Goodbye June

Goodbye June. Goodbye to your restless days; the showers, the changes & all those hopeful new beginnings. Thank you for the grasslands growing, the grain swaying, the birds overhead & the rivers flowing. There was more rain than the ground could take, more heartache than our souls should take. There were swallows dancing, clouds gathering, lightning striking. You were wild & unpredictable, yet you were beautiful & brave. And I’d like to thank you for that.

Goodbye sweet June, thank you for the days I got to walk through. In the midst of your confusing sadness, you have taken the time to once again remind me of the importance of all things little. You have warned me about the weight of things larger than life; the heavy burdens of everything I cannot possible change, nor carry. And so, I set out looking for the sun behind the clouds, the silver lining at the end of the day. With a renewed lightness in my step, I hiked up a hill, I watched the sky in wonder & I adjusted my heartbeat to the unexpected rhythm of your season. And, suddenly, I felt so much lighter than before.
Living through your days, I hoped, I feared, I tried, I managed, I failed. Some things came to an end, while other patiently waited to begin. I learned new words with the same meaning. I created & conquered. I made long lists which I never finished, I set goals I decided not to reach. I watched games unite & divide. I cheered for Spain & cried for England. I let the world get to me. I read the news & became painfully aware that I too am part of a greater whole. Part of something. Something nameless & abstract, yet something that seemed to be coming apart at the seams. And all of a sudden, I felt frightened over the prospect of losing the sense of unity I had never felt before.

Goodbye Dear June. Do you wonder, like I do, what will happen now? Where we might go from here? Why do we do what we do? Why do we let fear cloud our judgement, let prejudice get in the way of who we ought to be? When did our world turn into a place where parties turn into massacres, holidays into horror? I broke down, I cried in disbelieve. I felt the loss in my heart, mind & my soul. And all that while, I understood that it was alright to feel too much at once. That the feeling of devastating sorrow, which sat in my chest, was what the world needed from me that very moment.
It ought to hurt, because it is an crime & it’s a terrible, terrible disgrace. And we should never be allowed to be numbed by all the suffering, but we should be outraged & empowered instead.

Goodbye June, thank you for everything. Let’s make way for your friend July, see if she holds the summer we somehow were unable to find. Thank you for all the wonderful moments of togetherness you send my way. Thank you for the sweet strawberries, the tasty dinners & yummy cakes. Thanks for the love of those who love me; their words, their laughter & their reassuring nearness. Thanks for the walks, the wide skies, the rain that soaked my clothes & the shower that warmed my skin. It’s time to wave goodbye now. Take care & hope to see you next year.

Love, Naomi

Book: unfortunately, I didn’t manage to finish a book this month:(
I am half way a novel called; The Shock of the Fall, by Nathan Filer. It’s promising so far…
Series: still watching E.R & mixing it up with a Netflix original called Bloodline. Furthermore, I’ve been watching a few soccer matches from the European Championships:)
Songs of the month:
Up & Up – Coldplay
Nearly Morning – Luke Sital Singh (with Gabriella Aplin)
Hold back the River – James Bay
Young as the morning, old as the sea – Passenger

This month I would love to include a lovely, colourful & incredibly creative music video I’ve been playing on repeat. This song lifts my spirit whenever it needs lifting & even though, I’m normally not crazy about music videos, I’ll gladly make an exception for this creative, funny & inspiring piece of art. Of course, it helps that I’m a huge Coldplay fan, but give it a go & who knows, you might like it too…

Goodbye May

Goodbye May. Goodbye to all of your unexpected surprises. The rain, the storm, the sunlight, the misty mornings & tropical afternoons. You could never quite make up your mind, could you, whether you wanted it warm, cold, wet or dry? It seems to me like you, therefore, decided to give us a bit of everything. And in the meantime, you made trees explode into life, you painted the grass the brightest shade of green, you swept clouds across the sky & flowers across the street. It was beautiful. It really was.

