a few photos {imagination}

Winter has settled in; cold, frozen, windy, today is wet, Thursday will be six degrees. Imagination is necessary.  I indulge in the words of Keats, I am beginning to feel that I live not in this world alone, but in a thousand worlds.  Indeed thousands of worlds converge in my thoughts, bright colorful worlds in which I am warm and wandering, and slow-motion worlds dressed in dull hues pepper this frozen reality.

When I moved to the Midwest winter was a novelty, I lived in the city and took a bus most places, I would walk briskly in low temperatures and enjoy congratulating myself for enduring them.  I loved the coming of Autumn for its coziness and invitation to draw inward.  My husband, a Chicago native, would grumble at the first hint of changing weather, it meant winter was closing in.  I would always scold his cynicism, winter is months away, I would say, besides it's not that bad!  And thus we carried on for a handful of years until we realized that somehow, without our noticing, we had completely traded perspectives.  Now it is me grumbling in the Fall and wondering, who am I?!  I love this season!  But winter’s slow approach has come to weigh on me and it is not so much its onset that I dread, but the inevitability of its length.  

My husband is content to take up winter projects, to have fewer things divide his time, he has accepted the rhythm that nature calls us to.  I have grown restless.  I allow my imagination to wander too many frozen worlds; too much white and too much wind fill my thoughts.  These are the worlds of the feverish not the fruitful imagination.  If I am going to dream I prefer to dream in color, prefer to be carried away on a warm breeze rather than a frozen squall.  Let the sharp winds blow, I shall be warm inside!

It is January, the month of my birth and always the sound of its name carries a certain magic.  January ushers a new beginning, it always feels fresh.  This freshness is a reprieve from winter’s young grip, a cleansing before it becomes too long. I love January.  And so for now I will live in the thousand worlds of January; of crisp blue skies, and a ground crisper still, I will live in the warmness of my home and remember to be thankful that I have a warm home to live in, and I will endeavor to live in the thousand worlds of today, in all of its singular promise, despite the weather outside.

January 12th

| Everyday is a journey and the journey itself is home . Matsuo Basho | 

January 10th 

      So much more bearable are these long winter days in the light of summer plans

 January 9th

Ingredients to this year's Family Adventure Box

 January 4th

Writing about the Badlands tonight and still feeling awed... 

January 1st

This year I am going to learn how to play...it's a good thing I live with three masters!

December 30th

One of the things I love about Wisconsin, it seems there is always an interesting tidbit nearby 

December 29th 

| Seek not to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; rather, seek what they sought. Gautama Buddha |

December 28th

Do whatever you must to remember you are tiny; because it is then you will know how precious you are

December 27th

| May I be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe, tiny but useful . Mary Oliver |

With gratitude,

Joanna