Abbey Mariawald, the only existing Trappist monastery in Germany. Founded 1470 A.D. Heimbach, Germany. ©Laurel Decher, 2017. Safe spaces to create art Lately, I’ve been
The Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Italy was over the top! I love watching live orchestras and this one had 5 string basses. 🙂 And the
Vegetable garden overtaken by poppies, nasturitiums, cosmos and zucchini plants Clearly this garden needs tools and more plants. 🙂 I’ve never grown vegetables in Germany–until
Whack! The little girl smacked her tiny rainbow umbrella down on the restaurant’s marble table with an unexpectedly loud crack. No one was hurt; nothing
This post is for all you readers of English language books who are living in or visiting Paris. Maybe you need a book for the
In 2017, I participated in the local community garden for the first time. A new growing season is always a hopeful time for me. No
These blossoms and buds look like visual staccato and legato notes. Short, sharp. Open, sweet. Sometimes learning something that you had given up on changes
This year, my husband gave me a Page-a-Day calendar to learn Italian. Today’s page was a dialogue between two men at a bus stop, getting
This is the fourth post in a short series on preparing for (and thriving during) National Novel Writing Month. You can find the first post
This is the second post in my Writing Gratitude Countdown. It’s my way of re-discovering the richness of the creative life. (Find all the posts:
On the weekend, I practiced a new skill and had a sudden aha! moment about learning to adapt to a new culture by finding the
Roman pipeline to convent to farm. Gut Schillingskapellen, Dünstekoven. © Laurel Decher, 2016. In the small village of Swisstal-Dünstekoven, a one-time convent was built solely
