In a hamlet called Vermaaklikheid, we ate and talked and shared and laughed and cooked and swam and walked and wondered. Mostly about the bumpy, beautiful ride called life. But also about happiness and training your brain to look for it in the midst of pain.
(artist retains all rights to print reproductions of this painting)
Inspiration from Artist’s own photography
ORIGINAL COPY POSTED ON INSTAGRAM DURING THE CHALLENGE
I am SO full up on awe and joy and confusion and love and questions. But mostly I’m full of gratitude.
.
We’ve just had the most lekker weekend away in Vermaaklikheid ✨
In a house on a river with a group of 9 wonderful people, half of whom I had never met, we ate and talked and shared and laughed and cooked and swam and walked and wondered aloud about the challenges and magic of this hella bumpy, beautiful ride called life.
.
These 3 days made me realise how incredibly rare such raw and honest conversations with a group of sincerely present humans can be. Flippit, if you’ve found your tribe – love them hard! 💙
.
To be honest, such vulnerable sharing did also leave me feeling cracked open like an egg, peering deeply into my own journey and ideas about how it all should or could be (a post for another time).
.
One awesome conversation we had over some serious Ramen Jesus is still drifting with me like this fluffy, happy cloud. ‘The art of finding and making your own happiness – and that the brain really is like a muscle that we must want to teach to see the joy in life in-spite of the hard times. I wonder, can we really learn to distract or rather pull ourselves from moments of pain and difficulty by looking for the simple happiness lying right in the midst of it all?
.
Funny that it happened in a hamlet called Vermaaklikheid – which in Afrikaans means “amusement, diversion, gaiety”
.
And that, mixed up with a whole lotta other jazz is what I was pondering on a farm road somewhere between Cape Town and Vergenoeg (‘Far Enough’ – another lekker SA place name) when I snapped this road trip photo.
.
🎨from 📷: @shescreative_af