Beauty Alert or…

Being aware.

I have the privilege of looking out of my bedroom window every morning (and believe me that is indeed a privilege as not only is my house very well located, but there was a time when I feared the loss of my sight).

The view is mostly the lake, the mountains, shades of grey or in the summer bright sunshine.

Then there are the days where the full moon is going down on those mountains or the sun (in the winter) hasn’t quite risen so the mountains are the same blue as the sky above them and if one is really lucky there is snow on the mountains that divide them. The sunsets can also be phenomenal, or a boat sailing past particularly gorgeous.

These moments are known in my household as “Beauty Alert”s and anyone living here has learned to come running if I shout out one as they never last more than a minute.

It doesn’t take much to make me happy: beauty alerts are a blessing. And sharing them makes them more enjoyable.

Early one morning after fresh snow on the Juras

Sun on the fresh snow through a very old tree

Off the beaten path

Which I could just as well have entitled “detour” or “wandering” or “once again I took the path less traveled”.

Yesterday when I set out for my last weekend in the mountains I had no intended plan other than delivering some flyers on the way. My last stop was just in front of the border at the Café de la Frontière restaurant, run by one of our favorite waiters from years ago at another restaurant. Now although I was just depositing some flyers I wanted to at least say hi (he is the other person who gives hugs as good as my younger son) so peeked into the restaurant instead of just leaving the flyers on the sideboard of the entry. Not only did I get my usual hug, but another of our favorite waitresses from the same restaurant of days past was there having a cocktail before lunch (she now is the manager in yet another restaurant – one that myself and the boys really like, but as they are both less available, we have not yet found the time to go back there). Ah, the beauty of it all – so stopped for some conversation and a tomato juice – after all I was getting on the road, right? She and I made a date for lunch next week.

So it was almost an hour later before I again got in the car and headed on. I didn’t need to stop for lunch as had grabbed a sandwich before stopping with the intent of number one not being tired when I finally drove (big meals see me needing what my husband used to call a “pause”) and number two of not having to stop.

It was another of our glorious fall days so when I had to stop at the traffic light after having passed beautiful fields with rolling mountains still covered in orange and yellow, I made a snap decision and turned right instead of going straight!

A narrow road led through a small village up the hill and through the woods until I came out on a plateau overlooking Lac Léman on the one side and the back country of France on the other: wow would be about the only word that I can use to describe it. I returned through the small village of Ballaison – had always wondered where it was and how it looked when I passed the signs on the lower road, but had never bothered to stop – and continued on my way.

the scenery that had me turning off the main road

I do love my reflections

wandering through the woods

Although not wonderful sites in themselves, the views are extraordinary

The view overlooking the lake

quirky? out in the middle of nowhere someone got clever!

 

Ballaison's church, which I am going to have to go back and explore

the trees lining the road in Evian as I drove through

Vineyards and the mountains still covered in colors!

Today the weather is holding so yet another walk in the woods, yet another train adding color, yet another dip into my past as a child as I shuffled leaves to my heart’s content.

the yellows are predominent now, most of the orange is gone

This bird was re-introduced to the Swiss alps several years ago

I do like fall!

Beauty on the cheap

Like many, I find daily in my inbox offers from Groupon (not to mention names): a site that specializes in making the consumer an offer at a lower price by selling a greater quantity.

Now I have had some coupons for reflexology and massages and I am the first to be interested in some of their offerings, but the one that landed in my inbox a couple of days ago, gave me pause for thought.

I could have bought 32 (yes – 32!) makeup brushes for a modest price.

After having laughed myself silly, I thought – I don’t even think that I could use more than one or two – who in the world could actually use 32 brushes to put on their makeup?

One for eyebrows – maybe

One for blusher – again perhaps

And that’s about where my knowledge of make-up brushes hits the wall.  I mean, really, THIRTY-TWO!

If I used each one only once and very quickly, say a half of a minute, it would still take me 16 minutes to put on my make-up.

Who in the world has time like that – or an interest in fixing whatever nature gave one that would involve the use of 32 brushes?

Needless to say, that is one offer that I did not take them up on!

screenshot of the ad's illustration

– Truth or Platitude

Lac Léman February 17, 2014

 

And I’ll add Plato to the mix.

Can a truth be a platitude? Can a platitude be a truth? Are they mutually exclusive, or mutually inclusive?

Truth, defined by Webster’s is the quality or state of conforming with the facts or with reality. It can, however, be an idealized abstraction as well as an actual application.

A Platitude, again as defined by Webster’s is a remark, which is commonplace, trite, even dull, especially if one utters it as though it were a new or novel idea.

So is Plato’s “Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder” truth or platitude?

Regardless of the philosophical discussion that one can hold – and wouldn’t it have been fun to listen to Pythagorus, Plato, Socrates or Aristotle –in the eyes of this beholder, I have found beauty in the past 24 hours.

Sunset February 16

Lake Swan

Heart of a yellow tulip