This is a test

A video for inspiration....

       ...And a swimsuit for the travels!

                 <3

laterssss!
xxxxxx

Claire

A filling and a feeling

just click it

Gooooood Morning.

I've been at it early today. I had my regular Wednesday Coffee session with Jerica - as usual.  Lovely - as usual.  Then I went and had a filling redone because apparently Mt. Pleasant Dentistry is not Dentistry at it's finest.  or I'm a really intensive chomper. You decide. 

Spring is compressing to let loose here in SLC, but the depression made from the recoil is allowing a quick burst of Winter weather. I've been watching the snow melt all morning though. slowly sinking down and into the earth whispering promises to blanket it all again one day. Soon? Who knows?

I'll be moving in next door soon.  I have a few things saved in my amazon checklist just waiting to get over there and make it my own.  So ready.  But in that vein, I've been dreaming...

http://www.notcot.com/archives/2012/03/dream-bathtubs-and-hot-tubs.php#more

...aren't you now too?

Someday.  

I recently returned from Bryce Canyon this weekend with baro-baro.  It was gorgeous there and he took so many striking pictures.  I mostly ran around, wrote in my journal, stared at the internal writing on my walls.  Oh, I also ran into a tree - jumped, really. 

Coffee date had, filling recovered, papers corrected and the emptiness sets in - ever had a happiness that makes you grow? What happens once you begin to breathe again and you don't fit your lungs?

xxx

cwg

so soon...I knowwww

This may possibly be a new life goal now....

...I just want a bear to wave at me!

xxx

cwg

"When something goes wrong, I'm the first to admit it - and the last to know"

Click this

Wow - over four months since I've done this.  What happened? I can tell you and it is supremely embarrassing.  I got interested in a certain dietary restricted someone. And it and he have been wonderful - but boy does it cut into my aimless wandering and reflective thinking time.  Even more than that, my READING has decreased incredibly - so you know how much time this is taking up.

Although I know I have a few people that read this from time to time (key word FEW) - I am always writing this to someone in particular.  You all know her, some better than others.  That person is none other that the girl who started this blog.  Claire from May 2009 - June 2010.  That person, I always try to make these important, appealing, or even confusing to her in some way.  Because that person was VERY carefree and figuring so many things out my natural happenings....but they were very forced at the same time.  I had so few obligations during that time period that I discovered things that I would always go back to, the very NON-FLEETING things.  And despite not having too much for which to be responsible - I was forced into many situations that made me grow.  I look to that person to make sure I'm rooted in my basic being.

Today I found this quote - and I feel it resonates with m current ideals - one which I know would also resonate with *that* girl.  This is one of those gems that I know will stick with me for a lifetime - not just while I'm going through something difficult currently.  No, this is something that I will add to my core essence and lock it up.

"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."


-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Goodbye for today, mes amis, and let's hope it isn't another four months before I speak to everyone again. xxx

Claire Winter Gorton

oh P.S.!!!

draco....

deconstructed thoughts

please click me
Just passing through today folks.

One of those uninforming but perhaps intriguing posts.  I'll let you know what's I've been viewing - if not what I've been doing.  I'm sort of uninspired to do so at the moment. Although a small update wouldn't hurt.

I've recently started working at Utah Mountain Adventures (a rock/ice/ski guiding company) in Salt Lake City. I'm still teaching Rock and ice Climbing courses for the University of Utah. I'm exploring gluten free worlds and preaching teh wonders of WinCo to anyone who will answer my phone calls. I'm waking up early staring out my window. I'm grading papers for a Linguistics course and reffing soccer games.  I'm trying to be a good friend, person, daughter, granddaughter and sister. I'm drinking tea often and keeping iced coffee in my fridge. I'm taking time to listen to my mental hiccups and ask my father questions about his life and knowledge.  I'm trying to track down a dear friend.  I'm fighting distraction and over ambition simultaneously.  I'm experiencing some things for the first time and truly examining them.

That's it.

xxxxx

Claire Winter Gorton

Fun and funny and a funicular.

click me please

That's teh soundtrack for this post, per usual.

