Tag: delight

Delighted

~ windinmywheels ~ Leave a comment
photo/olibekh at unsplash

This little one looks both a tad surprised and delighted! I wonder what they’ve seen? And I’ve spent a few moments this evening bringing back to mind some of the many things I’ve seen and been delighted by in the past few days. Mindful of the innumerable people around the world who will have seen little or nothing of delight today, I resolve all the more to try to be a better steward of all that has delighted me. How? Well, first, by remembering with thankfulness that a great many people and experiences have; and second, by doing whatever I can each day to contribute something to the measure of delight and of happy surprise in our potentially so much more marvellous and extraordinary world.

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Literary observers

~ windinmywheels ~ 4 Comments
Photo at Pexels

without a book I
might not look as deeply at
others’ witnessing

The light on the page often corresponds with the warming illumination within – you’ll know the feeling.

Where in the world would I be without access to books (and – just as thankfully – to blogs these days) and the observation of, and witnessing to life that I encounter daily in others’ considered words and between lines; in sketched images, photography, and world-class art; in delightful etymological rabbit holes; between a book’s covers and its silent spaces?

In my library I keep close company with an extraordinary community of writers through the ages, some ancient, many modern, all bearing gifts – and I am forever grateful to each and all who introduced me to them …

Just for the joy

~ windinmywheels ~ 6 Comments

jungle 2
early work with the superb affinity designer | simon marsh

I’ve been longing to find a couple of hours to begin to get to grips with Affinity Designer, new software I’m cock-a-hoop about. After adding some super new brushes and absorbing some encouragement and samples by Frankentoon today, I’ve been completely and happily occupied this evening – and blithely thought I’d share the fruit of that delight. Just for the joy of it. Only the beginning of what I hope will be a long friendship with Affinity. But already I love it.

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May I?

~ windinmywheels ~ 7 Comments

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Wild geese over south-west Scotland | Nikon D3300 & 40mm f/2.8 | click x2 to enlarge

May I be forgiven for being a little immodestly proud of this photo? Captured today from the passenger seat of our moving car (70mph), heading north, in south-west Scotland. I think I’ve always loved geese and ‘big sky’ – even before encountering my poet-inspiration Mary Oliver – but undoubtedly more since. Mary’s Wild Geese is perhaps one of her best-known and best-loved poems, and whenever I encounter a flight like this one my heart is warmed. I think of her, and inwardly recite an array of her works. Actually, during the course of the visit, and on the homeward journey, we saw perhaps half a dozen more such flights, several of them much larger than this one. What it must be, to be able to take off like that, honking encouragement to one another en route. Oh, and that sky …

Little bins

~ windinmywheels ~ Leave a comment

alarm-clock-1193291_960_720
Photo at Pixabay

Every day, twelve little bins in which to order disorderly life, and even more disorderly thought

Mary Oliver
Upstream, page 25

Recycling in the UK has had a bad press this month. I read I’m not as good at it as I once was, and need to live in one of four counties to pass muster. Boxes and bags are out. Ubiquitous and ugly wheeled bins host the nation’s best-ordered recycling efforts.

Mary Oliver writes of the social self that might be cycling life through ‘twelve little bins’ – the hours of the clock – more concerned with keeping pace with the ‘regular’ governor of time than with whether or not it gathers ‘some branch of wisdom or delight’ along the way.

Containers play their part, like the hours. But both the regular and the irregular – coupled with an ability to reflect and to ask ‘what am I doing and why am I doing it?’ – are essential elements whatever we’re talking about, wherever we are, and whatever we do.