Category Archives: blogging

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Home

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Home

Home.  A weighty concept in some ways, but also tending toward the sentimental.  It can connote fortification, shelter….and yet, homey can be quaint and trivial.  We invent and reinvent our relationship to home throughout our lives.  A place to go to, a place to run from, a place without, a place within.  Maybe the truth about ‘home’ is that it is changing and fluid.  That’s what I want to illustrate. 

This photo was taken out of my bedroom window, from within the warm nest where I find safety, comfort, and respite.  And yet, the window is transparent.  It doesn’t completely shield me from the cold visually, nor does it keep me from feeling it (it’s an old drafty house, not well insulated at all!).  It lets me come face to face with the physical realities of frost and even pulls me beyond the immediate perimeter of my house, across the street, up into the trees, and all the way out of the Earth’s atmosphere to the Moon.  And still, this is all my home, too.  The Universe is where I live.   Home is near as well as far.  And why should I not feel safety and belonging in all of the world’s manifestations?  Cold and death and distance and infinity do not annihilate me, nor do they exalt me.  They are familiar and comforting, too.  I do not control my home as I do not control the weather…I live in it.  And life is bigger than most of us imagine.  

For another picture of home, mundane and temporal but nevertheless real and interesting, my last post was about our home business, Scholar and Poet Books.   Please click here and take a look!

 

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Examining Entitlement – the “Feed and Frustrate Formula”

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I am working on finding The Middle Way in my life and on communicating what I can of that journey to anyone who might find that helpful…with my own children in mind as always.  The other day, I came up with a phrase that I am finding useful in describing the continuum of experiences needed to grow and develop as a person:   “Feed and Frustrate”.   We all need a certain amount of feeding, starting in infancy when we are in our most dependent phase, and continuing through adulthood.  We have physical needs, emotional needs, and intellectual needs.  How do you determine what is a ‘need’ and what is a ‘want’ and what that certain amount actually is?  That’s a good question and leads to examining entitlement, which I will get to in a moment.  I want to take a look now at the other end of the continuum and describe our need for frustration. 

Frustration, challenge, resistance, a force up against we must push is a very necessary part of development.  Consider the emergence of a butterfly from its cocoon.  Many well-meaning folks have discovered a curious thing.  If, in their effort to be kind to animals, they assist a butterfly in its struggle to free itself from the structures surrounding it, the insect will weaken and die.  The butterfly needs the activity of straining to get fluids moving to its wings, to strengthen them for flight and to dry them out.   A similar thing happens if you facilitate a chick in hatching from an egg.  The work to chip away at the shell, the time and effort it takes to accomplish that task on its own, is vital to the chick’s health and makes it more robust.   Without that hindrance, the chick remains weak.  We need to frustrate our children and ourselves enough to stimulate our ability to access our own strengths. 

Working out the balance of feeding and frustrating is a lifelong endeavor.  I find myself looking at my adult children and wondering how I did as a parent.  I became a mom at the tender age of 22 and felt all those biological and hormonal urges to protect, provide, nurture, and “spoil” my kids.  I also had a pragmatic sense of limitations.  My mom might say that’s the Scotch in me.  I am frugal.  My kids call me “cheap and weird”.  I’m not sure I had a notion of the value of frustration, even though I’m sure I frustrated my kids unintentionally anyway.  So, they didn’t get everything they wanted, but I’m not sure I taught them a “work ethic” or a “frustration ethic” very well.  I am not sure if my parents taught me that, either.  Regardless, the responsibility of developing that ethic is my own.  It is the responsibility of each individual to examine their ideas of entitlement and challenge themselves to develop the resources necessary to achieve their goals. 

I like to learn through story and art.  I think of examples of characters who live out their “feed and frustrate” scenarios and find some tales to be inspiring, some to be cautionary.  Too much feeding as well as too much frustration can lead to helplessness and hopelessness.  One story I’ve been following lately is that of a young man who is an NBA basketball player in his second year as a pro.  I like watching Jimmy Butler play.  He has the kind of untapped strength that seems to increase with the number of challenges he’s given.  While his teammates recover from injury, he gets to play more minutes, and he seems to be growing up before my eyes.  I did some background checking and learned that he was abandoned by his father as an infant and kicked out of his mother’s house when he was 13.  A friend’s mom eventually took him into her home and gave him some strict rules to follow…and he blossomed.  The feed/frustrate formula made him confident in his ability to improve himself, which he keeps on demonstrating on the basketball court. 

This idea is not only pertinent to individual lives, but also to systems.  Politically and economically, how are we balancing the feed and frustrate formula in order to support a robust society?  Are we giving too much assistance?  Are we giving too little?  It’s a good thing to re-evaluate over time. 

So, perhaps I’ve given you something to think about.  How do you see the feed/frustrate balance in your life?  Where do you think an adjustment might help?  If you’re a writer, what is happening on this level in the story you’re working on now?  How does that dynamic work in your characters’ lives?  Thanks for listening to me hash out my thoughts! 

