Our Shoppe Galery

While celebrating our weekends, and in the spirit of our global collaboration and community of support, we are featuring our personal art as 'Vision to Verb' notecards.

 

Our hope is that they'll inspire you to join with us in our support of KIVA - empowering people around the world with start-up business loans.

The Language of Windmills

This wasn’t what I had planned for today…but after the Dutch Prince Friso unexpectedly died two weeks ago, I switched gears.

The short version is that after being buried by an avalanche while skiing in Austria a year ago February, Prince Friso went into a coma and never regained consciousness.  He was 44 when he died.  Besides leaving behind his recently “retired” Queen Mother (now Princess Beatrix), his King Brother Alexander and younger brother Constantijn, he also left behind his wife and two adorable girls, ages 8 and 7.

It so happens Prince Friso was Protector (“guardian angel”) of the Dutch Windmill Association (just like his father Prince Claus before), and, out of respect to him, all Dutch windmills were at “standstill” from his death to his funeral this past August 16.

  

The “standstill” position of a windmill is what you see above from our De Hoop windmill here where we live.  It’s the eleven/five o-clock position--the position marking death and mourning.  It would be similar to hanging our flags at half-mast.

Not all windmill language is about death, of course.  In fact, far from it!

First of all, windmills in the Netherlands turn counter-clockwise when you face them.  I say “when you face them” because from the backside they’re turning clockwise.  It’s the way they’re designed, mainly for right-handed millers who will furl/unfurl the sails with their right hand.  [Ireland is the one country where they turn clockwise.  Maybe Catherine knows why?]

It’s a huge thrill for me to see a windmill turning because it means IT’S  WINDY.  But did you know that to maintain status in the windmill association, you hope to God it’s windy because your windmill is required to make 200,000 revolutions a year, whether it’s a working mill (draining water, sawing wood, milling grain) or for show!  So, yes, a meter counts out the turns.  If you make the mark, you receive subsidies to keep your windmill painted and in working order, which is of utmost importance to a country dependent on the charm of this historic icon.

When the windmill is not turning, the sails are left standing in one of 4 positions, more or less telling you what’s going on in that miller’s life:

1. If the sail is in the one/seven-o’clock position, the message is JOY.  It’s in the so-called “coming” (yup!) position before it reaches the highest point and usually signifies a celebration:  Marriage.  Birth.  Graduation.  Birthday.  A flag often accompanies this position from the highest sail.
2. In the midnight/six-o’clock position, or the vertical/horizontal position, the windmill is at “short rest” during a work period, like in milling grain, and will turn again as soon as the wind picks up.
3. After passing the highest point, midnight, the sails are then “going” and reach the eleven/five-o’clock position of death and mourning, as in the case of Prince Friso above.
4. In the ten/four-o’clock position, with sails at a 45-degree angle to the vertical, forming a St. Andrew’s cross, the mill is at “long rest,” allowing the miller to perform maintenance chores in and around the mill, often during the summer months.
   
   
   

There are 1150+ Dutch windmills in working order as we speak, more than any other country in the world, and with a database giving details on every single one.  They are still turned to wind by hand and use canvas sails.  None are motorized.

I always knew windmills were soulful to me but…talk about Vision and Verb!  Who would have thought a windmill could say so much!

Life's Serendipities

ser·en·dip·i·ty  n. pl. ser·en·dip·i·ties

1.The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident.

2. The fact or occurrence of such discoveries.

3. An instance of making such a discovery.

Today in the Netherlands it is Sinterklaasdag, 5 December.  It's the traditional day for the Dutch to do their gift-giving for the Christmas season (in spite of American influences seeping in to augment gifts on Christmas day).  Think Santa Claus and presents.  Today.

Two years ago today (though it was a Saturday then), I moved to the Netherlands from America to begin a new life with the Dutch woman I married two months later.  It was totally coincidental that the day I arrived was Sinterklaasdag.  We didn't plan it that way.  But every year since then, Astrid and I will celebrate this day as our biggest and best gift to each other.

