Alone time means time spent by an individual or a couple apart from others. It is often used to ground oneself, or to do something creative.
In the northern countries we are known for this need of alone time – but I strongly believe we all need it. We just have to watch for the signs… even if they are not always easily recognized. You might for example need some time away from other people when you are feeling short-tempered or getting easily irritated by minor things; feeling overwhelmed or overstimulated; having trouble concentrating or getting anxious about spending time with other people.
My own reasons for needing alone time originates from being an only child, and growing up close to the forests and fields – Nature holds all the beauty I need in life, and I have been given the gift to see and to listen, and to rejoice in it. I am very grateful.
Grounding yourself is when you stay connected to the present. Instead of getting lost in anxiety and reviewing a made-up version of reality in your head, grounding allows you to experience the moment you are in. It requires being connected to yourself and provides stability and calm even in challenging situations.
Nature is an unequalled source to pour from – turn off social media, open your windows and let your eyes and mind wander with you on the path you choose. Personally, my favourite path is the one with grass in the middle…just like my childhood paths.
I feel better when I am surrounded, not by humans, but by trees.
― Michael Bassey Johnson
For many of us books and reading fill this alone time well. Reading gives us the possibility to wander into other worlds, while sitting comfortably in our own chair.
For me, photography, writing and sketching works well too, and so does painting.
I know that I need serious alone time to be able to function. For this purpose, I finally realised an old dream – A Room of My Own.
We need solitude, because when we’re alone, we’re free from obligations, we don’t need to put on a show, and we can hear our own thoughts.
― Tamim Ansary
Finding time to be alone can have a number of key benefits. Some of these include personal exploration, creativity and social energy. If you are not used to spend time alone, plan that time into your schedule and make sure that other people know that they shouldn’t interrupt you during that time. It might be helpful too if you plan out what you want to do –
This week in February, every year, I want my husband to travel for some days, so that I can replant my houseplants, alone. I can plan it as I want to, I can emerge myself in facts on the different species…
…and end up with revived plants and cuttings en masse – cheers to new life!
This year I also bought some airplants – they need no soil, just a piece of bark, some Spanish moss, and some sprinkling of water. At the same time I get the joy of creating interesting new arrangements.
New projects are always around the corner, but, I also try hard to just BE. Do nothing. Exist here and now. This is difficult. I wonder – do you manage it? Some good advice would be much appreciated.
Blessed are those who do not fear solitude, who are not afraid of their own company, who are not always desperately looking for something to do, something to amuse themselves with, something to judge.
~ Paulo Coelho
When I am completely by myself, entirely alone or during the night when I cannot sleep, it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence and how these ideas come I know not nor can I force them.
~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
A Special thank you to Bren for her soft and magical challenge last week! We learned new things and new experiences make us grow. Now we are looking forward to seeing your Alone Time posts. What are your thoughts, and what do you use your alone time for? Be sure to tag Lens-Artists and link to my original post.
I have been made aware of pingbacks not working, so please, send your link in the comment section! It seems the reason it’s not working might originate in the change to JetPack on my phone.
Next week, Tina will be hosting, and her theme will be – Finding Peace. Please visit her beautiful site for inspiration.
We who live in the southern part of Sweden often visit Denmark. Good food, nice people, lovely architecture and several great art museums. This time we had a nice surprise – snow! I have never seen a piece of Denmark in snow, and some Danes hadn’t either it seemed…
The walk from the train to Louisiana art museum is a treat with the lovely architecture – different in every house.
The park at Louisiana was the main attraction this time – not only because of the snow. We had excellent weather with a cold sun and no wind.
People were photographing everywhere, the snow and the calm sea. It is Sweden at the other end of the water. 20 minutes by ferry.
We spent a lovely hour walking around the grounds. Sculptures, installations and special art spread out everywhere.
A day of serenity
The small island at the horizon is a Swedish piece of land. Hven, the home of the famous astronomer Tycho Brahe. His observations are generally considered to be the most accurate of his time. (16th century)
There is something special with old country roads…Every autumn we walk some kilometers along this country road, and I guess you might recognize parts of it, even if it changes over the years. But, that is one of the reasons why I like to photographs this walk every year.
This part of our neighbouring village was always an agricultural area with many small farms.
