The Impeccable Hauteur of Jacqueline de Ribes

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Christian Dior, Elizabeth Taylor, Jackie Kennedy, Jacqueline de Ribes, Jacqueline Onassis, Marlon Brando, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Pierre Balmain, Richard Burton, The Art of Style exhibit, zeitgeist

Rozsa Gaston - Author

The Impeccable Hauteur of Jacqueline de Ribes
By Rozsa Gaston for The Westchester Guardian, Dec. 10, 2015

“Elegance. It’s an attitude. A frame of mind. An intuition, a refusal, a rigor, a research, a knowledge. The attitude of elegance is also a way of behaving.”—Jacqueline de Ribes

Jacqueline de Ribes in her own desgin, 1983. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photograph by Victor Skrebneski, ©Skrebneski Photograph, 1983

Gift yourself this holiday season with a visit to see Jacqueline de Ribes: The Art of Style, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute’s latest exhibit. The impeccable hauteur of Parisian designer Jacqueline de Ribes is on display now through February 21, 2016 in a dazzling exhibit featuring 60 haute couture and ready-to-wear ensembles from her personal archive, dating from 1962 on. The clothes are gorgeous, unfussy, and vibrantly colorful. But the exhibit’s focus on Jacqueline de Ribes’ life and imprint…

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Budapest Romance is a “thoughtful romance.”—Publishers Weekly

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Author Rozsa Gaston, Budapest, Budapest Romance, career romance conflicts, chicklit, Christian chicklit, faith, international relationships, love, Publishers Weekly review, relationships, spa romance, thermal bath spas

Publishers Weekly weighs in on my Dec. 2014 latest release Budapest Romance in its June 22, 2015 issue:

“The traditional healing properties and beauty of the thermal spa baths still enjoyed throughout Budapest are the true stars of this thoughtful romance.”—Publishers Weekly

http://publishersweekly.com/978-1-4801-4063-9

Budapest Romance is now available on all major online retail sites. Thank you, Publishers Weekly, for this greatest of all honors, a review in the publishing industry’s most respected news magazine.

Readers—for those of you who read and post a short review of my tender romance set in Budapest’s thermal bath spas, I will be delighted to send you an eBook thank you gift of your choice of any of my other books.

Enjoy and stay playful. —Rozsa Gaston

Széchenyi Baths entrance, Budapest; the site of Kati’s and Jan’s first kiss in Budapest Romance

“WHAN that Aprille with his shoures soote The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich licour, Of which vertu engendred is the fleur.”—Chaucer, Prologue to Canterbury Tales

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April, Black is Not a Color, Canterbury Tales, Chaucer, Greenwich, Party with Moms, PIFS, Putnam Indian Field School, Rozsa Gaston

Party with Moms interviews Rozsa Gaston today as their Mom of the Week. Read here and if you enjoy, sign up for the Party with Moms weekly newsletter. http://partywithmoms.com/party-with-moms-interviews-rozsa-gaston-prolific-author/

Once, just a few Aprils ago, I was a freshman in college and forced to memorize the first twelve lines of the prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

Imagine my delight when I realized that Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales were terribly tickly, not to mention positively ribald in parts! Not some old, moldy, medieval stanzas, but colorful, naughty and well worth the effort to make out the Olde English words.

Here’s first twelve lines of the most sensational poem written about April I’ve ever come across. Enjoy!

WHAN that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the fleur;

Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,

And smale fowles maken melodye,
That slepen al the night with open ye,
So priketh hem nature in hir corages:
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,

And palmers for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,

The holy blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke.

