5:50 a.m.
Dark Sky read out: 40° F. 82% cloud cover.
40° F? Come again? I close app, and re-open.
40° F? This is after two days of high’s in the 50’s. This being Feb 12. Not even mid-Feb.
I sit on the stoop, and lace up my boots.
“Something ineffable has tilted toward spring. There’s a promise of warmth beneath the cold, a releasing of winter’s grip on the land. You can feel it.” (Katrina Kenison)
Sun rises, temperature warms rapidly.
The park begins to fill. [Read more…]
[…] Perhaps you feel it, too, as this long, hard year draws to a close — a newfound tenderness for even the smallest, most familiar sounds and sights and textures of a day, along with a heightened awareness of just how fragile and precious each moment really is. Whether or not we have lost loved ones, jobs, routines, or even faith, none of us are who we were a year ago. We’ve been remade, invisibly yet irrevocably, both by our collective grief and by our dawning recognition of the truth of who we are – connected, interdependent, vulnerable, mortal. And, just perhaps, if we’re lucky, we’ve also been altered by wonder.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’ve learned about myself during these many months of being home and being quiet. And surely the most profound lesson has been that, in spite of everything, there is beauty and meaning to be found in life as it is, right here, right now. It’s become my daily challenge, and my daily choice, to find it. As British botanist Kathleen Basford observed, “It is when we are confronted with poignant reminders of mortality that we become most aware of the strangeness and wonder of our brief life on Earth.”
If this time is our only time, and it is, then surely we do owe it to ourselves, and to each other, to pay attention, to look deeply, to listen closely, and to respond to all of it, somehow, with love and gratitude. […]
In her memoir “Wild,” Cheryl Strayed recalls her beloved mother’s parting advice to her, before her too-early death from cancer. “There is always a sunrise and always a sunset,” she told her daughter. “And it’s up to you to choose to be there for it. Put yourself in the way of beauty.”
“Put yourself in the way of beauty.” It’s such a simple instruction. And yet, what a powerful and useful reminder this is as we cross the threshold into an even more challenging time. A reminder that we do have a choice to make each day, no matter how dark and difficult the path may be. We can choose where we put our attention, what we share, what we bow to, what we love – not in spite of what else is going on around us, but because of it. […]
— Katrina Kenison, from “choosing beauty” @ katrinakenison.com, December 31, 2020
Notes:
“One way or another, we’re all white-knuckling our way toward Tuesday. I’ve probably made too many impulse donations to candidates I believe in, but I regret none of them. My husband, son, and I have written letters and held signs. In our small town, we’ll don our masks and vote in person. Beyond that, my approach during these last days has been to stay outdoors as much as possible. I can’t control the outcome of anything that matters, but I can keep the birdfeeders full. I can sweep out the shed, rake up the leaves, and pull out the petunias. I can stay grounded in the simple, necessary tasks of my own life. And I can look at the sky, at the now bare maple tree, at the snow that covers the ground this morning in a frosting of white, and trust in the forces at work in the world that are far beyond my own limited seeing and my own narrow understanding. One day last week, I rounded the corner of the house pushing the wheelbarrow and was stopped in my tracks by the sight of fifty or sixty robins hopping about in the front yard, a gathering as uplifting to me as the determined crowd of citizens who have showed up downtown every Saturday all through the fall to stand in silent solidarity with Black Lives Matter, voting rights, and democracy. When we looked up from breakfast a few days ago to see a herd of deer just outside the window, they seemed almost like silent messengers sent to remind us that we share this time, this place, with others and that we’re all connected, for better and for worse.”
— Katrina Kenison, from “Our Time” (October 31, 2020)
Notes: Image from Mennyfox
Quiet has many moods. When our sons are home, their energy is palpable. Even when they’re upstairs sleeping I can sense them, can feel the house filling with their presence, expanding like a sail billowed with air. I love the dawn stillness of a house full of sleepers, love knowing that within these walls our entire family is contained and safe, reunited, our stable four-sided shape resurrected.
