hiver

i have just returned from the forest, it is the loveliest of winter days. sun shines beautifully and the warmth that cometh from it is spring like. the house is very toasty and i walk barefooted and my clothing is light and delicate. a large glass of orange juice with grated ginger is on the table and je grignotte on carrots as a banana, chocolate coconut cake bakes in the oven, the house smells lovely and rich.

I want to play chess with the pieces that were made just for the hill, i need someone to play with me but i will wait. music is playing and i feel so at peace and calm. i have worked on many projects this week, consumed by the computer i do not do well staring at a screen for so long, it takes moisture from my skin and oxygen for my lungs but in the big picture i hardly have to do it at all. thank goodness for the hill and the most beautiful hiver i can remember, for long winter walks, healthy animals and a quieting soul.


some winter inspired songs i have been listening too: here,  here, here, here, here, here truth is loving this band  and this one

winter in the woods and snow

it was as i hoped it to be, the weekend that is. lots of time outdoors, a film and another one this evening anna karinina. I can not wait to be outdoors again tomorrow, there is something that brings me happiness in the snow, it is so crisp and beautiful and as i walk under large canopies of ever greens and oak trees my spirit becomes unburdened by things that can weight me down.

I think is time to dive into books, it has been too long since i read a last page of any book, i wonder what it will be and where it will take me and whom i will meet in it's pages.  i also plan on purging many things in the house, things that clutter up drawers and closets and end up making me feel phobic. I also want to commit myself to a few things i put on my list when i first moved to the hill, one of those things is meditation, true meditation. on my last visit too santa fe, new mexico i visited a tibetan home where i was gifted the most beautiful piece of music perfect for reflection. I played  it for a month straight every morning and evening as k and hiked through the colorado mountains a few years back.

i hope you have a good week, would love to hear what you are listening and reading.

winter's day and wishes.

i am sitting at the kitchen table, sun shines through enough to warm me where i sit. the fire is burning, the smell of pine is all about the house. On the stove top tea kettle begins it's boil and potatoes with garlic from the garden are in the cast iron skillet a craving on this christmas eve morning.

I am filled, i think my cup runneth over with good people, dear ones,  the life changing kind, that has not happened before. I am reserved in away, a solitary creature, i have walls so high, i started building them at the age of five. Yet this morning i can not help but to reflect on the kindness and meaningful exchanges that have taken place this year. I want to name those people here, i do, i want to share with everyone my gratitude for true friendships yet i also know that i must pen my thoughts and seal them in the envelop and send them to be carried my post men so that they can be read when the time is right.  I also feel lucky for all the exchanges here on the blog, all the friendships that grew and the kind insights that have been given, thank you dear readers.

the sun is bright and it is as a winter day should be. Wishing you happiness and if you find yourself solitary yet wanting to not be, there is place for you here always.

This song i am still finding traces of myself in it as i did here.

with kindness,

nadia.

spirit in a storm

hi, how are you. I am good, i feel happy. it is friday and little signs of holiday cheer begin to fill the house.  a wind and rain storm came to the hill last night and stayed, today i could hear trees fall in the forest as horses bolted across the fields, such power in both sounds. I had to walk against the rain and wind to recconect the horse lines to post, i could barely manage it, how is it the ducks and chickens just sit there while giant trees get moved around and the weight of me begins to feel feather light, a wonder.

there is pine in the house and it hangs from every window, i found in me a deeper breath, i had taken too many shallow ones and now i slowly come back to life:).  there will be many trips to boston and a trip to montreal in the next week. I hope to bake and make soups, listen to good music, take long walks and hope fully play in snow and a string instrument ( hope).

Okay i must go collect more wood and feed the fire, hope you are warm and that you find your go to space if things get to hectic for you. i will write again, i think soon.

Happy Solstice.

waiting for snow

i am waiting, that is what i have been doing. minutes, hours and days slip through slowly, yet a feeling of things moving quickly are also being felt. I am waiting for snow to fall, there has been none in fact since i have moved to vermont and this being my second winter there has been no snow, the planet is changing it's layers putting on new clothing to adapt to the rising heat and i don't like it.

There is no sign of holiday's here in the house and i keep telling myself to go out there and forage and bring back some pine, but in a time when i  hope for new life- taking any kind of  life seems unkind and i can not seem to do it, in fact a huge grey birch tree fell inches from the coop and house and as i cut into it yesterday i was filled with sorrow, the hypocrisy i feel writing this down for i burn wood to heat my house daily, life a delicate entanglement of wants versus needs. There is a huge branch of evergreen that fell because of it, perhaps i will simply string that along in the house or on the barn doors. you must think i have no spirit, i have asked that myself to myself and the timing of the holidays is mixing in with something much more pressing in my life and i am consumed by it, yet i stay quiet and still not to fully grasp what is coming. as i write this i know i must go out there and get that piece of green, i must fill the house with good spirit for in turn it will fill me.

