simplicity

in an increasingly complex world, i feel an increasing longing for simplicity. there's so much information, so much strife, so much shouting (see the american elections or any american sitcom). so much people being hard on themselves and others. so much scheming, so much unnecessary bad energy. so much anger, so much arrogance. so much filling the calendar and planning and so many deadlines. it makes a person despair a little bit sometimes.

can't we just simplify things? laugh instead of shout? smile instead of frown? relax instead of being tense? go back to basics? nurture a tree in a windowsill. can some pears. pick raspberries in the rain. make some raspberry jam. stop by the bakery for some pastry on the way to the meeting. visit a friend out of the blue, unannounced. snuggle up with a cat.

do something small today. something simple. just imagine if we all did it? it just might help.

proof of sunshine

lots of rain today, but the sun came through during the golden hour. and despite the rain, there were many moments of conscious happiness. picking currants. making juice. filling jars of honey. holding yet another baby chick in my hand. slicing mushrooms and bacon for the pasta for dinner. pouring a glass of wine. it felt like life was precisely as it ought to be today. right here and now.

here's hoping you feel the same.

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this is interesting reading.

taking the back way

i meandered the back roads yesterday, deciding that although there was a very fine rain and it was a bit grey, i wouldn't let it stop me from getting some shots of the rapeseed fields, which are in their full glory around the danish countryside right now. sometimes, you just have to stop and enjoy the scenery.

in which she wonders if now is all it's cracked up to be

it's very now to live in the now. to be present in your life. to be mindful - of surroundings, feelings, thoughts. in some sense, there's nowhere else we can live but in the now. but at the same time the now is elusive. because now is so fleeting. it's here right NOW and then it's gone, almost before you can enjoy it or savor it.

as much as i do things like my 365 photo project (for the second year running), which help me be more aware of my surroundings on a daily basis, i have my doubts about this trendy living in the now. i get a lot of pleasure both out of imagining the future and remembering the past. and sometimes, what's best, is to let your mind drift to one or the other, when where you are is not that engaging (think a boring, long meeting with a 54-slide powerpoint). it's really a question of imagination, isn't it?

where would stories and novels be if everyone only lived in the now? what would happen to imagination? for that matter, what IS happening to literature and imagination with all of us constantly being told we have to live in the now?

just from a standpoint of personal happiness, when i think of some of my happiest moments, they're often when i'm imagining the future...visualizing how the house will be, planning the next project, sketching out next year's garden...looking ahead gives me loads of energy. being grounded in my surroundings brings me satisfaction, but it doesn't necessarily motivate me or energize me.

i suppose it's rather against the current to be questioning this whole mindfulness/now movement. but there you have it. maybe part of why the world is where it's at is because everyone's living for today and not looking towards tomorrow. or working on imagining a better one. perhaps living in the now isn't really all it's cracked up to be...

what are you gonna remember?

as i said earlier, the lazy days of summer have begun. i have this melancholy sense that this is the last summer that sabin will truly play. she's a real tween now, but has enough of the child still in her to run and swing and do cartwheels across the yard. i so don't want to see that go.

she has a friend here from her old school where we used to live. they're having a great time together and i haven't heard a word of irritation between them (tho' it's early in their week together).

i suspect that she will remember these golden summer days...of getting to go down to the creek unsupervised with air mattresses and float downstream. of synchronized cartwheels across the lawn. of chasing chickens and trying to shoo them into their new enclosure. of watching YouTube on the iPad while snuggled up together in a nest of blankets and pillows that only two ten-year-olds can make. eating æggesnaps (egg yolk and sugar stirred into creamy, decadent smoothness). staying up late and giggling. getting a driver's license at legoland. spending the day at the beach. teaching bunnies to jump. the smell of freshly-mown hay. picking wildflower bouquets.

all of these things still done with childlike abandon.  no worries, no cares, just being in the moment.

there's a lot i could learn from that.

living in the now or how she begins to show symptoms of the mad cow

the grass is insanely green from all of the rain (and that i dialed up the vibrancy one notch in my camera).
nikon rocks the color.
i think it's also somehow the special light this time of year, even on grey days.
and again i fear the photo has nothing to do with the actual post.

i'm a very immediate person.

~ when the sun is shining, i feel as if it will shine forever.

~ when it's cloudy and rainy, i'm quite convinced it will never stop.

~ when it's grey and dreary, i have a hard time remembering the sun. not only the object, but the actual word.

~ during the winter, i think the light will never return.

~ as i write this, near midsummer, with the orange of sunset still in the sky at 11:40 p.m., that darkness is scarcely a dim memory (tho' i can conjure a vague feeling of dread).

~ i make up recipes all the time, but if i don't write them down, i don't remember them. and people say, "why don't you make those fabulous fried elderflowers again this year?" or "when are you going to make us some more of that butter beer?" and i say, "huh?" and frantically try to remember when i would have made those and how i went about it.

~ i read all the time, but don't retain that much (perhaps i read too fast). the upside is it makes rereading more fun.

~ same with all those episodes of british crime shows...i can watch them again and again because i never remember who did it (that's only occasionally because i fell asleep before the end).

~ i almost always use photos in my blog posts that i took that day. only when i stroll down memory lane do i use an older shot.

it's quite trendy to live in the now and i guess that's what this is.

or maybe my memory's just fading. or i've got a touch of the mad cow, just like denny crane.