Category Archives: Reflections

Five Beautiful Things for Which I am Grateful…

29 Thursday Dec 2022

Posted by in Art, Five Beautiful Things, Iceland, Reflections, Sheep, watercolor

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© Joan Currie – My sheep watercolor. Loved the Icelandic wool!

I’m glad to be here. I’m glad to be anywhere. – Keith Richards

In the last few days I have been thinking about the many things in 2022 for which I am grateful. The year started off quietly but the latter half was filled with a certain sweetness and gentleness of family connection, some exciting adventures, followed by succumbing to Covid infections.

  1. From the first of the year I made an effort to connect with my loved ones on a daily basis. The compilation of photos on my phone always brought tears to my eyes! New ones popped up every day and my family loved to receive them. I made sure to download the photos they shared with me, and added them to my photo library.
  2. One of my 2022 resolutions was to make time for a daily art practice – even just 20 minutes some days. I discovered new techniques and painting supplies, particularly watercolor. I framed a number of my landscape and animal works for my living room gallery-wall and changed out the pieces frequently.
    I was able to carve out some space in my back studio-shed to begin oil painting this last year. It was very satisfying to embrace the medium of my favorite Masters.
  3. I was very grateful to have made two trips (Reykjavik and Amsterdam) with my youngest daughter. Both places were our ancestral homes and we connected with the people and the landscape in a special way. I loved the coarse texture of the Icelandic wool and brought some skeins and fleece home with me for my knitting and rug hooking projects.
  4. Despite getting vaccinated, several family members and I got Covid this year, but I am glad we got through the course of it, including rebounds, without any longterm effects (so far, so good!).
  5. I remembered the introduction to a soap opera my mother watched years ago called “Days of our Lives.” I revisited the show’s promo, “like sands through the hour glass, so are the days of our lives,” and noticed the sand seemed to be flowing through the glass bulb at an alarming rate! It reinforced how precious time is and looking back this year, I am thankful and fortunate to have spent so much time with people who were loving, kind, curious, and supportive.
Schaap en twee lammeren in een stal by Frans Lebret (Rijksmuseum)

Beautiful Winter Solstice…

21 Wednesday Dec 2022

Posted by in Photography, Reflections, Winter, WInter Solstice

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© David Dodds

This is the solstice, the still point of the sun, its cusp and midnight, the year’s threshold and unlocking, where the past lets go of and becomes the future; the place of caught breath. – Margaret Atwood

When I was a child our family sometimes had Sunday dinner at my Uncle’s house. We younger children would be banished to the basement, while the adults stayed upstairs, doing whatever adults did at dinner parties.

The unfinished basement was the room of doom for me. In it was the dreaded fruit cellar, consisting of an interminably long and completely black space that I would be dared to enter: the challenge was to touch the end wall deep inside it. While I groped my way along, I had a weird, terrible feeling of being drawn towards something sinister. Because of its malevolent power, and because I had an inner desire to defeat the challenge of evil, I kept to task. When I touched the rough cement wall at the end of the cellar space, I quickly turned back towards the light of the room again with a feeling of utter relief, but even more, the feeling that comes with victory over an unknown terror.

This fall has been fraught with challenges. Sometimes I have had that same feeling of my childhood, of moving into the dark, and yet I know with complete certainty that, in due time and with a certain stalwartness and grittiness, the light will be right there in front of me.

Beautiful Christmas Gift Tags…

18 Sunday Dec 2022

Posted by in Art, Birds, Christmas, Crafts, Reflections

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© Joan Currie. My watercolor birds as gift tags.

One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas Day.
Don’t clean it up too quickly.
Andy Rooney

When you are finally cleaning up the mess of ribbons and wrapping paper, be sure to save some of the gift tags. I treasure the ones I have collected since I was a child. My mother loved to use the front of beautiful note cards with images of winter such as those by Cornelius Kriegoff, A. J. Casson, and Roy McMurtry. She had beautiful penmanship and always wrote a sweet note to go along with the present. I especially love the gift tags given to me from my daughters – their early attempts at printing “Mommy” and their names are delightful!

Last year my gift tag theme was Christmas trees, but this year I decided to go with birds. I hope one of my children continues my tradition of not only saving the tags but of creating them as well.

Beautiful Wool Blankets…

22 Tuesday Feb 2022

Posted by in Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Relationships, Travel, Wool

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© Joan Currie. My wool blankets – the ones from Ireland and Britain are my favorite!

