When I started this blog, I included a category called “Transitions.” The idea was to write every time we went back and forth between Italy and France. The passage through the Alps is always stunning and serves, really and metaphorically, to remind me that Transitions-R-Us, that as living beings on a living planet we are always in flux, passing from one state to the next, experiencing both the breathtaking vistas and the long, dark tunnels along the way.
I’ve written about the Mont Blanc tunnel, the crops beside the road, the baguette that rides on the dash for the entire 7 hour journey and the sheer majesty of the peaks. But there’s an aspect of the coming and going that I’ve never showed you, because it would have been impossible. I am passionate about hitting the proverbial road and going where it takes you. But I’m also riveted to the sky. To shifting clouds. To airplanes passing overhead. To the idea that all around us is an airy connective tissue of cloud and climate that has seen it all. A car is great. But what if I had wings? What if instead of going through Monte Bianco, I could fly over it? That would be my dream.
Obviously, outside my fantasies, it will never happen. But today, I saw this very special view of the French Alps, and I felt that I’d come close. I have to share it with you:
Thanks to my dear husband for sharing it with me.
The Daily Cure 
Well, that was very amazing and beautiful to say the least! How did it happen?
I don’t know! Someone in France attached a camera to an eagle’s back…that’s all I know…I think it’s so beautiful. I’m glad you liked it!
I think this is from the public tv series, Earthflight. Here’s a link to find out how they do that. (They attach a camera to the bird.) It’s a fabulous series to watch.
http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/stories/pbs-series-sees-world-from-a-birds-eye-view
Thanks Janette, I can’t wait to see it…I love this stuff.
It is a wonderful series, full of interesting facts that you never knew, and the photography is unbelievable. You find yourself sitting there with your mouth open in wonder!
I also watch the sky during the day and at night. On a clear night here in Santa Cruz, the gulls fly over with ground light reflecting of their undersides, so they look like flying stars.
Oh! Seagulls! I love them also. Gabbiano was one of the first words I learned in Italian…I had to…This summer in Elba they were very disdainful of us and our house until the very last day when I began to pitch the leftover bread crumbs on the roof so as not to waste it. They were all over it. There seems to be an interesting hierarchy at work between them. Some of them seem very dominant, but I can’t tell quite what it’s based on. I’ve never seen the “flying star” effect you mention, but would love to.
That was just fantastic, I also watch the sky all day. I think because you and i are living far away from our birth homes we are always halfway in the air, one foot on its toes, ready to take off at a moments notice, I watch the vapour trails in the blue sky thinking of when i will be next on a plane to see my family.. I look up and say to myself “Are you my plane?”. “Will you take me home?” Always in transition. c
Yes ma’am. Always…the other thing that ties us is food…so moved today by your celery soup. And how the soup led to the memories of home and the way things were and the packages and the vegetable man and the fish and the chips and one thing leading to another then back to the recipe then straight to the peach brandy! Sometimes my aching for home ends in a glass of wine. Such a beautiful post Celi…
I love how the eagle gazed about while flying. It makes me think that flying is as wondrous to them as it is for us to contemplate.
Stunning! I flew! I really, really flew! Oh, thank you so much! What an experience!
Linda
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