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...

time accelerates

i had to turn over the ribbon on the typewriter, so now i'm typing in red. i think i like it. tho' i don't know where this summer has gone.

a question of time

i measure time these lazy summer days in terms of kitten growth. little frieda has come quite a long way since she was born may 22. it makes time seem to pass very quickly when you think of it like that. but at the same time, these long, light days stretch out and it feels like there's time for everything you want to do. it's ok that it takes an hour and a half to pick strawberries, because it's ok to eat at 8 p.m. when it's so light. if it takes another hour or more to hull them and get them into the steamer, that's ok too. time feels like it's enough.

at the same time, i'm acutely aware that time is rushing forward. sabin is growing up and i don't know if i've properly enjoyed her as a non teenager. and now it's fast becoming too late for that. she'll be in the 7th grade in a few short weeks. did we do enough together? should i have kept her home, to spend time with her, instead of letting her go to a summer house with a friend this week? on the other hand, she needs that essential danish summer house experience and she's not going to get it from us.

the older i get, the more time seems to rush headlong forward. my daily photos serve as a memory for me and i am sometimes amazed when i look back and a particular photo was that long ago. often it seems like just yesterday. time gets warped somehow, bent in memory. can i really be this old? have i really lived here that long? was it really so long ago we went to morocco? or spain? or that we met? it was a lifetime ago and it feels like i only just blinked and all that time passed.

so i'm grateful for the summer slowdown of time. for it stretching out and becoming all i need right here and now. and for the golden light that stretches well into the evening. i'll take that for now and try to save it up for those long winter nights.

* * *

more on how we experience time.

* * *

i like this essay on the treyvon martin case.
it helped me understand.
and anyone who calls himself a digital humanist is cool in my book.

* * *

russian intelligence goes old school - with typewriters!

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.