Today farming is mostly a business for big farms with much land and large machines to work it.
This house is a typical old farmstead, but I am not sure anyone lives here anymore. It looks abandoned – even though you can see furniture and lamps if you look in the windows. There are even withered house plants in some of them, and a sign with the owner’s name. It looks like the owners just walked out the door left it that way.
Old wagons and tractors are left at the road side or in an abandoned garden.
I feel sad looking at it, because farmers work hard every day, every hour on their land – but as they grow old, they reach a point where they cannot manage it any longer. Being a farmer is a lifestyle, and that must be hard to give up.
There must be a few farmers still working though, because there is cattle in the small fields and meadows.
Aren’t they beautiful, making bypassers feel the harmony and the beauty of the landscape! I wonder what their story is…
Welcome Jez, our guest host this week – and the theme is all about reflections. Please go to his site for marvelous inspiration – and Lensy of course…
I love reflections too, and when I looted my reservoir of memories, I found this one from a travel to Tibet. We had to go by train from Beijing, and when walking the city centre, a lovely lantern caught my eye.
The first thing I thought about, was reflections from the Amazon basin. Our canoeing through the djungle every day, searching for anacondas, cajmans, lizards, sloths, monkeys and birds. The silence and the dense forest with all its sounds (!) was an unforgettable experience.
Autumn in Sweden also makes for canoeing and colourful experiences. Sometimes so intense for short glimpses, that you just have to photograph it even if you don’t have a managable angle. Incredible light.
Then again, days of mist make beautiful, dreamy images. I used to pass this old mill every day on my way to work – but often I stopped to walk for some minutes, contemplating the beauty of this worn building. I know she is an old lady, ageing beautifully and admiring her reflection in the water.
Somewhere in Spain – and there is a red car driving on the bridge…
Art is of course a great possibility for seeing double – a contemplating man and…
Yayoi Kusama in Denmark
More of Denmark – a new complex built with different reflections…even the sky fits in.
In Denmark some years ago, celebrating my birthday. Mirror fun.
Seeing double is all about reflections – easily made into a photographic obsession. Jez wants any reflections we come across; landscapes, cityscapes or chance ones in a puddle. We are looking forward to seeing all your entries!
Last week’s responses to Aletta, Now At Home, with her challenge of Treasures, were fantastic. So many amazing and varied examples. Next week it’ll be Andre of My Blog–Solaner, thinking about Summer Vibes, so make sure you get over to his site for inpiration.
I am forever chasing light. Light turns the ordinary into the magical.
–Trent Parke
The most crisp and serene light ever, is to be found in Iceland. So, for a starter, an image from north western Iceland, that I have posted before. I have done nothing to enhance or change the original. It has it all – natural, clear Light.
I could have chosen so many images from Iceland – but only one more pick – the graveyard. There is the light, and the beauty of flowers, mountains and water. A well chosen place to rest.
A couple of days in Denmark last week was refreshing. We visited the biggest sandcastle in the world (- now in the Guinness Book of Records). It was raining when we arrived at the sculpture park, so I took a photo before it would get even worse… The second photo was taken about two hours later – as when we were leaving the park, the sun came out! The most significant difference is the colour of the sand, and how much more alive the feeling is in the second photo.
In Aarhus we wanted to visit their famous art museum, ARoS – but also the harbour area with its modern architecture. They were still building new there, and at a traffic light I opened the window and photographed some of the constructions. The next morning we went there again to see more of this interesting area. This time we parked the car…To our great delight, now the light and the clouds made the visit an almost surreal experience.
I leave you with a favourite image made at the Fluela Pass in Switzerland. At our hotel they featured a big poster of bikers riding along the spectacular pass road, and we were eager to see this the following day. While we were aiming for a couple of interesting villages, we were also on the lookout for ”The View”. To our great disappointment, there was no ”view”…there was only a lake and a mountain. Quite ordinary. But, when returning to our hotel in the afternoon, taking the same road, this magnificent view suddenly opened up. Magical! The right time of the day, the right angle, and the right light. I learned something that day. About patience, and waiting for the magical moment to arrive.
