deep happiness

dear readers, i had not meant to be gone this long. life on the hill changed in one minute and my heart is so full. I am not able to explain just yet but i desperately want to share my happiness with you. It is the kind of happiness that comes with great risk, so everyday, many times a day i whisper little things to myself to keep me in the moment, not looking past today.

I leave for Europe in a couple of weeks, that did come so fast. Leaving the farm and all that it means is so very hard but now it seems unbearable but i also know that once i hot Italian soil, i will know how lucky i am to be in such a place.

I am thinking of you, i hope life allows me to share more of my happiness with you in a more open way, i hate keeping anything from you, so i will whisper it into the wind and you just might hear it.

january and a winters walk.

 I have just returned from snowshoeing in the woods behind the house. the snow is so beautiful and the sun warm. there is so many animals tracks in the woods, deer, coyote, bunny and birds. it so quiet when you walk on snow through the forest, even a stillness and calm that i desperately was seeking yesterday one of the biggest days of my life,  i often romanticize how things should go, in fact i can romanticize most anything like i often do about mucking stalls.

I am sitting by the fire now, a wool blanket covers my legs and a warm cup of tea sits next to my knitting yarn. the horses are loving todays weather, i think all of us are since yesterday the temperature fell to minus nine.

this weekend will include a trip to the city, a film, farmers market, more snowshoeing, knitting and cooking. I am looking forward to it, since i am at the gate of so much work to be done, shoots to plan, workshops to announce, houseguest to welcome, airline tickets to purchase, house to paint and so on. may you all have a good weekend, i just love january so very much.

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.

awoken

i decided i want to remember it the way it was when we were in it,  not how our over thinking minds and rationalization made them out to be. i guess what i am saying is that i do not feel the same but i am okay with not saying, me too anymore. i am putting away the armor now and i will greet you or him or them without it with the risk of being broken but also the possibility of being woken:)

*shots taken with iphone

fog and fire.

it is early sunday morning and the sun begins to rise and i again wake feeling lucky but also a little fragile yet calm. i learned a few things this weekend about myself that were pieced together with thought, a listening ear and a friend speaking the same native tongue, perhaps i have known those things before but i again wanted to make them clear to myself. i believe i can change so much of  me but what i am realizing is that somehow how i have not been given the same tool box of emotions, coping and know how as others around me have and that makes some of my being feeling as if i will always be a certain way. I am not sure if  i am sad about it, i do not think i am except when i accidentally get lost in my own fog or when i set fire to my insides which i work so hard to not let that happen even though as i am writing you i hardly am thinking of it at all, while forgetting that certain things are not for me.  if i stay quiet enough i can see i have everything i want  need and that is not worth trading what is needed for what is wanted specially when i do not think i could possibly begin to articulate what that would be, although this song that i borrowed from says it perfectly.

the valley below

i am working inside the house, i am cold but i know that the house is warm between the mild weather and the fire burning i can tell  my core tempertaure is off i do not mind it since  it keeps me moving. the light is also unusual as well and i should pick up the camera but for some reason i stare at it instead.

the last few days have been one of returning to home not so much the physical home but the one within me.  i have done this by listening to a lot of music and reading some passages and also by taking an early morning walk or two but most of all by letting thoughts swirl and fall away more easily than i have been able to let go of them in the past. sometimes when i think of writing to you i want to list all my dreams, hopes and desires but lately i have realized what i want to do more than anything is describe the feelings i want to feel, like how one would describe the afternoon sun hitting a dusty window pane and the warm glow that comes from it or how the fog makes everything surreal as it's mist gently touches your face.

I am not numb, i say this because i think i must have been for a while, a long one even. yet i  also have a feeling of being one of a blank canvas with only slight brushes strokes just waiting to take shape.

the other morning on my way to montreal i came across this valley right down below form my home, i stood there for a long while, then i shot, the images are not what i hoped them to be but the feeling remains.

the abandoned house that lives.

i was going to write you about what i have been thinking but instead i will start with what i have felt today; the warmth of the sun as it came into the house, a beautiful heart ache at the discovery of a new song found in my inbox, how the wind blew my hair around as the brightness reflecting of the corn fields hit my eyes or maybe how frustration and tears travelled through the receiver of the telephone, how my body moved as i rode in a large tractor down fields of corn or how the soft black velvet fur that is Tolstoy's shined in the autumn sun and how the hill makes me happy.

