retrievers
Another Polaroid from my shoe box stash. A stash that I must sort and protect in another big photo album. I was rooting around in one of the two crawlspaces that live on either side of my bedroom walls, looking for a gripping bedtime book - a thriller or mystery and I became sidetracked by the shoe box (as so easily happens to me) I couldn't help myself from briefly looking through some very old photos.
I did not find the gripping thriller, instead I found the third book in Gerald Durrell's Corfu Trilogy -The Garden of the Gods, books I've mentioned a few times on this blog. Old musty paperbacks, that smell like a cottage on a lake, all purchased in second hand bookstores over the years and books that I love so much I can read them over and over again.
So last night I lay tucked into the freshly made nest of flannel and poly-fill. Sheets, comforters and crisp cotton pillowcases that all smelled of outside. Lulu curled up by my side. At the end of a busy weekend, one where it felt like I accomplished a lot (which for some reason is always how I judge good vs bad - by amount of productivity - it's weird I know -some type A girl lives inside of me). As I lie there with my musty paperback I felt strangely and purely happy. I have a lot of little moments like that, daily - where I just pause and think to myself I feel really perfectly happy at this moment.
The thing is, the sadness is always still there too. It feels like my shadow, a good friend really and a comfort in a strange way. Me and sadness go way back. I'm like some chocolate confection. A sweet filling of happy dipped in dark sadness or maybe I'm dark smooth sadness rolled in sweet flecks of happy. I'm not sure which and I guess it doesn't really matter. But I am both ... and always together, it seems.
I love your dreamy polaroid shots. And it seems like you are very much at peace with your sad side. I am, too.
ReplyDeleteYou always inspire me.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it always that way, sad and happy too? I guess some people aren't, but I think they're probably pretty boring. I'm just a mass of contradictions, city girl/country girl, social/shy, devil-may-care/worrywart.
ReplyDeleteThere couldn't be one with out the other.
ReplyDeleteOh wow. I absolutely love this post. It is so well written and poignant.
ReplyDeleteLove "As I lie there with my musty paperback I felt strangely and purely happy. " (BTw, books don't even get that wonderful musty smell here, regardless of how old they get--it's just to dry.)
I think we creative types all deal with sadness, ennui, as it were. I know I do. i can so relate to your posts. It is a sort of accepted bedfellow that I feel is just part of who I am. it makes me feel deeper and from being feeling based, I am able to be creative.
Your day actually sounds pretty wonderful to me!
I notice cloudy weather and rain makes me that way too and where you live, you must have a lot of that!! Come to Colorado every now and then where the sun ALWAYS shines even when it might snow in winter (ugh!).
ReplyDelete