all the greens unite! *

first blog post of the next 365 days which we mortals call  'a year' and hope that it will bring better things to us. here's to hoping it will and also to having full trust in whatever it will lay ahead. i'd like to call this new year 'the rise and the fall of the mind'. why? because i'd like to make an effort -and an attempt- to gradually put aside the worrying, planning, (self) judging, conditioning mind and replace it with the heart that fully absorbs the present without worrying about the future. sorry, no new year's resolutions from me :).

in the meantime, i'm finding joy in below mundane things that are green. the book is the turkish version of James Agee's 'A Death in the Family', hope you don't mind the morbid title, i've picked it as it's a beautiful book with a really (green) nice cover.

* wintery version

making an appearance

i know it's been a looong time since i've last written on this little blog of mine. in that period of time i've had a change of job (good-bye long hours of commute to work) and a camera to fix and a pc to get working- exactly in that order. i had frustrating moments of not being able deal with the changes in my life as i wished, that's something to add to the new year's resolutions. it's been busy at my new job and i've needed some time to get well adjusted into this new rhythm. drank way too many cups of coffee and tea. in the meantime i've learned to operate my tele-control properly, watched numerous episodes of Dexter and old movies, knitted a scarf for myself (that i'm going to show you soon) and had a visit to my sister in milan. shame i didn't have the technological means to document any of these. nice. here's a photo of how the coolness of early winter revealed itself. to be honest, i can't say i've absorbed it fully - something else to add to the new year's resolutions- other photos prove the fact that home is where i've been. promise a more exciting post with better photos in the coming days.

is it winter yet?

ok, photos taken with not enough light obviously, all indoors and maybe even a bit boring and girly; wool slippers and all... so, what if i spent the whole week-end indoors (my bed to be exact and honest, actually) and ate simple and non-cooked stuff right there (it's called 'raw food' in a more trendy, new age and hip world but i'll be honest, mine was pure 'uncooked'), and we can call the 'bedroom dining' and 'lunching'  'bed picnicking' maybe? - here you go, a new term introduced- and spent hours catching up on downton abbey and trueblood (oh jesus, why did you have to die?) and crocheting away at the background, pretty exciting stuff eh? yep. i'm ready for the winter, bring it on...

dreaming india

i'm dreaming india... and in between my dreams and day-dreams these outdated newspapers have appeared at my work to remind me about the power of dreaming. dream on...

five of diamonds

this was a beautiful autumn day spent in one of the princes' islands, an hour off the coast from istanbul. we got on the ferry, sat outside, watched the seagulls hovering above and reached this beautiful and green island called 'burgazada'. i don't remember why i haven't been to this particular island since i was a child but i'm happy we chose this one to visit out of the other three; it was truly beautiful. i was a little too much excited about the beautiful, graceful old houses - and felt a bit sad as almost all were shut closed for the winter. we climbed up the hill on a lovely path and made it up just on time for the sunset (see below, it was fan-tas-tic) with amazing views of the marmara sea. i think my excitement was also partly about being able to look at istanbul from a distance with an undivided view, see its dents and its skyline; see it as a quiet beauty.

i found the five of diamonds card on the path to the hill; i've looked it up and the meaning attached to this card is: happiness, success and new things starting, not bad at all. oh, and that i have an inner restlessness, and a dislike for anything routine. what can i say, it sounds about right.