That's serendipity.  And, YES, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!

I have always loved serendipitous moments.  They may be more rare than "normal," but maybe that's what makes them so "fortunate" and "by accident."

This past September, when we spent a few days in England with friends (and met CherryPie, remember?), we had another serendipitous moment that still drops my jaw to the ground.  As we strolled by the Royal Crescent in Bath, I looked up to see the entablature above the columns and stopped dead in my tracks.

There they were, just as plain as day.  From the entire length of the Crescent, a row of 30 houses with entablatures above, these were the two we just happened to see:  a heart (Hart) and a windmill side-by-side.  In Bath, England, of all places.

That's serendipity.

Of all the gifts I've ever received in my lifetime, these rank up there at the top.  They "just happened" by accident.  Most fortunate because they didn't cost a cent and I'll never forget them!

If you believe in Santa Claus, I'm sure you have your own serendipitous memories.  Feel free to share them here...and then store them up as the gifts that can never be lost or taken away from you.

And let's keep our eyes open.  You never know when a "by accident" is just waiting to happen!

On What We Collect

Not to be confused with pack-ratting...but have you ever noticed what people collect?  Like vintage fountain pens, maple-tree sap spiles, golf balls, thimbles, spoons, teacup sets, porcelain plates, Lladró figurines, long-play records, etc.

In my past life, our house was full of collectibles.  Two of us lived in enough space for an army (compared to where I live very cozily now) and had almost every nook and cranny filled with something.  For instance, my ex-partner loved Boyd's resins and, once started, couldn't stop collecting them.  Most of them were 1st editions (a whole substratum of collecting) and filled glass cabinets and shelves on all 3 levels of our house.  She also collected baseball caps everywhere we went around the world, hanging them at the ceiling all around our basement.  Together we collected the 50 State Quarter spoons issued over 10 years.  And on and on it went....for a rainy day, for my grandson, for whatever.

My daughter once exclaimed, if ever you have to move, please do NOT ask me to help you!  HA!  So I didn't.  It was exactly a year ago when I was almost totally finished with packing or selling all our collections as we broke house and I prepared for my move to The Netherlands.  I never expected that day to come and therefore never took seriously the implications of all we were collecting.  However, in the end, it all had its place...and good fortune....

Since I was the retired one, I was the one who packed things up for my Ex...close to 1,000 Boyds that had to be repacked into their original boxes (the "more value!" substratum), baseball caps carefully cupped into each other for transport, etc.  When I started the entire project, I perished the thought.  But in the actual process of doing it, I saw satisfying progress every day.

It was another story for me because most of what was mine I was not going to take with me.  Simple.  Not enough room.  But this is where the good fortune comes in:  eBay and Amazon became my best friends, helping me get rid of everything, often at a good price.  I had a personal collection of uncanceled sheets of every USA stamp since the 1940s...hundreds of them in albums.  One by one I scanned and listed them on eBay and one by one they sold, sometimes at $25/sheet.  Old books, DVDs, Quarter spoons, spiles, concert T-shirts, you name it...to the tune of over $15K by the time all was said and done.

My treasure became someone else's treasure.  And no, it did not bother me one whit.  If anything, it seemed planned before the foundation of the world for such a day, since I needed the money for my move.

Now, do I still collect today, you ask?  You can bet your bottom dollar, yes.  BUT I've learned my lesson:  KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid!).  Or maybe that's keep it SMALL.  I brought all my pinched/elongated pennies with me and all my official coin medals from around the world.  Simple and small.  Easily transported from here to there.

Which brings me to the above weathervane in Wageningen, Netherlands (in case you were wondering!).  What I collect now is here on my laptop or external hard drive where I have categories:  windmills, water towers, clock towers, weathervanes, spires.  I can't NOT collect them.  They've become part of what I look for and find soulful...each with its own name or character.  Each without a pricetag, free for the taking.  And small.

And you?  What do you collect?  Surely you knew I'd ask!