by live each season
This blog is nearing its second anniversary and I’m forgetting some of what I’ve written, so almost every day of late, I am looking back at entries of a year ago that day. It’s like I sometimes would do with those little five year diaries with tiny locks on them in my preteens that I would try to faithfully write into, but eventually give up on when there were more blank pages than full. I think these blog entries make for more interesting reading than those few words by a quiet shy schoolgirl leading a quiet uneventful life.
Still feeling in the doldrums, I’m surprised, yet not, that last year on this date I wrote about January blues and melancholy. I know it’s a combination of the letdown after holidays, the dreadful weather (after a nice weekend for a change we’re back to incessant heavy rains) and fighting off a bit of a cold. I happened across this quote which seems to match the mood:
Live each season as it passes, breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of each. – Henry David Thoreau
January 17, 2006 in Being an Artist, Blogging by Marja-Leena
Täällä Helsingissä on ollut koko syksyn pimeää ja synkkää. Lunta on tullut vain muutamana päivänä, ja se on kadonnut nopeasti. Olen ihaillut Anskun kuvia Keski-Suomesta, jossa on hohtavat kinokset.
Hyvää vointia Sinulle. Terveisin Pirkko
Kuulostaa että Helsingissä ilmat muuttuvat lämpöisemmäksi? Minäkin kävin katsomassa nuita hienoja lumi kuvia, vieläkin ikävöin lunta kun sitä oli aina talvisin ensimäiset 25v. elämääni! Täällä sitä on harvoin eikä kestä kauan, paitsi vuorilla.
Kiitos ja hyvää vointia Sinullekin, Pirkko!
That’s a great image – very fitting somehow.
I’m lucky if I can remember what I posted last month, let alone last year. That “favorite posts” section of my sidebar? it’s more for my own benefit than anyone else’s!
Glad you like the photo, Dave! It’s one of many that my husband took on our recent trip to the Pacific coast. I’ve been wondering how to make it easier to look back at posts of a year, and soon two, ago – it’s fun sometimes revisit the ideas or links again.
Marja-leena: It’s funny – in late fall/early winter is when I am ususally hit by the doldroms. Then after the holidays, usually by January – I feel energized. The days take forever to get longer – and it’s still dark when I get off the bus at the park & ride. But it’s just knowing that the days are getting longer, bit by bit, that helps. We have been deluged here in the Pacific Northwest – so I know the weather you are speaking of. I guess it is second nature to me, since where I grew up, we had even more rain, more grey, foggy weather than we have here. I remember after almost 2 months of soggy grey weather, I felt like I couldn’t remember what blue sky looked like!
But holidays and big art shows do have the tendancy to leave us in the dumps. I used to be addicted to the rush I got from living a hectic life (or what seemed hectic to me then, in Kodiak). Now just getting up and commuting to work and home again (which takes about 2hours out of my day) seems hectic! So I’ve learned to adjust.
I have confidence that you will break through the doldrums, just as the blue sky will eventually break through the clouds, and the sun will return to our skies for longer periods of time – gradually!
Jackie, thanks for sharing your doldrums story, and I really appreciate your confidence that the muse will return. I’m sure it will too, just have to go with the flow!