Wednesday, July 29, 2020

Words, Weather, and WindowSwap

Words

Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and Women's Work is a little book by Kathleen Norris (1998, nonfiction, 10/10). I read it shortly after it was published more than 20 years ago.  The author looked at the mysterious way that daily or quotidian stuff can open us up spiritually.  Stuff like laundry, which I still need to do today.  I like that word "quotidian," and wrote about it on my Joyful Noiseletter blog in 2008, if you want to learn more about the book.  Now about that word "quotidian."

Word of the Day
quo·tid·i·an / kwōˈtidēən / adjective = of or occurring every day; daily; ordinary or everyday, especially when mundane.  Example:  "Norris looks at the mysterious way that daily or quotidian stuff can open us up spiritually, even if it's doing the laundry."
Weather
Here in St. Louis, it's 95° but feels like 107° Fahrenheit.  Humidity is 69%, so it's muggy.  Oops, it started raining hard just as I opened the second window below in WindowSwap at exactly 3:00 pm, so I came back up here to add this sentence.  Maybe it's a bit cooler out there now.
Haridwar, India
WindowSwap

Today, I looked out of Vishrut's window in Haridwar, India.  I saw only trees and an occasional person walking by.  Once again, I googled to learn about the place.  Haridwar is an ancient city and an important Hindu pilgrimage site in North India's Uttarakhand state, where the River Ganges exits the Himalayan foothills.  That's the bigger Ganges on the left and a smaller canal flowing through the town in the middle.  They have bathing steps where they hold a river-worshipping ceremony and tiny flickering lamps are floated off the steps.

A breeze was ruffling the leaves in the potted plants on the sunny balcony outside Denny's window in Honolulu, Hawaii.  Over the distant ocean, I could see puffy white clouds, blown by that same breeze.

And suddenly, a hard rain hit my own windows.  It lasted only a few minutes, but long enough that I quit looking out these other windows and "came home" to watch the rain blurring my own windows.

Click WindowSwap to "open a new window somewhere in the world" and start your own adventures.

2 comments:

Deb Nance at Readerbuzz said...

Well, I think I need to check out Window Swap.

Emily said...

Window swap is addicting! It is interesting to see and hear what is going on outside someone else's window. Mesmerizing.