“It turns out that the common soil bacterium M. vaccae acts like an antidepressant, boosting the levels of happy hormones, serotonin and norepinephrine, in humans and other mammals . . . and because M. vaccae is everywhere in most healthy soil, every time you eat a piece of lettuce from your garden, you’re probably getting […]
“Saudade is a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present.” – Aubrey Bell from his book In Portugal According to Wikipedia saudade “is a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for something or someone that one cares for and/or loves. […]
“We’re built to walk. We’ve been wired by natural selection to absorb meaning from our days at the loose-limbed gait of three miles an hour. And whether we count ourselves cursed or lucky to be standing on the Earth at this frenetic moment in our history—I, for one, would choose no other time to be […]
“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” -William Morris “One of the advantages of being born in an affluent society is that if one has any intelligence at all, one will realize that having more and more won’t solve the problem, and happiness does not […]
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” – Kierkegaard I suspect we all sometimes wish for a glimpse of the future, especially when we have difficult choices to make or life feels uncomfortable. If you would have described my current life to me five years ago, I would have laughed […]
It is always busy when Michael is on the quinta, although this time I’ve managed to twist his arm on more than one occasion to take it slower than usual. The most important project for this visit was to build a front porch, and as I bought the steel beforehand, he could immediately start with […]
“. . . inching across the land at two or three miles an hour, is like eavesdropping on a public conversation. It has its own syntax.”– Paul Salopek When I had to fetch Michael from the airport in Lisbon the previous time he visited, I decided to spend the night before he arrived in Ericeira, […]
“It is the silence between the notes that makes the music; it is the spaces between the bars that cages the tiger.”– Zen saying I lift the mug to my lips, inhaling as I do. The smell of coffee sends signals of joy to my brain long before the caffeine has a chance to enter […]
“Soils, like people, are transformed by the company they keep. They develop slowly, over time. Top soil, the upper, most productive layer of soil, takes over 500 years to form. That precious inch – and all remaining layers of soil – evolves in response to the climate, terrain and organisms with which it comes in […]
“Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.” – John Wooden A soft rain is falling this morning on the quinta. Midnight is curled up on the bed, while Lily restlessly dashes in and out the door getting wetter and wetter. I’m sitting on the couch writing while trying my best to […]
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