I did go for a beautiful walk this morning, hence the photographs above. warm rain and fog kept me company, i explored the pond, writers shack the walnut grove, apple orchard and then entered the forest. i love it here, in fact this just might be (is) my favorite place on earth and the happiness i feel here i have never felt elsewhere.

nature of me

i am good at it, good at staying quiet when my insides scream. i am good at letting things roll off me even though they somehow end up inside of me. I am good at not pretending to pretend. i am good and believing it is my fault when it is not. i am bad at speaking when my insides are screaming, i am bad as i  keep things in when i should let them roll off of me. i am bad for taking the blame when you are in the wrong.

somehow things work themselves out, somehow there is fog and rain, sun and snow in one day. sometimes i am four seasons, i grow and shed, change and bloom all in on hour that is the nature of me and i am finally realizing some of it i can not change and some of it i no longer feel the need to change. i am i, like wool is wool.

I like this song for in it i recognize the quietness behind the screams, the static between two feelings.

can i tell

can i tell you about my days, can i tell you the small details that accumulate and fill the space of time, would that be okay? there so many little moments through out my day and even though i just asked if i could tell you, i realize how much there would be to write and i am not the best of writers. Instead can i tell you that right now i am sitting on the floor by the fire with my back to the couch my laptop resting on my thighs  tea cup to my side and music pouring out of my speakers. The sun is behind thick clouds but  still manages to create such a beautiful light.

Can i tell you that even though there is so much to think about, i have finally found a way to quiet my mind, not rush to get to a place i do not know. can i tell you that i have added some more things to my daily routine/rituals like holding a pencil in my hand and writing a few things that have trouble being said or written any other way and how i am doing push ups, gosh that sounds so harsh in contrast to what i usually say here but such a quick stress reliever and brings me a sense of calm. hands flat on the wooden floor, my weight resting on them as i move towards it and then push against it, move towards it, push away from it.

can i tell you that i took a long walk today and i touched the bark on trees and scooped the greenest of moss, it felt nice to feel these things,  to feel things in your hands.  right now the winter sun is coming in and that is nice on my skin, and the piano playing is also lovely. i am calm and that is unexpected.

evergreen

this morning the alarm went off upstairs as i was already walking about downstairs. the kettle whistled as the sun began to pierce through the sky, fog and warm air crept up the hill. there would be a morning ride through the green mountains, a ritual for the soul that seeks to see more.  wet thick snow
quickly melting, fog so solid that slowing down is a must.  I looked out at all this,  more than everything else it was the evergreens that held my attention. i love them most of all against winter's backdrop,  as i say this the smell that comes from camping underneath them on hot summer day is equally pleasant to remember.

 Yesterday was one of those days that you stay in your wool socks and comfy clothes, that you listen to only things that make you feel safe and talk about only kind things, or maybe hardly talk at all. yesterday tears fell randomly all through out the day but more like burst of sun showers than ones that stem from sad things, i am happy, i am dizzy, i am learning and i am so grateful for your kind comments and emails.

....as i made it through the beautiful mountain landscape that i call home, i sat in a cafe and sipped  a beautiful prepared mocha and played the best chess game ever. then i drove back towards the hill as the sky, the delicate sun and fog made the whole journey feel as if i was looking through rose coloured glasses,  the truth is i often do even on those dark days.

hush

there is part of me that wants to hush everything, put a finger to my lips and say shhhh and yet there is part of me that wants to say everything empty all my thoughts, fears and hopes. i started to think is there anyone one who has that person in their life that they say everything too. I have some great people in my life but not one those, although i have no doubt they would except that role but it is i who has trouble.

Tomorrow will be epic, i can not say more even if i tried for even for myself as the very thought of it comes to surface i quiet it down. we all have things that change the path or confirm the path we are on, i wonder how many of those we get in out life time. i wrote those very words to friend via text yesterday, can i just say how much i hate texting i feel like it is some sort of demotion in friendship in a way,  anyhow as i wrote that down i thought surely i have had many path changing events but more i thought about it more i realized some of what i thought was huge disappeared shadowed by greater things.

I found this and something about it lifted my spirits, "stars in still water" by Jonsi, i know how to see those, i do not know how it came to be, perhaps my  mother teaching me to see beauty in everything.

*sophie and grooming created such a ethereal scene.

the light in the house.

i imagine this is what is playing 

This morning i got up before the sunlight, i was going to chase the fog but i soon discovered that there was none,  i made my way out through the green mountains anyway. beautiful frost could be seen everywhere glistening like chards of glass, i captured it,  as i walked into the woods my fingers cold, frozen in fact i stood next to the lake as it to looked like deep blue glass stretched out to the hovering pine trees.

I drove some more,  the sun became so bright that it was almost blinding as i made it down and up the mountain and around sharp curves in hopes of getting  coffee at a town across the mountain, but everything closed on this holiday day.  i turned around and made my way back up the mountain, then i saw the house that i have coveted for so long,  a freshly for sale sign  hanging on it's fallen down fence. i had to stop, i had passed this house a hundred times or more saying one day i would walk around it and through it. I need it, nothing fills my spirit than a house with history. Oh dear friends, not only was the house magnificient but it had  a very large care takers house with such incredible light. I turned the knob and i was in, running from room to room, the light, oh the light my truest companion.

I am in love, that is often the case i know but this dear friends could be a future project, one that takes years but one that gives one purpose. I heard it say yesterday that one must work hard because that is the only chance we have to  reach the silver lining, I believe it to be true, for i am already living a dream here on the hill and i feel that way every single day, every time i look out the window, sit next to fire, feed the horses or feel the sunlight coming in.

happy thanksgiving to you and yours.

with kindness
nadia