I'm still out of sorts, but slowly getting back on my train.  I've moved into my temporary residence, doing a favor for a friend whilst she has her kitchen renovated.  I'm currently sitting in front of a massive window - it painfully reminds me of chambre A4419.  I'm drinking a tea in my robe, and trying not to think about the near future. I'm going to show you some items across which I've stumbled.  

A movement from day to night in one still. 

So, being a bum isn't all it is cracked up to be.  I'm not exactly sure who has cracked up what, but I have come to learn that productivity is absolutely necessary for my happiness.  Thanks USA, that's what I get from you.  Ok, my words aren't worth a whole lot today, let's stick to music, images, and videos, eh.

I am very excited about going back to MI on Sunday for my dear Sister's wedding. I cannot believe it is finally here! And! I get to see Caitlin because she is flying around the world to come to the wedding. It is going to be beautiful and I get to enjoy some Fall in the beautiful Northern Michigan parts.  I guess life isn't so blah, just a massive transition is taking place.  I need to grasp something tightly, yet everything is changing and to what should I hold on? Just like Paul says, I am tumbling in turmoil and whoaaaa, so this is what she means...slip sliding away......

 

 

An effort by the WWF to bring global warming and the melting of the ice caps to attention (In Berlin)

I want to wear yellow eyeliner today.

From the blog Canelle et Vanille in Espellettte, France.

This may be the most disjointed blog post I've ever done - how fitting because that's how my life is right now. Ironic.

Here is an amazing video for Lanvin.  How telling, the models can't dance, but still look beautiful.  And then When Alber Elbaz comes out and dances a goofy little dance, - class.

Good riddance to this post,
cwg

nili rudi

please - click me

I have returned.
and then I left again - on a jet plane to MI to see the marriage of a close cousin - we share a middle name.
and then back again - to the great lake of salt and the nearby city I call home currently. I'm sorta done flying. Except for teh fact that today I bought another plane ticket to fly back for my dear sister's, Gercie's wedding in September. aïïïëeee.

This summer has been somewhat of a blur and the organization of my desk shows it. Wine glasses that were used the night before my departure to Africa still sit upon my desk.  Beautiful but purpose-less items purchased from obscure vendors in Asia litter where I normally write my extensive lists. A burger menu from a late night outing in Amsterdam sits waiting to be put on my wall - a wall that is empty due to my moving out in 2 weeks. Flowers I plucked and stuck in the Patron bottle stopper top have wilted, died and dried.  All on my desk.


The haphazard and spontaneous summer I've had has leaked inevitably from my mind over to my physical space. Mehhh, Fuck it. Disorder can create magnificent and chaotic patterns in it's own right. I should harness this raw form of function and see what happens....but I do love lists. I think the unfettered and disheveled schedule is what has been ordered. Life's throwing me for a loop and making me practice something with which I struggle sometimes - patience. Well, I should clarify.  I'm quite patient when it comes to others, but when I'm told to sit idle, to be internally patient, well, I lack a certain serenity that in the 1800's would have quickly given me the black mark of being unfit to hold the XX sequence. SERENITY NOW. ish?

So here I am today, wishing I was still showering under a bucket drinking sharp, strong, and satisfying ginger ale.  Or staring at my feet, enjoying teh simplicity of my inhale/exhale sequence whilst forging on up the scree as the sun burns and the wind strips me of any evidence of another's presence. Instead, I settle for a run and stared as the sun set on the valley, the day, and my unkempt mind.


Part of me craves to firmly plant my feet on a mountain top and claim the world for my own - and part of me yearns to then fling myself off to twist, fly and let the world claim me.

isn't that simply beautiful?

Until next time, x

Claire Winter

Quicklyyyyyy

Join me, in my thought process:
 The current Dig

Caitykins, Summer, Ice cream and healthiness

  

A week from Sunday...

 

 

Me sister, Gerce, her bachelorette party is tonight!

How can this (N)EVER work? 

xx

cw

Leave all your Love and your Longing behind.

Control+click me!

No words today - at least not mine.





"Sweet, there is nothing left to say
     But this, that love is never lost,
Keen Winter* stabs the breasts of May
     Whose crimson roses burn her* frost,
          Ships tempest-tossed
Will find harbour in some bay,
          And so we may."