And one more point.  “Ahem!  This theory, which is mine…” footnote reference to Monty Python sketch featuring Miss Ann Elk...I own it and it’s mine.  I might use it in an article or something.  If this gives you an Aha! moment and you want to share it, please reference this blog post.  Thanks for your respect!

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Unique

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I really like the photo posted on The Daily Post at Word Press today for the photo challenge.  The single, blooming red tulip in a field of budded yellow ones is an immediate visual image of what it means to be unique.  Outstanding in your field, the only one of your kind, different from all the rest.  Snowflakes.  People.  We’re all unique like that…so does that make being unique – not so unique?  Tricky concept, really. 

I’ve been spending a lot of time this week photographing vintage games, toys, and books from an estate and putting them up for resale on e-Bay.  Part of that time has also been spent researching the object to find out if other people are selling it and for what price.  Manufactured goods are not so unique.  They’re usually mass produced.  But after 50, 60, or 70 years, they begin to be more rare.  Others of their kind have been destroyed or lost for good.  They begin to show wear in unique ways: non-duplicated tears, rubs, bumps, scratches.  But usually, there is another one of that item’s “siblings” out there, somewhere.  I guess what I’m learning is that differences and similarities are rather fluid.  We are the same AND we are different at the same time.  We are connected in mass and atom and substance in numerous ways that we only dimly understand.  Categorizing and separating is something that we like to do because it narrows the overwhelming complexity of the world into an order that our little brains can comprehend.  But it’s all a game, really.  The truth is closer to wonder, the moment when you see something and exclaim “Look at that!” not because it’s necessarily different or special or anything else but just because it IS!  Wow!  There it is being the way it is and isn’t it marvelous!! 

Okay, with that in mind, here’s something I picked up at Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky, and I didn’t know what made it the way it was, but it seemed familiar and strange at the same time. 

unique

My best guess is that these leaves are from the tulip poplar tree.  The lobes are not formed in the typical way on these individuals.  Mutants?  Perhaps.   I only found one that was like a perfect heart.  The yellower one was a relative, sort of the link to the “normal” tulip poplar shape.   I examined the edges very carefully to determine whether someone had shaped them on purpose.  They appeared to be completely natural. (oh, and the acorn is just for composition and because it had a really sexy luster!)

Variety, diversity, uniqueness.  “And I think to myself…….what a wonderful world!”

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Beyond

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Do you have a photo which invites the viewer to look beyond? Are there hidden depths in the background? Is the focal point just a framing for the rest of the picture? If it’s not clear why we should look beyond, tell us! Lead us through the story in your photo.

December 22, 2012,  just at dusk.  I am upstairs, in bed, cold, alone.  The world did not end, even though the sun is far away.  I feel disconnected from warmth.  I look out my window.  The neighbors advertise their jolly associations, but I do not belong to that club.  I look beyond…the sky is aflame, fire licks around the turquoise expanse of our atmosphere, the sun invites me to the outer edges of my vision.  There is the belonging, there the community, there the warmth.  Beyond.  The Universe is bigger than we imagine, and so are we.

Beyond

Beyond

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I’m 50! Me & Jodie Foster

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I’m not a media watcher.  I don’t even own a TV, but for some reason, I found myself drawn to Jodie Foster’s acceptance speech at the Golden Globe Awards this morning.  I read the transcript online, then did a youtube search to see her performance of it.  How do you get to be a gracefully aging woman of 50?  How do you leave behind the fluff and come out real and wise and honorable?  That’s what my blog project has been about, so I wanted to see Ms. Foster’s take on it.  I was not disappointed.  No doubt the lady is intelligent.  No doubt she has compassion for the human race.  What essence did she distill and pour for us in those 6 minutes of impromptu address being recorded for millions to see?  Art is significant work.  Media without privacy is exposure and becomes ridiculous and dangerous.  Gratitude is important.  Relationships are essential even though understanding is fleeting and loneliness is inevitable.  And change is the atmosphere we live in, grow in, and die in.   Resisting it is a waste of energy.  Embracing it is mystically regenerative.   I get that.  I concur.  Maybe I could be her soul sister, too. 

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Illumination

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“Lights are functional — everyday objects in our rooms and on our streets. Yet lights can be powerful symbols: signs of life, curiosity, and discovery. ”  So goes the challenge description for this week.  My first instinct was to think of the photos I took New Year’s Eve of candlelight at the table.  I’ve been experimenting with low key lighting and how to bump my camera settings to accommodate that.  But I’ve already posted some of those.  My next thought was to post one I took yesterday, and I think it’ll be my choice.  True to my own natural preference, the light I’ve chosen is the very essence and source of life, curiosity, and discovery – the Sun.  At this time of year, we drift farther away from our sustaining Star.  A gauzy shroud interferes.  We are in a state of indirect, ethereal contact.  Our longing is enhanced and unsatisfied.  We pause to ponder the diminishment.  Physically, we may suffer on a cellular level. Emotionally, we may avoid or embrace this spiritual journey into greater darkness. 

