sunsets

This is a significant post for me: it’s #26 which means that, for half a year, I have met the commitment I made to myself in July to write a blog post weekly*.  It also means that I’m already six months into my timeline to move home by autumn of 2016.  That realization served as a kick in the butt this week—motivating me to donate a lot of kitchen stuff, get offers for selling items, and contact a company in Nova Scotia who may design and build my simpler living retreat.

Along with purging stuff and saving $ as part of the transition, I’ve also been mindful this month to work on some new habits.  I didn’t make any New Year’s resolutions, but some advice came quickly to mind while on holidays:

• Less guilt.  Less shame.  Less obsessive-compulsive behavioUr.
• More stopping to watch the sun set.
• More reading and writing in coffee shops.
• More dolce far niente.

To get some natural light during these short short days of winter, I go for a walk at noon rather than waiting until I get home from work.  When it’s not overcast and there’s a visible sun set, I stop working and look at the sky and the reflections in the office towers.

How many more sunsets will I get to see?

While I wait for a bus, birds in the bare trees remind me that natural beauty is everywhere and is not reserved for the hiking trail outside the city on weekends.

I stop and look up more.

A lot of actions need to get checked off my list by next autumn, but at the same time I need to practice rejecting the glorification of busy and pause to look up at sunsets, clouds, migrating geese, stars, the moon now.  By writing this blog and starting to form other new habits, I hope the transition at the end of next year will be smoother.  I don’t want to jump off the crazy train at full speed and risk injury.  I’m forcing it to slow down before I disembark.

References:

• *Alright, I did miss one week.  But it was my birthday and I was on vacation.
• Dolce far niente = an Italian expression meaning the sweetness of doing nothing.