Excerpt from "Her Voice" by Oscar Wilde

Illustrations:
-Angela Trentin
-Raphael Vicenzi







Enjoy your day - or what's left  of it depending on where you are in the world.
xxxx
Claire






*slight changes for fitting my mood, meaning and mind.

Relative

CTRL click me!

Although time is extremely relative, it is comforting at teh same time.
A push.
The big check mark on an overarching to-do list will gain satisfaction - but to what end? In all the aspects of my life, everything thus far experienced, graduating college will be an accomplishment. Despite the social relativity that is a result from the graduation, I do believe I will not feel any different.  As far as my life will extend, my micro checks on a fantasized DARS reports hold no bearing to my internal self-appreciation.  I've always been moving forward and this transition isn't really any different in my mind.  There's no need to trump it up, no comparative semblance necessary. 

I guess to sum : graduating college is over rated.  This may stem from my privileged situation, but I mean it in more of a sense that this is only walking through a doorway and in no way a defining moment in my life.  Something I've discovered for/about/within myself is that I don't measure my accomplishments by things that can be cataloged on paper. Simply because they aren't the hardest aspects of life - at least for me in my personal experiences.  All in all, graduating college was fairly simple. When teh work is set out, doing it isn't.  I don't shy from hard work.

SO, on that note - here is what stands between me and my college degree:
FR 4550:
-1 more three page paper(french)
-one oral exam(french)
-read 11 more chapters(french)

FR4650
-read 2 more books(french)
-one more 4 page paper(french)
-one oral exam (french)

POLS 5710
-one 6 page paper (english)
-nine more articles (english)
-one final (english)
-one more book (english)

CLCS 4990
-one short response paper one page (english)
-senior thesis paper(english)


HIST 1510
-one more 4 page paper (english)
-one final (english)


Ballet 2310
-one more paper (english)
(and all of the classes of course!)

That in three class weeks and one finals week. INCRED! I do believe that is it for me for the evening.  Or it should be.  xxxxxxxx
Claire Winter Gorton

Weekends make the difference

CLICK

SO I'm nearing a possible end here in Utah, and I don't want to leave.  I know this isn't really a surprise - perhaps I will give a little visual explanation.

I've recently become involved with the climbing program at the University, and it has gotten me back in the outdoors on my weekends. I think that's what makes a difference in a location.  What you can do on teh weekends. Dinner out, ballets, dollar theatres, cute neighborhoods - any good city will have these.  But when I can go and repel a massive arch and hike through majesty such as Moab, that's when I know I need to stay.

La Réveillon
     The sky is laced with fitful red,
      The circling mists and shadows flee,
     The dawn is rising from the sea,
Like a White Lady from her bed.

     And jagged brazen arrows fall
     Athwart the feathers of the night,
     And a long wave of yellow light
Breaks silently on tower and hall,

     And spreading wide across the wold,
     Wakes into flight some fluttering bird,
     And all the chestnut tops are stirred,
And all the branches streaked with gold.
               -Oscar Wilde

La Fuite de la Lune
     To outer senses there is peace
     A dreamy peace on either hand,
     Deep silence in the shadowy land,
Deep silence where the shadows cease.

     Save for a cry that echoes shrill
     From some lone bird disconsolate,
     A corncrake calling to its mate;
The answer from the misty hill.

     And suddenly the moon withdraws
     Her sickle from the lightening skies,
    And her sombre cavern flies,
Wrapped in a veil of yellow gauze.
          - Oscar Wilde

Keep it up, friends.
xx
Claire Winter

Holy Sh*t

click it and be annoyed

I bought my gap and gown today.  I opted out of the "stole of gratitude". I didn't think it would be instrumental in the ceremony or my gratitude surrounding my graduating. 

Is this really happening? YES.

Although according to my transcript I still have around 40 credits to get. Stupid admissions - my french credits are sitting there waiting to be verified. GET ON WITH IT, EH?

that is all.  xxx
Claire

Life's looking out-

click - a different sort of one today
Life is not looking up - or down, but out.

It's looking out my back door, looking out of the looking glass, looking out of sorts, and looking out for me.

I have 5 weeks until I graduate from college - yikes! but hey, this too shall pass. Perhaps the wrong sort of adage for teh mood, but a telling and striking one nonetheless.  I should put some pictures of Spring Break up...I just have to get them from the other members first as I didn't take any. I know, I'm bad.

