Let's pretend

Let us pretend that today is Sunday, because with my husband working everyday I struggle to remember what day of the week it is. Last week on seeing our milkman my first thought was "But I canceled the Thursday delivery", followed by "Maybe it's Saturday. Can't be Saturday, feels more like Wednesday. However he doesn't deliver on Wednesday... Tuesday? Could it really be only Tuesday" It was Tuesday, tomorrow will be another and I need to remember to put the empty milk bottles out.

Getting the milk delivered was one of our better ideas to "simplify" our lives. We consume a lot of milk and one member of the family is particularly prone to meltdowns if there is no milk available in the morning to have with her breakfast cereal. This way we never run out, don't have to walk to the shops just to get a bottle of milk after we already did a lot of walking or to call my husband to pick one up on the way home from work. To tell you the truth the best part of it for me is that these glass milk bottles remind me of my childhood and I love opening them by squashing the foil top.

Anyway, back to the quote for the last week - it has to be this optimistic "I can overcome anything"-attitude song from the Russian cartoon, because I was singing it a lot in my head in the past few days.

Кручу педали, кручу

Кручу, кручу, кручу педали кручу
С горы, с горы, с горы как птица лечу,
Спешу, спешу, спешу, спешу налегке
На встречу радуге-дуге

Припев:
Пусть, пусть дорога вдаль бежит
Грусть пусть на сердце не лежит
Мне все на свете по плечу
И с песней этой качу по свету,
Качу качу куда хочу.

Терпи, терпи, терпи когда тяжело,
Скрипи, скрипи ты подо мною, седло.
Не смей, не смей, не смей на миг ослабеть
Умей себя преодолеть

Припев.

Лечу, лечу, лечу не знаю куда.
Хочу, хочу, чтоб это было всегда
Сильней, сильней, сильней лишь зубы сомкну,
Но я назад не поверну.

Припев.

Quotable Sunday

In the meantime the strike is over, with a remarkably low loss of life. All is quiet, they report, all is quiet.

In the deserted harbour there is yet water that laps against the quays. In the dark and silent forest there is a leaf that falls. Behind the polished panelling the white ant eats away the wood. Nothing is ever quiet, except for fools.
— Alan Paton (Cry, the Beloved Country)

..

Useless jobs

"If you only do the easy and useless jobs, you'll never have to worry about the important ones which are so difficult. You just won't have the time. For there's always something to do to keep you from what you really should be doing, and if it weren't for that dreadful magic staff, you'd never know how much time you were wasting."
Norton Juster "The Phantom Tollbooth"

Do not worry

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
The Bible. Matthew 6:34
--
This quote popped into my head at the start of this week as the most fitting advice that finally made sense. Whenever I heard it previously there was always “but” in my mind; there isn’t now. I’m not attempting to analyze why and how it makes sense, I’m just glad that it does.

I wonder if kids laugh more often than adults, because they rarely worry about tomorrow and are instead enjoying the present. Would I get more pleasure from my life if all of today’s beauty, love and majesty were more present in my thoughts? Would I laugh and smile more? Would the feelings of love and gratitude infuse my mind leaving no space for worrisome and negative thoughts? Would concentrating on the problems and tasks of today allow me to accomplish more in the long run? I’m going to practice smiling and loving and holding today dear and trusting that I am and will be in the correct space, true state and on the right journey.

Working hard

Miss Tick sniffed. “You could say this advice is priceless,” she said, “Are you listening?”
“Yes,” said Tiffany.
“Good. Now...if you trust in yourself...”
“Yes?”
“...and believe in your dreams...”
“Yes?”
“...and follow your star...” Miss Tick went on.
“Yes?”
“...you’ll still be beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy. Goodbye."
Terry Pratchett "The Wee Free Men"

Noticing

A knitted indigo dress, and her hair like fast water at night spilling one shoulder; he said, 'That doesn't really surprise us, Miss Wong.'
Surprise, he thought. She puts her hand on the bar, she leans back on the stool, hip moving in knitted blue, and with each movement, I am amazed, surprised, bewildered.
Samuel R. Delany Babel-17
--
I loved "Babel-17" by Samuel R. Delany. I would've loved it anyway, however the mention of a knitted dress worn by the main heroine made me like this book just a tiny bit more. Are there any insignificant details in the books that make them more special to you, while other people wouldn't even notice them?

