Running in Holland & Biking with Frodo: The Fellowship with the Seasons

Summer, 2013

“Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together.” 

― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

Late Summer, 2013

“You know, bicycling isn't just a matter of balance," I said. "it's a matter of faith. You can keep upright only by moving forward. You have to have your eyes on the goal, not the ground. I'm going to call that the Bicyclist's Philosophy of Life.” 

― Susan Vreeland

Last weekend, I was still not feeling strong enough to resume my marathon training, and was also not up for the social visits we scheduled during the week.

This is why I stayed at home with oldest daughter (who needs to catch up on finishing school work!) while Mijn Liefste P and the girls went off without us to welcome a new member of the family - more on this, next time,

I went under the duvet after preparing snacks, set up the DVD to watch The Hobbit 1 & 2, and mentally let go of my need to do everything.

"Everything", I feel I should be doing to feel deserving of the good life I feel will be taken away from me, if I don't make myself worthy…

Deep, huh? :)

Digging deep within the recesses of my consciousness is what I have been doing since I started with blogging - first anonymously 9 years ago, and publicly since 4 years - and I think this year before Spring has sprung,  I finally struck "gold".

Nope, this blog is not getting a huge sponsorship*! :D

No. What I gained from blogging, what I considered as "gold", my positive precious are: life balance and quiet contentment.

I've learned after years of what I call as "My Ground Hog Days",  what gives me peace of mind is having acquired the ability to embrace my life with the best, as well as the worst, the moments of serenity with the daily threat of chaos.

In doing what I can (and enjoying what I can!) until I can do better - I easily breathe in life's daily blessing, and exhale out the distractions, which in the end, in the big scope of things , do not truly matter.

The daily biking, running everywhere (!!!)  and taking  thousands of photos to document everything - they all contributed to helping me see life with clarity, and living the lessons learned in the process.

February, 2015

Winter, 2015

The energy I gained from the pursuit of living & documenting  a life outdoors, helped me blog again @ Happy Feet in the Netherlands & The Lightness of Being on the Bike with more enthusiasm.

I feel more liberated, open and natural in my writing because I feel good in my skin, and in turn I find it rewarding in seeing, how it is reflecting in my blogging.

“Writing is the only way I have to explain my own life to myself.” 

― Pat Conroy, My Reading Life

November, 2014

I added a quote to the Google+ enhanced image - it was a picture
(see above this picture)
I took while running in the woods of Hilversum

My family and I have now seen many seasons here in  Holland, and we feel truly at home.

A collage of 2008 and 2011 pictures

A collage of 2009 pictures

January,  2011

2011

Images above clockwise:
upper left corner ~ Summer, 24th of July, 2010 - 17:21
upper right corner ~ Autumn, 30th of October, 2009
lower right corner ~ Spring, 19th of May, 2010 - 08:18
lower left corner ~ Winter, 17th of December, 2009

January 2015

31st of December, 2014

We went through a lot, and we gained strength.  We weathered through the seasons, and flourished. We accepted the changes, and gained wisdom.

Sunrise, one February morning - seen from the backyard  of our cul de sac

February, 2015
Simple life, simple morning
waiting for their ride to school

From here on, I (together with my family!) will embrace the positive possibilities of the present & future with open arms* and lighter being!

___________________________________________________________

*This was never ever my purpose when I began with blogging.  Although I did attempt to give it a try 2 years ago out of curiosity.  

I recognize the same conflicts of emotion I did, when I was working in advertising and media. I seem to alway lose my motivation to write after a while.

It was then I recognize that although the process creatively challenges me, it also stifles me creatively.

At this point in my life, I have other priorities, and accepting this makes blogging for me liberating as opposed to limiting.

The Summer Feeling

 

Yay! June is here! With it came the sunshine back in Holland!

Today,  my personal challenge of riding the bike for 30 consecutive days commenced.  I will be documenting this experience in The Lightness of Being on the Bike; it is a project to jump start the blog, which I created last April.

I will be blogging on that page daily this month while developing the idea : 30 Days of Bike Challenge, afterwards I would be setting selected days of blogging all about biking, by July.

This project would not have come to life, had I not blogged consistently for the last 5 months.  I am very grateful for the blog events I have participated in April  & May (A to Z Challenge and WordCount Blogathon) and the monthly one week long ICLW.  They, all in their own way, gave me the courage, inspiration, and most of all they brought back the magical delight in blogging!

What plans do you have for June? for Summer?

Littlest' Lens

Please click on the image to have a better view

Today's post is another attempt to move my blogging time to the a.m. part of the day!  Here is hoping I will be able to be consistent on this the entire week because I do NEED to sleep earlier than way past midnight.

I took a  couple of pictures on my way back home after bringing back the girl's to school.  The weather outside is fantabulous!!!  It is still cool though, but what the heck, the sun is out beaming wonderful sunshine!

Never did I imagine that sunshine will be a cause of celebration in my life having grown up in a tropical country and growing up with the habit of taking an umbrella to shield myself not from the rain but from the sun.  Life can be entertaining when you muse about it from different perspectives of your life.