Goodbye Dear May, thank you for being so lively & wondrous. Your days have been colourful, challenging, rewarding & memorable, all in one. At times, you amazed me with your ability to combine such a range of emotions into one single day or into one single person. But you did. You left me feeling proud some days. Worried & anxious on others. ‘Not quite sure’ on the many days in between. During your restless days of spring, I learned many new things & rediscovered old abilities. I got lost in the pages of a book, I found my thoughts entangled with the lives of others.
On sunny days, I wandered through the newly decorated forest, marvelling about nature & how it always takes its course. On wet days, as I felt rain drops slide down the warm skin of my back, I decided to stop avoiding the puddles & started to look up at your wonderfully wild skies instead.
Packages arrived, prints were delivered, songs were sang & memories were made. I took a train, a bus, a boat, a bicycle, my shoes. But sometimes, I didn’t move at all & watched time go by without me. It moved so rapidly, hardly taking notice of me & my old fashioned daydreaming. And as I stood there, witnessing time & all its frantic passing, I was relieved to discover that I can still pause whenever I think I need to.

Goodbye May. You leave us in a world unchanged. A world were so many are still left to fend for themselves. A world were decisions are made, but no solutions are found. At times, I can’t help but feel disappointed. Disappointed in myself for my inability to take a stand or make a change. Disappointed in the facts and the figures & more than anything, disappointed in the seemly narrow margins of our human compassion. At the same time, I refuse to give up hope, refuse to give up on the idea that we’ll pull through somehow & will able to look back at these troubled times with a sense of achievement rather than shame. I hold on to my own soul & my own kindness with all I’ve got, because I realize, now more than ever, that it is all I’ve got. And that it’s worth more than I could ever imagine.

Goodbye, sweet May, thank you for all the beauty you gave me. Thank you for giving me 15 years with my dear, beautiful cat. Thank you for all her wit, her cuddles, her bright eyes & her stubborn nature. Thank you for bringing the swallows back to fly speedily pass my window & nest above my head. Thank you for all the words; spoken & unspoken. All the thoughts & all the wondering. Thank you for health, for love, for life & all those other, slightly sappy, nouns we tend to take for granted.
Oh, and yes, thank you for white asparagus, thank you for red strawberries & dark chocolate ice cream. I’m leaving you now, June has already started & the days are flying by. Time to wrap you up and say goodbye. Thank you for everything & I hope we’ll meet again!

Love, Naomi

Book: ‘Room’ by Emma Doneghue (Beautiful, very impressive book, which will leave you wondering for days after finishing it)
Series: How to get away with murder & E.R
Movies: The Broken circle Breakdown
Songs of the month:
Frail love – Cloves
The Fast Lane– Milow
If I needed you – The Broken Circle Breakdown
99 red balloons – Sleeping at last (cover)

Goodbye April

Goodbye April. Goodbye to your unpredictable nature. Your showers of blossom, rain & hail. Goodbye to snow on early mornings. Goodbye to sleepless, weary nights. You’ve confused me with your selection of moods to choose from. Yes, it seems fair to say, you caught me off guard. But I’m not blaming you. You’ve been no one but yourself; unconstrained & filled with surprises, just as you should be.

Goodbye Dear April, thank you for those wonderful weeks filled with quiet reflection & unexpected emotions. I have wandered through your days like one should wander through any springtime; looking up & up, marvelling over the colours, the abundance & all the reoccurring gifts of nature.
I aimed my camera, framed the moment & satisfied my ever expanding need to create memories. I packed a bag & hiked through the days, wrapping my coat around myself a little tighter, while your cold winds reminded me that you’ll do as you please. I read; an old favourite & some lighter books, allowing my thoughts to drift, while scanning the obvious. I watched new things, was on the edge of my seat & was left wanting much more. My shoes travelled to and fro, following me outside, where we passed both familiar & new places. I celebrated achievements. I questioned my purpose & my reason. I doubted myself, the way I always do. But I also picked myself & everything up again, the way I now know how to.
And all that while, I thought. I thought a lot. Thought of those I love & those who love me back. I thought of people I never met, would never meet, but who somehow managed to alter my thoughts all the same. Sometimes I cried. For all the obvious & the less obvious reasons. I tried not to mind & most of the time, I didn’t.

Goodbye April, thank you for keeping me from harm. Because it’s a confusing world we live in, where safety has become more of a gift than a given. It is place full of conflict, fear & famine. There is danger here, and there, and everywhere. Everything is moving, all the time. Yet some things seem to come to a standstill, like the world is holding its breath, wishing for the problem to go away while we close our eyes & wait for better days. But it hasn’t worked so far & something tells me, it never will. Looking at the world & the state we’re in, I feel grateful to live where I live, do what I do & be who I am. And there is less & less that I take for granted.

