Everybody has it: It’s just a matter of creative imagination combined with good old memories and experience – mostly from your childhood. A place, not necessary one, exact physical place – but it could be – where you feel safe, alive, protected and good about yourself and life. If you ask a Norwegian, probably everyone would nod along:
We call it our personal Strawberry Place. It’s a warm place, a place where you normally go barefoot and with little clothes on. So in Norway it will be an adventure from the summertime and most often from a vacation place. We are talking about out in the nature, where you see and smell the taste of wild flowers and with a taste of berry – not necessary strawberries, but very often – in your mouth. You’ve found yourself a private spot no one else knows about and where everything is nice and quiet except from the birds singing from the trees.
If it is strawberries, its of course wild berries and you take a straw to thread them on (you see where the word comes from?). If you don’t get it, click on the picture above to see both my straw and the wild strawberries on the ground. Or if you like, I can give you some more examples (click to enlarge):
This of course came to my mind since its summer vacation time in Norway in June, July and August and we are soon about to start ours. I don’t know about you, but for me the anticipation is half then fun. To me it also takes me down my memory lane. For most of us that road can be a bit bumpy, but some parts are very pleasant and there is where you find your personal Strawberry Place. To give you another example, I included some more pictures to illustrate this metaphor:
It shows that to me it is very much about back to the nature and away from the urban stress and also that you had to be a bit childish to recall or find your Strawberry Place.
It also shows even more; that wild flowers are included and this wreathe was made by my wife Diane, this spring. She also then had just given me a new sweatshirt with a picture theme from my blog. She is so sweet and supportive you know
The good thing about this Strawberry Place is that you can go there whenever you want: When you feel depressed or just a bit blue, when you feel stressed or life is a bit chaotic or maybe if you had a headache; You just close your eyes and imagine yourself there. It’s actually very much a metaphor for mediating or healing. If you can remember or recall your Strawberry Place, no one can take it away from you; no one can harm it or make it miserable. You can of course invite people in, but on your condition and permission.
We all need a place like that once in a while and now I’ve invited you into mine. So please be gentle and feel free to enjoy with me – and while you’re here: Why don’t you comment and tell a bit about yours or a similar metaphor from your part of the world!
July 1st, 2008 at 1:16 am
My strawberry place is anywhere on a boat on a body of water. Yep, that’s my place. Have a great day.
RennyBA
Sounds perfect to me and of course it is, since it Yours!
Wish you a good one too
Reply
July 1st, 2008 at 1:21 am
from my childhood the strawberry place is in the mountains near a cottage my grandparents had. i could hike on trails or row a boat in the pond to a little island, or i could feed chipmunks by hand. i felt free and secure and could sit in the quiet and listen to the wind in the trees. and i do remember the joy of sharing it with a friend when i was young. it was like a whole new world for her.
RennyBA
Sounds actually a bit like mine and you describe it so well – yea, sometimes its nice to invite friends in too.
Reply
July 1st, 2008 at 2:20 am
My “Strawberry Place” is anywhere I am with my Hubby. With his arms around me, or hiking paths hand and hand I feel blessed.
RennyBA
I like the idea – count your blessing Maribeth!
Reply
July 1st, 2008 at 2:55 am
Awww….you look so happy in your Strawberry Place! I have a purple swinging hammock chair which I bought this year in Cozumel….and it makes me feel really happy to swing in it at sunset! Or at night to stargaze.
Hey, I have a question for you…could you contact me at my gmail addie posted on my blog?
RennyBA
Your right: Happiness always goes with your Strawberry Place and your new furniture sounds like a good one!
Mail is on its way.
Reply
July 1st, 2008 at 3:15 am
This is so interesting Renny and arggghhh…how I wish I am there now coz I can see that you are having a relaxing good time.
My SP would have to be seeking ‘inner peace’ on a running track, doesn’t sounds relaxing but after a good workout it’s therapeutic for me
RennyBA
Well, your welcome for a visit any time – as long as you behave
As long as its therapy for you, its perfect
Reply
July 1st, 2008 at 5:29 am
My strawberry place (how poetic!) is anywhere by the water, preferably the sea. I grew up by the sea and I miss it everyday. We have rivers, including the beautiful St Lawrence but it’s not the same…
I like a stormy sea, big waves, waterfalls… it’s actually soothing for me.
RennyBA
Water is an important ingredients in mine too, preferable a place where I smell salt water and see white waves.