Speaking of perspectives, the littlest shot today's 365~ self-portrait!  Sooo proud of her.  This is not the first picture she shot of me.  She actually took a picture of P last week or two weeks ago.  I'll post it some other time.  I guess, this is one very lucid example that when you want your young to be creative, the best way is to simply practice creativity yourself, and they'll follow.  Littlest (3 y.o) asked me very politely "Mom, take a picture?" and then  took the camera in the hand like she's been doing it forever, and manipulated it that  after taking the simple picture, she was able to view the result right after and showed it to me for approval.  Did I say, I am so proud?!!!

I could not help tweaking the image a bit in picnik (I used the Threshold feature in edit mode) to make it appear as if I was frozen (couch+chill + relaxing~ cool chillaxing) because I felt blah and it showed on my complexion; I am making a mental note today to start moisturizing my dry face, which I neglected in the couple of weeks I was sick.

It was great being back on the saddle again.  I had a mini-anxiety attack as I woke up, thinking about the bike route to the girl's school.  The nausea felt so bad but luckily P knows better now how to talk me out of it.  Lucky for him since he could sleep in, and not bring them in my stead. Kidding aside, I am RELIEVED that my panic and anxiety attacks are getting more under control.  More on that some other time. 

taken on the way back home from a visit in Loosdrecht, 5 May 2010

I am simply full of bliss that I am well again, and I cannot repeat that enough after the terrible two weeks!  Cannot wait to tank some sun, and so I am ending this entry with three quotes to affirm the day positively (also to shoo away remnants of negative thoughts I suffered from while fighting depression, which is always the side effect of being ill for a long period):

I’ve learned that making a ‘living’ is not the same thing as making a ’life.’
Maya Angelou

 Love and do what you like.
Saint Augustine

I know you’ve heard it a thousand times before. But it’s true – hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don’t love something, then don’t do it.
Ray Bradbury

Wishing you all a magnificent week!

The Splendour of Sunday

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost.
Martha Graham

I love this quote.  There is - to use the first set of words in the quote itself - vitality within it...a life force.

As it seems to always be the case, I write this blog entry at the very end of a long day.  Mostly, I search for a quote when it is late to inspire me,  and when I am not sure if I could string words to summarize the overall feeling of the day.

I am fascinated with the fact that there are always existing thoughts of people I might never ever meet but  their words uttered at one point in their life, which exactly describes how  feel.

Biking is for me poetry in motion.  I feel inspired when I roll along the landscape of the countryside, myself being my own source of energy, bringing me forward towards my goal.

There is nothing more splendid than communing with nature, with one-self, while sitting on a bike on a Sunday morning.

What was your Sunday splendour?

For better view, please click on images.

Knotwilg - Getting to Know Something Familiar

In a previous post two days ago, entitled, Spring is in the Air! , I mentioned about learning a new Dutch word: knotwilg.  It is called pollard willow in English, which I also learned at the same time I looked up knotwilg.

Not only did I learn a new Dutch word but I finally found out what to call the trees that we have been seeing all around our region, but never took the time until yesterday to ask or find out. 

I promised myself,  after moving here in the Netherlands, I will take time to live consciously, not only pause to be fully aware of life, but write and share what I write about the life I am blessed with, as a sort of daily thanks.  Unlike when I was in Germany where I always thought, there will be time enough to do everything once this or that is settled.

Well, I guess this is how my various 365 projects is helping do - live, pause, write and give thanks.  Simple life. :)

In another previous post, from the 10th of  January, entitled, Biking Along an Ever-Changing Landscape... I shared images of our bike path on our way to school and back.

morning,10th of January

afternoon, 10th of January

Notice the trees at the background of these images?  They are pollard willows.

later afternoon, 25th of January

This image with the eldest  was taken 2 days ago, and you can see on this picture that the pollard willows have been cut.  And so this something familiar is now something I and my family are getting to know or shall I say, we are taking time to get to know better!

We can read together about pollarding, which I looked up tonight, over the weekend, perhaps when the weather is good on a Sunday bike ride.  It is much better to learn with others!

late afternoon, taken 25th of January

What would you like to take time to know better, maybe something familiar?

Biking Along an Ever-Changing Landscape

 

Back on the saddle today after a very long pause due to the weather conditions, and recurring ailment.  

It was a joy to take the first image this year, which  I am archiving for our 's Graveland album, of my bike on the Smidsbrug.  

taken on Smidsbrug at 8:45 am

I plan to slowly build up an archive of images of different places, in different villages of Wijdemeren, through different seasons; I am aware it is an ambitious project, that is why I am doing baby steps towards it.  At the moment, we have a simple point and shoot camera from Panasonic DMC - FX30 (Lumix), and we are saving for a better camera.  All in the future, no hurry.

For the meantime it is all about  making sure the girls are in school on time, and that we are back home safely at the end of the day.

taken at 4:08 pm in 's Graveland

There was frost when we set off to school at 8 am today, but luckily the roads were not slippery.  Tomorrow we have to be up much earlier, and leave for school before 7:45 am because P will be leaving early for work, too, which means the littlest will need to be prepared to come along for the school ride, and preparation takes much longer!

Back to routines!

What makes all these routines worthwhile for me is what seems like an ever-changing feel to the landscape we see everyday as we bike along them.  

How the different light of the day affects how green the grass is; what herds of animals are grazing on the fields; what flocks of birds are flying over the sky.  For me it feels like the places are the same canvas but the details of the landscape, which I always see as a  painting before me is ever dynamic.

almost at the entrance of Ankeveen, taken at 9:22 am

almost at the entrance of Ankeveen, taken at 4:27 pm