 but i have been thinking, as i put these images together about what we abandon, what we forget, leave behind or give away. today i thought about my red piano and how i left it and how right now more than anything i want to find it here in my house, walk to it and rest my tea cup where the water stain already exist, i want my bare feet on the cold soft metal of the foot and hear the first few notes even if out of tune.  i want my finger to fall, fall again over that one key that brings them all back, the memories of all i have left behind. i do not know what makes us cross the line from wanting it too leaving it behind. i suppose knowing that we always have our thoughts to take us back there to when they were in our lives makes the leaving behind easier... this song today reminds me of my red piano


 the abandoned house above had more life in it than i could possible explain, i tried to take it all in but there was melancholy for i felt that it still wanted to be part and witness to ours, to have someone love it and want to clean it and cook in it and sit by the window, to have people make love in it's bedrooms and bathe in it's tub. i am not sure but i think i found a kinship with that house not some deep metaphor on how i have been abandoned but instead in the fact that within the walls of my heart and mind i too have hung and gathered a collection beautiful and living things.

*( the day that i visited this house was magical, a birthday gift from john and shared with my dear friend kim) pictures are with iphone, ran out of battery, but hope to head back shortly)

oh, just realized that my header is my red piano, there is my red piano- that was most unexpected heart string pull......

when the rain comes and your cup is spilling over ( happiness)

continued from here

the rain came as i sat there listening to the sounds around me and watching the three people i love the most laugh and giggle while they made parodies of me in their skits on our make shift stage. i laughed hard and somehow how it was as if the last of the sand in the hour glass that must have been me before the horse, the farm fell through. the page turned for good.  the fog came in and all at once k, elle and dylan said auntie you might want to take pictures.  even though rain still fell gently i gathered my things and asked if anyone wanted to go for a walk, everyone did and we headed out from our camp site down a dirt path and wooded stairs a canopy of towering trees drenched in rain surrounded us. this is  happy, i know it is.  i listened to everyone talk as they pointed to this and that as we walked. we arrived at the bridge over the river that we had spent our day swimming in,  the patina of the iron on the old bridge, the glistening wood from the rain fall,  filled my senses. we took pictures and walked some more to an abandoned house, a facade i had seen when we first drove in to the state park the day before. we took pictures of  what once must have been a beautiful farm house by the water and that hurricane irene tried to wash away last year, how beautiful was the sun setting through the windows. rain started coming down hard and everyone started heading back, but i lingered just a little longer, i counted the windows & green worn out shutters, some odd habit i picked up from childhood, like the amount of tiles on the floor or ceiling. i walked back behind the others completely drenched and content, for i was truly in the moment doing the very thing i needed & wanted to do.

my days and the barn

there has been quiet days of hard work and relaxation. storms and sun have been present everyday and i like it. most of my days have been spent in my vegetable garden, the rain has been challenging for growing things but i love how a garden slowly becomes what you have imagined.  i have also been cleaning out "the barn" it is attached to the house and if i did not have animals would be known as the garage but with beautiful placed stones for flooring and beautiful aged wood, we call it the barn. in the summer we clear all the hay that has been stored which we just used  in trade for farrier work for the horses, how i like this type of transaction.  i set up a dining table, chandelier, chaise and ottoman and still have lots to do, although i must confess i have a different vision for it, a long farm table, benches,  grey and natural linens. this year i hope to use it every night for dinner, rain or shine and i will be blogging from my old grey gate leg table often in fact i am right now. i hope to spend time reading from the large wicker wing back chair as i hear the sound of birds and feel the breeze from my shaded spot.  every morning from sunrise to sunset the view is different here on the hill and a year into living here it never ceases to take my breath away.  the barn doors open to this view and as i write you pink lined clouds and soft feminine hues let you know that the sun is very close to setting and in just an hour or so after chores tonight , i  will  be able to sit with a cup of tea and watch the fireflies and stars transform the sky.

In a few days i head to Montreal, what a treat this of the most unexpected kind. a friend i have never met and i have quickly become close too, has asked and invited me to go along to celebrate her fortieth birthday,  i feel honored to do so. It is never easy leaving the farm but thanks to another surprise my dear k will be watching over things, knowing that in doing so i will be more relaxed to enjoy our food and freedom trip as Tzurit has named it. I can't wait to share with you our time. i am very much looking forward to it and specially getting to know more about someone i feel as if i have known for always.

so dear friends i wish you a wonderful week.

*  i am not happy with these  horrible images,  i will do better.

* i just came back after putting the chickens and ducks in, the light is so beautiful and soft and nightfall is upon us, this space has made me very happy typing away looking out.  the daisies i see from  here look magical, okay i am off to feed the horses, shower, make something nourishing for dinner and sit out here with a smile in my heart for having accomplished much this weekend.