the body knows

i've been sick all week. fever. headache. ringing ears. persistent cough. it's that time of year, but also surely my body saying "enough!" i haven't been that happy at work of late. my wonderful boss left. what's left of our department has been tossed to and fro across the organization, used as pawns in political game-playing, for more than a year now. we've landed with a manager we were told was interim, but who is looking more and more permanent and who hasn't, shall we say...settled into the role as of yet. even tho' it's been six months. good colleagues are fleeing. there's too much work and too little appreciation. and come january, there is micromanagement on the horizon. and i think that my body took a look at all of this and said, "you need some rest honey. you need to snuggle under the covers with netflix and a kitten and get some rest. you need to stop worrying about things you can't change or control and get right in yourself. and if it takes giving you a temperature of 39.6 for two days, followed by slowly ramping down to almost normal as of today, then so be it young lady." my body still thinks i'm a young lady, you see. and my body knows me and what i need. but it also knows that i don't listen to it very well, so this time, it took extreme measures, and i listened. and i'm starting to feel better.

making my way through the fog

we have the most beautiful, long, strangely warmish autumn this year. since my dear bloggy and real life friend, cyndy, died, i've found myself consciously paying more attention to the beauty of the world around me and stopping to appreciate it. i've been pulling the car over and carrying a real camera with me again, rather than only relying on my iPhone (tho' that camera is pretty good these days).  the other day, the camera actually had a hard time finding focus in the fog, but i liked the shot anyway. it kind of conveys my life of late - the path ahead is a bit foggy and uncertain. things are a bit in turmoil at work, with multiple reorgs over the past year that have bounced our department all over the organisation, landing it finally in a strange place where it doesn't really fit. it's draining. i'm a person who can tolerate a high level of uncertainty, but being tossed all over the organization and not really feeling as if all the work you do is particularly appreciated takes its toll after more than a year. so, i've been feeling a bit like i'm not sure what's next. do you wait for things to get better or do you seize other opportunities? i'm doing a little bit of both at the moment. the actual work i do is wonderful and engaging and i get to work with some amazing photographers and filmmakers and tell great stories and that's been keeping me going. i've also been seizing every opportunity i can of late to travel and it helps to be away from the cramped, dark space we've been been banished to in another building since just after the summer holiday. i've really come to realize how important your workspace is to your satisfaction at work. and how important it is to have enough space around you and not feel like the desks are all crammed together. we've very crowded now and when people are on the phone, it's completely impossible to get any work done. i find myself dreading going to the office these days and i never felt that way before. your surroundings just matter so much. and so, i travel all i can. this week, it's berlin and istanbul. and i can't wait!

fog

the temperature is rising after days (months?) of unseasonable cold. a fog moved in silently over the landscape, thickening and settling in as i drew nearer to my weekday home. it at once obscured and made the bare, black trees more noticeable, more striking in their height, their branches more numerous and intricate against the greyish white of the fog. a hush settled over the landscape, like it had been swaddled in cotton, dampening all sound, save the odd birdcall, i imagined from the cocoon of my car, similarly grey and nondescript as it sped along the road. i didn't actually hear any birds, but their calls would both carry and be muffled by the fog and i could hear them in my head. fog transforms the ordinary into something extraordinary. your imagination fills in what's hidden. i exclaimed that i found the trees magical; my friend's daughter shivered and said she found them spooky. to her they were somehow alien and foreboding. the fog the same, our stories of it different. there's a life lesson in that somewhere.

the view from sunday night

foggy and snowy - it made for a grey landscape, but it was still and quite beautiful, and at least it makes it seem less dark, even if it is still a bit dreary. i took a solitary walk down to the lake with the camera, following deer tracks in the snow. there's a regular deer highway down there. what is it about a walk that settles the soul?

three swans and a bunch of ducks? geese? they were a bit far away for me to see, even with the zoom, and i'm not a birdwatcher anyway. there's but a thin layer of ice on the lake, no skating this year, but just that open spot they're hanging out in. i wouldn't walk out to it tho', that's for sure.

as i crunched through the snowy landscape, i thought about how nice it was that i didn't take my phone with me. so for a few minutes, i could escape from the latest antics of the cheeto in chief. i could have a small break from the constant humiliations he rains down on us...i very sincerely often feel embarrassed when i read the latest news...deportations of lawful greencard holders, absurd claims, baldfaced lies. there's just. so. much. and my overwhelming feeling genuinely is embarrassment. it's embarrassing to think that people in the land of my birth are indisputably that stupid. they knew he was a sexist, lying, cheating, racist son of a bitch with the attention span of a gnat and they elected him anyway. it's humiliating.

but, for a few minutes out there in the hush of the foggy, snowy, still morning. i could just breathe in and let go.

* * *

fire and fury - a postmodern book for a postmodern presidency.
and to think i once loved postmodernism.

