Blog Archives - A Cottage by the Sea

Leap year hope

2/29/2016

Leap year, February 29th, a free day, a bonus. A friend’s mother was a leap year baby, Winnie was a very special lady, who lived a few weeks short of her 96th birthday. I have vivid, inspiring and joyful memories of birthday celebrations with her in her later years.
“Why am I writing this?” I ask myself. It feels important but I don’t know why. The best I can come up with is that February 29th gives hope. Here in New England the temperature is above 50, the sun is out, and the ground is snowless. We have been given an extra day in which to be very grateful.

Maintaining healthy balance

2/27/2016

    I am participating in an on-line course entitled ‘Growing a Rule of Life,’ sponsored by the Society of St. John the Evangelist, as Episcopal monastic order in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Although I refrain from specifically religious or Christian comments in this blog, I think that the question and suggestions posed by Br. Curtis today speaks to all of us looking for silence, solitude and simplicity.
    How can you find and maintain a healthier balance in your life?
    First, have beauty in your life, regardless of the challenges that face you. He suggests we consciously take beauty into our daily diet. Living in country I’m apt to take the beauty around me for granted, even on my walk. Today I will take in beauty.
    Next, every day plan something enjoyable in your life. Again, I take those moments for granted. Today I will plan something enjoyable.
    Do not ‘dis’ or disrespect yourself. There are so many way we can be negative about ourselves. Today I will not ‘dis’ myself.
    He also suggests we part with something every day. “Even in a monastery we accumulate things and I find it enormously liberating – I travel lighter – by parting with something every day. It will also change your relationship to things, where you’re aware that you’re stewarding something for as long as it’s helpful, and when it’s time to let it go, you part with it. Not cling, but part with it.” Today I will get rid of something.
    Finally, Br. Curtis urges us to create a Sabbath habit. Taking time away from busyness doesn’t have to be for a day but for a period of time. I’m pretty go at this now that I’m retired, but I can feel I’m on the run. Today I will be conscious of a Sabbath moment.

Very grateful for Downton Abbey

2/26/2016

     No question, it is easier to be grateful for a sunny day than a rainy one. So I start my three gratitudes by being thankful for the blue sky and the brisk but warm February wind. (Hmm, it just occurred to me that so many gratitudes include the weather.)
     So, what else? Do I dare include living in a country where we have freedom of speech? Yes, I must.
     And what about a third? How about Downton Abbey? I watched my first episode last month. Now, thanks to inter-library loan, I’m into Season Three. I am grateful for the entertainment: the window into a certain period of history, costumes and etiquette included; the scenery, both interior and exterior; and especially every character. I really can’t divide them into good guys or bad guys; they are both. They do best, with even the less likable ones demonstrate forgiveness and redemption. In fact, I find myself pulling for least appealing—they always need it the most.

Three gratitudes on a rainy day

2/24/2016

So what are your gratitudes on this rainy day? I started to say dreary, but that felt ungrateful. Raining it is, which of course is necessary. In fact, in New England, due to the dearth of snow, we are in desperate need of any kind of precipitation. Dreary, on the other hand, is feeling packed and I don’t need to feel dreary about the weather today. My choice. No reason to let the weather ruin my life.
So here are my three for today, and it just after noon. I choose to be grateful for the rain, for my friend who came for coffee, and for Russ who is replacing a window glass broken by a fallen branch,

Overflowing with joy

2/22/2016

Sometimes I think that this blog is morphing into a gratitude blog. Oh, I’m not giving up on silence, solitude and simplicity, but it seems that those can best be attained when I live a life of gratitude. When I think gratitude I hear the music of silence, feel the calm of solitude, and experience simplicity in the midst of activity.
Here are my gratitudes from just this morning: the birth of a friend’s beautiful, healthy grandson, my favorite mittens found at the bottom of my recycle grocery bags, a good report from the dentist.
I know that I’m not offering anything new or profound here. I never do. But speaking out loud and sharing with others helps me on my journey, so I figure it may help you as well. Being grateful, seeing the cup half full, makes my life just that—a life overflowing with joy.

Thinking about bridges

2/19/2016

I’m thinking about bridges.
The one I cross on my walk every day.

The bridge near the Wayside Inn.

My favorite bridges are the ones spanning the Arno River in Florence. The story has it that when the Germans departed from the city in 1945 they were ordered to destroyed all bridges. The German General Gerhard Wolf, however, defied Hitler’s order and the Ponte Vecchio was spared. The rest were temporary walls of rubble, ready to be rebuilt so the neighbors on each side of the river could go back and forth.

Liminal space

2/16/2016

Iona

Recently a friend told me that her middle aged daughter is suffering from some serious reoccurring medical problems. We talked, I commiserated, but toward the end of our conversation, she said something to the effect that she is in a place of peace regardless of how the situation continues. What a place to be! Peace regardless: peace in the midst of concern as well as joy.
This friend has chosen a spiritual lens through which to lead her life. I say chosen, because it is her choice, her choice to be hopeful, intentional, and realistic. She takes care of her physical needs, knowing that what she has and does now is temporary. She lives her emotional and spiritual life in that liminal space between heaven (the unknown) and earth (the known), which is where, she is demonstrating, inner peace resides.

Remembering my cottage-by-the-sea days

2/13/2016

     I took a long walk today, going on and on, up and down, staying on the clear back roads instead of the icy walkways. I started out with the personal Arctic dress that I used to wear when walking the beaches near the cottage. The attire and cold temperatures brought on a longing for those cottage days when my daily wanderings without time restrictions were so much a part of my routine.
     Friends who don’t read this blog ask me if I’m still going to the cottage. As I wrote in my book, “Very Grateful: The Story of My Hundred Year Old Mother and Me,” part of moving on after Mom died was moving on from the cottage.
     “My cottage-by-the-sea days, which I enjoyed for five winters, are over. What I learned during that time about silence, solitude and simplicity I now carry with me wherever I go.”
     What I wrote is still true, but some days, like today, I miss walking the beach and watching the sunrise.

Everything stops for a snowstorm

2/10/2016

A snowstorm can be a time for silence, solitude and simplicity. Regardless of all that is going on, it feels like everything stops. I didn’t need to go to the supermarket; I had enough in the refrigerator. The library was closed; I have too many unread books. You’d think, however, that with a day holed up in the house I would clear out the refrigerator and bookshelves.
But no, as I said, everything stops. I love it.

A simple jigsaw puzzle completed

2/7/2016

After six months I finally completed this 2000 piece puzzle--with approximately 265 different dogs; and go figure, one extra piece. As I’ve mentioned before, jigsaw puzzles support the silence and solitude that I seek, and although the puzzle may not be simple, it brings simplicity to my life. As I sit down to spend time fitting a few pieces, I feel no pressure or responsibility to complete it, or even work on it. My brain stops analyzing, critiquing, planning, judging.
It’s not the same as listening to music, but like music, it sends me to a different place.