And you belong right here, where you’re home,
and where I hold you close,
Of all the wonders I’ve ever known,
you’re the one I love the most.
From You Belong Here by M.H. Clark, Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault

There is nothing better than snuggling with you under one of the beautiful blankets from our travels together.

Beautiful Winter Thaw…

10 Thursday Feb 2022

Posted by in Daily Life, Photography, Reflections, Winter

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© James Currie – NYC

Like a sudden thaw in the middle of winter, grace happens at unexpected moments. It stops us short, catches the breath, disarms. If we manipulate it, try to control it, somehow earn it, that would not be grace. Yet not everyone has tasted of that amazing grace, and not everyone believes in it.
– Philip Yancey

On my walk today, I felt the warmth of the sun on my back like the reassuring hand of an old friend.

Beautiful Valentine’s Day plans…

07 Monday Feb 2022

Posted by in Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Relationships, Valentine's Day

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© James Currie – NYC

In winter
all the singing is in
the tops of the trees
where the wind-bird

with its white eyes
shoves and pushes
among the branches.
Like any of us

he wants to go to sleep,
but he’s restless —
he has an idea,
and slowly it unfolds

from under his beating wings
as long as he stays awake.
But his big, round music, after all,
is too breathy to last.

So, it’s over.
In the pine-crown
he makes his nest,
he’s done all he can.

excerpt from White-eyes by Mary Oliver

I liked where we lingered and kissed and made plans for Valentine’s Day.

Beautiful homes…

02 Wednesday Feb 2022

Posted by in Home, Poetry, Reflections, Relationships, Winter

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© Joan Currie – watercolor

All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.

We meet them at the doorway, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro…
from Haunted Houses by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I grew up in a neighborhood where the homes were identified, not by street numbers, but by the surname of the first owners. It didn’t matter how long the first residents had lived in the house, their surname was retained despite subsequent owners who may have lived there for much longer.

Furthermore, it seemed that whatever that state of emotion the first owners possessed, either happy or sad, the house seemed to attract the same sort of owner. I don’t know why, but when I visit a home, I can sense immediately if it is a comfortable or uncomfortable space – one where the inhabitants thrive in harmony or one where is there is upset and discord. (This is independent of color, lighting, furniture, or any other physical aspect of the house.)

I hope that when anyone enters my home they feel that they are not only entering a welcoming, happy, and comfortable place but one that is nurturing, creative, and flourishing!

Beautiful Morning…

27 Thursday Jan 2022

Posted by in Art, Daily Life, Reflections

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© Joan Currie – Morning Sun, collage

Oh what a beautiful morning,
Oh what a beautiful day,
I have a wonderful feeling,
Everything’s going my way.
from Oklahoma by Rodgers and Hammerstein

I am a morning person. I like to get up with the sun and make a definite start to the day.
But some mornings, especially when it is cold outside, I am completely seduced by the
warmth of my own bed and the feeling of the covers around me. So I decide not to get up
but to stay in bed and enjoy the moment.

Beautiful nitty gritty…

24 Monday Jan 2022

Posted by in Finances, New Year's Resolutions, Reflections, Travel

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© Joan Currie – En Route

They must retrench; that did not admit of a doubt. But she was very anxious to have it done with the least possible pain to him and Elizabeth. She drew up plans of economy, she made exact calculations. from Persuasion by Jane Austen

I am getting down to business trying to figure out how to execute my revised New Year’s Resolutions. It isn’t enough to wish for them to happen, plans have to be made, especially if travel is involved.

I knew a man who unabashedly spent thousands of dollars every year fulfilling his New Year’s Resolutions list. He was a last-minute-man and top-notch all the way – be it first class travel or uber expensive purchases – you name it! The envy of all his friends, he appeared to have a life of abundance that was only attainable by the super rich. The catch was that he couldn’t afford his extraordinary lifestyle and ended up accumulating massive debt. But, time after time, he appeared to pull a rabbit out of the hat, begin anew, and look forward to his next year’s list. I have always wondered just how he did it.

I envied his lavish lifestyle. My lifestyle has been one of frugality. I have achieved certain New Year’s Resolutions over the years but they have come with a lot of planning as I am not at all comfortable with debt. I always have a budget and stick to it. And so, the sights I hope to see on my travels this year will be of the sublime, and those are the only excesses that I desire.