we're on the other side!

you guys! we're on the other side - of the solstice and of the busy blur that is christmas - well into that fallow week between christmas and the new year. the days all blur together, though i did work on tuesday. was that only yesterday? it's that time when you look back on the year that's passed and look ahead to the coming year. 

so far, i've fallen for an ad for a free year of the balance app, so i just did a 3 minute meditation. or rather, i started it and then remembered that the header of the pages i published earlier was wrong in the way it came in from translation and so i ran to the computer and fixed it and republished during the 3 minutes. so much for meditating. at least the app is free for a year! and here's to starting somewhere. 

we're all feeling a bit under the weather. i think it's the grey, dreary, rainy weather, plus excesses of food and drink, late night card games and not enough rest or time alone. sabs and i just took some nyquil and we're headed for bed early because tomorrow we've got a  a long agenda. husband's picking up a spinning bike, then we're visiting a museum and doing a bit of shopping in aarhus before sabs meets her friends from boarding school for dinner. we'll go to dinner and maybe a movie ourselves while we wait for her. 

she's headed back to her life in sunny arizona very early on the 31st. she'll make it in time to ring in the new year with friends. her visit felt short, but it doesn't seem so bad, because she's coming home again in march for spring break with a couple of friends, so it's not that far off. we're finding the impending visit motivating, as we want to have the new bathroom and a bedroom ready for them. 

i know that on sunday, i'll feel like this in-between liminal week went way too fast, but for now, i'm just taking as it comes. and watching way too much real housewives of beverly hills on hayu...speaking of other instagram ads i've fallen for in recent days (49kr for 3 months of hayu - real housewives all the time!).

another trip around the sun

i suspect 53 would have felt like a hazy and blurry year, even if it wasn't tainted by the coronavirus bringing everything to a standstill. it's one of those blah ages that don't seem to count for much. it's neither here nor there, and the difference between 53 and 54 isn't really a significant one. i guess i'm inclined to think that i'll like 54 better, mostly because i'm partial to even numbers, though frankly odd numbers of things look better. hmm, i wonder how that bodes for 54? not that i look all that great after the sedentary year in front of my computer.

however, i have all kinds of good intentions for 54. i want to do 10,000 steps a day. i'm going to take up my daily 750 words once again on the 750 words site and i'm determined that four days a week, those words will go towards the novel. i have about 7,000 steps to go today, since most of it was spent at my computer working. also it's rather cold, windy and grey outside, so not all that inviting for a long walk.  see, i'm already full of excuses. but hey, it's my birthday, so i can decide, right? maybe the 10,000 steps starts tomorrow. but first, a glass of wine.

that's the kind of thinking that got me through 53. and this whole corona bullshit. that's still not over, despite how weary we grow of it. and they're slower than mud at vaccinations here in denmark. 

but back to this birthday thing. it does feel like i'm in a place were they don't matter that much anymore. it's still awhile to 60, which will be the next significant date and since they're putting off retirement age, i'm not even sure that's that significant anymore, so maybe it's actually 70 and it's a long time until then. heck, look at joe biden, he became president at 78 and he seems to have found himself - he's not making any of those old gaffes he was known for, he's just getting down to business and being seriously presidential. it's so refreshing and my ptsd from the trump years is fading and i'm even sleeping through the night sometimes. i no longer wake up in a cold sweat, worried about what embarrassing and horrible thing the president has done. it's such a relief. 

apropos my birthday, i picked up a long-ago ordered book from the library today. i ordered it so long ago that i didn't even really remember - i think it was back in october. it's nobel prize for literature winner louise glück's averno.  on the back cover is a fragment of her poem october (capitalization hers):

Come to me, said the world. I was standing

in my wool coat at a kind of bright portal--

I can finally say

long ago; it gives me considerable pleasure. Beauty

the healer, the teacher--

death cannot harm me

more than you have harmed me,

my beloved life.

and that feels like the right note to end these musings on another trip around the sun.

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whoa, cool AI-assisted story here. i'm not sure what i feel about it.
i think i am at once intrigued and horrified.

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i think i am sad that zoom dysmorphia is even a thing.