Goodbye Sweet April; let’s make way for May now. Let’s make room for a little more sun & a little less temperament. Thank you for the decorated trees & all the fresh green leafs. Thank you for the lazy hours, the warn soles of my shoes & for all the lovely reassurance, brought about by simple togetherness. Thanks for all the cups of coffee and, of course, thank you for the chocolate fondant which wouldn’t turn out, but still turned out fine.
I’ll leave you be now, I’m already running late. Take care & we’ll meet again.

Love, Naomi

Book: Due to a few days away, I managed to finish 2 ½ book this month. I must admit it where two Nicci French books & one book I have read over and over. But it was wonderful all the same.
‘Until it’s over’ & ‘What to do when someone dies’ by Nicci French
‘The History of love’ by Nicole Krauss
Series: Once upon a Time (always:) & How to get away with murder
Songs of the month:
Chasing Cars – Snow Patrol
Guaranteed – Eddie Vedder
Howling at the moon – Milow

(In case you missed it yesterday; here is an short impression I made about this month’s little getaway:)

Goodbye March

Goodbye March, with all your spirited showers & your scattered sunlight. How beautiful you have been; throwing towering clouds & bright, sunlit days around, like one does confetti on a party. You found extra hours in a day, you chased darkness from the mornings, then the evenings. And although, at times, the world grew cold & dark, you were kind for me & for those I love most.

Goodbye Dear March, thanks for taking me outside all those lovely hours. I put my hiking boots on, stood in an awakening forest, where everything was proudly brimming with beginnings. I closed my eyes, turned my face towards the sun & felt the winter melt from within me. It always seems to take so long, those last days of winter slumber. But there was evidence of life everywhere & it made my heart sing out with joy.
Cards were send, unexpected packages arrived, letters were written & send. I tried to read, I found myself listening instead. Some days I felt more lost than others, but most days I was merely grateful for always being so safely bound. I looked for inspiration, tried to strive for more & less every day. I created, tested the water, felt proud, felt fearful, satisfied & disappointed. The future was taking shape around me, I could see it, I loved it, but as always it frightened me all the same. And so, I was reminded that some things never change at all.

Goodbye March, with your painful lessons to be learned. It felt like bombs went off everywhere & all the time, ending the lives of men and women, young and old. And no matter who they were or where they came from, they were all lost to us. And I saw it all, I read it all, I felt it all. I read & read, until I understood nothing & felt less than I felt before. At times, at the end of the day, I feel my soul will burst with all the sorrow of this world. But at the same time, these troubled times make me feel stronger & less alone than I might have felt before. Because the darker it gets, the more I am drawn towards the light. The harder it is, the kinder I become. And even though it might not make much sense, I embrace it all the same.

Goodbye good old March, another month gone. I let you go & make room for your kind friend April. Thanks you so much for being your unpredictable self, I loved the surprises that came my way.Thank you for all the walks, the flowers, the clouds & more than anything, thank you for the sun. Thank you for the comfort of weighty words, small talk & familiar silliness. Thank you for new directions, quiet moments of clarity & important hours of uncertainty. I will step away from you with a renewed sense of curiosity, eagerly looking forward to the days to come.

Love, Naomi

Book: Ashamed to say, I haven’t finished a new book yet. There goes my first new year’s resolution:( I did start in ‘The Rosie Project’- Graeme Simsion, but haven’t finished it.
Series: Downton Abbey, Once upon a Time (again:)
Songs of the month:
Us against the world – Coldplay
After the storm – Mumford & Sons
The Other side – David Gray
Fix You – Coldplay

Goodbye February

Goodbye February, how fast you have passed me by. It should not come as a surprise anymore, the speed in which time travels, but still it does. I had great plans with you, you know, wild ideas & good hope. But somehow I get in the way of myself sometimes. Like I want more than my mind can handle. But I enjoyed our time together all the same. Please, don’t get me wrong; I loved the days you gave to me.