Excerpt from Black is Not a Color

“Did you sleep?” Narcisa whispered to me as the owner of the male voice headed toward the nearest silver-tray-carrying waiter to capture two glasses of white wine for us.
“Did I what?”
“Did you sleep?” she asked again.
“Yes. I slept well, thank you” I answered confusedly. Did I look tired to her?
“You don’t have to tell me who it was. But tell me—who was it?”
“Uh—it was me. I mean I slept well. Didn’t you?”
“Ohhh no. I didn’t sleep. I had friends who helped me,” Narcisa whispered back, one eyebrow lifted significantly.
“Ohhh, I see. Uh—no I didn’t sleep. I—uh- took the tests last spring and they called me the beginning of August.” Startled by the conversational curveball, I stepped back from Narcisa, still intrigued but alerted that I had no idea who I was dealing with. The U.N. was on international territory. American rules no longer applied.
“The tests. Everyone takes the tests. So what? How did you get the job?” she pressed.
“Like I said, I took the tests. That was it. I waited, I gave up hope, then they called.” I shrugged in what I hoped was the classic Gallic way, perfected by my recent stay in Paris.
Narcisa studied me as I spoke. It was like taking a lie-detector test. Suddenly I felt as if I’d slept even when I hadn’t.
“So you just took the tests and they called you. That was it?”
“Yes,” I said, crisply. I tried to look like I wasn’t lying, even when I wasn’t. It was confusing talking to Narcisa.

Black is Not a Color © 2014 by Rozsa Gaston

“The point in life…is to find equilibrium in what is inherently unstable.”~Pierre

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aging parents, bad boys, Black is Not a Color, book club, caregiving, Chanel, eldercare, european intellectual history, Hungarian culture, Hungary, Jamie Cat Callan, Jane Stern, Meredith Schorr, my book club; book club recommendation;, Paris Adieu, Reverdy, Rimbaud, romance, Rozsa Gaston, women's fiction

The point in life…is to find equilibrium in what is inherently unstable.~Pierre Reverdy from Coco Chanel by Lisa Chaney

Who is Pierre Reverdy? An early twentieth century French poet and influencer of others. He made Arthur Rimbaud look like a choir boy.

Reverdy was a dear friend of Gabrielle Coco Chanel. Handsome, independent, a trifle brutish, he appealed to the peasant woman buried deep inside the exquisite Chanel.

In other words, Chanel’s bad boy. Need I say more? 

Find out more about bad boys in my latest book Black is Not a Color, sequel to Paris Adieu. Out in audiobook, it’s the story of Ava Fodor’s struggle to care for her father while cultivating her relationship with her new French boyfriend Pierre. Not a bad boy. Too good for Ava, in her mind, in fact.

Can Ava measure up? First she needs to measure up to caring for her father, who didn’t raise her as a child. Not easy.

Ava is not the only grown up child of a parent who didn’t raise her. There are many men and women with such a tale out there. Coco Chanel was one. If Ava’s idol Chanel could get beyond a rough start in life, so can Ava. So can you.

Listen to Ava’s story in Black is Not a Color and take inspiration. Move out of the shadows of a less than ideal childhood and take your place in the sun. Coco Chanel is your lodestar. And Ava’s story in Black is Not a Color will help you find the hero within yourself.

Warmly,

Rozsa Gaston

“At night we are all strangers, even to ourselves.” —Alexander McCall Smith

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Cityscape, detective agency, Fordham University, George Bodarky, jogging, relationships, Rozsa Gaston, running, Running from Love, WFUV, women's fiction

What are you running from? Are you running from love?

Join George Bodarky on Cityscape this Saturday, July 6, 7:30-8 am for a discussion of Running from Love: A Story for Runners and Lovers. WFUV’s Cityscape is a radio show on WFUV 90.7 FM and wfuv.org.

George Bodarky, host of Cityscape, will interview author Rozsa Gaston about running with the Van Cortlandt Track Club, running in Van Cortlandt Park, Bronx, and topics touched upon in her book Running from Love such as overcoming downhill running and relationship fears. The discussion should be of interest to runners in general and specifically to runners on track clubs who have thought about or experienced dating a fellow member of their club. Tune in to 90.7 FM, WFUV, Fordham University’s alternative music  station and learn how to stop running from  love. I’ll be listening myself. Hope I learn something and I hope you do too.

Warmly, Rozsa

P.S. Who’s Alexander McCall Smith? A simply amazing writer and the author of The  No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, a fictitious tale of a female detective set in Botswana. I love this book!

You, the everlasting instant.

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calm, Christ crucified, Easter, Good Friday, Jesus, paradox, redemption, self-discovery, serenity, slavation, Sylvia Dunstan

You, Lord, are both Lamb and Shepherd,

You, Lord, are both prince and slave.

