100 happy days :: day 89

dandelions.

100 happy days :: day 66

somehow with this happiness project, happiness has become something visual. and as i look back on a day that was rather busy and hectic and rainy and grey and dark, i don't really have any visual happinesses to reflect upon. maybe the beech leaves, which are springing out in their special, brilliant light green shade, but it was getting too dark and too rainy to snap a photo of them as i drove hurriedly home, chinese takeout cooling in the back seat. these moments of happiness have largely been something i wanted to preserve in photos, but maybe happiness at times is just an overall grateful feeling. gratefulness for laughter at work and good conversations and good collaborations. and did i mention laughter? and moments in the car, having a talk with my child, since she wasn't glued to her iPhone, due to it having been sent in for repairs and having been given a lame old samsung that couldn't even download facebook messenger (oh the horror), leaving her left with only talking to me to entertain herself. and that talk ranged over various pronunciations of words and accents and the vast differences in danish, despite this place being about the size of wisconsin. and how her pronunciations and accent are a large part of her identity - she was born in copenhagen and clings to her sjælland accent. i can't say i blame her. how we speak and sound does play a large part in our identity and in how the world sees us. and that conversation was definitely a happy moment in the midst of today. it's there, in the middle of everyday life, that the happiness really happens. sometimes you just have to stop and think about it.

remember to irrigate your joy

several summers ago, we had some wonderful couchsurfers from the canary islands, who came up to bike around a cold, rainy denmark for several weeks. they stayed with us at the beginning and the end of their trip and we fell a bit in love with them and their positive, happy way of looking at the world. they introduced me to the wonderful phrase, "irrigating your joy," as well as teaching us how to make the delicious pepper-based sauce mojo, which has been, in the summer at least, a twice-weekly affair around here ever since. we've stayed in touch sporadically and yesterday, this delightful little watercolor arrived in the mail. i was so touched that césar remembered us and so many of the details of our life...husband was working on the treehouse when they were here, and sabin was riding over at the neighbor's house and i immediately planted some of the beautiful, special little black potatoes that they brought in our own garden, to see if they would grow. i loved being reminded to irrigate our joy (sometimes it's hard to remember that as you slog through your everyday existence).

i've got to get to ikea and get a frame, but until then, i've hung it above my desk with a bit of washi tape, where it will make me smile and remind me to irrigate the joy every day. i think remembering to do that is as good a new year's resolution as any.

winter's last gasp

when i looked out the window this morning at a world covered in white, i exclaimed, "that is total crap!" but i couldn't hold onto that feeling when i stepped outside to do animal chores. the landscape is transformed, clean, beautiful, softer somehow. the air was still, sounds dampened, it was magical.

the chickens run around, lifting their feet as if they're trying out monty python's silly walks.

this little hen is taking a break from sitting on her nest of 16 eggs to bathe in the fresh, clean snow and survey the world.

she's queen of the little rabbit houses husband built so there could eventually be a little rabbit street (oddly, we've never put them into use).

lurking below the fluffy, white surfaces, fat buds, waiting to burst forth.

despite the snow, spring is in the air and the air is full of freshness and that pre-coital bird chatter that happens only in the spring.

even frankie frolicked and attacked falling bits of snow here and there, enjoying himself before coming in to warm his feet and have a morning nap.

the fruit bushes and the garden may be covered with snow right now, but it's fleeting and it won't be long before the bushes burst forth with leaves and blossoms and we begin to work in the garden. the green hope hangs in the very air, still, breathless, waiting quietly beneath the snow, secure that its moment is coming.

the bees are still tucked in, but their work will begin soon as well.

it may be winter's last gasp, but spring is definitely in the air.

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map lovers, check out this.

a walk in the woods

i'm finally surfacing after a week-long battle with the flu. it was a mean one - i've not been knocked down by a flu like this in years. i didn't even turn on my computer tuesday, wednesday, thursday and most of friday, so you know it was bad. i mostly laid in bed reading harry potter. i was even too weak to sit upright and knit or watch t.v. i didn't even get out the iPad and the netflix, as that seemed like too much trouble. poor husband didn't get a nice anniversary dinner and i still owe him a birthday cake. but perhaps this coming week i'll remedy that.

our winter is quite mild and to clear my head of the last of the lingering germs, husband and i went for a walk on this very still, just above freezing day. the air was cold and crisp and fresh in my lungs and felt like just what i needed. our snow is gone, leaving the world a bit grey, but if you look closely, there are bits of magic here and there.

i hope to keep glimpsing them in the week ahead as i slowly surface from my flu.

