Laughter
SUNNY
STORMY
STEAMY
SUMMER
RAINBOW
MAKING
WEATHER
Isn’t it amazing, as a human being, that we can experience such high highs and low lows, and that our experience of them depends completely on the variance that they exist relative to each other?
My sweet and small family has been navigating quite a rough patch these last few years. There were times when I thought things couldn't get worse, or more complicated, and they did, many times over. I have found myself to be incredibly happy throughout the latter part of it all. It's been at least a year now of wondering if I am masking the things that I should be feeling with these wide eyes and content smile. As one who at times leans into depression and solitude, I always try to keep notes when I’m feeling good, like leaving breadcrumbs, so when I fall, I can get back on track more quickly. While making notes today, I stumbled onto the realization that maybe the reason I feel so good right now, is the same reason why I love storms so goddamn much.
Like the raven, who rides the thrill of strong wind currents and can be heard squawking with glee in the midst of incredible weather, I find excitement and an animalistic pleasure in what many seek shelter from. One storm last summer, I was getting pelted by hail while in the middle of a bike ride home on the lakefront. I distinctly remember noticing the skin on my forearms dimpling, before I could feel the sting of the BB sized ice balls. I was in awe. Storms emphasize the vulnerability of being alive. They remind me that there is so much more to life than wherever I’m going on my bicycle; that I’m just a ghost in body and there’s really nothing keeping me on this planet at all. I am always enamored when the rain finally slows, and that weird light filters in, making it feel like a sunrise got caught in the wrong time and place.
The
land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and
cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a
hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any
sadness— a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the Sphinx, a
laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of
infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of
eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was
the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild.
Jack London, White Fang
As found in Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer
STORMY
STEAMY
SUMMER
RAINBOW
MAKING
WEATHER
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Isn’t it amazing, as a human being, that we can experience such high highs and low lows, and that our experience of them depends completely on the variance that they exist relative to each other?
My sweet and small family has been navigating quite a rough patch these last few years. There were times when I thought things couldn't get worse, or more complicated, and they did, many times over. I have found myself to be incredibly happy throughout the latter part of it all. It's been at least a year now of wondering if I am masking the things that I should be feeling with these wide eyes and content smile. As one who at times leans into depression and solitude, I always try to keep notes when I’m feeling good, like leaving breadcrumbs, so when I fall, I can get back on track more quickly. While making notes today, I stumbled onto the realization that maybe the reason I feel so good right now, is the same reason why I love storms so goddamn much.
Like the raven, who rides the thrill of strong wind currents and can be heard squawking with glee in the midst of incredible weather, I find excitement and an animalistic pleasure in what many seek shelter from. One storm last summer, I was getting pelted by hail while in the middle of a bike ride home on the lakefront. I distinctly remember noticing the skin on my forearms dimpling, before I could feel the sting of the BB sized ice balls. I was in awe. Storms emphasize the vulnerability of being alive. They remind me that there is so much more to life than wherever I’m going on my bicycle; that I’m just a ghost in body and there’s really nothing keeping me on this planet at all. I am always enamored when the rain finally slows, and that weird light filters in, making it feel like a sunrise got caught in the wrong time and place.
Jack London, White Fang
As found in Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer
My favorite opposition will forever be woman vs. nature.
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