Merry Christmas. Gratitude from a trail.

25. 12. 2024

Can you imagine our joy when we discovered a Brussels sprouts field and a flock of pheasants on our walk? Neither of them expected or planned. They felt like rewards for venturing beyond the comfort and warmth of the house when it was so tempting to be inside to make it all perfect for Christmas. We did not plan to make it all perfect for Christmas. We planned to go through it with good and steady pace that would render us less fragile and susceptible to germs in winter and would give us time and space for progressive clean-up. Haven’t quite succeeded at that as the younger one managed to catch a cold that has just developed into a 38.5 fever but we’re trying so I commend us for trying.

Back to the joy related to the Brussels sprouts field. I was thrilled. The kids even more. I felt someone was reminding us where the Christmas food was coming from and feeling both an awe and gratitude for those that must have worked very hard for these small green balls to appear on our table was a very natural response to have. All of a sudden the connection between what we eat and what is grown around us became very clear to the children. It was great to see it.

We walked a trail that we took years ago on a Mother’s Day but we took a slightly different route this time – one that guarantees an enormous amount of psychological space. I appreciate this so much. This feeling of being unobstructed by buildings, houses, objects, cars or people is life-giving. Our thoughts and anxieties need to be processed somewhere and when we travel through spaces like this one, they seem to be swimming away into a distance and it’s easier to detach.

I think I cannot live without vast spaces and open landscapes. The breathing spaces. That trail years ago was my treat and it remains so. With new routes discovered as we follow the children’s instincts and wishes. They discover paths, we agree to follow and in return we discover new vistas. It is a very fair arrangement. Well… as long as we don’t get lost and there is a safe path of return…

As for the pheasants, aren’t they mesmerizing? Always a joy to see one passing across a road, let alone to see a flock of them landing on a grass patch next to not-even-slightly bewildered sheep. You end up being twice surprised. First, with the number of pheasants appearing at once, a second time with the calmness of the resting sheep. ‘Haven’t you noticed what I have just noticed?’ You almost want to nudge them to get curious, to little or no avail.

Wherever you are, I hope you are relaxing now and if you fancy a bit of magic in your living room, to cater to children around you or your inner child, I recommend this magical relaxation video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reRSAx2gwDA To bring the fairytale land inside your home or wherever you are right now.

Thank you, Dear Readers, for visiting Postcards Without Stamps. My gratitude today if for your presence and love of reading. I hope that every page you read will contribute to your greater well-being and you will accumulate strength, resilience and joy.

Merry Christmas.

Alicja

Photos taken at Tissington Trail, Derbyshire, UK.

Touched

“The other morning I woke up worrying about a dear friend’s well-being. I felt it as an ache in my heart. When I got up and looked out my window, I saw such beauty that it stopped my mind. I just stood there with the heartbreak of my friend’s condition and saw trees heavy with fresh snow, a sky that was purple-blue, and a soft mist that covered the valley, turning the world into the vision of the Pure Land. Just then, a flock of yellow birds landed on the fence and looked at me, increasing my wonder further still.

I realized then what it means to hold pain in my heart and simultaneously be deeply touched by the power and magic of the world. Life doesn’t have to be one way or the other. We don’t have to jump back and forth. We can live beautifully with whatever comes – heartache and joy, success and failure, instability and change.” Pema Chödrön, Living Beautifully

Driving lessons, pubs and fishing

For a long time I did not have a need to drive in the UK. Back in Poland, our family home was situated next to a railway line and so the thought of travelling by train was as natural to me as eating bread for breakfast. I’m never shy of taking a bus either. I like collective travel and am always fond of meeting people at bus stops, on trains and trams and striking up a conversation with them. In fact, travelling by public transport has given me some beautiful memories and associations. My wonderful friendships have been made stronger when sitting at a table in a cross-country train.

With our son growing up, however, I feel that I would like to be able to go to places with him which are not so well connected by public transport. My desire was always to bring him up in a way that allows him to connect with people of different walks of life, to see how differently people work and live (I wrote about it here). I wish this for myself too, of course. I like to learn about people, learn about their lives, lifestyles, values and customs (like I did here and here). I think what I really like seeing is their sense of pride, of who they are and what they do. I like when people value themselves. Both their work and their toils. There are many great, bitter-sweet stories that could be written out of our daily experiences. Noticing the stories to tell is perhaps the first step on our road to self-worth and life-appreciation.