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juicy talk of fauxbrége fakes in an hermitage exhibit.

i learned about them in dearest, a very fun jewelry-oriented substack.

on the threshold

most of us take doors for granted. we pass through doorways tens of times each day, without reflection. the door is, however, a powerful feature of human mentality and life-practice. it controls access, provides a sense of security and privacy, and marks the boundary between differentiated spaces. the doorway is also the architectural element allowing passage from one space to the next. crossing the threshold means abandoning one space and entering another, a bodily practice recognized both in ritual and language as a transition between social roles or situations. doors and thresholds are thus closely linked with rites de passage, the word "liminality" itself stemming from Latin limen, "threshold." this does not imply that each and every crossing of a threshold constitutes a liminal ritual, but rather that passing through a doorway is an embodied, everyday experience prompting numerous social and metaphorical implications.

--marianne hem eriksen, university of oslo

in architecture, society, and ritual in viking age scandinavia

doors, dwellings, and domestic space

this week of waiting for the results of the election has me, once again, thinking about liminal space. we're (hopefully) on the threshold of something new - a return to normalcy (if that's possible) after the utter insanity of the trump years. and i'm looking forward to stepping through that door. 

but i fear that the door won't completely shut on these years because the fact is that there are a significant amount of people who actually agreed with the way he was running things and they voted for him a second time. they're apparently totally ok with the 97 million cases of corona and 235,000 deaths. they're ok with kids in cages and more than 500 children who can't be reunited with their parents due to the incompetence and cruelty of the trump administration. they're ok with a president who grabs women by the pussy. and who has spent $142,000,000 in taxpayer money golfing. and they're ok with leaving the paris climate accord and the iran nuclear agreement. and they're ok with the more than 20,000 lies. and the self-dealing and the nepotism. and the cozying up to dictators. and the humiliation on the world stage. and did i mention the lies? and the narcissism and the petulance and the twitter. there's just. so. much. i'm exhausted from it. and embarrassed by it. and tired of the way it's weakened my very foundation and made me ashamed to be american.

and i'm at my wits' end - with relatives and friends who support the monster. and it feels like some doors may need to close there. but on the other hand, that doesn't necessarily seem like the answer either. but they don't get a pass. they have to own what their choice means - that women lose the freedom to choose over their own bodies, and good friends who are legally married may have those marriages nullified by the conservative supreme court justices trump and his cronies in the senate rushed through. that people will lose their health insurance. that they don't mind children being put in cages. children in cage. just think about that. it's ok because your stocks did well? really?

but back to doors and thresholds. i think we are really standing on a threshold here. we just faced a choice between empathy and caring for our fellow humans and more division and further erosion of democratic ideals. and only by the slimmest of margins does it appear that we chose our fellow humans. what does that say? in this moment, while the whole world balances on the precipice with a global pandemic, that the choice wasn't clearer than that is astonishing. 

i hope we stride confidently through the door with our hearts open. i'll admit mine is pretty closed right now to those who have supported the spray-tanned narcissist and it will take a bit of work on my part to open it a little bit. and right now, i don't really know how that's going to happen.

can we get a do-over on 2020?

for several years, i've bought arctic paper's lovely calendar. one year, i think it was 2018, i actually wrote a little snippet of my day in it every single day of that year, keeping a kind of diary, though it was mostly lists and trips and what i did that day, not anything deep or philosophical. still, it was the record of a busy life. i did write intentions for every week on the page for the week, which felt like a meaningful practice, even if i didn't always keep them. it featured beautiful paper that explored the changing light and colors throughout the year, so it had a kind of rainbow theme to it. the words at the beginning were a beautiful musing on time. "time is months, weeks, hours, minutes and seconds. time is seasons. seasons are light. light is a guide through time." it was so fitting for a calendar.

they work with different design schools around europe and have young people design the calendars and they're always printed on arctic paper's own beautiful papers. it's a pleasure to page through them and write in them. this year's was no different. it is a moon-themed agenda entitled "the day begins at midnight" and was designed by students from école estienne's graphic design and art direction students. i assume that's somewhere in france.

it's really gorgeous and i love the words at the beginning, especially since i always consider myself a night person, not a morning one...(capital letters removed by me):

the day begins at midnight, when creativity knows no boundaries.
more than an aesthetically attractive calendar,
we wanted to design something that makes us challenge
our traditional perception of time and creativity.
by visually highlighting night-time in imagery
through its content, this agenda wants us to reconsider 
our notion of the day.

because extraordinary things happen in our minds at night.
we know our subconscious is active when we sleep.
and we know that some people need to relax simply
to get their ideas flowing. some even find that they are
more creative at night, whether asleep or awake
creativity knows no boundaries, not in place, nor in time.