I've also noticed that I am certainly less loquacious this year and I do believe it stems from the fact that I write often here.  In France I didn't have papers for school.  Here I most definitely do and I think it nabs a little of my thirst for writing.  Different hole in the shower head (Patrisha) but water is still exiting. 

But here is a little something - something something for an audience that you are. xxx

"I'd love to take you home with me and tuck you into bed
I'd love to see what makes you tick inside your pretty head
I'd love to hear you laugh tonight, I'd love to hear you weep
I'd love to listen to you while you're screaming in your sleep"
-Danny Elfman in Oingo Boingo song called Insanity. look it up.

 AWESOME:

Yours-
cwg

How does this happen?

Click it again

Hello world, although I've been living in you - I've been without you. 

I am about to go out to dinner but I thought I'd send out a little wave. 

...with a thought, for everyone.  Take a look (it's in a book.... among other places)

 

An Artist named Chase.  He paints snow.

Yours,

Claire Winter xxx

This very air, come and go with me.

-First
-Second

-A Pity, We Were Such a Good Invention-

They amputated
Your thighs off my hips.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all surgeons. All of them.

They dismantled us
Each from the other.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all engineers. All of them.

A pity. We were such a good
And loving invention.
An aeroplane made from a man and wife.
Wings and everything.
We hovered a little above the earth.

We even flew a little.

-Yehuda Amaichai

-Lover Lay Down-

Walk with me, walk with you
Hold my hand your hands
So much we have dreamed
And you were so much younger
Hard to explain that we are stronger

-DMB

-The Wind-

I listen to the wind
To the wind of my soul
Where I'll end up well I think,
Only God really knows
I've sat upon the setting sun
But never, never never never
I never wanted water once
No, never, never, never

I listen to my words but
They fall far below
I let my music take me where
My heart wants to go
I swam upon the devil's lake
But never, never never never
I'll never make the same mistake
No, never, never, never

-Cat Stevens

Here's to hoping....

Claire Gorton

Just a mood

xxxx

mmmhmmm

ohhhhh

A snowy evening, a tumultuous morning, an inspiring midday, a productive afternoon - an unknown future. 

Good things come to those who wait.

xx

Claire

warmies

click me

So I recently had to get glasses. 
I went from 20/15 vision to 20/20 vision. SO my doctor decided to get me some glasses for my nearsighted vision.  In order to quell any further deterioration.
Or that's what you're hearing. 

So here I am.  Now an intellectual.

Goodnight!
Claire

2010 at an end

Simple click

Entering into a decade where everyone will (finally) say twenty-current year instead of two thousand current year is a good feeling.  Outside of the verbal consequences of this coming year, I have many, many things to which to look forward. But I do believe I will digress right now and head over to the lost land of Nostalgia for a brief visit with old memories.

A year ago I was ROLFing it with Max and Nick either in Austria or thereabouts. It amazes me that 6 months have passes since I returned to the USA.  6 months since I turned 21(to the day). 6 months being half of my time in France. ANd what have I done since being home? Time is cruising by me and I need to kick it into gear. 

When I arrived in France, soon thereafter I created a "honey do list", a sort of checklist of things I wanted to experience while in Europe.  I am now making one for my last semester at Uni.  My last undergraduate semester of being Ute.  It dawned on me today I have been back in Utah for at least 4 months and had not been to Southern Utah once or even gone on a camping trip.  Incredible.  I've been lacking in this blog, mostly because I felt what I wanted/needed to express wasn't material for a blog.  And in comparison to what I posted int he previous year in DC et al, it felt shamefully boring.  But new beginnings and mental resignations are liberating.  Liberation is an independent process that often is of the mental sort. 

For this first bit I may be a tad, let's say, dramatically and mundanely charged whilst I learn around what this blog will revolve.  But I think my inner voice and cream filling will start to ooze and life will be so much sweeter.  So Cheers - Cheers to friends across the globe.  Cheers to family close by.  Cheers to balance.  Cheers to ice cream. Cheers to working hard for what you believe.  Cheers to 2011. 

Stay in touch folks and write your thank-you's.
Fondly,
Claire Winter
Geographer "Can't you wait"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzg24ynncOY