new year- old haunts

Tags

Bavaria, Bmaberg, Franconia, Germany, melancholy, photography, photos, travel, unknown, wondering

It’s day two of the new year and it stretches out before me like a blank page, encouraging me to dream and plan, make changes and find a few new adventures. And while saying good-bye to 2016 was easy – it wasn’t a great year for me – I can’t help feel a little melancholy about the past.

This has possibly mainly to do with the fact that I spent the last days of the old year wandering around some old haunts of mine in Bamberg, a baroque town in Bavaria (Franconia) I lived in as a student.

It was a little odd to rediscover a place I once knew so well and reconnect with people I use to see nearly every day – odd, but good and a little sad. As I rambled through the tiny cobblestone alleys and clambered up the hills I couldn’t help but wonder about all the ‘what ifs’ and ‘could ofs’.

But since you can’t turn back time and I don’t even think I really want to now is the perfect time to close a chapter and begin a new one. So as I sit on the train and with those thoughts in my mind I think I will take one last look at the photos I took and begin planning the months that lie ahead of me. After all there is nothing more exciting than the unknown.

some bright berries coated with frost

garden still life

nature & man-made

where I lived as a a student

some pears left out on the sill

too cold to sit

stars

I finished my Masters after a few detours

walked through this door countless times

picturesque Regnitz

water levels not too high

pillars at the Dom

the main steeples are under restauration

well worn steps

the sun came out to show off the view

a colourful ending as I walked back down

walking thoughts

Tags

autumn, dreaming, Friedrich Nietzsche, photography, photos, planning, quotes, walking, wondering

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking

Friedrich Nietzsche

Dublin is a great place to walk around. The inner city is small enough to allow you to wander from a to b quite easily and it is really quite flat. So when I left my afternoon appointment yesterday I decided to let my feet do the walking and my mind wander.

My brogue clad feet tapped on the path as I walked, a steady tattoo of sound my  companion as I walked down the leafy streets of a south side Georgian terrace. For the first time in months I had to shrug a jacket on to stop the wind from chilling my bones and  maybe it was my imagination playing tricks on me but I thought that the air smelt colder, announcing that Autumn had truly arrived.

Unlike so many others I quite enjoy this time of year: the riot of colours in the parks and lining the streets; the comfy cardigans; hot plates of soup and the first lit fires of the season I sit next too while I knit.

As I walked my thoughts changed, plans made way to dreams and I allowed myself to be excited by possibilities, no matter how unsure or far away they seemed. So, while I know the rain and winds that this time of year brings may dampen my mood at times, I am quite looking forward to the next few months, and I hope that for me autumn won’t just be the end of something but also the beginning. And if not – well at least it also means Christmas isn’t too far anymore.

leaves changing colours

just wondering

Tags

bee, determination, photo, quote, thoughts, Wayne Dyer, wondering, writing

This morning I was watching a  bee flit around the flowers on my windowsill and marveled at how she seemed so filled with purpose and determination. Her weight bent the stalks of the blossoms but she held on and crawled inwards as far as she could go. After a while she flew off and left me wondering.

Wondering about why the bee knew with such certainty what she wanted and how she was going to get it when I often struggle with that. Not the knowing what I want, more the ‘how I’m going to get it’. Seeing how the bee allowed the stalk to bend to the point that it would break, but it didn’t made me wonder if maybe I just give up to quickly sometimes.

With that in mind I will keep staring at the blinking cursor on my screen and hope that my attempts at getting this book done will be rewarded, without me breaking or me breaking my laptop first!

There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love; there’s only  scarcity of resolve to make it happen.

 Wayne Dyer

 

timely wondering

Tags

being late, clocks, late, psychology, thoughts, time, wondering

This week I seem to have lost track of time and the days of the week have all blurred in to one. So somehow I just can’t help but wonder about time, structure and schedules.

Why is it that I often think I can get things done much quicker than I can? Why is it that I nearly always forget to calculate traveling time, making me permanently 10-15 minutes late, and always rushing? Why is it that I often struggle to just sit down and start- delaying myself with my procrastination? And why is it that when I think it’s time to go to bed I still find myself up and about an hour later?

Of course any psychologist could argue that maybe I enjoy the attention I get by arriving late, or maybe I am constantly seeking forgiveness, which I get when I  apologize for my tardiness. Or maybe I am a narcissist who just never considers other people and their needs.

However since every ‘pattern’ is based on what you get out of it, it really doesn’t explain why I (and others like me) inconvenience myself – the reward seems to be negated by the stress it causes. So what is it that makes me struggle with time?

As someone who chose a profession that deals with deadlines all the time it seems odd that this is an area of shortcomings. Even odder that I actually don’t struggle with deadlines – I tend to get my work done on time.

So, as I contemplated this contradictory conundrum I realised that maybe my issue with time has more to do with how I view it. I don’t wear a watch, and view time more through morning, noon and night, no exact hours more a sense of moments. And when I am working I get caught up with what I am doing – looking at word count or page layout or how many corrections I have left  – and this makes it easy to just plow on and get it done on time!

While this helps me in my job it also means that in my private time I forget about time too, I don’t check the clock and delay myself without meaning to. Of course this could also have something to do with a lack of self-discipline, enjoying myself in the moment to much to stop or feeling compelled to finish what I’m doing.

Or maybe I simply just don’t want to be early – I mean if being late is wasting someone else’s time, isn’t being early wasting mine?  Another thought that needs some timely wondering, but I don’t have time for that today!

searching and finding

Tags

finding, Ireland, photography, rainbows, searching, thoughts, travel, wondering

As I was getting lost on my way down from Connemara to Killarney this weekend, I began to get a little bit frustrated about the fact that I didn’t quite know where I was, and even the beautiful scenery around me could only distract me a little bit.

With no sat-nav in my car and little to no signal in the hills of the wild west I had to go old fashioned and use a map and look for signposts – a rarity in Ireland, nearly extinct. Eventually I did, what all sensible women do (men seem to struggle wit this idea), and stopped to ask for the way.

As I drove off in the right direction I couldn’t help but think about how we seem to be  in constant state of searching. If it’s not looking for directions, we seem to be searching for a pen, the scissors, a certain ingredient or even a new job, the right word, some extra time or someone to love.

Funny how once we find one thing we start looking for the next. And while it may not always be an active state of rifling through drawers or flicking the pages of a thesaurus our mind often is preoccupied with looking for a memory, a name or even the next challenge.

A rainbow greeted me when I finally arrived in Killarney, and as I followed it to the hotel I was staying in I couldn’t help but think that maybe, before I went in search for my friend, it was time to enjoy the finding a little longer, so I had a cup of tea. As I sipped the hot brew I decided that in future I would enjoy the searching more, and savour the finding.

finding my goal at the end of a rainbow

 

 

wonderings

Tags

quotes, Socrates, thoughts, wisdom, wondering

Wisdom begins in wonder

Socrates

Today my head feels full, I have too many thoughts and all seem to be jumbled up together like a big ball of colourful wool. All these thoughts seem to be having  a bit of a  row for attention, each demanding to be first leaving me unfocused and a little scattered.

I find myself starting one thing, getting distracted and moving on to something else, a domino slide of actions leading nowhere and me somewhat unsatisfied.

I just hope that at some point I can regain my thoughts and that all my wonderings do lead to some sort of wisdom as Socrates promises.  But maybe the only wisdom I will find today is that sometimes too many thoughts just don’t lead anywhere at all, like a maze that turns in on itself and you are led back to the point of origin.

At least tomorrow is another day, and hopefully it will be a much more focused one.

I think this angel may be having similar issues with their wonderings