but here, as we embark on the second to last month of 2020, which has already been pretty eventful, i find i must admit that i never used this calendar at all. i didn't write a single thing in it. it's still pristine and beautiful - blank and awaiting words or drawings or doodles, the recording of a life. and i didn't record a single word of this crazy, mad year. it's almost like this clean, beautiful calendar represents a pristine do-over of 2020, just waiting to happen. 2020, between the covers of this journal, is unblemished, unmarred by oafish, spray-tanned, clownish, embarrassing presidents, and deadly viruses, and killer hornets. it's full of potential trips to exotic places, new experiences and even scratched-down notes of wonderful meals made and eaten, friends seen, laughs laughed. in its very blankness, it's full of potential. potential for a do-over of this mad, terrible year. maybe that's what we most need right here and now. or maybe we just need this damn year to be over already. 

i'll order a new calendar from arctic paper when they release it in a few weeks. and let's cross our fingers that things get better in 2021.

in the liminal space

in a little over 24 hours, this will be the view! despite all of the traveling i've done over the years, i still get the good kind of butterflies when on the verge of a trip - i love the energy of an airport, filled with people who are going somewhere. people are generally in a good mood, either happy to be heading off on a trip or happy to be home again. there's an excitement in the air. sabin and i are headed for the US tomorrow afternoon. first, we have the sad occasion of my mother's funeral and then we have a long road trip to phoenix with a couple of stops to see friends along the way. although the funeral is somber event, i am looking forward to the closure i'm sure it will bring. we are planning music that mom would love and going to give her a good send-off. our bags are packed and we're ready to go. husband is taking us to the airport tomorrow, but before that, he's going to a job interview for an exciting position he really wants. i just did a video interview for a position that i'd really like to have. so, here on the verge of all this travel, it feels like so many great possibilities are opening up. it really feels like the beginning of a new chapter, even as we close the chapter on my mother's life. it's that liminal space - where everything feels fairly quivering with possibility - and the feeling is heightened by impending travel. it's been too long since i felt this way. it's nice.

the quiet time between christmas and new year's

these long, yet all-too-short days between christmas and new year's stretch out before me, nearly half gone now. i'm working, listening to hours of interviews we've done for the podcast i'm working on at the moment. but there is also time for some long reads, like this achingly beautiful story of home and belonging by jamila osman. these dark, wintery days have that quality where time seems to slow down, after hurtling forward at breakneck speed for most of this year. i can feel that i needed that. but i can also feel that too many days of togetherness are taking their toll. i need some alone time. i find myself feeling irritable and snappy. i love my family dearly and we've laughed, eaten some good food and played cards together endlessly in recent days. but i need them to go away, just for a few hours. or i need it to stop with the relentless rain so that i can go for a long walk. to be alone in my own head, with only myself and maybe my camera for company. perhaps tomorrow it won't be raining...

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...

waiting (and pain) win

this is my view, these long, painful days, spent mostly in bed. i feel like i'm once again being taught a lesson in patience. back pain takes the time it takes to heal, there's no hurrying it along and there's no escape from it. and there's no denying it and just pretending it's not there. it wins, every time. i've spent so much time waiting over the past year and all of it has been agony in some sense. maybe i'm supposed to be learning a lesson here...about patience and taking things one step at a time. but i remain resistant and defiant to that lesson. i want my back to be better now, so i can go back to work at my wonderful new job. i want to be without the intense pain of the past two weeks. yes, i've been in steady pain for two whole weeks. what is it i'm supposed to learn from that? to get in better shape? to take better care of my body? probably, but the doctor also says it wasn't necessarily something i did, it could just be bad luck. but as i lie here, grateful for the company of cats, i do ponder yoga and meditation and maybe even taking up running. i'm ready for the pain to pass. it feels like i've waited long enough. but i suppose it will take the time it takes. and there's no getting around that. i do wish someone would clean the muddy pawprints off that window tho'...

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can't afford to live in london? try copenhagen.

