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!

road trip :: brobergs take the south 2018 :: part 3 :: the road

on our summer holiday, we drove 2,875 miles in our rented toyota sienna. that's 4,627 kilometers if those are what you relate to. no matter how you think of it, that's a lot of asphalt. luckily, the sienna was roomy, so it accommodated our suitcases and our snacks and a cooler of drinks and everyone was comfortable, so there wasn't any fighting or complaining about who was sitting where. we took turns driving, but husband did do the bulk of it.

i have found myself reflecting on the many roads we traveled and how that's true of life as well. and despite us all being in the same vehicle, traveling down the same roads, we undoubtedly each had our own experience of them. for my part, i told myself stories of the places we drove through and past.

in northeast alabama, i looked out the window at the countryside flying by. it was dotted with shabby, flimsy trailer houses with broken down vehicles and too many dogs in the yard. houses where it looked like people didn't have the energy to care about the junk on the falling-down, tacked-on porch. you could feel that life wasn't easy there, just driving past it. then there was a road in mississippi where the houses along the way were small, but built with care. they looked much more charming and kept up - with inviting porches that had chairs and plants, you could feel a sense of community and that people lived there, rooted in the place. then there was the gulf coast near mobile, alabama and on towards pensacola. the sandy beaches were beautiful, but ugly high rise buildings gave it an uninviting soulless quality.

the roads in the bywater neighborhood where we stayed in new orleans were in a very bad state of repair. but yet, i'm not sure i've ever seen a more charming place. colorful houses, long and narrow, but adorable - with shutters in contrasting colors and loads of gingerbread. each one unique, but somehow also harmonious - sort of like you would like to be as a person - your own individual style, but also playing a melodic chord - signifying belonging, yet room for individuality. what more could you ask in your road.

in savannah, we arrived in the evening at our airbnb and got turned around and started following the roads into a less prosperous neighborhood, where the main businesses seemed to be the liquor stores and greasy takeout joints on every corner. just a few blocks in the other direction was savannah's utterly charming downtown - filled with shops and cafés and restaurants. we managed to find our way to a most amazing chocolate café, where we ended our long day on the road with chocolate fondue, cheesecake and chocolate cocktails. such contrasts just a few blocks apart. the same road able to take you two very opposite directions, both literally (obviously) and metaphorically, all in the space of a just a few blocks.

all these roads represent so many stories, it was a veritable cacophony, i want to go back and listen to each one. and make more of my own.

the crooked path

the crooked path

catching up once again on the reverb10 prompts. it seems like i get more out of them and they feel more connected when i do several at once, so i'm going with it. blogging's cheaper than therapy, remember?

december 18 – try: what do you want to try next year? is there something you wanted to try in 2010? what happened when you did / didn’t go for it?

i think the biggest thing i wanted to try in 2010 was to have a year of not buying things. anything i didn't need - so food would be ok, clothes and shoes not so much. and i have to say that although i became a slightly more conscious consumer, i was an utter failure at not buying things. in fact, in 2010, we bought a new house, a new (used) car and a horse, an iPad and a MacBook Air (damn you apple for your tempting, irresistible products). so it wasn't a very good year as far as keeping that promise went.

husband and i were just discussing the consumer rat race this evening over dinner. we have good salaries and admittedly probably have an above-average income. but we find sometimes that we don't really know where our money goes. and we have so much we want to do with the house that we need to be a whole lot better at that.

i lamented to husband my panicked feeling over the whole christmas gift scene and we talked about next year (always next year) doing only handmade or vintage gifts. or maybe not attaching the whole gift thing so tightly to christmas...just imagine running onto something that's perfect for someone you love, buying it and giving it to them out of the blue, rather than waiting 'til christmas, panic-buying some tat and giving it because you feel you have to. in this day and age, let's face it, if people want something, they get it, they don't wait for a holiday and hope for it, so we don't need gifts in the same way we perhaps once did. so a gift could really take on new meaning and be something really from the heart, if we made it or found just the right thing, whenever that may be. if you think about it, christmas is an arbitrary date anyway, so why should the gift giving especially be then?

i want to consume in a more conscious and thoughtful way in 2011. i want to recycle and upcycle and buy vintage instead of new (following this philosphy, we did that with the car and the house in 2010, so we're not entirely off track). i want the gifts i give to be meaningful and thoughtful and not driven by anxiety.

december 19 – healing:  what healed you this year? was it sudden, or a drip-by-drip evolution? how would you like to be healed in 2011? 

i don't know that i was really that broken in 2010, tho' i think i went through a mild depression brought on by a whole lot of change all at once. i think i'm uncomfortable with the notion that the pervading culture pushes on us all the time that we are broken and need some kind of medicine or book or guru or guide in order to be fixed. i think we just are as we are and that includes bumps and bruises along the way - it's part of the natural order of things. and i resist the notion that i am in constant need of healing.

december 20 – beyond avoidance: what should you have done this year but didn’t because you were too scared, worried, unsure, busy or otherwise deterred from doing? (bonus: will you do it?)

a year ago at this time, i had the chance to try to strike out on my own and live from my own creativity in some fashion or another. and i didn't do it. i let fear get in the way, but i also let a whole lot of other major things get in the way...a move across the country, selling a house, buying another one, a change of lifestyle. and in that process, i didn't dare to also have the uncertainty of starting up on my own and not knowing that i'd have a monthly paycheck of a certain, predictable amount. i think it was a natural fear, but now that so many of those other changes are in place, i'm much more ready now to take those steps into trusting myself and my creativity and my abilities. i think there's no doubt that now i will, even if it is a crooked path ahead, i'm ready for it now.

paths to explore

every life has paths...paths you take, paths you didn't take, paths you wish you'd taken, ones you wish you hadn't. but there also come moments where the path seems sure and straight and right. boundaries melt away. obstacles are lifted. and the weight of the world lifts from your shoulders. and you fairly float along. others have traveled the path before you, but there's still room to make your own mark. so you take a very deep breath and you head off down it.