10.9.13 All All Those People All Over The World

I have been having a very nice time hanging out on Instagram, which is all K.R.'s fault, as I saw a FB reference to it and said 'what on earth is Instagram?'.

The cool part is that it's kind of like FB but with few words, and all about...photographs.

Well, except for the occasional very nice probably young people who like your photographs and say cool dude type stuff and then you go check out their photos and they have about 1,000 posts a day (exaggerating)  of their new nail polish.

Or their whole page, seriously, is filled with selfie's -

yeah, I had to learn that means self taken photos. My my.

But the really cool thing is that you get to see very very good photographs by people in Istanbul and Kuwait and Africa and Ireland and every single place you could ever imagine, where all their likes are written in letters I, myself, have never seen before, and they speak french to you and you struggle back, or you just see 12 really remarkable sunrises and sunsets from all all over the world. all over.

And its possible to begin to connect with people who take a broad range of very very nice photographs, and you get all inspired to broaden your range too, and get all up into it and all.

It does give me pause, in terms of engaging with yet another  'social networks' (haha whatta  funny name) , or rather, machines with access to connecting , when really you are all alone in your little home or somewhere else holding onto your little cellphone , not looking up and around and actually living your life, but rather killing your neck and getting irradiated while you obsess on your little not-so-smart-to obsess-with phone......gasp.

Anyway, now I very much enjoy posting photos and seeing photos from people all over the world.

 I'm kind of thinking Emily Dickinson and so many hundreds of years of  people taking the time to write letters, which we actually used to do.

 I even have old friends who remind me of reams of letters I must have written and then mailed, with out really remembering.

 

But what a cool thing it was, young ones, as we sit around the glow of the fire, I mean tv; how people used to put implements in their hands and go find some paper and scratch all the letters because they wanted to convey something to someone else. And then they got this thing called an envelope and another thing called a stamp and they scratched stuff on it and put it in... a mailbox. Amazing concept.

And now this, all these machines and this really funny kind of connecting that some people begin to misplace in their minds as actual connections.

Yet they do have their actual precious aspects to them, for us all, within reason.

 I get to completely delight in the lives and choices and contributions of people I have never ever seen or stood beside or spoke with in person, who I have come to value so much.

I get to do what so many of us developmentally do, of all things, which is to reconnect with some, not all, of the people we were teenagers with. Go figure.

And we may not walk or bus or train or plane or drive to them and sit with them and listen to them slurp their tea and look into their creased faces while they look into ours, and laugh and catch up and listen and muse.

But sometimes, we DO! And in the meantime, there we are, connected by machines in outer-space, by currents invisible and surrounding our lives.

And this funny Instagram thing...where you take your photos and then crank them editing, if you wish, kinda turbo charge them for fun, til you mature a bit and get over that

and then just relish all the.....connections.....of people and places farther away than I will ever ever go, who have taken these photographs today, that are really very good, who you kinda get to know in that kinda funny far away not really but somewhat way,

and then you go on in the evening and post up your photo of the Connecticut River tonight, how it streamed and soothed

 and how the darkness came and enveloped

as you walked with your huge German Shepherd pup,

and people kept coming out of the darkness down the path,

but the land was safe and sweet and you CAN be a 61 year old woman

watching the sliver of the moon

 and the gradations of color coalescing before your eyes,

 and  look up and imagine all all of those people all over the world and their own little corner of earth with their own little sunsets  they will be sharing with you.

 Here's my little cache....http://instagram.com/gwenmccl