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what if hipsters need help too?
you may think i'm posting this facetiously, but it's definitely a good read.

writing my way back to myself

i feel that facebook is sucking the life out of me. it steals my time, it steals my sleep, it bores me, it infuriates me, it exposes me to horrible things (like that live on-air shooting of the poor t.v. reporter in virginia) that i wish i hadn't seen (see also all coverage of donald trump). it makes me feel passive aggressive. it keeps me indoors when i should be outdoors. it never lets me be alone with my thoughts. it stops me from writing here in this space (which my sanity misses very much). or seeking inspiration about things to write about here. in short, i think it's really bad for me. and yet i go back again and again. out of habit. for the social interaction with friends who are far away, for the laughs, for the cat videos and the buzzfeed quizzes and the oatmeal and humans of new york. 

and not writing often enough in this space leaves my brain and perhaps even my soul, feeling congested. it's not only facebook, but also the constant holding pattern i feel i've been in for the whole of this year. eternally waiting to see what might be next. i used to love the liminal space, for what i perceived as the vastness of the possibilities contained within it. but these days, it gives me a kind of powerless feeling, a paralysis. i am unable to fill the waiting with much of anything productive (i pin prolifically on pinterest, but don't make anything). and it seems that all of the gargantuan efforts that i put forward towards moving out of the liminal space are stymied again and again and i am forced back into the waiting position. and i'll admit i feel a bit lost, like i'm wandering in the labyrinth of the liminal space and i can't find my way - neither to the center, nor out again. and it's an uncomfortable place to be. 

which all sounds pretty morbid, i realize. i don't think i knew how morbid i actually felt until the words came out here onto the page (hence that congested feeling). and i do get through my days feeling reasonably happy - finding joy in a visit from an inspiring friend, picking vegetables from the garden for dinner, taking photos of minifigs, finding vintage burberry items for the child on eBay, watching battlestar galactica (again, again) with husband. it's not a joyless life, by any means. but i would like to have some of the spark back, the spark that feels so dim in the midst of all of this waiting. i don't feel it's gone out, but it could definitely use a breath of fresh air to fan it into a stronger, bright, warm flame again. 

maybe finally writing again here will help. that and some time away from facebook. 

* * *

great article in rolling stone on the republican clown car.

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if you need a laugh, this guy from mashable who dressed like prince george for a week will do it.

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dang. harper lee's lawyer is definitely of the shadier sort.

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feeling stressed? here's a cat purr generator for those times when your cat isn't handy.

a day in the life of the world's happiest people starts at home

a few of us from the drink & draw group got to talking about this whole notion of denmark as home of the world's happiest people. i still maintain that if the danes are so happy, you definitely can't see it on them. even my fellow drink & draw-ers are a bit provoked by the whole notion and they are danish! so, we are putting together a project where we are going to ask a wide variety of people of all ages, backgrounds and from all over the country, to keep a diary for a day (all of them on the same day). we will collect the diary entries and see if they shed some light on what it is that makes the danes so darn happy. we don't want it to be a scientific, clinical look, we want it to be personal and intimate. our intention is that then we will invite a variety of artists - painters, actors, storytellers, filmmakers, playwrights, sculptors, whatever - to gather and give creative expression to the diaries. in my head, there's definitely a podcast in it, undoubtedly with multiple episodes. i think that also in my head is something along the lines of the wonderful and profound humans of new york - with short, poignant stories that tell so much about the culture at large. but i'm also trying to reserve judgement and remain open, because once we have the diaries in hand, they may point us in another direction entirely and i want to be able to move in that direction.

yesterday, we all tried the task on for size ourselves. we figured we should feel it under our own skin if we were going to ask people to do it. we agreed that we would write it all out - good and bad and try not to hide anything. we have shared our diaries with one another and will get together next friday and talk about the next steps in our project.

i wrote my day on my marquee blog (see sidebar if you're interested), but i also did some much-needed art journaling to go along with it.  i think i needed both the linear timeline side of things and something more abstract and creative. and i can definitely tell that i needed those moments of creativity and the different sort of concentration that accompanies them. in fact, i've continued them today and they helped me settle down and get back to work again. they quieted some of yesterday's restlessness. i also thought it was quite wonderful that i came across the quote in the one on the bottom while paging through an old magazine, looking for collage materials. it's a bit uncanny how you often come across the thing you most need to hear at precisely the moment you need it.

i realize once again, working on this, that i'm happiest when i'm setting an idea out in the world and seeing what becomes of it. i can't wait to see where this will take us, but i'm also definitely enjoying the place it's helped me occupy right here and now. and to be bringing this to life with a group of awesome and creative women is pretty magical as well.

now is the winter of our discontent

quite frankly, the chunky monkey cat looks pretty content.

these dark january days are a bit like being down a well. not really, but i wanted to bring up murakami and when i think of him, i always think of spending time down a well. i'm thinking that a good way to get through this, the longest, darkest, most dreary month, would be to go on a murakami reading binge. i think i'll start with this and then dig out my murakami library.

what gets you through the darkest moments of winter's discontent?