Reply
July 1st, 2008 at 1:08 pm
What a wonderful post! I guess my strawberry place is “all in my mind!” Often I pause for meditation and let my mind wander back to the home of my childhood, to a corner of the yard which was bordered by a small cove of large trees on one edge and large hedge of honeysuckle and lilac bushes on the other. There I felt sheltered, protected and in my own Eden!
RennyBA
Thanks! Yea, its mostly in your mind and I’m glad to hear that your able to find your path to your Strawberry Place. You own Eden is a good expression!
Reply
July 1st, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Hi Renny!
Seems like you’re having fun with the nature and thats cool!yeah, i didn’t get at first what you were trying to rely,and yes,as i clicked the pics,i got what you meant. I remember my childhood days!!
being imaginative and having playful hearts are really necessary to maintain a good health,physically and mentally.
look at you,looked like you’re in a paradise!!
cheers!!
ghee
RennyBA
Hi Ghee! Glad you got it and that I could recall some good childhood memories for you too!
I do agree with you about playfulness and its fun too – and yea; this is my paradise!!
I’m right over.
Reply
July 1st, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Sounds like a nice place to be
Happy Canada Day!
I love the new look!
RennyBA
It is
I’ll be right over to greet you!
Thanks – your the first one to notice
Reply
July 1st, 2008 at 7:11 pm
I think I’m still looking for my strawberry place…I love this term.
But you look very happy there in strawberry land!
RennyBA
Keep looking, its right there and when you find it you will feel happy too
Reply
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:43 am
What a lovely place! Straw + berry = strawberry!! You cheeky fella! hahaha….
I love the carpet of little white flowers. And yes, Diane is a very good wife and talented lady.
I don’t have my own strawberry place, hard to find one in tiny urban Singapore.
Reply
July 2nd, 2008 at 12:05 pm
sorry, but your pictures made me laugh. maybe because you were like a child.
if it’s summer season there now.. here it’s rainy season.
my strawberry place? hmmm…. i guess somewhere near the beach. i just imagine myself lying on the sand hearing the waves and smelling the sea breeze
Reply
July 2nd, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Your Strawberry Place is pure heaven, Renny!
I love the picture of you with the nature crown.
Now, stop squishing the flowers!
Reply
July 2nd, 2008 at 3:38 pm
P.S. I haven’t found my “Strawberry Place” yet in my new neighborhood.
Where I used to live, I always found it on the nature trail. I miss it, but before we left, they started cutting the trees down to build. It was amazingly sad, so it’s a good thing I left.
Reply
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Looks so calm and serene and a beautiful place to take photos! Just lovely. I need to find a place like that too!
Reply
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:34 pm
First of all, Renny, I LOVE your new blog look. And because I have seen that little boy with my own eyes, it is extra special to me. WOW!
And secondly, I LOVE the idea of a Strawberry Place. That is just a wonderful, heavenly thought. Yes, we all MUST have such a place, to keep our sanity!
Reply
July 2nd, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Hey Renny,
Now I know what you meant in my blog yesterday…:D
!
Indeed, we all have (or at least should have) a strawberry place: that place in the back of our memory where we can take comfort whenever we feel down.
I have a strawberry place that I visit everyday when I meditate; and when I return from it I am good as new
But I also have a physical strawberry place: the beach! The sound of the waves relax me; it transports me to other dimensions…love it!
I wish you and your family great vacations and may you enjoy summer in peace , my friend
!
Cheers and thanks for having shared this with us
Reply
July 3rd, 2008 at 4:46 am
I love the ocean so that’s one of my Strawberry places, and fishing almost anywhere is another. I also love the woods, so almost anywhere in nature is a strawberry place for me.
We have wild strawberries around here, but they don’t taste very good. I’m envious that you have the sweet flavored ones there!
Love your new header. I remember him from earlier posts here.
Thanks for your July 4th wishes, and I hope you and Diane and your family have a great 4th as well.
Love and hugs,
Diane
Reply
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:34 am
renny, good for you. and you look so cute with the crown of flowers on your head!!
Reply
July 3rd, 2008 at 9:15 am
I LOVE the idea of a strawberry Place, Renny…..I suppose everyone has a place they condsider their “Srawberry Place” though it might not be called that…Mine used to be down in my garden. I could just go down there and sit and watch all the plants and flowers and Nature, too—The Birds and Lizards, etc…..It is Peaceful down there, or was….and all I had to do really, was get down there and relax with nature….!
Reply
July 3rd, 2008 at 10:09 am
Oh Renny, I know exactly what you mean and I have one of those places, too. What a lovely post…and I love the wild berries threaded onto a straw (voila…strawberries!).
