On our Carousel of Time . . .
These pages are summaries of our collective life by year. Many were first
written as a kind of annual update for friends and
family. We also sent annual updates for years
after 2007. They are located here, as part
of each year's journal going forward.
"the seasons they go round and round,
And the painted ponies go up and down.
We're captive on the carousel of time.
We can't return, we can only look behind
From where we came,
And go round and round and round
In the circle game."
© Joni Mitchell
Didn't Joni listen to Neil Young's "Sugar Mountain," get blown away by it and
rush home to write the "Circle Game?" Or was it the other way around? Myths from
the 1970s are so hard to keep straight. But they're both beautiful songs, and
one day "Circle Game" will play on this page.
In the meantime, we'll be happy enough with our own shots of Carousels. On the right
is Alex at Disneyland in November 2003,
and on the left is Charlie on an imaginary carousel
with Pinocchio during the same visit. That's one of the things that makes
Disneyland special: imagination everywhere, for the
children too!
On the left, Alban on a carousel, also at Disneyland but this time in 1999.
Needless to say, a nine-year old boy rides one differently!
Here's a dynamic carousel, below right, this time at the Santa Cruz County Fair in
Watsonville in the fall of 2000. You can't see the faces, but the postures of
the children say a lot: Tom is making his seat twist backwards and forwards,
Daphné is
raising her arms as her friend looks back at her, and
Alban at the back is driving a race car!
Every year has had its highlights and its lowpoints, for our family as for
any other. In 2007, by way of the year's zinzins improvement project, we are
putting these high and low points together and spreading them out year by year.
We start in 1994, when we moved in together, and go on through
2007, last year.
Starting in 1997, we began to send an annual update with our Christmas, Holiday or New Year's
greeting. These updates summarize
their respective years, and we add photos or other mementos to complement them.
We compiled the pages for the earlier years here, before 1997, by looking at letters, photographs and the like
to remind ourselves.
For some reason, there were no annual updates for 2002 and
2003, or maybe they were lost in that computer virus
attack we suffered during the period, and so we've
compiled them too in the same way.
Starting in 2004, we began to include photographs in the updates. In some
cases, the photos included in the diary differ, because the originals are elsewhere on
the web site.
And of course, we paste the carousel pictures here, because these pages are
our little carousel of time.
On the left is
a French carousel in Six-Fours on the Mediterranean, with Charlie and his
Maman
waving, taken by Tante Lucette during the summer of 1999.
On the right is
Tom on another French carousel, this time in Rambouillet in the summer of 1996.
Now we move on to other kinds of rides . . .
As we grow older, and watch our children grow older, we realize more and more
that our carousel of time is not the smooth and elegant Victorian carousel that
the word evokes.
Rather, our carousel can go very fast at times, like the ride Charlie is on at the
Boardwalk in Santa Cruz
on the left. And much of the time our carousel jerks and twists more like a
roller coaster than a carousel.
Not forgetting are the more serious ups and downs that we face, like
graduations and adolescence, and of course
water rides.
Here's one below on the right at Le Jardin des Tuileries in Paris in the
summer of 2004.
And there are also those unavoidable bumps in the road that we face as do all
families. Like the bumper car below left that gave Alban and Daphné
such a good time.
Yes, our life together as a fairground is a
metaphor that we can enjoy!
