Walking up the steeply winding slope, I pull away from the city’s warm embrace and into an ethereal world

It’s Thanksgiving Day here in the USA. I sit in our tiny garden spilling over with flowers and watch the hummingbirds hovering on their jewelled wings of speed.

Shifting sands move under our feet as we find ourselves back on the beach. The scene sharpens and we talk through the landscape of a gathering evening.

We flew home into the blue of beyond two weeks ago. In a few days we will catch a plane to the tomorrow of a southern French sun.

I found myself  on an eye wateringly early flight home to Los Angeles this morning after a wonderful few days in Mexico City.

A velveteen rabbit lies abandoned on the bed. Sunday afternoon creeps quietly up through the open window.

We’ve come to the end of a busy week here. Lessons, activities and all manner of learning have flooded our tiny school.

It’s a blazingly hot Sunday afternoon here. Temperatures have rocketed up to 100 degrees and everybody’s feeling the heat.

It’s a cool grey morning. Hints of blue are emerging to push the clouds aside but the heat of the afternoon is for now a vague promise.

And so we’re back in the land of sunshine and disfunction. We flew home last weekend on a plane ride so bumpy in places that Mr Dylan himself might have had a thing or two to say about it!

Sitting in silent communion with the spirits of the Tazza Fountain in Hyde Park’s Italian Gardens I feel the magic of this particular spot once again.

It’s a bright and sun scorched morning as Duke and I step out on our usual outing through the neighbourhood.

Solitude has taken up residence in our dwelling in the precious minutes before the children and the hound are awake. My husband long ago drove off to work, leaving me free to wander through memory’s halls.

There have been days of overwhelming business of late, infused with that peculiarly American insatiability. It climbs right up inside your soul and grabs you by the throat, seemingly intent on stealing your last breath too.

I’ve been thinking about East and West in this dream world of ours; about the fading cultural influence of the Classical and Christian traditions and of the space for Buddhism amidst such a forgetful time.

It’s so quiet. There’s something about a southern Californian afternoon that can catch you by surprise and have you almost falling through a space where time resonates at a different frequency altogether.

It’s been a quietly special time here in Los Angeles, punctuated yesterday by a trip to the movies to see A Complete Unknown.

There’s a Bob Dylan song that‘s been rolling along the tracks of my mind for some time. Even now, as I’m walking on a slowly sunny Los Angeles afternoon with the hound, I can hear it.

I’m always on the look out for resonances which return me to the truth of the dream-like nature of our experience. It’s why I love Inception, Christopher Nolan’s exquisite creation from 2010.

It began with Keats. Walking through the enchanted world of Ode to a Nightingale I left the beaten track, mesmerized by a summons from the favorite American writer of my youth.

I spent a hot and tired hour crawling through Sunday afternoon traffic on the 405 today and experienced one of those rare moments of musical transcendence when the world fades away. 

Where is modern education leading our children?

Through the quiet air of a family evening the songs from Rough and Rowdy Ways float from the stereo. We sit gathered together in the absence of our son who has departed for London Town.

Casting my mind back, one of my favourite early memories of Joe Ruggiero is from England in 2012. We were already seasoned US residents at that point, or so we thought.