Category: life

The circle of life

Posted in anxiety, books, favourite quotes, life, reading, solace, staying humble, staying trueTagged , , 2 Comments

I can’t resist coming back to Kim Leine’s ‘The Prophets of Eternal Fjorde’ today to post a couple more quotes. This time, we are not focusing on intestinal discomfort. (Enough already!)

My constitution would seem to be better than I would have thought, for I have survived two attacks upon my life this winter and may thereby once more look forward to further prolongation of my futile destiny.
(p. 406)

Morten Falck, a Danish missionary, struggles with his own fleshly weakness, with his desires and cravings, and with the despair that comes from leading a life whose purpose is not entirely clear to him.

I cannot go back … I can only go forward, in a ceaseless circle, and my only hope  is that when the circle is complete and the motion halts I shall have arrived at the place that is best for me …
(p. 505)

Life as a ceaseless circle:
Don’t you, too, sometimes feel you are pushing forward blindly, hoping — hoping — that you will one day arrive at a place that makes sense?

Everyday cake

Posted in anxiety, cooking/baking, favourite quotes, health, life, reading, solace, staying humble, staying true, What I love about ...Tagged , , 7 Comments

Other people’s words about … cake

The other day, in a dark moment, I was trying to compile a list of things that make me feel better when I’m feeling bad.
(I write these lists often. You can draw your own conclusions about what this says about me!)
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One of the things that’s always on my list of consolations is: CAKE.
Cake never fails, right?
Lovely blogger Stacy Ladenburger talks about this over on her blog Delightful Crumb.
Her solution is something she calls ‘Everyday Cake’ —
a cake to eat and bake through all life’s trials and tribulations.

DSCN2033

Everyday cake.
Even the idea consoles me …

Note:
I have never posted a recipe on my blog, and don’t intend to. One reason is my self-imposed word limit. It’s hard to publish a recipe in a post that’s 101 words or less.
But if you would like a recipe for everyday cake, I’d try Stacy’s recipes here and here.
And whatever recipe you try, I hope that baking and eating the end-result will console you as I have found it consoles me…

Happy/sad

Posted in a thought, anxiety, books, favourite quotes, life, reading, solace, staying humble, staying trueTagged 4 Comments

So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be.

From ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower‘
By Stephen Chbosky

Have you read The Perks of Being a Wallflower?
I came to it a few years ago — later than most people, long after the film was released. I think I thought (cynically) that it was a kind of super-cool rewrite of The Catcher in the Rye. And I don’t like super-cool books.
But it isn’t.
I like Charlie’s voice. The narrative is simple and poignant, and gets at the heart of the loneliness of being an adolescent.
Happy/sad.
That’s not just adolescence, though, is it?

PS Happy birthday to my mother for today! ❤

On running

Posted in a thought, anxiety, favourite quotes, health, life, rituals, solace, staying humble, staying true, the beach, What I love about ...Tagged , 3 Comments

Finally, after a summer of heartache followed by almost crippling depression, came the walking phase. After a hectic routine of lying under my coffee table weeping, I had reached a point where I had to get outside and see daylight. I wanted to feel the breath of warm air on my skin; I yearned to feel the blood circulate around my body again … Half-deranged by weeks of erratic sleeping — nights spent enervated and panicky followed by sluggish, heavy-limbed days — I decided in desperation that physically exhausting myself might make the nights seem a little more welcoming. I longed to yearn to lie down at the end of the day, legs aching from use rather than the anxious jiggling they did under my desk for hours on end.

from ‘Running like a girl‘
by Alexandra Heminsley

When I was twenty-five, I took up running to cure my own case of heartbreak. I lived by the beach (a different one then), and so I picked out my four-kilometre course, from one jetty to the next and back; and then I ran.
And the heartbreak lifted. Running brought me the simplest joy I’ve ever known, in fact — until I developed runner’s knee.
Twenty years later, I’ve started running again.
The joy’s still there …
… but so is the runner’s knee.
I won’t give up hope, though: running is the best salve I know.
Cross your fingers for me?

Abundance

Posted in a thought, Australian bush, life, nature, staying humble, staying true, What I love about ..., WinterTagged , 1 Comment

My garden originally had several patches of arum lilies.
Also called calla lilies, these flowers are sometimes thought to symbolise death. They’re considered a toxic weed in South Australia, so I ended up reducing my lilies to one small, protected patch.
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They spring up during the mid-winter rains, when the grass is long and wet and green, and the soil damp and crumbly — reminding me not of death, but of life.
Of growth.
Of abundance.

