“Petrichor, the wonderful, soul-lifting smell you get after rain on earth, is thanks in large part to the metabolites of soil life. To geosmin. We’ve evolved around living earth, and our ability to sense geosmin could well explain why it feels so invigorating being in a garden, or so life-affirming to visit an ancient forest, […]
“In a very basic sense, terroir is the expression of a physical place through the flavors and quality of a wine . . . including the climate of the vineyard where the grapes were grown, the soil, the geography, as well as the characteristics of the grape variety itself.” – Becca Yeamans-Irwin Vines are cultivated […]
“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 […]
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