Whenever I have Big Life Things to think about, I go to the water, fresh water gushing from streams and brooks into rivers and lakes. It is there I lay down my thoughts, on cool grass, under trees, in the shade. The water is a little girl’s patent leather Sunday shoes traveling over the rocks, and it’s this I need to see, water constantly slipping and yet seeming so absolutely still. This connection; it’s always been part of my DNA. Water in its forever journey yet always there. I come here with my Big Life Things, looking for an answer or simply to remember that life is the same but constantly recreating itself new.
This is what I understand to be love.
When I was a little girl, there was a big river that flowed near our house. There was not much to do but to skip stones or pick flowers and watch the seasons evolve until boulders of ice piled up on the shore to climb and then thaw with a mighty splash, tumbling downriver, and we’d want to put naked toes back in, begging for spring, but it was so early, much too early.
The river showed me everything I needed to know but I was too wrapped up in the urgency of Big Life Things to listen to its single truth:
I am here and ever the same but constantly changing
Today, high above me, leaves rustle and it sounds like rain but it’s not. There’s a distinct fragrance from the trees here, sweet, musky spring, and I try to breathe in rhythm with the leaves and remember.
My dog swam and came to shore, twisting his the water off his coat and onto me, dropping a chewed-up red rubber ball at my feet, his body tight with excitement that I might throw it in the water again. Barely breathing, he stares at me and my hand. I release the ball and he belly-dives, golden fur darkening again, and I yell that’s the last time, Mom will get mad if we’re late. We walk up the hill together, through the wooded river edge to the road our house was on.
I was born and raised a catholic, squeezed into a church pew every Sunday for eighteen years with a force that defied logic. No matter how hard they tried to make it happen, I was never a catholic even for a second. I love churches for their architecture, but for me it is the woods that are sacred. The water. The intersection of the two.
There is nothing more divine than water traveling over rocks and looking like it’s standing perfectly still while leaves flutter a sweet spring song above.
I carry weights not knowing when or how to put them down, to move on, to allow lightness and ease to enter my life again. Indecision holds me back at times, and maybe it holds you back too, because constantly deciding on things in life is tough. I often try to maximise productivity, time management, efficiency - but forget to what end. If it’s happiness I’m after I only need go back to where happiness starts, the connection with leaves, twigs, water and stones. That and to hold the hand of the person I love, enjoying the moment and taking nothing for granted.
And maybe the occasional baby goat.
Big Life Things continue to rise. These junctures are vessels that hold our humanness. We crack and mend. We gather and revisit. We shatter again. By the time we’re complete, we’ve been broken and mended so many times that we are prisms for wisdom to shine through, each edge a rainbow of completeness.
The woods and water take our Big Life Things and create shard and song from our tired souls.
What I’m reading:
About amicable divorce from Lisa Quinn, who wrote it on
Things Worth Knowing. in her gorgeous Microseasons seriesAwake to Nothingness - part 5 in a five part series called Mind is the Enemy, about self awareness and the fullness of the human experience by
in his publication Boundless by RocIf Walls Could Talk - a beautiful post by
post on the pursuit of lessWhat I’m doing:
Getting myself back to the gym and out on the walking path
Finishing the bowls I started here. Next stage is glazing, which I’ll document.
Working on a website (I’m a Squarespace web designer. I take an only few clients a year - you can see one I designed here for
Preparing for a trip to Italy in two weeks! We’ll be heading to our house in Novello (in Piemonte) and spending a couple of days in beautiful Badalucco (in Liguria).
Finishing some art that has been knocking around in my head for far too long
What I’m cooking:
This utterly divine chicken and anchovy recipe from my friend
who is a part time Italian resident like me.This beyond gorgeous gluten-free lemon cake from my friend
How about you?
I avoid churches after being a Catholic for most of my life. Nothing can compare to bring in nature and breathing in fresh air. I live by the ocean for this reason! Thank you for the recipe recommendations! I'm going to make the chicken tonight.
Such a beautiful post to read this morning as I watch the sunrise here in Montalcino ❤️ Love that I know that river intimately - and that I too sat alongside those same waters - connections of life are magical. Buona giornata, my friend 🌟 (and 🙏 for the shoutout...) baci, baci, 🥰