I’m happy to let them grow in that small patch, ready for picking and putting in a vase — tall, elegant and lush.

The chef gets healthy

Posted in a thought, anxiety, books, cooking/baking, favourite quotes, health, life, on writing, reading, solace, staying humble, staying true, What I love about ...Tagged , 3 Comments

Other people’s words about … life

Cookbooks are all about food and cooking, right?
But here’s what I found in a cookbook I borrowed from the library recently:

I generally don’t get into the whole ‘life quote’ thing; I pop them in a basket with mason jars and hip-hop yoga. But there’s a snowboarder I follow on Instagram called Kevin Pearce … who listed the non-negotiables in his life and it really stuck with me. I adapted the list to suit my life, but the fundamentals are still the same. When I am disciplined about making time for these rules, I find everything else falls into place easily and I am a better person, inside and out. That’s a good thing, right?
Make space for this:

  • Start the day with exercise.
  • Do yoga or meditate (even just 5 minutes): morning, noon and night.
  • Eat a healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner.
  • Prepare food in advance so there’s no excuse to eat crap.
  • Drink lots of water, at least 2 litres a day.
  • Get outside, look around (not down at your screen) and listen.
  • Be present!
  • Take care of hygiene.
  • Read and learn something new every day.
  • Keep in touch with friends and family.
  • Lead with your heart and keep your mind close behind.
  • Remember that conscious breathing will always centre you.
  • Be appreciative and be patient.
  • Surround yourself with awesome, like-minded people.
  • Sleep and rest, as much as you feel you need.

from ‘The Chef Gets Healthy’
by Tobie and Georgia Puttock

I have to confess: the recipes in the cookbook didn’t do much for me. I like my carbs! (Tobie and Georgia have eschewed carbs in the name of health.)
But I loved Tobie’s list.
It’s a recipe for life, not just for food.
And, as with all the best recipes, you can adapt it and make your own.
It’s a starting-point, I think —
a good one, too.

Twenty-one breaths

Posted in a thought, anxiety, gratitude, health, life, Paths, reading, solace, staying humble, staying true, Uncategorized2 Comments

Recently, I’ve been reading about the power of breathing.
As I understand it, when we’re busy or stressed or even excited,
we activate our sympathetic nervous system,
moving into ‘fight or flight’ mode.
19 November 2014 054
But when we stop —
to sleep, rest, meditate, relax,
or simply just to breathe —
we activate our parasympathetic nervous system.
And it’s then we can heal ourselves:
of anxiety and sickness and angst.

Winter sunset at Aldinga Beach
Winter sunset

So now — in keeping with my blog’s theme —
I stop several times daily to take twenty-one deep breaths.

♦

In (through the nose).
Out (through the mouth).
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
Healing.
Healing.
Healing.

Reading Elizabeth Taylor (again)

Posted in books, favourite quotes, life, on writing, readingTagged , , , 1 Comment

Other people’s words

I’ve talked before about the writer Elizabeth Taylor: her pithy, devastating prose.

How’s this?

The town seemed to her to be England at its worst, full of people trying to enjoy themselves and not managing it for various reasons — perhaps chiefly those of the weather and the deeply-rooted dullness it had caused.

from ‘The Soul of Kindness‘
by Elizabeth Taylor

One sentence says so much, doesn’t it?

Reading Elizabeth Taylor

Posted in books, favourite quotes, life, on writing, reading, solace, staying true, Uncategorized, What I love about ...Tagged , , , 1 Comment

On the lonely horror of writing

At the thought of work, of the book he was writing, must finish, his stomach lurched, just as if he had come unexpectedly on something repellent. He was scared, too. Nowadays, he was so frightened of sitting down to work that he had to drive himself to grapple with it.

from ‘The Soul of Kindness‘
by Elizabeth Taylor

I love Elizabeth Taylor’s novels.

Her observations about people, (English) society and life are  acute, pithy and devastating.

Try her sometime!

 

Note:
Two people drew my attention to the writing of the English novelist, Elizabeth Taylor, who died in 1975. One was my mother, an inveterate and highly intelligent reader. The other was one of my favourite bloggers, Jane Brocket.