Tuscany: Golden Hour

Tuscany is my dream today. 

Look at its beauty. What struck me about Tuscany is the light, and the depth it gives to the world shown in the picture. My favorite time of the day has always been what I call the "golden hour" which is after the harsh, penetration of afternoon sun and before the vastness of nights darkness. It happens as the sun drops to the edge of the world and the rays giving loving good byes. The sun light turns the world to a golden shade that turns ugliness into beauty. The world looks different during golden hour. I love seeing this difference. Even Vegas looks beautiful during the golden hour.

 As I look at these pictures all I see is light and color. It makes my soul ache with desire to see this place in person. If there is one thing that I have gained from reading it is the ability to romanticize. I watch a movie or read a book and I am struck with the qualities that make the time or region seem golden like the golden hour of the day.

 People talk about how when they finish reading a book and they feel this deep loss when they finish. It is something that I am felt because of the romanticizing. I learn so much about human nature and the world as I read books and watch movies. I love that feeling. I just finished watching "Under the Tuscan Sun" and it makes my dreams take shape into the soft hills of Italy with its bountiful fields and flourishing sunlight. I am suddenly dreaming of leaving and living in Italy. I wonder about the place I would live, the people I would meet, the food I would eat, and the many experiences I would have. What is interesting about these dreams is that it would require me to leap and dive into unknown waters. I am not quite as adventurous as I was as a child. It is a quality that I miss having. Becoming a mother brought this fear into my life because suddenly I had something so precious to live for and take care of each day.

I have slowly realized one of the unexpected things that came with being a new mother was extreme and unfounded worries. The anxiety took from me the ability to be present in the light. To see things with the golden light that I love so much. I am learning to tell myself that there is nothing to worry about and if there is something to worry about I won't worry about it until it is time and present in my life. Anxiety is a fear of the potential danger and loss in the future. It is full of "what if's" that most likely will never come true. It is almost like believing that you are a fortune teller and think you know exactly what will happen. You don't know and that is just adding loss to your life. You're losing moments of happiness to moments of fear that will probably never come true. You lose. You don't gain during moments of anxiety.

That is the tough thing though about anxiety. It a deeply personal feeling that feels so real the pain pierces your soul even if it hasn't happened. If you a fear loved ones death, but only the "what if they die" then you a mourning their death that hasn't even occurred. You are losing those moments with them that they are alive.

As I am writing this, I am realizing that it is a mindset that traps you into fear and worry. It is a mindset that takes time to change and learn new positive methods of thinking. The mind is a place of wonder and danger. I think that is why I am in love with the idea of living in Tuscany. It is a golden place that reflects love, family, and growth. That is how it is always portrayed in the movies and books. It is a place where characters find peace and contentment. It is where characters find the golden qualities of life.

Bring Peace to My Life

Life is a constant struggle to discover. The porblem is trying to figure out what you need to discover versus what you want to discover. I am a 24 year old woman. I am married to a handsome man who loves me with passion. I am the mother of a vivacious, fiery, two year old girl who thinks I am the sun and stars. I am a teacher who fights every day to teach my kids not only to be better readers and writers but how to be a decent human being. I am a daughter of two wonderful parents who have taught me that endurance and perseverance are skills that I will always need and how to learn them with grace.

I am writing because there is an ache in my heart(Figurative, not literal. I am not having a heart attack). I am not sure when or why it started but it is something I have come to notice during this summer break. It could come from a plethora of things such as money worries, job worries, family worries, eternal worries, and so on but I think it is because I am looking for something.

I was always taught that to change things or improve you need to set a goal. Goals need to have measurable steps. Yet I am coming to realize that my ultimate goal in live is to find peace and contentment with the choices and actions that I have in my life. How can you measure peace and contentment? Feelings are not quantifiable even though it is something that human beings have sought to measure from the beginning of time.

I think that peace and contentment come from a multitude of things but what is missing from my daily life is creation. I am not a crafts and scrap-booking kind of woman. I love reading. I love ideas. I love learning. I never feel more alive than when I am studying and learning which is why I loved college. It was an environment that burned my fires of creativity and learning. 

I loved living in Rexburg because of the learning environment it represents. Leaving that oasis of peace has been difficult for me. It has been a year since we have moved and life is radically different. My great aunt has written a blog called "Creating a Life You Love" and I have read it before and loved it. It was a mantra that I added to my life during my student teaching semester that I found changed my perspective of life.

I learned to create. I wouldn't consider myself a creative person(I am definitely no Aunt Allison), but I know that I can create.  There was this power that came from knowing that I can create a life that I love and wanted to live. Suddenly life zinged with promise and I looked forward to the next day and its surprises.

So I am going to seek this power of creating again. I am happy in life. I love my husband, daughter, family, and job. I am just looking for a way to make life sing with little more oomph.  I think my aunt said it best when she wrote: "I was slowly coming to embrace the understanding that both suffering and joy are part of the same whole. I began to drop my judgment about how I thought life should be and started trusting life as it is"(Allred). That is my trouble. I think about how life should be or what I want it to be. Day dreaming is a curse and a necessity.

Day dreaming keeps us focused on our goals but it can also make one lose the value of the present. I am going to start doing what my aunt challenged her readers to do which is to "start trusting life as it is"(Allred). I am going to create.

Work Cited:

Allred, Tamera S. "The Story of Stillness." Web log post. Creating a Life You Love. N.p., 21 Dec. 2012. Web. 23 July 2014. <http://www.creatingalifeyoulove.net/the-story-of-the-stillness/>.