It's warm here but VERY brown. Taking a camera walk turns into a seek for color. The deciduous trees are all sticks. The evergreens still shine but don't look quite so full and rich without other shades to compare them to. I feel a bit snow deprived. However, there are a few colorful sorts who brighten up my neighborhood. Look at these king size balls and baubles!
The bear statue is all holidayed up. He's very serious.
These smell so good. Mmmmmmmmm.
A barking little boy came out to look at me.
Big bulbs lined a garden
Friendly cats amuse me. Isn't this one sleek and lovely?
We seem to have VERY patriotic neighbors. There are American flags flying everywhere. When my friend from India came to visit, she said that where she lives in Bangalore, there are people walking by all of the time. She said there are actually crowds of people walking by. Sometimes I don't want to be one of those people walking by, so I neglect my walking. Sometimes I must force myself to get my gear together (phone, camera, iPod) and make myself step out to the curb. I can be very stingy with my time.
Last night I felt sort of blah and I think I pinpointed why. I was reading one of my new books. While it is written with precision and great writing expertise, it deals with dark topics. It highlights the worst aspects of human tendencies. I'm taking it to the used book store today, quite unfinished. Call me Pollyanna but I don't need stories of dirt, darkness, and greed. Garbage in: sadness. Good things in: JOY.
Debbie at Artful Aspirations sent me a lovely little book called Just Being Happy. It's old and torn. It has a lot of sparkles.
I used to think it was great to disregard happiness, to press to a high goal, careless, disdainful of it. But now I see that there is nothing so great as to be capable of happiness - to pluck it out of each moment; and, whatever happens, to find that one can ride as gay and buoyant on the angry, menacing, tumultuous waves of life as on those that glide and glitter under a clear sky; that it is not defeat and wretchedness which come out of the storms of adversity, but strength and calmness and joy.
~A. Gilchrist
Good stuff.