I was walking through the Arboretum at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.  I came to the crest of a hill from the north and descended towards the Visitor Center when I saw this tree lit from the south by the winter sun.  I hope you like this interpretation of Illumination:

Winter illumination

Winter illumination

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Resolved

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When Steve asked me on Sunday if I’d made New Year’s resolutions yet, I grumbled at him, “I don’t jump on that bandwagon.”  I had a sore throat that turned into a head cold and was definitely sending out the “leave me alone!” vibe.  I make resolutions to do better every single day of my life, and it often becomes an exercise in self-flagellation.  Someone I admire does this kind of thing much better than I do: visit her New Year’s post here. (plugging my daughter’s blog – I typed ‘blugging’ first; suppose I can coin a new word?)  

Actually, Steve and I had spent quite a bit of time last week discussing and deciding on goals for this new year.  We call it “pointing our canoe”.  One of the things I put on my list was to submit something to a publisher every month of this year.  Another thing on our mutual list was to plan a weekly field trip to learn and research and engage in our love of the land (land ethics, land management, environmental education) and to get outside every day for a walk.  I skipped the first two days of this year with a head cold, but I’ve managed in the last couple of days to walk to the car repair shop, the grocery store, the bank, and the cafe where we breakfast with his mom.  Now, this might not sound like a big accomplishment, but let me add one bit of info – I live in Milwaukee.  And this is what is forming outside my upstairs window:

tri cicle

That, my dear readers, is a tri-cicle (three-pronged icicle; just coined another word – where do I collect?) photographed through the screened window.  The center section of this bad boy is about 4 feet long now.   This is what outside is like here, and this is where I want to be every day.  I don’t want to make it more comfortable, I don’t want to avoid it.  My resolution is all about facing the world as it is and appreciating its wonder as a thing that I don’t comprehend or control.

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Blog Birth

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In a display of shameless nepotism, I am using this blog space to announce a new daily blog that I now follow: The Elsewhere Condition, written by my oldest daughter, Susan.  Grad student in linguistics, lead singer in a punk performance band, bride to be, and four foot eleven inch dynamo, she is an engaging writer and earnest soul.  Here’s a sample from Day 2:

My other goal for this year is to lead a healthier life, which is rather like saying that I want my novel to be about “good stuff.” What’s “healthy?” How do I know if I’m healthier? Healthier than what? Healthier than the grad student grind isn’t hard to do. I’ve fallen into a morose and processed diet, the cornerstones of which are coffee, cafeteria sandwiches, ibuprofen, and the kind of pastries that come out of vending machines. This is offset by forms of exercise which include running after buses, lifting bags of books, pacing the hallways of the English building, and vigorous hyperventilating. Clearly, I can do better than this, but I’m still working out reasonable and helpful parameters.

So now I have another reason to log on every day.  Check out The Elsewhere Condition.  That is all.

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Blog Of The Year – one star so far!

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Blog of the Year Award 1 star jpegNaomi Baltuck of Writing Between the Lines has nominated me for the 2012 Blog of the Year Award!  Apparently, this is an award which can be conferred multiple times.  I think Naomi has gotten nominated 7 times in the year she’s been blogging.  I’ve been blogging for a year and one third, and this is my first star.  Naomi is a published author and professional storyteller.  How cool is that?!  Her blog is a delightful place where family, food, twinkly lights, travel adventures and costumes all blend into a magic world of pictures and words that reminds me that the real world is actually that enchanted kingdom where our dreams come true.   In her Blog of the Year post, she cites a list of nominations that is currently serving as my map to blog exploration.  I have already discovered a poet to follow from her recommendations, and I’m looking forward to that enrichment!

To read more about this award, click here.

I just nominated a few bloggers for The Wonderful Team Member Readership Award, but I follow another whom I will nominate for this award: Elena Caravela.   Elena is an artist who shares her imagination in the form of sketches, watercolors, photographs, oils, and digital blends of all these techniques.  I am awed at her skills and humbled by her collaborative spirit.  When I write stories and poems for children (which I plan to submit for publishing as part of a New Year’s goal), I imagine her illustrating them because she is all about encouraging the artistic talents of others (see her blog & book: Portrait of a Girl and Her Art).   

So, blog on! all you artistic, creative souls out there.  “We are made of star stuff.” – Carl Sagan 

 

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Weekly Photo Challenge: My 2012 in Pictures

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This week’s challenge is to create a gallery of pictures representing 2012.  These are my favorite shots from each month’s posts, taken with my Lumix for the first nine months and then with the Canon Rebel.  Captions will appear as you hold your cursor over each image, or click on the first one to view a slideshow.  I think they make a nice calendar!  (And I’m really proud that I figured out how to put the gallery together again after WordPress changed the process a bit from their first version.)

photo credit: John Meyer