Day 4: Late morning in my bed

(Notice that she's wearing the pj? I don't get it. She wears it all the time now. Could be alarming...)

Day 3: Doing the maths

Day 2: I see y o u ...

... my girl, boiling eggs and stirring the tomato soup.

Day 1: What do you see?

This post will hopefully be the first in a series of 30; one each day for 30 days. I was inspired by lost in transition by her project of documenting the ordinary in their lives; the little moments that you often do not notice, remember or wonder about. I call them the inbetweens; the moments when you're on your way from one thing to another, the moments where life is actually happening - unnoticed.
Fall is to me the time of year when I am especially reminded about the inbetweens. In the greek myth of Demeter and Persephone, Hades offers Persephone the seeds of a pomegranate to make her stay with him in the underworld during fall and winter. I relate the pomegranate to slowness, as embodied in the dark time of the year; nature's repose. Every fall I am reminded to take the apple. Eat the seeds. Slow down. Sink down, go inward, see, acknowledge, release. Fall goes inward. Goes slower. Goes closer. And winter confirms it. Be where you are, instead of lingering where you were or anticipating what's coming. Live more, long less. Dance the dance of Hades.
So while dancing the slow dance, I took this picture in (one of) my workplace(s). When I'm inside that beautiful place, I'm a massage therapist. Today was my first day at work there after the holiday. After every client, I go to the sink to wash my hands. The picture shows the 17th century wall I face when I turn away from the sink. I wonder what that has seen.

The reluctant African elephant

Forgive me, for I have sinned. I bought my daughter this PJ for yule - at the mall...
I usually don't buy clothes (we all have our issues, don't we? The clothing industry is one of mine). I hate shopping for them. Really. (Yes, I AM a woman :) ) (although, I admit, shopping for my kids is different..) And when I do, I usually go for second hand, for a number of reasons. We used to live in a students home for students with kids, where i arranged for a permanent swapping room - a room in the basement where people could leave behind stuff they didn't use anymore, and take with them things they needed. Mostly kid's clothes and stuff, but also adults clothing, books, furniture etc. It was brilliant. When we moved a year ago, I found myself at the mall buying children's clothes. Not often, but still... But I have to admit, the retro trend in kid's clothes right now is very appealing. And when I saw this PJ, I just couldn't help it. It wasn't even organic (the cheap-organic-clothes-at-the-mall trend finally hit this country too).
But somebody has to be laughing when the kid just won't wear it. After a series of 8 blurred pictures or so, trying to capture my very annoyed daughter (talked into) wearing it, I managed to get this. She made sure to lift the glass to hide her face, as she - naturally... - won't be seen wearing it.
Sigh..

Solitude is only a human presumption...

As a girl, I remember wanting to become a writer when I grew up. I read books like eating food; I simply had to have that input, the fiction, the fantasy, the many worlds. It felt like I invented these worlds myself, as I lept right into them and lived them alongside the protagonist of the story.

Then I grew up. I stopped reading fiction and started reading philosophical then spiritual literature. Then I grew some more, and for the last ten years or so, I've only been reading professional literature and childrens books.

After finnishing my masters degree last winter, the reading has been generally low and the knitting has been correspondingly high. I lept right into the fictional world of Barbara Kingsolver by chance. I stumbled upon her non-fictional Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - a year of food life, and bought it for a friend that had just moved to a house with a garden. I didn't read it myself. But via that book, I was lead to the sensous world of Prodigal Summer. After reading the description, I just had to buy it; I read it, I ate it. Every spare moment, I immersed myself in the lush, moist and fertile woods, meadows and barns of Prodigal Summer. It could be described as a sexy biology class. How about that. And more, a politically important one as well. Three different women's stories tell the tales of animal and human fecundity and reciprocity in southern American farming land. The first two chapters could be short stories in their own right. Go read.

Frozen love

We went to the graveyard yesterday, to light candles for friends and relatives that has passed away. Unlike some cultures, who remember their dead at the end of october, we do so during the winter solstice here up north. We arrived the first graveyard in the early afternoon, just when it was beginning to get dark. It was a beautiful day, cold, crisp and clear. Most graves had had visitors during the weekend, and I was struck by the beauty of them; the frozen greens and flowers, the burning candles, the small tokens put there to comfort souls - mostly the living, I suspect. The unanswered questions and helplessness of a handwritten note; a colored paper heart; a letter tucked in between the pine cones and twigs of juniper. The love so awkwardly communicated by a plastic toy; a Santa; stone carved kittens. The call for higher powers seen in tacky ceramic angels and the words hammered into the stones. The sadness and the beauty of it all.

Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me.

And we bow respectfully to thee, Death, with our unanswered questions, helplessness, love and beauty.