glorious, healing autumn light

these glorious mornings of spectacular light are precisely what i need to fortify me for the day. breathing in the cool, crisp autumn air, walking through the dew-laden grass, past sparkling spider webs, surrounded by the golden, warm light is the very best start to the day. i'm so happy to have animals to feed so that i get out there and savor these moments every day. some mornings, it's like the golden light flows into my very veins.

some days, i'm more grateful than others for the fortification of the soul that these mornings provide. there are days when it seems like the little things (colleagues who don't return your good morning, loud phone conversations that make it impossible to concentrate, displays of lack of respect for people's depth of knowledge and passion for their work) chip away at your energy, draining it away. but then, i think back to the light and the play of the fog and the cool, crispness of the air, and breathe on through it...letting the memory of the light once again deliver the healing energy and return me to center.

happy weekend, one and all.

character sketch

close examination

the schoolmarm: righteous. old-fashioned. square. bound (trapped?) by tradition, closed to anything new or, odin forbid, which smacks of the outside. outside is anything beyond the city limits and a few places within them. "fear" and "fright" are frequent words in her vocabulary. a veritable slave to the rather arbitrary rules. afraid to dare. afraid to look up. afraid of new ideas. afraid to look beyond immediate borders. tho' very opinionated is actually a bit afraid of her own opinions when it comes to it - always looking to some form of authority to nod at her and let her know it's ok. a natural frowner. a bit hard to discern why she is involved when the most frequent phrases out of her mouth are "i don't have the energy" and "i don't really understand, so i hope there are others who will take care of it."

frequently resorts to the "you're not of our culture" (i believe there's a name for that: racism) argument (in the absence of any real logic or actual arguments) and this evening came with some weird statements about trust which i can make no sense of whatsoever.

i've noticed that when people lack a proper argument, they resort to things like, "oh, you're not from here, you don't understand." "you didn't grow up in our culture, so you don't know how it works." "we have all this under our skin, but you don't understand because you're not one of us." and you know what? those are utterly crap arguments, not mention racist and xenophobic. and it's so disappointing, because i really enjoy a good argument with a worthy opponent. and it doesn't have to be an argument per se, but just a lively discussion. but an unworthy opponent that can't even come with a proper, logical response, those just drain your energy.

happily, i can conserve energy by taking notes and calling upon my inner anthropologist. and i definitely get a lot of satisfaction from sharing it with all of you.

the trick will be to take these character sketches and give them some worthy plotline, because i can tell you that real one is too boring for words.

waterlilies as coping mechanism

in the midst of all of the ratrace of life - running the child to school, picking her up, going to work, running to meetings, learning resisting how things are done in a new company, a new town, a new house, finding a vet for the horse's vaccinations, keeping the horse in carrots and horse treats (who knew they had to have treats?), trying to convince the cat to venture outside, weeding the garden, hoping the elderflowers hurry up before we leave, using up what's in the refrigerator, packing, last minute sewing, running to the post office - i am very happy to have moments of serenity on our new property. the house may be falling down, but the location itself is absolute heaven. who wouldn't feel calm and peaceful with waterlilies like these?

where do you go to find a bit of shelter from the cruel world?

the world looks a little different through the viewfinder

things are a little backwards, blurry and well, hazy on poppelvej today. i set out with cameras and lenses and TtV apparatuses (is that a word?) in hand, to have a think about the contract i received yesterday for my new job, while i enjoyed the sun on the fresh snow and the blue, blue sky. very soon, my feet carried me towards the scary new building in town that says, "skat" on it. and while "skat" is a term of endearment in danish, kind of like "honey," it also has another dreaded meaning. taxes. and the danish government does love its taxes. so i went to check out the tax implications of my new job, which actually aren't as bad as i feared. in fact, they're quite straightforward. the problem may be the work permit. according to the norwegian foreign ministry, it could take months. and i don't want to wait months. i want to start now! and the very nice girl at the embassy couldn't/wouldn't tell me anything either. i'm not from a problem country, am i?

or perhaps i am. let's face it, whether we like it or not, we're in the midst of GEC and it was caused by the mismanagers of the country on my passport. we should probably be blacklisted. i am in serious need of a different passport.

but enough about that. i just had to get it off my chest.

* * *

what i wanted to write about today was how often it happens that when i look through my photos on the computer, i discover things that i didn't notice while i was taking the actual photo. things like these little bitty droplets of water beside this daffodil that i cruelly and intentionally set out in the snow for the sake of macro lens photographs yesterday (click to enlarge and see the droplets on the upper flower).

or this bit of spider web or hair that's holding onto some snowflakes in this close-up of my twisty hazel tree:

or the way these macros i took of a reflection in a little mirror look positively ghostly. through my viewfinder, they were something else entirely.

and they were just reflections in this:

i love the capacity of photography to enable me to see things anew, fresh and differently. it makes the world a bit brighter and twistier. and i like that. even in the face of work permits and taxes. and i didn't even feel too ridiculous walking around with one camera stuffed inside a long tube made of a box from a bottle of calvados that was taped with brown duct tape onto another camera. that didn't look funny at all. or if it did, no one said anything. not that i expected them to. it is denmark, after all.

staying afloat

"All of us swim in the one sea all our lives, trying to stay afloat as best we can, clinging to such lifelines and preservers as we might draw about us: reason and science, faith and religious practice, art and music and imagination," says Thomas Lynch in a book review of David Reiff's book on his mother, Susan Sontag, in a recent LA Times.

what life preserver(s) am i clinging to these days in the stormy sea that is my life? sleep. books. cooking. family. friends. a reawakening creativity. my belief in fate. an overwhelming feeling of being guided towards something better. sheryl crow. alanis morissette. regina spektor.