After I published my last post on cracks my eyes fell on my tag cloud and it suddenly struck me that all tags standing out proud and tall were, well, quite depressing. Pain, past, and perfectionism had risen to very impressive sizes. Playfulness, fun and silliness, in contrast, had shrunk to tiny blobs of writing, hardly recognizable amidst the forest of life’s hardships. Then again, tag clouds are a very honest reflection of what we spend our focus and energy on. Can’t fool a tag cloud. Hmm…
I made a conscious decision, right there and then, to seek out other bloggers with larger playfulness and fun tags in a quest to learn from them. And, lo and behold, I found some pretty uplifting ones, some of which I’m now following. As soon as I was reading their posts, I could feel my soul take a deep breath of relief, my spirits recharge, and a stirring deep within me, an itching for something unusual, light-hearted, some childlike play, in the best sense of the word.
Suddenly, I remembered my blog’s header. I don’t know if you noticed: it has changed quite a bit and quite frequently over the last few days of me trying to set up this blog. Except for Seppolog who, however he managed, followed me right from the second I published my first post, you probably missed the first few stages, as they happened in intervals of between 10 seconds and a few hours.
Here is a quick recap for you:
No 1
Now, you have to know that I love dandelions. I just can’t get over the fact how much they change over the course of their short lifespan. How beautifully they morph from a rather low-key (if not to say unremarkable) flower into a piece of fluffy art that looks like it can take your dreams all over the world with them – floating away with their cute microscopic propeller wings, helped by whatever breeze happens to come along the moment they are ready to fly off.
Still, incarcerated into a banner they looked rather somber which is why I tried out a different, more artsy and brighter version to do them justice.
No 2
Nah, didn’t work. Too forced. Still too somber.
Then I thought, hey, I could use the silhouette of one my favorite cities. (By the way, this is me still searching on Pixabay, a huge royalty and attribution free picture source where you can only so much control what shows up). And this is how I stumbled over this treasure of a silhouette. No, not of a city – but of a mundane clothesline.
No 3
I fell in love with it the instant I saw it. It struck a chord with my inner child, I guess. Those giant lady under-pants just made me chuckle, without fail, every single time I looked at them. So hilarious, the way they stand out and outweigh all the others. I also just love the way the tiny undershirt right next to them is floating about in the summer breeze. Can you smell the conditioner? No? That’s because there is no summer yet. It’s too dark, must be winter. Need some color…
No 4
Aaaaah…. Yeah…. Much better!
But hang on, something’s still missing, isn’t it? A source of warmth and light? Something that puts things into perspective?
No 5
Yep, that’s it! No laundry could ever dry without a healthy exposure to friendly sunshine, never mind the cute fleecy clouds. Now you can smell the conditioner, right?
Phew, solved the header problem with grace. Now, this is probably a good time to give credit to the actual artist, ClkerFreeVectorImages. Even though Pixabay allows attribution free use of all content, including the right to change it, I feel I should take the time to thank Clker as I imagine he/she must have put a lot of effort into creating both beauties, the clothesline and the sun with clouds. Hope you don’t mind I colored and played with them a bit, Clker.
But hold on, don’t you think there is still something missing? A flower maybe, or a bird? The latter would make the caterpillar live pretty dangerously. But tough luck, such is life, isn’t it?
Alright, alright… The caterpillar shall live.
But a light summer breeze would be nice, wouldn’t it?
And a little bird song, at least?
me
my one life. today 