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nice piece in fast company on LEGO's future lab.

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loving that i was invited to contribute to this storystarter pinterest board.

it makes me want to start some stories myself.

overthinking christmas

i read a marvelous little piece in the new york times by gary shteyngart. shteyngart captures somehow the ennui i think many of us feel around christmas, wanting to embrace the traditions and have family around, but feeling underneath it all that acute sense of our inability to really know other people, perhaps especially our families. the facades we put up to get through it all, the way we hide what we really think and feel. the masks we wear.

i think it's part of why it's such a relief when the holiday is over, you can exhale and go back into your real self, putting aside the performance and the smiles and the false gaiety. there's so much pressure for christmas to be perfect - you have to give the right presents, eat the right food. you have to meet so many expectations that are unspoken and unwritten, but powerful just the same. and it's impossible. and exhausting.

sabin is off skiing in austria with her best friends, so husband and i sat out in the brewery room by our new fireplace (it's a wood-burning stove, actually) last evening, relaxing, sipping a cocktail in front of the crackle of the fire. husband philosophized as to whether we as humans are drawn to fire because we're the only animal which has conquered it, or because we recognize something of our basic natures in it...we're all burning out towards an end in a pile of dust. either one is quite profound,  even if the latter is less than optimistic. we sat for long stretches, just relaxing and not saying anything, letting our souls settle back in after the mad rush of christmas. the crackle and warmth of the fire helped with that.

we as humans seem to have some kind of need for ceremony, as susanne moore puts it in the guardian, "it is through ritual that we remake and strengthen our social bonds." our christian christmas traditions must have a basis in earlier pagan midwinter rituals. as the years go by, i grow more and more uneasy with the religious aspect (as well as the commercial one), but, there must be a way to celebrate the return towards the light in a non-religious way that "does not mean one has to forgo poetry, magic, the chaos of ritual, the remaking of shared bonds." i guess here in denmark, we do come rather close to that, as attending church isn't really part of the ritual, and there are plenty of old pagan elements in the stories of nisse (a kind of combination elf/gnome/pixie figure) and the plethora of candles and the use of evergreens and moss and pinecones in decorating. i just wish it didn't all seem so soul-draining. i want to feel renewed, refreshed, re-energized by the midwinter celebration - elated that we've turned back towards the light.

maybe i'd better go stare into that crackling fire for awhile again.

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beautiful photographs of frozen bubbles

make me long for lower temps.

tho' haunting fairy tale photos

would make me settle for a nice fog.

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seriously amazing maps made from ships' logs from the 18th-19th centuries.

also here.

endless hours of fascination in these.

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i've just updated my about me, if you're interested.

a couple of little rants about the rubbish service culture in denmark

christmas is over and we're in the liminal space, waiting for the year to end and the new one to begin. i went to bed with wet hair and woke up with what my mother would call a fright wig. and somehow, it's all making me feel rather ranty.

rant #1: post danmark

in the week before christmas, i received a ransom letter from post danmark, saying they were holding a christmas package hostage until i (as receiver of a package i had not yet seen) sent more information about the contents. they assigned the package a number and said it contained, "støvler, tæj, mm" from the USA and that it weighed 4 kilos. they did not say who sent it, nor was i able, even after asking google translate for help, to figure out what "tæj" was. so, i guessed that it was the christmas parcel from my sister and that they boots were the doc martens she got sabin for her present. so, i asked her for the receipt and sent it dutifully (pun intended) to post danmark.

i heard nothing. and more nothing. for a week.

so today i called and asked how it was going. they claimed to have sent me a letter (probably via post danmark, so its chances of reaching me are slim) saying i hadn't provided documentation for the other items - the mystery "tæj" and the equally mysterious "mm," which is the danish equivalent of "etc." since i am the receiver of the package, i have not yet seen the items which are in it, therefore, it's hard for me to document them unless you specify what the hell they are. why isn't this just common sense for post danmark?

the nice lady on the phone today could see that this was a problem. so she took my number and they are supposed to get back to me today. meanwhile, their own limit of 14 days is quickly passing and even tho' i've been in touch (twice now, once in writing and once on the phone), they will likely send the package back to my sister before it's all finished. and then she can resend it and we can start all over again.