My hood full

Eskimo Lullaby

It's my fat baby
I feel in my hood,
Oh, how heavy he is!

When I turn my head
He smiles at me, my baby,
Hidden in my hood,
Oh, how heavy he is!

How pretty he is when he smiles
With his two teeth, like a little walrus!
Oh I like my baby heavy
And my hood full!

From "A Spider Bought a Bicycle" collection of poems selected by Michael Rosen

...

…what you can do is often simply a matter of what you will do.

…so many things are possible just as long as you don't know they're impossible.
Norton Juster "The Phantom Tollbooth"

Taking the lid off

If you study is going to be fruitful, let it be because you use the information as a set of tools to take the lid off your own creativity.
James Walters "Crochet Workshop"

Parting

When you part from your friend, you grieve not; For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
Kahlil Gibran "The Prophet"

--
Last year I made two new wonderful friends. They are interesting, fun, kind, creative, beautiful and inspirational women. Their friendship made me feel more positive about life in general and improved my confidence in myself that was shaken by some unpleasant interactions.

One of them, who is currently holidaying in Australia, sent me email this week to let me know that she got her dream job in Sydney. I'm so happy for her - not only she will be going home to her own country where she can raise her daughter surrounded by family, friends and warm, easy-going people; but she also going to do something that she loves.

However, it will be very hard to say yet another good bye.

(Photos are from last year's trip to Melbourne)

...

It is necessary to be somewhat underemployed if you want to do something significant.
James Watson

...

There is no interest in realising the possible, but it is exceedingly interesting to perform the impossible
Sergei Diaghilev

This year's favourite Christmas song

I haven't posted any quotes in the last two weeks, because I don't have anything appropriate to this moment of my life - I have many I wrote down years ago, but somehow none of them seem right. I used to read 2-3 books concurrently and to slow down my reading jot down the bits I liked; now I usually struggle to get through one book for a long time and avoid the ones with the complicated plot or too many characters.

However, today I have a musical one. I was tired of hearing “Jingle Bells” over and over again from my daughter, who learned it at the kindergarten, therefore got us Ella Fitzgerald’s “Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas” CD and fall totally in love with “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” – you’ll probably be able to tell why I feel sentimental about it if you listen to the words.

Teaching & learning

--
One thing has remained with me above all - how little I did as a person, and how much came about through the children in my care, and through their efforts. The more I learned to know them, the more I realised that they were constantly teaching me. They were not encumbered by the heavy baggage of material knowledge that adults possess. They seemed to have resources that were fresh, inspired, and full of star wisdom. My best moments were those in which I was truly open to what the children had to teach me. For that, I am deeply grateful. From "School as a Journey" by Torin M. Finser

***

It must have been an endless
breathing in: between
the wish to know and the need to praise
there was no seam.
from the poem "Butterfly" by Margaret Atwood

Wealth

The problem is that wealth ceases to move freely when all things are counted and priced. It may accumulate in great heaps, but fewer and fewer people can afford to enjoy it.
Lewis Hyde “The Gift”

Spring

Thaw
Over the land freckled with snow half-thawed
The speculating rooks at their nests cawed
And saw from elm-tops, delicate as flower of grass,
What we below could not see, Winter pass.
Edward Thomas

--
The snowdrops were photographed in Brighton more than two weeks ago. There are signs of spring all around, but the winter's cold and rain don't seem to want to pass. I long for the spring and all it brings: the warmth, the blue skies, the sunlight, the promise of new discoveries and accomplishments, the lifting of the soul, the renewal.

The artists of being alive

And yet, I know artists whose medium is Life itself, and who express the inexpressible without brush, pencil, chisel, or guitar. They neither paint nor dance. Their medium is Being. Whatever their hand touches has increased Life. They see and don't have to draw. They are the artists of being alive.
"The Zen of Seeing: Seeing/Drawing as Meditation" by Frederick Franck

Drawing

If - as I hope - the how-to tricks with ellipses don't work for you either, there is no other way of drawing a sparrow or an eagle than to draw it ad infinitum, until the bushes on our paper are fuller of birds than any bushes ever were, and you know sparrow and eagle inside out, having been them yourself.
"The Zen of Seeing: Seeing/Drawing as Meditation" by Frederick Franck