Lost and Found

Still cold

Cccccold

Right now it's 4 degrees C with a wind chill factor of -1 and it's FREEZING outside. This is probably nothing for people in the northern hemisphere, but for someone in South Africa this might as well be Antarctica as far as I'm concerned. And we don't even have the fun of snow to go with it. That is assuming snow is as nice as it looks for someone who has never lived in it. I'm not complaining though, for now, I'm actually enjoying the cold weather. It's a wonderful feeling to be snug and cozy inside with the wind howling and blasting around the house in the deep dark night. I can't express how grateful I feel to have this luxury in a country where there is so much poverty and there are millions of people living in flimsy shacks in slums. Every night when I go to bed I think about how lucky I am to be crawling under a feather duvet with a strong roof over my head.

Today I have the winter sun in my soul

Took these two pics this morning. The bottom one is a vintage monchichi that I've had since the eighties and I still love it and find it adorably cute.

Today is a beautiful typical Winter's day, clear and sunny with a perfect blue sky, slightly chilly when the wind blows, but quite nice and warm in the sun if you're wearing a warm jersey.

I feel quite good today, more relaxed and less anxious than yesterday.

I have turned to shadow and stone

In the book "eat pray love", the author is with a friend discussing the single words that conjure up the essence of a city. They conclude the word for Rome is Sex, the word for Sweden is Conform, and for New York it is Achieve. They go on to to find the single word that would describe their families, and then the word that is the essence of themselves. This got me thinking about the single word that is the essence of myself, and what I came up with is Doubt.

My entire life, since I can remember I have doubted myself and my abilities. Over the years I have doubted myself so much that I have ceased to live, I merely exist in a twilight world, fearing everything, hiding away and unable to make important decisions. I am trying to embark on a journey of self-discovery, trying to lose my doubts, and find an inner core of certainty and self-confidence. I know it won't be easy, but I can't afford not to do it. I have drifted with the wind for far too long.














(Picture credits: 1-5: via Tatielle; 6-12: via Sabino)

I am hanging in

I took some photo's in the garden today, the deep still shadows of the greenery reflect the winter season. It feels quiet and a little bit solitary, a little bit sad. I didn't get too much done, but I kept my day clear so I wouldn't have to expend any energy. I needed to have still, quiet time. I read quite a lot. I'm busy reading "Eat, pray, love", finally, I've been wanting to read it for a long time. So far I am enjoying it, but it's not as brilliant as I thought it would be, I suppose after all the hype surrounding this book, it would have been difficult for it to live up to my expectations, but perhaps I'll change my mind once I've read the whole book.

In the evening I went to my photography class, it was the final class of a five week course I've been doing. I'm a little sad that it's over, but once I've had some time to practice and absorb everything I've learned so far I'll sign up for another more advanced class. Learning photography has been a dream of mine since I was in school, but somehow or another I never got around to doing anything about it before. I feel really really good about doing the class because I finally did something about making this dream come true. I also feel a bit anxious about it, because there's so much that still needs to sink in, but I need not to loose myself in fear, and to keep on practising.