I noticed was a thriving street art scene. Not the stuff we were used to in Brussels – graffiti, posters, stickers, stencils – there’s hardly any of that in Mechelen. What I found instead was lots of yarn. It was everywhere, yards and yards of it in colorful patterns and cheeky scenes stitched around trees, lampposts, bike racks, bridges, railings…

People watching

Wanderings

Window decorations in Mechelen, Belgium  Photo by John Weaver

Walking down the street, you sometimes get a glimpse into people's lives through their windows. I don't usually stop and stare, but this house made me pause…

From Mexico to flamenco

Wanderings

Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico Photo by unknown 

I don’t know who took this picture, but I haven’t been able to get it out of my head all week. Whoever you are, I’d like to thank you – and thank my Mexican host-brother’s wife Nury for posting it on Facebook – because it brought back a tidal wave of happy memories and forever-lasting emotions from my time as a high school exchange student on that island – Ciudad del Carmen.

Street Art: The Bold & The Beautiful

Wanderings

Photos by John Weaver

Graffiti, posters, stickers – they’re everywhere. Cities today are exploding with so much (sometimes) creative expression that we hardly see it anymore, even when it’s right in front of us. It just blends into the street, seen but not seen. 

Is it art? Sometimes. Is it vandalism? Usually. The best stuff is typically a bit of both. 

Salut au Monde!

Wanderings

Hello World! There couldn’t be a more fitting title for my first blog post. And this verse from Walt Whitman’s poem by the same name perfectly captures the kind of experience that has inspired me to write this blog:

I see the cities of the earth and make myself at ran-

     dom a part of them,

I am a real Parisian,

I am a habitan of Vienna, St. Petersburg, Berlin, 

     Constantinople,

I am of Adelaide, Sidney, Melbourne,

I am of London, Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, 

     Limerick,

I am of Madrid, Cadiz, Barcelona, Oporto, 

     Lyons, Brussels, Berne, Frankfort, Stuttgart, Turin, 

     Florence,

I belong in Moscow, Cracow, Warsaw, or northward 

     in Christiania or Stockholm, or in Siberian 

     Irkutsk - or in some street in Iceland,

I descend upon all those cities, and rise from them 

     again.

- from “Salut au Monde!” (cerca 1856) by Walt Whitman

You can read the full poem here. But here’s why I like it:

There’s a reason he doesn’t say “I went to Paris” or “I visited Berlin” or “I did Constantinople.” That’s because travel has the power to be much more than a checklist of destinations.

The way Whitman puts it – “I am of Barcelona” and “I belong in Warsaw” – practically lifts you off your seat and takes you there with him. The place gets under your skin and you become part of it. And when you “descend” on a place and “rise” again from it, you become a different person too.

It’s true, certain places are better at drawing us in than others. But the secret of great travel is not the destination – it’s the discovery.