We hope you will join us this week for Tina’s inspiring theme for LAPC #162: It’s All About the Light. Many thanks for last week’s fun Feet and Shoes. There were many smiles as we saw the variety of your responses! This week your challenge is to share images that illustrate the power of light – even better if you also include the same or a similar scene at a different, somewhat less beautiful time. Remember to link your post to Tina’s original, and to use the Lens-Artists Tag to help us find you. Finally, we hope you’ll join us next week as Amy leads us on her Share and Connect post. Until then, please stay safe and be kind.
This week Ana invites us to the world of postcards! I am old enough to have received and sent hundreds of postcards, but I admit I haven’t kept them all. – Ana says: ”You can show us some of your pictures that you would send as postcards to someone you love. Or you can simply share with us images of your favorite places.
If you have a garden full of flowers, show us a beautiful and colorful collection of floral postcards. It doesn’t need to be your garden, It can also be your neighbour’s.
If you have some real postcards it would be great if you would like to share them with us, I’m sure they have a nice story behind them.”
I was so thrilled by this theme, that I immediately went looking for my box of postcards – even though I knew I had not kept but a fraction of all I got over the years. As we have rearranged everything in the cellar the last year, they were not easily found – but finally I did.
I will start though, with a couple of my own images, that I would have loved to send as postcards to my friends – from the Verzasca valley in Italy and from Reykjavik. They have something important to say about their place, with no words needed on the picture page – only on the other side of the picture. I used to write quite a lot when I sent my cards, loving to reveal details and experiences. Nowadays the joy is not the same – I agree with Ana – sending an mms is another story…
My box opened, I sat for hours today, in memories, reading messages from near and far, from people long since gone, old friends, collegues and relatives. Birthday greetings, words of wisdom…the upper card on the right saying:
Life is not about the days we have lived, but the days we remember.
I picked some different cards, from people I love and loved, and remember some places where I have been a visitor myself as well. The Acores I have been to several times – and always loved it. But this card comes from our neighbours who toured the world (in 2003 I think). Sometimes the cards are not dated, and the stamp not clear enough to read.
Tenerife and Teide was a yearly visit when the children grew up. Wonderful nature and not much snow wintertime…We often went with friends and children the same age as ours. The lovely Moomin valley in Finland was such a treat – for us grown-ups as well! Many Swedish families visited Finland when the Moomin series were on TV.
Bretagne shows a postcard in a postcard – rather beautiful I think. And then Kashmir, my cousin worked for many years in Pakistan and the area around there, as an ambulance nurse. He sent me cards to calm me down – showing he was still alive. So, the reason for sending cards vary!
The green, middle card, is from a painting made by a local artist – now dead since long. But I met him several times, a very special man. He had a nice pottery too. The forest motif was painted from my home forest.
The last two cards both came with encouraging messages from dear friends. One soft and sweet, the other one fiery – Cards And Senders… In fact I find it interesting to notice how different people pick so different cards to send. And handwriting – that is no more – was an amazing way of showing your personality. Times gone by…
As for the opener, I have featured a postcard from my daughter when I finally had set up my glass house – Oh, the joy! So, in my family, we still send handwritten messages to each other. Feeling the warmth!
Thank you, Beth, for taking us along so many lovely country roads! Please visit the excellent work done by all the previous guest hosts this month:
Remember to link to Ana’s post and use the Lens Artists tag. Next week, we will return to our regular schedule. On Saturday, August 7, Patti will host LAPC #160 Your inspiration, which can be a place, a subject, a person, a book–just about anything that inspires you.
In the early morning, I decided to drive out to the open fields to listen to the skylarks – my thrill this lovely day. And yes, they had arrived, and I heard them singing as soon as I opened the windows. I saw cranes ploughing high up in the sky and I heard swans trumpeting.
What we call Spring Winter, means the snow is melting and almost gone, leaving puddles and soggy clay.The farmers are waiting for the soil to dry up enough to become useful for the new crops.I love this muddled landscape and its earthy colours. Its rapid and unpredictable changes between sun and dark clouds.On my way home again, the swans lifted and sailed away to greener fields.This was a morning to my taste – but now, time for breakfast!
Thank you All in the blogosphere for helping us stay reasonably sane this year ♥ We made it so far, and I believe there is a light in the tunnel for 2021. Take good care of yourselves and each other – hope to see you soon again! – Ann-Christine
Leya 