You, peacemaker and sword bringer,

Of the way you took and gave.

You the everlasting instant;

You, whom we both scorn and crave.

Clothed in light upon the mountain,

Stripped of might upon the cross,

Shining in eternal glory,

Beggared by a soldier’s toss,

You, the everlasting instant,

You, who are both gift and cost!

You, who walk each day beside us,

Sit in power at God’s side.

You, who preach a way that’s narrow,

Have a love that reaches wide.

You, the everlasting instant;

You, who are our pilgrim guide.

Worthy is our earthly Jesus!

Worthy is our cosmic Christ!

Worthy your defeat and victory.

Worthy still your peace and strife.

You the everlasting instant

You, who are our death and life.

– Sylvia Dunstan

Sylvia Dunstan (1955-1993) was early encouraged by her family in her love of music and song, and she began studying with Sister St. Gregory in St. Joseph’s Convent near her home. She began writing songs in her teens, finding inspiration in the Catholic liturgical music of the early 1970s in the style of Ray Repp and the Medical Mission Sisters. One of the Mission Sisters, Sister Miriam Therese Winter, helped her learn how to write Scripture-based folk songs. Michael Hawn quotes Dunstan about these songs, “Most of these songs are now under a well-deserved and merciful curtain of oblivion,” and Dunstan moved on to concentrate on composing hymn texts rather than music.

Dunstan earned a bachelor degree from York University and received graduate degrees in theology and divinity from Emmanuel College, Toronto. She was ordained by the United Church of Canada in 1980, served as a prison chaplain for ten years, as editor of the Canadian worship resource journal, Gathering, and went on to serve as minister at the Malvern Emmanuel United Church in Scarborough, Ontario.

At the 1990 summer conference of The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, she was invited to lead a session exploring her hymnody. The Hymn Society released a collection of thirty-seven of her hymns and three gospel songs titled In Search of Hope and Grace in 1990. A second collection of seventeen hymns, Where the Promise Shines, was published posthumously by GIA Publications in 1995.

In March 1993 Sylvia Dunstan was diagnosed with liver cancer, and she died four months later on July 25 at the young age of thirty-eight. Her reputation continues to grow as one of the leading hymn writers of the twentieth century, and her work appears increasingly in published hymnals and choral works.

From http://www.gbod.org/lead-your-church/hymn-studies/resource/you-lord-are-both-lamb-and-shepherd-christus-paradox

Surf’s up – get playful.

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care giving, fitness and exercise, French culture, fu, March, Nancy Moon, Paris Adieu, self-care, spring's arrival, surfing, Vitamin D, women's health, women's issues follow your bliss, women's well-being

Nancy Moon rides the waves

Surf’s up – get playful.

March’s debut heralds spring’s arrival. Throw off those February doldrums and get playful. You.

What’s that? You spend all your time helping others so you can’t find time to play? Care giving at both ends of the generational spectrum? Tired of everything, starting with yourself?

Stop boring me to tears. Get up from your desk, get outside, and get playful. That’s an order.

Here’s a babe who knows how to do just that. Does this chick look like she’s sitting around compiling a grocery list for dinner? Don’t think so. The Moon Girl is in the moment, following her bliss. What about you?

Facing the wave

By the way, Moon Girl is not twenty-five years old or under. She just looks like she is because she feels like she is. Not all the time, but at the moment these images capture.

Can’t afford to drop everything and take a trip to a surfing destination, never mind that you don’t know how to surf? That’s not an excuse.

Moon Girl glows in golden sun

Get out there and get some sun on your face. Today. That’s right, go out and greet Mr. Golden Sun and feel the vitamin D pour into your soul, filling every cell of your body with vitality. It’s easy, really.

The sun glows golden in the late afternoon right before it begins to descend. It’s a bit like the way the French refer to a woman of a certain age as “une femme mûre” or “a ripe woman.” The French highly admire attractive women in their golden late afternoon chapter. Many Americans do too. Connoissieurs of finely seasoned beauty can be found in many unexpected places. Find out more in Chapter Ten of Paris Adieu.

Did you see that man on the corner giving you the eye as you sauntered past? What? You didn’t notice? Next time you take a walk, saunter. Find your inner French femme. When you start to do that, the connoissieurs of this world will take note. Promise. You may even want to meet some of them. You won’t, if you’re in a rush.

