{Bright, Beautiful}

“Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.” ― Henri J.M. Nouwen

This picture, and this spot actually, just make me happy. The colors. The texture. It all combines into such a simple joy.

{Seeing things in color}

“My soul is a hidden orchestra; I know not what instruments, what fiddlestrings and harps, drums and tamboura I sound and clash inside myself. All I hear is the symphony.” ― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

Amen to afternoons spent in quiet forest filled with splendor. It is always an instant re-calibrator for clashing symphony that hangs out inside my busy head:)

{Haiku}

cold morning in the city 
deciding what is me 
and what is everything else
 -Michael McClintock

May mindfulness moments and I appreciate and grateful as I look around at the smallest details that make up the day...

{Urban Lace}

I will wade out til my thighs are steeped in burning flowers
I will take the sun in my mouth
and leap into the ripe air
Alive
With closed eyes...
-e.e. cummings

{Lovely}

"And you'll always love me won't you?
 Yes 
And the rain won't make any difference?
 No" -Ernest Hemingway (A Farwell to Arms)

{Harsh but Soft}

“You know, you’re a little complicated after all.”
 “Oh no,” she assured him hastily.
“No, I’m not really - I’m just a - I’m just a whole lot of different simple people.”
 ― F. Scott Fitzgerald (Tender is the Night) I scrunch my nose as I look at EVERY picture I took at the lake the other day. I forced myself to shoot in harsh light because I needed a change and nature...and water. Something different. All the pictures just suck. Bad. Except I do like this one. And I remember shooting into the sun, with a tree branch sticking into my head. Desperate to find some angle where this tree, that looks normally so gentle and soft, didn't look ugly as you know F-word.... It's like the Seinfeld episode with the pretty/ugly girl and the light. Where she looks amazing only in the light of the diner booth. And a zombie other places. Now this picture, I love how it wraps it's flowery branch fingers across the pictures and hugs itself. And the way the light filtered through the petal made me melt. I suppose like all things wild and free, stuck in harsh afternoon sun, it shouldn't be expected to hold it's normal grace and poise all the time. I'll probably cut this tree, this picture, the time of day Myself Some slack:)

{FINISTERRE}

The road in the end taking the path the sun had taken,
into the western sea, and the moon rising behind you
as you stood where ground turned to ocean: no way
to your future now but the way your shadow could take,
walking before you across water, going where shadows go,
no way to make sense of a world that wouldn't let you pass
except to call an end to the way you had come,
to take out each frayed letter you brought
and light their illumined corners, and to read
them as they drifted through the western light;
to empty your bags; to sort this and to leave that;
to promise what you needed to promise all along,
and to abandon the shoes that had brought you here
right at the water's edge, not because you had given up
but because now, you would find a different way to tread,
and because, through it all, part of you could still walk on,
no matter how, over the waves.” ― David Whyte I have too many thoughts to know what write down. I'll let David Whyte do the speaking. I just found this poem to be so incredibly beautiful.