JOYFUL GRATITUDE #94
Sometimes it’s necessary to break away from daily routine and take a step back to rest, reflect and let the busy-ness subside. I am deeply grateful to have that time and be able to escape for a few days and connect again with myself in the beautiful nature of the Veluwe.
Paolo gave me these photos of his beautiful plant that is thriving with plenty of space in its new environment at his office in Noord. Thank you for the lovely pictures:)
JOYFUL GRATITUDE #93
I must have walked past this house in my neighbourhood dozens of times and had never noticed the sign until yesterday. In the midst of a week of exhaustion and self-doubt, I am grateful for this very straight-forward reminder to see the sunny side of things.
A few more pictures from that morning when we went to see the sunrise at the beach. I want to remind myself of the luxury feeling of having the empty beach stretched out before us as we walked along with no destination, nowhere we needed to be at a specific time, just the freedom to stop and watch the waves crashing over and over again, or to examine the amazing patterns on huge jellyfish or the multitude of tiny stones and shells washed up on the shore. I want to bring more and more of this peace into my daily life, without having to go far to find it.
JOYFUL GRATITUDE #92
Today I was blown away by the Studio Drift exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum. I am so grateful for the calm moments spent being mesmerised by blooming flowers whilst lying on the museum floor with my friend and discovering the gorgeous installations together.
I could feel my brain tingling with excitement at all the connections and stories, the movement and shadows, the unexpectedness resulting from this combination of design, technology, data and inspiration from nature. I also loved that there was a full room showing what goes on behind the scenes to bring these artworks to life: prototypes, materials, sources of inspiration and preliminary sketches. A lovely reminder that the incredible finished artworks are the fruit of a lot of experimentation and mistakes.
This magazine cover with the phrase ‘The rise of eco-feminism’ called out to me while I was browsing in a bookstore on our recent trip to London. After briefly leafing through it’s pages, I treated myself to a copy that I read with great pleasure from cover to cover on the train back to Amsterdam.
The content feels very refreshing and easy-going, like a non-judgemental friend who tells you dreamy stories and knows unexpected fun facts about far flung places. Visually it is a gorgeous mix of photography and illustrations that support the articles, as well as inspiring quotes. I enjoyed that part of the content is submitted by readers with varied voices and styles, and that there is no advertising to distract you. I’m excited that I decided to subscribe for a year in order to support the magazine and have the joy of receiving it in the mailbox every 3 months:)
JOYFUL GRATITUDE #91
At the beginning of this year, I followed a mindfulness course for eight weeks and thanks to the accountability of my fellow class mates I managed to make time to meditate daily for a few months. I tried my best to keep up these good habits afterwards, but little by little the habit slipped and I was not as regular in my practice.
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve reminded myself of the benefits regular meditation had and I’ve been consciously making more of an effort to take those ten or fifteen minutes in the morning to calm my mind and come back to myself. I’m grateful that I can dedicate time to my self-care before heading off into the busy world, so I can be more present to what is going on in and around me.
During the holidays or on a day off, I sometimes like waking up at dawn to go on a mini-adventure. I won’t pretend it is easy, but once the ten first minutes after waking have passed (where I curse my body for needing so much sleep), I am usually excited to go explore. Those are the mornings I tend to remember best when I look back, since they break the routine.
So one morning, during our recent trip to France, Paolo and I woke up when it was still dark, swallowed a quick breakfast and drove to the beach. It was such a gift to get to witness the world waking up. We spotted a family of deers on the road which promptly skittered off as we slowly drove by, not wanting to scare them. There were barely any other cars and the silence was broken only as we approached the beach, by the relentless crashing of the waves on the shore.
I loved being in the moment with nowhere to rush off to.While Paolo was fishing, I had time to wander and observe the plants on the dunes with their pastel colours blending with that of the soft sand. The vast expanse of dunes overlooking the long empty beach, surrounded by the sky changing colours, were breathtakingly beautiful and peaceful.
JOYFUL GRATITUDE #90
I feel deeply grateful to have celebrated my birthday with my community of lovely friends yesterday. It was a heart-warming evening, full of joy for life and great humour, around delicious hummus and good beers at the amazingly laid-back brewery the Butchers Tears.
I am so appreciative of how my friends respect my aversion for materialistic presents and came up with creative solutions to spoil me regardless, with wonderful experience gifts like delicious food, cards, a drawing, poetry and vouchers for quality time to spend together:) I look forward to many more celebrations together!
In a country where there it can be tricky to buy organic fruit that hasn’t been flown half-way across the world, there is so much joy in picking our own fruit:) We cycled to Fruittuin van West over the weekend and picked about 10kg of organic apples and pears, and a kilo of red-currants.
Did we overdo it? Maybe just a little… I know we’ll have no trouble finishing them, slowly but surely, and I’m looking forward to our menu for the next weeks: oven-baked apples, red-currants with yoghurt, apple cake and more as inspiration comes to us
Cultivating joy 