Social beings

I had lunch today with three friends from my old, corporate job -- we've known each other for something closer to 30 years than seems possible, or reasonable (hey, we're not THAT old...). We talked about how difficult it seems to meet people these days, to make friends and connections -- about how guarded, or distant, or just busy everyone seems to be. I miss the golden age of blogging as well, when so many of us were meeting and chatting and making things and hosting swaps, yet I'm deeply thankful for the meaningful connections I did make and the friendships that have lasted. So resolved, once again, to reach out more, to get together with friends, to be open to the possibilities.

Winter morning sun

Week ends

We start every week day morning with Breakfast Club; Dean gets his coffee and sits in his spot, right at the door to the dining hall, welcoming friends as they sleepily arrive. I sit in the back, at the table quickly filled by fellow staff and faculty members, where we have made friendships forged by our mutual habits of getting to work early and enjoying a little something to start the day. It's this start of the day that makes my day.

Go see today's photo at Chicken Blog.

Learning

Traditional Chinese ink painting requires letting go of precision and intent and trusting movement, suggestion, vision. It takes hours and hours, years and years -- not one 45-minute introduction -- yet I loved the opportunity to take a creative break during the day and to try.

I've thought about going down to Chinatown, or looking online, and ordering some paper, ink -- I believe I already have a brush or two from my mom's collection designed for this use. I struggle with where the line is (is there a line?) -- where exploring becomes cultural appropriation, where following along from a book or a YouTube video trivializes the teaching by a master to a student whose cultural created this art form. At that point am I honoring or invoking privilege?

Only the questions.

Chicken Blog has a photo for you today, too.

All of us

and my dear friend over at Chicken Blog has been doing a photo a day with me all along -- how did I fail to mention this before? She's a much more dedicated and thorough blogger than I (my hero, and inspiration) so I hope you'll always hop there, too.

Guarded

Salt of the earth

Sparkling on a warmer, sunnier day than was forecast. This is the first time I remember a fairly frolicksome mood at work/school on a mid-January winter Monday; I think it is because we can see the salt that's put down, glittery and beautiful, without a biting wind at our faces and without having just come off a weekend of relentless snow removal.

Just enough

to appreciate. Kind of amazed that there was a major east coast snowstorm and that we didn't end up with the brunt of it.

Such a gorgeous

typeface.

Sunrise

Still playing with the panoramic view - click on photo to see what I see when I open the garage door these mornings....

Preparing

Panorama!

Playing with the phone's camera, which is kind of obligatory I think. Click on the photo to see the wide view; I love how the process of creating the image made the bow window kind of go inside out (in that it bows OUT, but the photo makes it appear to bend in). Eager to make some real use of this!

The everyday places

I wish, in all my days, I had taken more photos of my everyday places. The streets I walked down, the buildings I regularly went in and out of.  I tend to see and celebrate the extreme close up, the detail but not the wide view, the big picture. So this morning, as I left the dining hall at school after grabbing a hot cup of coffee, I looked out at our quad toward my office (in the small little building at the center, kind of being pointed at my the snow stake) and thought -- I want to remember this.

Not that

grumpy, I hope. The sun shone while we three shoveled snow, and it only took about an hour, and we had the day off and I've come through the long weekend with only a couple of things still lingering on my to-do list. It's not so bad, mama bear.

Driving

 We never seem to say that it is driving snow.

The most wonderful(ly involved) time of the year

Still a few hours of packing away to do before Christmas is put away for this recent run. We did get the tree out today, and will be vacuuming up needles until the next one comes in (but I don't complain -- I secretly love finding pine needles in the house all year).

Lunar

landscape. Still, though, the ground is there.

A delicate winter

Soft enough, even, to step out for just a moment without a coat.

Sustenance

At the end of a long day, the mailbox brings me comfort and joy. A glass of wine helps, too....

Another nest

My work office nest mess at school. This is the heart of the busiest time and the days stack one on top of another like the endless in-box file....

Already, all ready

River

Raw

Cold, damp, raw, grey; a bleak part of winter. Ready to curl up by the fire and go through some seed catalogs; I imagine two giant pots of basil, and maybe some currant tomatoes.

Ready

for a weekend, for quiet, for calm.

Tangled

and ready to unwind.

The middle

...of the week, of the road, of the pack, of the night. (But, not night.)

Light

I lifted my head up as I walked down the path, out of my office after school today, and realized not only that it was still faintly light out -- not dark yet! -- but also that, despite the cold, the light had the shimmery weak quality of...impending spring. A long haul yet to be sure, but already I can see the signs.

Nesting

A bitterly cold day for returning to work, and school, and routines; proud of us all, actually, for doing as well as we did. So hard to leave the nest this morning and so relieved and grateful to return at the end of the day. I am looking forward to those moments, which must be coming soon, when I can perceive the difference in the light -- sunrise a little earlier, sunset a little later.

The older I get the harder it is for me to bear the dark, the cold... winter. I try to find joy in the comforts of a warm home, and the deep flavors of slowly cooked meals.

Repose

One last winter vacation morning to relax, regroup, recharge. They just fly by, these breaks; never long enough for all the doing, and all the NOT doing, that we have planned.

Texture

Appreciating that this winter, so far, has been mild; textures, green, still leaves and not the uniform blanket of white. Not appreciating how quickly the week between Christmas and New Year's melts away, though.

Always grab a fresh start

Always wanted to try a photo-a-day for a year. And so a big, juicy, promising, life-changing, ground-breaking year begins.