Outside my train window

Stork in field of hay
Wagon 3, seat 131
I'm roaring back home.

Beautiful sounds: leaves

The foosh of bending branches as the leaves dance in rhythm with the wind.

Beautiful sounds: suburbia

The steady drone of a lawn mower on a Friday afternoon—that one neighbour getting a head start on the weekend to-do list.

Quiet morning

 Another post in my visual journal.

Chores, commands, and the art of doing it right

Photo by Jim DiGritz on Unsplash

In Life’s Like That Sometimes, Khaya Dlanga shares a memory of his childhood Saturdays, when his mother ran the household like a finely tuned machine. Everything had to be spotless. And if something wasn’t done right? You did it again. And again. Until it was right. “No one was going to do it for you,” he writes.
 
I couldn’t help but smile reading that. To Pat, chores were a fact of life. You didn’t ask why—you asked what's next.
 
She had time. She had patience. She had standards.
 
And she believed that children should learn how to care for themselves and contribute meaningfully to the household. Not as a punishment (or at least not always). Not even necessarily as a lesson. Just because that’s what being part of a family meant.
 
Boy, did things change in the generation of my children and those of my friends' children. 

So very hungry

Yumyum Zaziki,
Lentil soup with fresh baked bread
Regal feast for lunch.

Sea bath museum

 

By popular demand... a museum in Travemünde, Germany, a port on the Baltic Sea, dedicated to those of you who want to know the 200-year-old history of sea bathing. It includes bathing fashions over the years.

Doesn't it tickle your toes?

Pitstop trip to Berlin

 

Ode to Kim's life in Gibbson

Early morning. The bunk at the bow of the boat is warm and cozy, as long as she doesn’t touch the inner wall of the hull. Her sleepy eyes refuse to open. Her tired brain tries to stay in the land of dreams. Unwillingly, she sighs, admitting the loud stranger of awakeness.

It tangles her legs in the sleeping bag and fills her bladder to bursting point. Groaning, she scissors-kicks her legs out of the bag and over the side of the bunk. She stumbles her way to the head (toilet), jars her knee on the handle of the pump, and plomps down on the wiggling toilet seat. What she wouldn’t give for a proper self-flushing toilet.

She hears her sister stomping about on deck, lowering the kayak and pushing off for her morning paddle.

After putting on some water to boil, she returns to the forward cabin and slips on numerous layers of clothes. The inner layer is newly laundered; the outer is from yesterday and does not smell so fresh. She heads back to the galley and makes herself a cup of tea. It’s a large cup, purchased at a local artisan fair from a potter who obviously embodies the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi.

Teetering up the steep ladder into the cockpit, the full teacup miraculously doesn’t spill. She looks out at the water, its mist blurring the details of the shoreline but not the sounds of birdlife and birdsong all around. This is the perfect moment of the day: alone, except for her sister in the kayak farther away, the water, and some still unclear ideas about how they might fill the day.

Plön (train station)

 

Explore: curiousity

 

Anne-Laure Le Cnuff says an amazing thing: "In a sense, being committed to curiosity is ensuring you are going to live a life that is intentional. You are going to live your life. Not the life others are expecting you to live."

We are all put on this planet with an innate sense of curiosity. Unfortunately, our society and education system make it hard for us to keep being curious. That sounds weird since these forces should help us learn how to live out our curiosity. 

Many people I know are not interested in learning new things or being experimental in their approach to life. They wonder why I am always trying out new things and improving my skills. Creativity is a muscle, and curiosity fuels it.

So, here is to exploring more, celebrating trial and error, laughing at one's mistakes, pushing boundaries, and combing the information chaos with a fine-toothed comb for strands of insightfulness.