12.16.15 One day last summer,

the earth turned and the moon shone 
and the stars filled the sky 
with their unknown complexity.

12.16.15 Life. Brought to you by Everyday Wonder.

12.16.15 Teeny tiny watercolors

                                on a beautiful December day.  
                                These are a little over 1"x1". Right. itsy bitsy.
                                What is it about small?

Have you made tiny things? They are so funny, how they reveal themselves. 

Course , many of my friends would know how to compose with delicious complexity, 

so not so quick and simple . But is a small comfort, and makes me smile.

 

I think this is what happens when your camera is broken, and you have many to give thanks to. Lots of little tiny bits.

12.15.15 Distilling the essence of the moment

I love that. How, if you can get it together to take a photo of a moment, you really have all these moments, that you might have lost. And you have them forever. 

I check out the photo, and there I am. Time traveling. 

The sun and the breeze and watching him down by the waves, while I soak up the heat from the sand, belly full of beach sandwich and lemonade, book by my side, the whole whole day open, just to be there. And then, there is the photo. Distilling the essence of the moment.

12.15.15 Really, it was the sweetest thing.

     It seems like there were thousands of sleepovers, with a zillion wonderful young ones, being dropped off with sleeping bags and video games and pillows, and their favorite stuffed animals. I actually thought that interesting, that little growing up boys would bring their stuffed bears and cats and all, with their special names, joking and then cuddling down with them at bedtime. One of the houses we rented had a finished basement, so I'd let the hordes come and stay.

     They'd have movies and soda and pizza and Doritos, all the crap I didn't allow, and then video games and racing around throwing pillows at each other, til I was certain they'd had a nice time, let's say around 11 or so, when Kevin was long asleep and the other kids too upstairs.

     Then, I'd bring down a chair, and park myself, as I ended up doing with most sleep overs, so that we avoided the hysterical exhausted bunch of kids on Sunday morning who would be no good at their homework or showing up at school come Monday.

     My kids always told their friends "She's really nice, but don't mess with her." They'd always misunderstand me, and mess with me. I'd say "Ok, now its time to eat" or "Please pick up your garbage right now" or "We need to leave in ten minutes. “  There’d be all these kids who somehow thought this was an invitation to a negotiation. As if.

     My kids would warn "Hey, we just have to do this." But no, the other kids would be like "Hey, I don't want to now. " or "I'm just going to do this a little longer." Who knew why? I certainly didn't . Being a big sister of five left me in good stead. I'd be all nice and sweet, and take that thing out of their hands, switch off the tv, roll up the video game stuff while a bunch of them were loudly protesting. I'd turn, and say "HEY. Now. Time for bed, you guys. Go use the bathroom, and then get down here, ok?"

     And they'd settle down. I'd pull a chair up, and just sit there, with a flashlight, reading. They'd whisper to my kid "How long is she going to stay there?!" and my kids would reply "Give it up. She'll stay til we're all asleep. " Oh, they'd whine, but man, they'd be passed out, for sure, in about 15 minutes. I'd wait outside in the hall for five minutes. To make sure.

    It was great. I loved all those young ones of all my kids, staying over and talking about things and discovering all kinds of stuff on hikes or fun adventures to cool places.

     We'd all get to know each other, and I just loved them all. Wanted the very best for each of them. Soon enough they'd get it, and laugh at me, tell me how ruthless I was. "Yup, you got it" I'd laugh back, bonking them, shoulder to shoulder, and then delivering the lot of them to some cool waterfall up in Conway, or a sandwich drive-up place, or the town swimming pool.

     Really, it was the sweetest thing.

12.15.15 Now, more than ever,

 it's time to consciously watch how much info to expose ourselves to. 

     What a poor impact upon health, if we lose track of when our daily allowance us coming close .

      Or the trials of perusing intense happenings in the world too late at night. We are of no use , to ourselves or the world , if we venture too often and too far into difficult places, and mess ourselves up. Our emotions , our sleep , our health. 

     Somehow, with clarity and without whining, our task, if we choose it, is to find the way to be somewhat informed , have a voice expressed, but not overdo so that , of our own accord , all we are is distressed resentful overwhelmed unhappy people .

12.13.15 Beyond reckoning

     I've always been interested in the way we become close to a place, and slowly grow a sense of it. Like a new acquaintance, peering at them and smiling and talking about some odd thing, the getting-to-know-you-dance.

I remember the abject need- for forest, for quiet, for beauty, when I was young.

     As I grew up, always there was a need for an escape hatch of some sort. Away at school on a particularly difficult day, I remember leaving a meal and racing down the road and across the front lawn to the stream beneath the trees, only to have my best and dearest friend go racing past, and sit on the rocks, waiting for me there, in that secluded place of succor. That moment stays within me, as part of my bones and sinews, always. Both of us going to a beautiful comforting place.

     As I grew older, I began to realize that when developing a relationship with a place, it's important to come to it, not out of need, but out of strength and a clear sense of your self. Or at least openness for whatever the place held.

     That, like a friendship or a lover, using that knowing to fill some emptiness I had not learned to nourish myself was not the path to clarity and truly seeing a place for what it is.

     And it would not unveil its wonder and beauty and full self, if I approached from neediness, and a whiny desire to forget hard things or have something/someone pretend to be able to fix it for me.

     We begin to learn that getting to know a place is so much like an important person we sense will soon mean a great deal to us. To take it slowly, and approach with our integrity and wholeness.

The unfolding is what amazes us, though, and the indeterminate nature of who or what was doing the unfolding- our consciousness, our capacity to perceive, or the place in question.

     When we are fond of a place, be it a corner of the city, especially in early morning, with the light just so and the place stark and empty, or a flooded place down by a river, both have a remarkable way of being that will slowly infiltrate us, and change us - until we begin to notice and see all things we were blind to before.

     Much like the 'Copenhagen Interpretation' , where the observed changes when interacting with the observer, land does the same thing. A place with microbes and growing things does the same. And remember, who is to say which is the observer, our human selves, or the land?

When we slowly grow a relationship with a place, NOT our emotional associations with the place based on our experiences, but the place itself, devoid of our baggage, it deepens with each season. Each storm, or drought or startling spring. With each new day or phenomena, we become familiar with more depth of the place.

     The interaction deepens and brings forth so much more.

     When I go photograph the same places on different days or sunrises or sunsets or storms or seasons, each time it's like I run into you somewhere, and we talk a bit. I get a sense of how you are doing, unconsciously my self evaluates your scent that conveys health and functioning, and our knowing each other becomes more complex. And if we like each other, it becomes more and more pleasurable and interesting.

     I love this about places. I love returning, and listening and watching and smelling and hiking or sitting and having that interaction.

     It's not about pretending the place has ears and eyes, no need to go veering into Anthropomorphism. Who needs that? When what is before us is remarkable beyond reckoning, and holds such beauty beyond imagining.

Which is why the concept of a sense of place is a pleasing one. 

     It comes closest to articulating that priceless experience, of being with a place or some land or a field or stand of trees or beach or river or corner of streets. 

     Where what is happening in that place becomes something that is happening within ourselves, too.