“One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly."
― Andy Rooney
The rain slows down and we wake to snow across the lake. He bakes cookies while I wrap presents. I dig out the old Christmas books and read them to Percy. We celebrate the Winter Solstice and I do my best to stay mindful. I might go silent for a couple of weeks as I need the rest. But then again, I might change my mind!
Happy Holidays!
***
““It is easy for me to imagine that the next great division of the world will be between people who wish to live as creatures and people who wish to live as machines.”
― Wendell Berry, Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition
I watch as the people around me seem to effortlessly navigate the technology that surrounds us. I on the other hand, wake up most days to some kind of technology glitch. All I really want to do is post a few moments of beauty in the calm I find behind my camera lens.
***
“All there is to thinking is seeing something noticeable which makes you see something you weren't noticing which makes you see something that isn't even visible.”
― Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories
***
The Christmas trees were cut and in the back of the truck,
But the pizza place, the one that brews their own root beer, didn’t open until noon. Just enough time for some of us to head to the river to watch for fish and eagles.
“Brussels sprouts are misunderstood –
probably because most people don’t know how to cook them properly.”
— Todd English
November was full of beautiful landscapes, morning frost and Thursday school pick ups.
It was a month of digging deep for me, wallowing in nostalgia and a type of love that almost broke me.
I back away from anything that is not real, and cry a bit when he streams the first Christmas music on Spotify
We celebrate Thanksgiving with our kids, who did all the cooking, and most of the clean up
later they send me the selfies they took together knowing I am in a tender spot right now, and my joy soars
I dig out the Christmas dishes, and ask him to get the lights ready for tomorrow
because we are going out, with our amazing kids, to cut our Christmas trees
***
The house was very quiet, and the fog—we are in November now—pressed against the windows like an excluded ghost.
-”E.M. Forster“
The fog hangs over the lake for days bringing with it a mood that I embrace. I read, getting up out of my chair off and on, to check on the changing view outside the windows. I turn over Thanksgiving plans to my kids telling them I will clean up after they leave if they will plan the menu and do the cooking. And, I take a huge step to help my mental well being, and find I am proud of myself in the process.
***
“It shocks me how I wish for...what is lost and cannot come back.”
― Sue Monk Kidd,
We take a drive down into the Skagit Valley
one very foggy, misty, morning.
I cannot resist giving these two images
a bit of nostalgia.
***
“Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled — to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even to float a little above this difficult world. I want to believe I am looking into the white fire of a great mystery. I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing — that the light is everything — that it is more than the sum of each flawed blossom rising and falling. And I do.”
― Mary Oliver, House of Light
The rain pours off and on all day.
I slip outside for a few minutes just to feel it on my face -
maybe wanting to prove to myself that I am alive,
and capable. Capable of finding beauty in the world
right outside my door.
I am pleased when I find the spider web,
pleased the evergreen glitters like magic,
and, that the rain soaked leaf landed in the perfect spot
***