Every day when I open my eyes now
It feels like a Saturday
Taking down from the shelf
All the parts of myself
That I packed away
If it’s love put the joy in my heart
Is it God by another name
Who’s to say how it goes
All I know is
I’m back in the world again…
It’s the only way to be
Sully visiting this weekend. (Feels like 10° F outside)
What can be better than to get a book out on Saturday afternoon and thrust all mundane considerations away until next week.
— C.S. Lewis, The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 1. Family Letters, 1905-1931
Quote Source: delta-breezes
5:02 a.m. I’m out the door. 65° F. Hass: “Still. Not a breath of wind.“
Morning routine since May 5th sans running. 5 mile round trip walk to Cove Island Park. New thing, this walking thing. Camera forces me pause, to stop. Apple Watch flashes “Finished Your Workout?” And offers up two options, “End Workout” & “Pause.” I stare at the both options. Even looking at “Pause” makes me uncomfortable.
I look for my Canada Geese and their two offspring. They never disappoint. Fluffy youngsters, hungry, pecking away at the grass. Mother hisses. Hey, I’m Canadian too, cut me some slack!
I look for my Swans, mates, sleeping with their necks tucked back under their wings, floating on their water bed on high tide.
I look for my trio of mallards, two females and the polygamist. Skittish.
I look for my Loon, solo, always solo, fishing. She dives deep. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44…and she’s back up on top. I catch myself inhaling, a deep breath for you girl.
I look for my Egrets. Pure white, as snow. Heart sinks a wee bit in their absence.
I tune into Fenton Johnson‘s new book on tape At the Center of All Beauty: Solitude and the Creative Life and I’m swept away by the narration: “If the journey through our interior landscape is so critical to our characters, let us become more informed and responsible travelers. Let us start by turning off our phones and spending more time alone…with the red semaphore atop the cell tower blinking on, off, on, off, presence, absence, presence, absence. I bask in this lovely stream of words…thinking: This is why one becomes a monk: to cultivate in every moment presence to the beauty of the world…The spirit works with what she has at hand.“
I tuck my earbuds away and walk.
It’s daybreak. Sunrise paints the sky, and the still water below her.
And yes, “soon enough, I was quiet too.”
And come the dawn,
how slow and easy the Sun-beams
Long legs of a great crab,
move through the sea of mist.
~ Takarai Kikaku (1661-1707), Haiku in Mad in Translation by Robin D. Gill
Photo: 6:06 am. 60° F. Low tide. Weed Ave Stamford, CT.
Silence can also be a friend. A comfort and a source of deeper riches. In The Silence That Follows, the poet Rolf Jacobsen wrote:
The silence that lives in the grass
on the underside of each blade
and in the blue space between the stones.
The silence that rests like a young bird in your palms. It is easy to see oneself in Rolf Jacobsen’s experience. Alone out on the ocean, you can hear the water; in the forest, a babbling brook or else branches swaying in the wind; on the mountain, tiny movements between stones and moss. These are times when silence is reassuring. I look for that within myself.
— Erling Kagge, Silence: In the Age of Noise
Notes: Photo by Chris Jones with Blades of Grass. Prior Erling Kagge posts here.
The silence I have in mind may be found wherever you are, if you pay attention, inside your mind, and is without cost. You don’t have to go to Sri Lanka: you can experience it in your bathtub. — I discover silence when I stay five extra minutes in bed at home.
— Erling Kagge, Silence: In the Age of Noise
The New Yorker Cover: “Blown Away,” by Tomer Hanuka.
“The cover for this year’s Spring Style Issue is the fourth by Tomer Hanuka, an Israeli artist known for his striking use of color.
Q: We like the gestural quality of the woman’s pose. How does body language factor into making an image like this?
Notes:
One’s very own room, ventilated to please one’s self, furnished just as one wishes, with one’s pet belongings arranged to suit one’s own tastes; an entire bed in which one may pitch and toss, stretch and yawn, without the consciousness that another would-be sleeper is being annoyed – all of these are aids to happiness.
– Virginia Terhune Van de Water, “From Kitchen to Garret,” (Published in 1910)
Notes: Quote via Schonwieder. Photo via Sabon Home
Notes:
(She) enjoyed the privilege of stillness, most days did absolutely nothing but breathe and look and hear and smell the world turning.
A self-appointed Judge of Existence.
~ Niall Williams, “This Is Happiness” (Bloomsbury Publishing; December 3, 2019)
Photo: Carlos Gotay (via Mennyfox55)
And for moments, nothing more.
Some people understand the privilege of stillness and can sit and breathe and look and hear and smell the world turning and let what’s next wait the while.
~ Niall Williams, “This Is Happiness” (Bloomsbury Publishing; December 3, 2019)
Photo: Levas Žiriakovas with Spring Sun
I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle…
After days of labor,
mute in my consternations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it. As we sing,
the day turns, the trees move.
~ Wendell Berry, from “I Go Among Trees and Sit Still” in Sabbaths
Notes:
Poem: Thank you The Hammock Papers. Photo: “Sit a While” by Erik Witsoe (Poznan, Poland, Park Solacki)
Back in my room I located some tubes of Nescafé and a small electric pot. I made my own coffee, wrapped myself in a blanket, opened the sliding doors and sat on the little patio facing the sea. There was a low wall partially obstructing the view, but I had my coffee, could hear the waves and was reasonably content.
~ Patti Smith, Year of the Monkey (Alfred A. Knopf, September 24, 2019)
Photo: heytess
Live & Learn 