Thank you so much for letting us into your special Strawberry Place…you are quite a poet, you know.
Reply
July 3rd, 2008 at 1:31 pm
This is a tough one, but I think my Strawberry Place is my childood house in Sines/ Portugal, when we were all alive and happy. First thing in the morning I jumped in to my roller-skates and slide the street up and down (so few cars in that time), we could eat everything nothing would hurt or make you fat, and we spend all day in the beach, without sunscreen…Those were wonderfull days.
Today I live in Sines again, because I like small towns, and I love the sea, and have so many good memories from this place but I never pass near my childood house because it makes me fell kind of sad, I feel an intense “saudade”.
Reply
July 3rd, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Thanks Renny for trying to vote for me. I appreciate that.
IC number means identification number or passport number.
Reply
July 4th, 2008 at 1:35 am
what a beautiful post Renny..
I love the photo of you with the garland of yellow flowers on your head …
my strawberry place would be the place that I’m in when I’m painting..
though as a child I was quite naughty and pulled up all of my grandfather’s strawberry plants to eat them ..that was fun and the strawberries were yum !!
have a wonderful weekend
Reply
July 4th, 2008 at 3:13 am
What a nice post! So poetic! I love your sweetshirt with the picture of your blog! This is good idea! My strawberry place is here at my home all the year because this is a quiet place in the nature and after the journey wich can be stressing i come back and can relax me! I love the sea and the beach too! And when I met Pierre I discovered the place of his family: The mountains in Alpen and this is a wonderful place too. But you and Diane you will soon discover my strawberry place! Have a beautiful weekend Renny!
Reply
July 4th, 2008 at 3:26 am
I like the new look, Renny. Did you do that yourself?
I suppose I have more than one strawberry place. I love to sit on the Adirondack bench in my back yard. It’s surrounded by wild flowers that I planted and it’s shaded by big apple trees. It’s quiet and peaceful.
Reply
July 4th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Ha ha Renny -
what a success – You in my American Fleeze Jumper at our Summerhome Garden.
We did have an evening to remember. Good food and talks. Really great, it was.
btw. Next August: Visit to Claudie. Oui, Ja, Yes. We can take a flight together to Marseille and rent a Car from there (we have been there) . Maybe also with Mr and Mrs Lifecruiser. Think Green. 3 Couples – one Car.
Reply
July 4th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
I just think you look so sweet with the wreath of flowers on your head. It was fun taking these pics!!!
Reply
July 5th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
It looks so fun! And, I have to say I like the new design. I am in the process of remodeling my own sites design…hopefully it wont be too long!
Reply
July 6th, 2008 at 5:03 am
My strawberry place of childhood was destroied by magnitude-8.0 earthquake at May 12,2008.
You blog remind me many wonderful memories.:)
Reply
July 6th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Interesting ~ as i’ve recently made contact with old school friends i haven’t been in touch with for nearly 15 years. My body was experiencing pleasant sensations from the past re-integrating into the present-day, but no pictures or anything, just a feeling. I was struggling to find a word to describe the experience/feeling. Strawberry place is so, spot on!
I look forward to telling others about this, thank you for sharing.
Reply
July 7th, 2008 at 1:15 am
For me it would be anywhere along the Sonoma Coastline near where my blog-mistress grew up…fields of wild mustard flowers, the fog, and lots of happy cows munching on grass.
Reply
July 7th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
A good place to cultivate indeed. a good health strategy.
Reply
July 8th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
nice.i alsohave a place like that, but with wild berries that idon’t know the name
Reply
July 9th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
What a great idea and post! I’m stealing your name for it! For me, it is up at the log cabins where we go in summer…canoeing on the lake, sipping coffee on the screened in porch by the water, watching the stars emerge….rain on the cabin roof!
Hot and muggy here now and recently. So glad we got air con put in our reno! have a great summer holiday!
AND those ribs in your other post are huge! I just bought some big beef ribs today we call “Flintstone Ribs”! (Ask Diane about it!)
Reply
July 11th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
yummy
how come i didn’t think of that before. where we used to live there is a strawberry place too where i go – it has the wild ones just like yours. and i had a hard time picking them because they were so small. now i could have made my life easier. nevertheless i don’t have that place now but i have enough raspberries growing in the garden so i’m happy 
but now i have to think of the other strawberry place you mentioned.. where i feel relaxed and happy whenever i go there. at this time nothing comes to mind.
Reply