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El Présente
“You think of it, all you have is the present moment. The past doesn’t exist anymore, the future hasn’t happened.” I was chatting with a gentleman I often see on my lakeside walks. It was a brilliant sunny late February day, a canoe out on the lake. The gentleman I was talking to is in his eighties, an avid walker, always greets me with a smile, and I learn in this conversation, a fan of Marcus Aurelius. He has a well worn copy of the Roman emperor’s personal essays that he’s consulted over the years. We were talking about the Stoics and the almost mind bending challenge to live in…
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Look behind
I went for a walk after dinner last week. The air was wonderfully warm. Tranquil. The crickets chirped. So lovely was the evening I was actually telling myself to be present and savour it. I wanted to imprint the end of summer feeling in my memory bank so that I could recall it on a cold wintery day. (As you can see, it does not come naturally for me to be present so I need to remind myself!) In front of me fairy lights twinkled in the distance. I stopped and admired the pretty view. I was about to take another step forward. Instead, I paused. I turned and looked…
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Plazas and pebbled tapestries in Córdoba
Córdoba is jam-packed with treasures from its storied past. It was exhilarating, and overwhelming. One moment I was admiring the pretty flower pots climbing whitewashed walls and then I turned a corner to be confronted by a stretch of the massive Game of Throne-esque wall that encircled the city in Roman times. Another day I unexpectedly walked under an archway into the huge 17th century Plaza del Corredera (similar to Plaza Mayor in Madrid without the sculpture of a king on a horse and far quieter). Exiting the other side of the rectangular plaza I was soon face-to-face with the remains of a Roman temple from the 1st century. Eleven Corinthian marble…
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The Garden of Epicurious
A few months ago I awoke in the middle of the night to a harrowing shriek. It was a terrifying sound. My mind started thinking of horrible possibilities, like someone in pain or dying. I got out of bed and looked out my window to the dimly lit street below. There they were. A pair of foxes. One tilted its head back and screamed. The sound was the call of a red fox. No one was dying or in agony. It was simply two foxes out for a midnight stroll. My sense of hearing is not faulty, but my mind certainly did play tricks on me. According to the Greek…
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A crafty lesson
I have been making notebooks lately. Thanks to the Globe and Mail craft club. It was an enjoyable way to spend an hour on a Tuesday evening as Catalina Sanchez shared her step by step instructions on how to craft homemade notebooks. Ever since I have been stitching together these little notepads with random paper I have in the house. I tend to go through phases with making crafts. A few years ago I was obsessed with sewing tote bags. I had discovered an old sewing machine in my family, a 1954 Singer. It’s a dapper little machine, shiny black with ornate gold trim, that folds neatly into a carrying…
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Walking and Philosophy
Most of my walking this past year has been on the familiar paths of my neighbourhood streets and woodland trails. However, I do let my mind wander at times to other destinations, say a craggy Greek landscape. Instead of cold wind whipping at my face and geese honking overhead, I imagine sunshine warming my cheeks and bees buzzing in thyme and lavender bushes. This particular image comes to mind after reading about Aristotle’s school (Lyceum) in Athens. Aristotle liked to walk with his students (called peripatetics) while deliberating his philosophies. Of the many topics Aristotle deliberated, human happiness was a biggie. He believed the goal of human life was happiness…
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Delightful things about winter
I sliced my orange in half, releasing a fresh citrus scent, and was delighted by the gorgeous purply red colour inside. I took a closer look at the segments hidden inside the thick-skinned citrus. They were bursting with juice. Before eating the orange, I paraded it around my house to show the beautiful colour to my family (they weren’t quite as delighted as I). A small pleasure in a small thing. Perhaps this is the type of observation that Sei Shōnagon might have recorded in The Pillow Book. I recently learned about this Japanese author/poet/philosopher in Eric Weiner’s book, The Socrates Express: In Search of Life Lessons from Dead Philosophers.…