it's a good year for mushrooms

the mushrooms are amazing this year. it's been a very good year for them around here - very wet and strangely warm (it was 20°C yesterday) - perfect conditions. i swear there's something magical in the way they spring up overnight in whole groves. and then they linger on until they're picturesquely withered and look ancient. i've got nature on the brain because i'm reading roger deakin's wildwood. in it he waxes poetic on forests and the pleasures of sleeping out in a shed in a remote corner of his property. and pencils. and i hope he does something about mushrooms too, but so far he hasn't (i'm not that far in). if he doesn't, i'll have to do so myself.

intersections 4: magic on film

you may have noticed that i am quite an immediate sort of person. the photos i use here are usually taken on the day i post them (tho' my clarity birds from a couple of days ago were taken last summer).  i have a bad habit of not really looking back, even in my iPhoto. which means that i completely forgot that i hadn't shared all of the wonderful photos from the second roll of the film swap with shokoofeh. so here are some more for you here on the cusp of the weekend.

i think i'll just let them speak for themselves.

happy weekend, one and all.

intersections 3: everyday life and light

scenes of everyday life in two countries. cultures separated by miles and climate and even religion (tho' religion is absent here, unless it's a general worship of light). but the photos are full of serendipities and in their everyday subject matter seem to layer a sense of quiet peacefulness on one another. one wishes the geopolitical scene would learn from this...

these are from the second roll of film swap photos that shokoofeh and i took in the late summer and autumn. my camera shop nearly lost this film forever, as it got separated from the rest of my order. the tears pooling in my eyes made the disorganized owner look through his drawer an extra time. he finally found it, labeled with the wrong name, after i mentioned that it was double exposures. i will not be going back to vefa foto on kirkegade in vejle, i can tell you that. both because of that and because he charged me 30 kroner extra per film in comparison to what was written on the packet. i guess that was my special "tax" for speaking danish with a foreign accent.

but back to these photos...they were worth the wait, the extra money and the almost tears. i think this roll is even better than the first one. more on shokoofeh's photostream and her blog. and as shokoofeh mentioned there, if you blog about these photos on your own blog (which is fine with us), do let us know, as there just might be something special in it for you.  thus far, the ones we know about:

eating a tangerine

wayside violet

do let us know if you've blogged it too!

brugskunst

there's a really wonderful concept in danish - brugskunst - usable art. it includes all kinds of everyday items - bowls, glassware, vases, silverware and the like. largely kitchen items. ceramics, glass or wood - all well-designed, functional, but also beautiful. and i think it's a marvelous idea - why shouldn't our everyday be filled with beauty? because that's where life actually happens, in the little things you do every day. whether you're stirring up eggs for an omelet or putting sugar in your tea, it should be an aesthetic experience.

spotted at the blue market in haslev

spotted at the blue market in haslev

spotted at the blue market in haslev

the teapot and sugar bowl in our kitchen

i mentioned that i was going to back my new quilt top with fleece because it makes for a more cuddly blanket to cuddle up in while watching t.v. it makes it more usable - in the same spirit as the danish concept of brugskunst. functional beauty. but also in the spirit of using what i've got and what i had was fleece. i'll show you the result tomorrow when the light's better.

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enjoyed this (if you've read the stieg larsson millennium trilogy but don't really know why, you will too).

into the fog

it was deliciously foggy this morning. i took at least 20 minutes extra getting to work because i couldn't stop taking pictures along the way. fog is somehow so mysterious and magical. it has a spookiness to it as well, but this morning, it wasn't the spooky kind, it was pure magic. it was warm, balmy and still as could be. it was quiet save a few audible drips from the overnight rain falling from the trees. the fog settled the magic heavily down on the landscape.

there was a hush over the countryside and even when i photographed a friendly cow that seemed to want to pose for me, i felt like i should do it quietly, not to disturb the magic in the air. i had this feeling that to make noise would be to make the fog disperse and the magic dissolve and i definitely didn't want that to happen.

fog lends a timeless quality to the landscape. i had to fight the urge to just leave the car and walk down this path into another place and time and forget all about making my way to work. in my imagination, because of the fog, the path would have led somewhere completely special and unique, somewhere not accessible on an ordinary morning. somewhere accessible only in the fog.

in the glen

down at the bottom of our pasture is a lake (i may have mentioned it before, mostly on flickr). husband and i were exploring a couple of weeks ago and we found a beautiful little glen. it was a sunny, beautiful day, with sunshine peeking through the trees, but i found the glen so deliciously hushed and mysterious.

there was a feeling there of waiting. like the place was holding its breath expectantly, as if something was about to happen.

yet at the same time, it felt like it could wait eternally. like if that something didn't happen exactly then, at that moment, that was ok too. it could wait.

the air felt heavy with a kind of magic. i half expected a faun to step out from behind a tree and invite me home to tea, ala the lion, the witch and the wardrobe. and i more than half hoped that would happen.

it's a special place, like a portal to a secret world. or at the very least, a place where some sort of natural magic is more concentrated than in other places. hidden, waiting, patient and deep and calm. oh so very calm. and oh so impossible to convey in pictures.