~ Katrina Kenison, Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment
Notes: Photo: Mennyfox55
Quiet has many moods. When our sons are home, their energy is palpable. Even when they’re upstairs sleeping I can sense them, can feel the house filling with their presence, expanding like a sail billowed with air. I love the dawn stillness of a house full of sleepers, love knowing that within these walls our entire family is contained and safe, reunited, our stable four-sided shape resurrected.
~ Katrina Kenison, Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment
Notes: Photo: Mennyfox55
All month I’ve been making lists, crossing things off lists, making new lists – grocery lists, to-do lists, gift lists. Somehow the act of writing things down and crossing them out calms me, as if each small accomplishment or task completed brings me closer to…what exactly? The finish line?
Of course, the idea of completion is an illusion. There will be to-dos until the day when there aren’t, and I’m certainly not in any hurry to get there. Nor do I want to look at December 25 as the end of some silly holiday race.
So my challenge today, and every day this season, is to simply relax into the day’s doings, whatever they may be. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that the closer I stay to home and hearth during these short, dark days, the more peaceful I feel.
~ Katrina Kenison, from “Spicy Holiday Granola” (December 15, 2017)
An early riser, an optimist by nature, a lover of mornings, I’m always eager to launch myself into the day. And it doesn’t take much to make me happy: A cup of strong coffee laced with cream or a handful of frozen blueberries from my summer-stash in the freezer, a silly joke shared with my husband, a good-morning text from a far-away friend, the hairy woodpecker hanging upside-down at the feeder, busily extracting his morning ration of sunflower seeds, a sky fluid with traveling clouds executing their own sublime choreography, or a soft grey mantle of mist draped across the nearby hills. Looking around at the life I’m privileged to live, I see much to be grateful for.
~ Katrina Kenison, from Mending the World (Jan 20, 2017)
Notes:
Quiet has many moods. When our sons are home, their energy is palpable. Even when they’re upstairs sleeping I can sense them, can feel the house filling with their presence, expanding like a sail billowed with air. I love the dawn stillness of a house full of sleepers, love knowing that within these walls our entire family is contained and safe, reunited, our stable four-sided shape resurrected.
~ Katrina Kenison, Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment
Notes: Photo: Mennyfox55
A balanced life has a rhythym. But we live in a time, and in a culture, that encourages everyone to just move faster. I’m learning that if I don’t take the time to tune in to my own more deliberate pace, I end up moving to someone else’s, the speed of events around me setting a tempo that leaves me feeling scattered and out of touch with myself. I know now that I can’t write fast; that words, my own thoughts and ideas, come to the surface slowly and in silence. A close relationship with myself requires slowness. . .
A thoughtful life is not rushed.
Notes:
Quiet has many moods. When our sons are home, their energy is palpable. Even when they’re upstairs sleeping I can sense them, can feel the house filling with their presence, expanding like a sail billowed with air. I love the dawn stillness of a house full of sleepers, love knowing that within these walls our entire family is contained and safe, reunited, our stable four-sided shape resurrected.
~ Katrina Kenison, Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment
Notes:
In the back of my awareness,
I also know this:
The day will come when
I shall have to recall the luxuriant splendor of long, solitary walks,
rather than take them.
~ Katrina Kenison, Present. Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment
Notes:
Home at last, I haul in the grocery bags, swallow a couple of extra-strength Tylenol, put the entire Van Morrison play list on the stereo, and spend the afternoon roasting vegetables and making pasta sauce, salad, and a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Outside, the rain comes down in sheets. I am singing “Days Like This,” belting out the song. The kitchen fills with good smells.
~ Katrina Kenison, Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment
Notes: Related posts: Katrina Kenison
I come into this small room and take a seat on the floor.
I don’t expect miracles.
But I have given myself a sacred space,
and now I simply offer myself the even greater gift of time to use it.
