A rare saturday blog, for two reasons. Firstly, I'm off next week, and will not be blogging (at least on a schedule), and secondly, I just read an article which had some nice connection points with yesterday's shard.
There exists a certain kind of romanticism to be found even within the everyday belonging, though it often seems to hide from sight. Is it possible to cultivate this familiar mysticism of the world?)
Familiarity and Belonging, Simon Sarris
The article is actually about belonging in places, and the significance of familiarity, repetition, existing in spaces without the expectation of novelty. But it did chime for me with the idea of finding beauty in the everyday -- in what's here, with us, now.
The article did speak to me more generally, though. I'm not someone who particularly craves travel, though I enjoy it in moderation. We've started making repeat trips to a particular place in the forest, which initially came out of expedience and limited access/energy during the pandemic, but has taken on a pleasant quality of its own. When talking about it, I've always felt some implicit need to apologise, almost, for travelling without novelty. The way this article recasts that -- that familiarity is specifically a good in and of itself -- is something that helps me a lot.