Beth Arnold

Letter From Paris: Three Wise Books

Galeries Lafayette - Image via Wikipedia

The holiday season is upon us, which means our yearly eating, drinking, partying, shopping, spending blow-out has begun! I have to admit that I love Christmas. My parents, Bill and Bobbye Arnold, didn't give us every single thing we wanted all year round, but, yeah, baby, at Christmas, they loaded us up! Oh, the decorations, the trees, the cookies and candy, the high spirits, creamy baked oysters, the singing of carols, and reading of stories conjured up Santa and his reindeer for me.

I will also admit that I adore giving gifts. There is nothing as fun as finding a present you know is perfect for someone you love and/or appreciate. With our modern lives and the extraordinary demands on our time that both enrich and deplete us, that's not always easy to do. But there is one store that I know I can find something for everyone to be delighted with, and that, my friends, is a book store.

A book is always a gift one can be proud to give--an array a king might be delighted to present his subjects, from courtiers to worker bees. There is power in words. There is romance, travel, mystery, science, adventure, solace, encyclopedic information--stories that compel us in every way, as well as transform us.

And in that spirit, I am presenting three books that I happily recommend for Christmas pleasure:

The first one is Choosing Easy World: A Guide to Opting Out of Struggle and Strife and Living in the Amazing Realm Where Everything is Easy by Julia Rogers Hamrick.

 

Letter from Paris presents...Paris EyePhone

 

MORE WIKILEAKS IN PARIS 

By Contributing Editor Mario C. Servin, iPhone Photographer and Traveling Economist

These urnials in the picture are located at a Diplomatic
Residence in Paris.  Small talk in the men's room is common and it is
not too far fetched to imagine that it was the source of some of the
diplomatic chatter that was dispatched and then "leaked" onto the
Internet, hence the title for today's picture--More WikiLeaks in Paris! 

Here is a link to a recent New York Times article on the story.

 

iPhone photos by Mario C. Servin.

Jours of Our Lives: Introduction

  Illustration by Elizabeth Cannon

I HAD DREAMED of Europe, and of my living there, since I was 19 years old, the age at which I first saw it, felt it, loved it--even though I was on a, gasp, tour with lots of "old" people who were probably the age I am now. It was the turbulent early '70's, the time of Vietnam, Watergate, the revolution to bring Civil Rights for all.

Europe's Old World was brand new to me. With its sidewalk cafés, its tapestry of history and cultures, its emphasis on living life in all its moments instead of rushing through them--somehow I felt at home there. Being in Europe, even for a short time, enlarged my sense of self and my view of the world. I wanted to be a part of that world, not just a visitor to it.

Fast-forward 29 years: I finally got my chance!

It all began in 2002. As of that fall, my children would both be out of the house, beginning new lives separate from my husband, Jim, and me. What were Jim and I going to do? Maybe the last daughter's impending exit for college forced that question. We had loved our wonderful old Craftsman home in Little Rock, our friends and family--collectively our roots--but over the past few years something else had also been apparent: It was time for us too to make a change. A need for transformation was slowly seeping in, and Jim and I had started talking about maybe selling our house in Little Rock and buying a place in the Hudson Valley in New York State.