Someday, perhaps, something will happen here.
For now, I love this room,
this emptiness, the fading light, my own quiet company.
I am learning, by sitting, to become,
in the words of Terry Tempest Williams,
“a caretaker of silence, a connoisseur of stillness, a listener of wind.”
~ Katrina Kenison, Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment
Notes:
It is such a small thing on the face of it, and yet in this world of speed and distraction, choosing to be less busy feels almost countercultural; slowing down, eccentric. Perhaps it is, for there’s no denying the expansive, time-bending effects of awareness. Sometimes, I do call it meditation: I sit cross-legged on a cushion in my yoga room; I set a timer and focus on my breath, bringing my attention to bear on the elusive, invisible third eye in the center of my brow point. These sittings are humbling: My mind sneaks away, I chase it down, lead it back, tie it again and again to my breath. Eventually, if I’m not in a rush to get on to the next thing, a small, silent space clears. I savor the taste of quiet, roll it around on my tongue, feel the day’s contours softening and opening around me.
~ Katrina Kenison, Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment
Notes:
Quiet has many moods. When our sons are home, their energy is palpable. Even when they’re upstairs sleeping I can sense them, can feel the house filling with their presence, expanding like a sail billowed with air. I love the dawn stillness of a house full of sleepers, love knowing that within these walls our entire family is contained and safe, reunited, our stable four-sided shape resurrected. But those days are the exception now, not the norm.
~ Katrina Kenison, Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment
Notes:
How to find words
to describe a shift so subtle and internal,
yet so profound that it seems to change everything?
One sacred second, so brief yet seismic?
A movement from a dark, inchoate place of confusion
into a space of clarity and light?
~ Katrina Kenison, Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment
Notes:
It was some time ago.
Yet, it is now.
I’m heading home Friday afternoon after a long week and the story replays.
Not a sitcom. But a documentary.
The hotel ball room is tightly packed.
The lights dim.
600 eyeballs watch him amble onto the stage.
Blue sport coat. Gray slacks.
Black boots, clean, polished and up over the ankle.
He’s wearing a watch, a large face, a Patek Philipe.
He’s an Engineer, Inventor, Founder, Investor and VC.
And a new Father.
He’s a Silicon Valley giant. A Giant presence
And, still way on the right side of 50.
Q: China. Q: Europe. Q: U.S.
Q: IPOs. Q: Capital markets. Q: Private Markets.
Q: Innovation. Q: Disruption. Q: Cybersecurity.
Q: Facebook. Q: UBER. Q: Lift. Q: Twitter.
Q: Paypal. Q: Apple Pay. Q: Bitcoin.
Q: Regulation. Q: Politics.
Q: Philanthropy.
Q: Diversity.
A:… A:.. A:… A:… A:…A:… A:… A:…
Crisp responses. Stats to support. Colorful anecdotes.
He’s a Giant knife slicing through Butter.
Q: Where do you find the time? You work. You travel. You write. You curate. You have a large social media following. Where do you get the ideas? Where do you get the content you curate? [Read more…]
Notes:
For once
the mocking, predictable voice
inside my head that says “No way”
is silent.
In fact, I think I can just barely make out
some other, quieter voice, whispering,
“Maybe.”
― Katrina Kenison, Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment
Photograph: Anka Zhuravleva (“Ginger“)
One thing we’ve learned this summer is that a house is not an end in itself, any more than “home” is just one geographic location where things feel safe and familiar. Home can be anyplace in which we create our own sense of rest and peace as we tend to the spaces in which we eat and sleep and play. It is a place that we create and re-create in every moment, at every stage of our lives, a place where the plain and common becomes cherished and the ordinary becomes sacred.
― Katrina Kenison, The Gift of an Ordinary Day: A Mother’s Memoir
Painting: Edward Gordon, Wind from the Sea, via The Sensual Starfish
Live & Learn 