I had a cold last week, my head was filled with snot and thinking felt like a big thing to do. Today I’m feeling better, although the cold did not leave the premises completely, yet. The weirdest part was that I felt completely fine in my body, only my head was weird. That’s why I couldn’t understand why I would need rest as my body wanted to do stuff, be active, go places (not far, mind, but to do things in the garden maybe).
I did take some rest though. I’ve spent two full days on the sofa, reading, drinking tea and being cat bed. It was good, but also, even though I’m great in sofa days, I can’t do them properly when I’m ill. I simply can’t do ill. I don’t know how. And if it takes longer than two days, I may turn into a grumpy old man (I don’t know why, but I always see Bill Bryson’s face when I say of write this phrase) with a flu.
Talking about Bill Bryson, I’m reading a great book, Dear Bill Bryson: Footnotes from a Small Island by Ben Aitken. It’s Ben’s answer to Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island. I like Ben Aitken more and more. My first book by him was A Chip Shop in Poznań and then I’ve read Marmalade Diaries and I’m hooked now and will be reading his other two books too. He seems like someone I could be friends with. I mean, he did say on Instagram that he wants my breakfast, so I feel that we are friends already.
I really enjoy reading diaries (lately I’ve read Nina Stibbe’s Went to London, Took the Dog and enjoyed it immensely) and books that are written from the author’s experience, where we feel like we are next to them, there and then. That’s why I like reading Bill Bryson and loved all the books by Raynor Winn. And Ben Aitken is in this category, too.
I simply like reading about life. Simple stuff, daily things, it doesn’t have to be spectacular, even better when it isn’t. That’s where my love for blogs and memoirs comes from, because the life stuff is often so interesting, even when it seems mundane.
Maybe it’s because I like life best when it’s simple. I like it boring (or at least most people would call it this) although it’s not boring to me. But I’m a simple girl who finds joy in the smallest of things and who likes the daily life stuff more that the big sweeping moments.
How about you?
"That's where my love for blogs and memoir comes from, because the things of life are often so interesting, even when they seem mundane."
The Benedictines live and work with complete attention to everything. Doing a task with attention ensures connection with what you are doing. As a result, you are doing quality improvement at the same time. Attention is also seen in mindfulness: living consciously and attentively, living in the here and now and responding gently to what presents itself. Mindfulness stems from Buddhism. Buddhism advocates living consciously and mindfully.
When you live with attention, everyday things are not boring. Attention has something to do with really living.
“The weirdest part was that I felt completely fine in my body, only my head was weird. That’s why I couldn’t understand why I would need rest as my body wanted to do stuff, be active..” This Cartesian dualism is often seen as obsolete today. Nowadays mind and body are considered as one.