Goodbye February, you beautiful romantic soul. Bringing warmth & flowers, while outside chilly winds blew all premature thoughts of spring away. I went outside, willingly facing wind, rain & hail, my clothes soaked time & time again, but my heart singing with delight. I made small drawings of love, cooked familiar favourites to warm us at dinnertime, I strolled between deserted factories, where beauty was bravely defeating decay. I watched too many episodes of a new favourite series, let myself be tempted by the ‘comfort’ of the old English aristocratic life. I tried to keep promises to myself, set goals & strived for my own definition of success. I listened to both old & new music, found my heart jumping with joy every time a memorable song arrived at its doorstep. I watched dancers drift across a brightly lit stage, embracing both (in)visible love & all life lived beneath the delicate surface of our skin.

Goodbye February, what a world we live in, with all its uncompromised power to give & take, the ability to create & to destroy. Your winter days passed & I thought of those with no shelter, no place to call home. It was with a heavy heart that I looked at my television screen, staring into the eyes of those with nothing left, but still so much to give. I sat & realised how we are all so connected & so very disconnected at the same time. And I couldn’t decide whether that thought made me feel either strong or only smaller still.

Goodbye February, time to go. Make space for March, that unpredictable & wilful friend of yours. Thank you for a lovely time. Thank you for the wind in my face, the first bold flowers that blossomed. Thank you for the laughter & the tears. Thank you for the forgotten song that played on the radio. Thank you for the sunny extra day. And more than anything, thank you for putting up with my complicated soul, the questions it askes & the answers it provides. I wish you well & we’ll meet again.

Love, Naomi

Book: Een verhaal van liefde, ziekte en dood. Deel 1: de liefde – Jonas Gardell (Dutch)
Series: Downton Abbey
Theatre: Under my skin – Isabella Beerneart
Songs of the month:
The Boxer – Simon & Garfunkel
Oh Canada – Missy Higgins
Nothing Arrived – Villagers
Up & Up – Coldplay
Nobody Cept’you – Jack Savoretti

Goodbye January

Goodbye January, with your spring like, winter weather & your indecisive state of mind. You’re the start to everything; you’re both the second change & the new beginning. You come early every year; catch me by surprise & throw me off a little. But it is fine & it’s not your fault. It’s me, not you. I should know how this whole annual thing works by now.

Goodbye sweet January, I had a great time with you. A promising beginning, which makes me wonder what else is in store. I walked through your uncharacteristically mild days, left my gloves at home, stumbled into new ideas & got reintroduced to my all too familiar hesitations. I google-eyed the house, I read one book, saw three movies, watched 3 seasons of one series, played 3 different board games, cooked 2 new dishes, played one cd on repeat & had 5 favourite songs to listen to.  I thought, I wondered, I planned & I made lists. Oh boy, did I make lists; to- do- lists, how-to- lists, when- to- lists & why- to- do lists. But some days no list could help me straighten out which thoughts should come first & which could wait till later. I guess some things never change, no matter what year it is.

Goodbye January, I know it’s hard for you to go, leaving this world in the same chaos you found it in. But we both know that chaos is not going anywhere anytime soon. And really, it is not your concern, it’s ours. I just wish I could promise you that better times are coming, while truth is that I just don’t know. None of us do, I suppose. All I know is that I feel it is time for us we recover & regroup, before it is too late for all of us to get back to who we once were. Or at least, who we thought we were or who we aspired to be.

Goodbye Dear January; it’s time for us to part. But not before I take a moment to thank you for all the lovely days & moments we shared together. Thank you for the conversations I had, the plans I made, the inspiration that struck. Thank for the music that drifted my way, the images that filled my mind & the words I got to read. Even though you might have seemed commonplace at certain times, I don’t want to take our time together for granted. Because, after all, this has been a lovely start of something which still seemed rather huge & intimidating 31 days ago. You have been able to turn my apprehensive ship around & now, I’ve got my eye on the horizon.

Thanks again & goodbye sweet January

 

  

Book: Dingen die fijn zijn – Claudia de Breij (Dutch)
Movies: Wild, About Time & The Time Travellers Wife
Series: Suits
Songs of the month:
Catapult – Jack Savoretti
The Scientist – Coldplay (this version)
Emmylou – First Aid Kit
Wish I was here – Cat Power & Coldplay
Adventure of a lifetime – Coldplay