So in order to tell a few more stories on this blog and to meet more people, I have summoned my courage to drive a bit more, to drive beyond my very small driving-comfort zone. I paid for a few refresher classes and asked my driving instructor if we could go to places that he knows well around my area – I love that very much when people show me what they find important and fascinating. It is then that I stretch myself most when I go to places that I might not normally go to. (Perhaps that is why I love to read blogs, because I feel that blogs take me where I would probably never gone on my own :))

Pub 1 — The John Thompson Inn and Brewery, Ingleby (near Derby)

One of my dreams as a mum is to be able to show my son that he has options. That there are mainstream and not-so-mainstream things that he can do in life. I want him to see that there are many different things worth doing and to develop a good sense of respect towards the value of human endeavor. Very often, in Zadie Smith’s words, we “mask self-doubt with contempt” – we scorn the skills that we would like to possess or mock decisions that other people make. It’s this less graceful part of our human condition. It’s also the part that is actually very often responsible for our fall, or for the fact that we never develop the potential that’s in us. When we criticize what people do, what they have, how they behave, we always send a message to ourselves that we do not want to become like them; but actually there is also another side to this story. Too often we criticise because actually we would like to be like them. I am a firm believer that appreciation of another human being and respect towards who they are and what they do make us notice quicker what’s alive in us.

My driving instructor loves fishing so he took me to places where he would normally fish. Around those fishing spots you can often find some amazing English pubs that anglers can visit after a decent catch. I was telling my husband a lot about my driving instructor’s tales. My three-year-old son was eavesdropping. Next morning he climbed on to our bedside cabinet, took my belt and said: ‘Mama, look, I’m fishing.’

Appreciation of the stories of others alerts us to what’s alive in us.

For a long time I was using public transport because, of course I feared driving, but also because I enjoyed the companionship that comes with journeying with others. The camaraderie was my reward. Since I no longer do those commutes I miss that daily dosage of human stories. Maybe driving will become the habit which will earn me my reward (new places, new stories). What are the habits that you would like to develop? What are the stories that you pay a particular attention to these days? Are they making you more alive?

Natural dreams

Where do you go to escape from the turmoil of the world? I go home. Childhood home. Of course it boils there too. But it boils in a different language, about different matters although with familiarity from the past. We know our childhood homes so well. We know what to expect of them and, who knows, maybe it is this predictability of the place and language that makes it easier for us to truly rest and listen.

I tend to find myself when I’m in the unchanging landscape of my little village, in its stability. The fields, the trees, the meadows, the orchards, the forest nearby – they are always there ready to embrace me as I am. Ready to welcome me as me.

It’s a powerful sensation. Me as me.

In a world that demands constant change. In a world that asks for continuous development and seduces us with better versions of ourselves it is really difficult to appreciate the people we are and have always been – with our personal dreams, perspectives, and qualities.

In fact, it is even difficult to love our own core dreams when so many things around tell us that there are other, better dreams to dream.

When you feel like this think of the time when you last were dreaming with confidence. Big dreams, small dreams but with ease, no noise in the background. I have realised recently that I was at my dreaming-best when I was 14. I don’t know what I was doing ever since, but it was the time when my map of dreams was the most personal to me, no fears, fads and fashion. In my little childhood village there are cereal fields next to my dad’s cherry orchard. Walking along the fields, I meet the 14-year old. She’s cheerful, hopeful and determined. Where were you when your dreams were unfolding? Maybe you can visit this place? Or create a semblance of it where you are now? To allow yourself to be you, maybe with fears but without disabling judgements.

Childhood memories – nostalgic landscapes

There’s too much noise in life but there’s never enough good music. Welcome back after my holiday break, my dear friends. Here’s something for you to relax to. A very dear piece of music to me… Maestro… Ennio Morricone and his Cinema Paradiso. Makes me think of childhood. Does it do the same to you? Below are a few photographs from Poland, my home-country. This is the landscape that I grew up in… it is embedded in me…. and it is part of me… regardless of where I go… irrespective where I travel to… I am of this earth…