Now back to your March marching orders. Go outside this afternoon and let the sun’s golden rays sink into your psyche. Later in the afternoon, coincident with that mid-afternoon energy slump, the sun’s rays are less bad for your skin than  between the hours of 10 am and 3 pm. Have you got a packed day today? Don’t have a single second to yourself?

Fuggedaboutit. Make it happen, darling. Take ten minutes and instead of hitting the vending machine, go downstairs, out the door, and say hello to the world that is your stage. Connect with nature. Open your ears to hear what that bird is singing about. He’s heralding spring’s arrival. A few weeks early, granted, but he’s out there noticing all the signs, just as you should be.

Moon Girl says thumbs up to life

Thumbs up to life, friends. If yours isn’t as glamorous as Moon Girl’s, remember — these shots capture just one golden afternoon. The rest of the time she’s running around like the rest of us, busy, attending to the needs of others, spilling her vitality right and left. But inside, she has bottomless energy to give. Because she knows she’s Moon Girl. Be a Moon Girl too. Follow your bliss. You owe it to yourself. Start today.

Playfully yours,

Rozsa

Be extraordinary.

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Ava Gaston, book club, Club Med Punta Cana, coming-of-age, contemporary fiction, exercise, exercise and fitness, Feast for the senses, Paris Adieu, Punta Cana, romance, self-actualization, self-discovery, trapeze, women's fiction

Be extraordinary today. You owe it to yourself.

Attending trapeze school at Club Med Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic last week gave me a chance to be extraordinary. Give yourself a chance to be extraordinary too. Join me here on the adventure of the trapeze then move in your own direction and find your own moment to be extraordinary.

Let’s walk through the steps for our beginning trapeze experience. First, we climb the ladder.

Up on the platform, we experience our first terrifying moment, especially as the platform sways in the wind.

Immediately two cables are hooked onto either side of our tightly cinched safety belt. We have a brief second of relief followed by another moment of sheer terror when the instructors tell us to let go of the cable with our right arm, lean forward out into space and grab the trapeze.  This horrifying moment is then magnified one hundredfold by the next command. “Let go of the cable and grab the trapeze with your remaining arm.” Once you’ve accomplished this, you are committed. Ready?

I wasn’t either. The instructors tell you to hop off the platform the moment they say “Hep!” What nerve! Of course I did no such thing, so you can imagine my shock when they then pushed me off the platform. HELP!!!!

Here I look lame as I basically hang on for my life. The next task is the most difficult of the entire exercise. At the EXACT moment the instructors yell “tuck!” you tuck your knees up to your chest and try to get your toe under the trapeze bar. Once you’ve accomplished the toehold, you’re golden. After two rounds of severe humiliation, I managed the toehold on my third attempt. What a great feeling! Once the knees are hooked on, you think you have pretty much accomplished everything you need to do for the rest of your life. But just when you are feeling fabulous about yourself, the instructors yell “Hands off bar and swing!” What cheek. As if I hadn’t already done enough. After the terrifying second when you let go of the trapeze with both arms and realize you are not dead, this is your moment to look even more fabulous than the less glamorous knee hook moment. Here I am pointing my fingers in order to make my accomplishment look even more technically sophisticated.

This is truly the moment to take wing like a swan, so let’s review that very first image again as I soar backward and arch my back. Do you see how masterfully I’ve managed to point both index fingers? Sheer genius, no?

The next incredible accomplishment is the back flip dismount. Yes. Really. The instructors yell at you to kick your legs forward, backward, then forward with force and let go of the trapeze. Again, what cheek. A formidable back flip ensues, thanks to the instructors pulling on your cables, and voila! you end up on the safety net, hopefully in a respectable standing position. After you again realize you survived and are now on your feet, you dismount the safety net with a neat forward flip that looks fairly impressive.

On solid ground again, your body literally shakes with pride of accomplishment. Or happiness to still be alive. Not only are you alive, but you are blissfully alive. Enjoy!

Rozsa and Ava Gaston with Dominican beauty

Playfully yours,

Rozsa

Author

Paris Adieu

Running from Love