* * *

podcast pioneer (or rather) storyteller extraordinaire joe frank has died.

i only recently heard some of his stuff on home of the brave.

fog rolls in

i have the weirdest sense that i do not know how i feel. after two and a half weeks of acute nerve pain, is it getting better? somehow, this morning, i just don't know. it's like i lost my ability to sense myself. it still hurts in my leg, but is it hurting less? can i walk around for a little longer? stand for a little longer in the shower? maybe, but i'm not sure. am i just used to the pain? are my meds helping? do i feel like myself? what does myself feel like? i don't know if it's a medicine-induced fog or if i've simply lost any ability i had to be in touch with myself and my own body. i feel apart. like i'm looking at myself from a distance and i'm not wearing my glasses...

midsummer

we may be having the coldest summer on record, but for a scene like this, you can don a sweater and your wellies and just get out there and snap some pictures, even if it is nearly midnight.

and breathe in the cool, still air. 

and feel the stillness and the quiet.

and be at peace.

into the fog (or perhaps out of it)

it's been pretty foggy in the mornings of late. i actually really love the fog, except in the areas where there are often deer, but it's ok to have to slow down a little bit and take my time. i've been rushing around with last minute preparations for being away for nearly three weeks! back to the land of my birth for work and fun. first to seattle, where i've not been in ten years and then to new york city for the very first time. it's been hectic and crazy in these weeks leading up to the trip, so i'm ready to see some new sights and have some new experiences. the kittens will likely be all grown up when i return, as will my child, who is off to london for a week during the autumn holiday and has all kinds of plans for getting around there on her own. poor husband, he'll be home all alone and have to take care of all of the animals while we're both away. i think he'll manage, tho' i do imagine that the cats will have to get used to another level of service than that to which they've become accustomed. i'm sure i'll check in from along the journey, so stay tuned...

hello there monday morning

our weather has taken an autumnal turn, but it makes for gorgeous mornings. we've had such a good summer (the first one since i've been in denmark), that this year, i don't feel my usual impending sense of doom over the approach of autumn and our dark time of year. that's nice, as autumn was always my favorite, since it so often brought with it new books for new classes and cuddly warm clothes.

the farmers are busy, harvesting the fields. tractors rumble past our house out in the countryside all day long and well after dark. i love the golden stubble and the big bales dotting the landscape.

and the morning fog is wonderful. it lends such a quiet hush to the world and gets the day started at a pace a monday morning brain can comprehend.

happy monday, one and all.

capturing moments in time

you may have noticed that i gave up on the small stones thing. it didn't feel like me. my noticing moments in my daily life are the photos i take. i've trained myself carefully and dutifully in that for four years, so i'm just going to go with it.

the other reason i'm abandoning the project is that i'm reading another david whyte book. the three marriages. it's essentially a book of deep philosophical self-help and to underline his ideas, he uses a lot of poetry. he quoted a long section of wordsworth. a poem in which wordsworth documents a walk and a spiritual awakening of sorts. and i'll admit it made the small stone thing seem a little hollow and empty. here's the wordsworth:

The Prelude

Two miles I had to walk along the fields
Before I reached my home. Magnificent
The morning was, a memorable pomp,
More glorious than I ever had beheld,
The sea was laughing at a distance; all
The solid mountains were as bright as clouds,
Grain tinctured, drenched in empyrean light;
And in the meadows and the lower grounds
Was all the sweetness of a common dawn,
Dews, vapours, and the melody of birds,
And Labourers going forth into the fields.
Ah! need I say, dear Friend, but to the brim
My heart was full; I made no vows, but vows
Were then made for me; bond unknown to me
Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly,
A dedicated Spirit. On I walk'd
In blessedness, which even yet remains.

tell me, what do you think?

somehow wordsworth manages to capture a moment in time and preserve it in poetry - far more powerfully than any small stone.

more about the whyte book soon. i'm only about 1/3 of the way through.

~~~

whoa, some seriously creative textile art going on here (scroll down for the hair nest).

fog brings clarity

i love a foggy morning. with the fog, there's a hush, a dampening of the noise of the world. out of the fog comes, most strangely, a kind of clarity. likely due to the stillness and the quiet - we finally breathe deeply and our heads clear in the silence. as i wandered the yard, taking these photos, only a few minutes ago, the only sound (other than the occasional crow of one of our many roosters), was the occasional plop of big drops falling from the trees. it brought such a feeling of calm over me.

i find my thoughts already turning to the end of the year and to the new year ahead, from what has been to what may yet be. looking towards what may be approaching out of the fog, but feeling quite unafraid of it, instead, looking forward with a tingle of excitement that comes of the stirrings of imagination as to what may be.

* * *

slavoj zizek is a lunatic. he keeps his clothes in the kitchen cupboards.
(hmm, might be worth pondering why i feel that's a symptom of lunacy.)

* * *

it was time someone said this about anthropologie. 

* * *

the meeting i attended on wednesday (which, for the first time i can remember, has actually inspired me to think i have a novel in me and not just non-fiction) was well-reported in our local paper.  (only in danish, but if you can read it, you should). the best bit about it that you should know is that while brock is a name, if you leave out the c, it means both complain and hernia and that in pronunciation, the two words are indistinguishable. and if you only knew how very fitting that was in the context. there is a changing of the guard from old to young and it's painful for all concerned. don't you think that's a good underlying story for a novel?

* * *

the e boards: Education (a shared board, work-related, hence the capital letter), environmentally conscious. ethnic. excess of eggs.

soul lag

my soul is lagging behind this morning. it stayed over there in the world i inhabit in my dreams. this morning that was a world filled with a very rickety elevator, where the springs of the floor were exposed, and they looked much like the springs of an old bed, tho' it seemed to work just fine. there was also a big tray of cupcakes - filled with jam and cream and frosted in patriotic red, white and blue. and an impending snowmobile trip with a group of strange old men. the lag wasn't helped by a foggy morning. the fog seeming to prolong the fog in my head as i wandered the garden, camera in hand, hoping to somehow capture the soul lag feeling in pixels.

it's left me feeling a not unpleasant feeling of apartness with the world. shifted just a bit. perspective changed. viewing things through the fog. all shapes changed to something other than what they usually are. but they hold a potential which was lurking in them all along, waiting for the fog. and the soul lag.

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.