oh, the joys of customer service in denmark.

rant #2: bus #214, licence plate TD 92845, tide bus company, driving for sydtrafik in denmark

a few days before school was out, it was a dark and foggy morning. i was right behind the bus as i dropped sabin off at school. he was in quite a hurry and gunned it away down the little side street by the school. there were two small boys on their bicycles, wobbily making their way out to the big street, where they waited to cross. the bus was right beside them and wanted to turn right. there was quite a lot of traffic and, i may have mentioned, it was very foggy and still very dark. so the boys were cautiously waiting to be sure they could cross the road with their bicycles. well, mr. important bus driver decided to help them in their decision to cross the road by beginning to honk his big, giant bus horn at them. they were wobbly and unsure anyway and the honk nearly scared them off their bikes. it did, however, also scare them into action, and he saved the 30 extra seconds it would have taken to wait for them to cross on their initiative, but decided to try to make it up for it by gunning it and roaring off down the street.

i was so taken aback, that i noted the license number of the bus and came home and wrote to tide, the company running those buses, asking them to tell their driver to be a little kinder to children in traffic near a school. they wrote back telling me that since i wasn't involved, they were going to ignore my message.

yup. danish service culture at its best.

rant #3: the hunt for the christmas turkey

danes eat pork roast and duck for christmas. turkey is unusual, but not impossible to source. most grocery stores have a frozen bird in their freezer case. ten days before christmas, i checked my local store and found their frozen turkeys were the size of large chickens (4200 grams was the largest - that's about 8 pounds). so i went over to the butcher counter and asked if they could get me a larger bird. the guy dismissed me with a snort, rolling his eyes at me, saying if i wanted a turkey, i should have ordered it 3 months ago. very helpful and service-minded. (that was the sarcasm font, by the way.) and way to go, super brugsen in give (i've got more examples of your lack of service mindedness, but i'll save them for another post).

so i began checking all of the other grocery stores and butchers in my area, driving to several other towns in the process. all to no avail, there were no turkeys of reasonable size available, frozen or fresh. then a friend sent me a link to a butcher in vejle (why didn't i think of that), which claimed to have a turkey that would serve 10 people left. i called them and asked if it was true. they said they had one bird left and mentioned to me that it was already stuffed with a mixture of minced pork and cream, but it was a fresh turkey, not horrendously expensive (at 440 kroner/$80) and i was desperate, so i ordered it.

and on christmas, i took it out and put it in the pan, thinking it looked a little strange, but i chalked that up to the pork stuffing and put it in the oven. while it was cooking, it smelled much more like pork than turkey, but i could live with that. then, the weirdest thing happened. i asked my sister-in-law, who is a trained butcher, to do the honors and carve it. and she discovered that except for legs and wings, it had been completely deboned! a boneless turkey for christmas. i find it a little funny that the butcher didn't think to mention that little fact to me. and how can i make soup now with no turkey carcass?

that said, it was delicious and moist. i had been a little worried that since it was stuffed, i couldn't brine it and make it tender, but the pork did the trick as well. and that pork stuffing was also delicious. and without the bones, it was much easier to slice, but i still find it rather weird and won't be repeating it.

and now, i feel amazingly better, having gotten that out of my system. thank you for reading!

time stretches

i love these lazy, long days between christmas and new year's. they're filled with whatever inspires...baking, reading, playing with yarn and sticks, leisurely rides and lots of chats at the stables, trying new recipes, playing cards, even a bit of knitting with rainbow yarn (another scarf, it's the only thing i can do). it feels like time stretches and is precisely enough. and it's not very often you can say that.

so i've been thinking...

~ everyone should go to the beach at least once a month, just to clear their heads.

~ about whether you can eat the seaweed found on our northerly beaches.

~ and if so, which kind?

~ about the great wars of the last century (i'm reading ken follett's fall of giants, which is set in WWI) and the residues they have left behind.

~ about the need for an editor. and perhaps also a translator. or maybe just some english lessons. unless they really did want people to line up their dogs...

~ that sometimes the best course of action on a sink full of dirty dishes is to pour a glass of wine, turn out the light and go settle into the big chair with a good book. after all, those dishes aren't going anywhere.

~ leaving one square of toilet paper on an otherwise empty roll does not excuse you from changing it.

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what are you thinking about in this liminal week, while we wait for the new year?