Category Archives: Photography

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Thankful

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Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!  It’s Steve’s favorite holiday, and we’ve eaten turkey for the last 3 dinners.  First, it was the 20-pounder I cooked for us and his mom, aunt, sister and brother-in-law.  That occasion included a lot of cleaning up and rearranging books so that the book business didn’t take over the dining & living room.  The result of that work is being able to provide a comfortable place for people to gather, relax, feast, listen to music, and converse.  Holding a safe space open for life to unfold is a responsibility that I willingly accept, and I am thankful that I have figured out how to do that with the resources available to me.  I am very thankful for my partner and for the home that we have made together.  The day after Thanksgiving, we went down to visit my children in Illinois.  With all 4 of them, plus my daughter’s boyfriend and her godfather, we made 8.  She cooked another turkey and we brought our leftovers to share for this second feast.  I am thankful for my children, for the unique and wonderful people they are and for the fact that I have a healthy, happy relationship with each of them.  Yesterday, we drove home, past Glacial Park where we had our first date, back to our clean and tidy little duplex apartment.  Steve went back to work, I took a nap, and later fixed some more leftover turkey for supper.  Oh, but just before that, something else happened.  I had a good cry.  You see, my oldest daughter went shopping on Black Friday and bought…a wedding dress.  All by myself, back at home, I put on a Louis Armstrong CD, “What A Wonderful World”.  I felt happy and lonely, missing her father who died in 2008.  I wrote a sentimental bit of poetry, drank some vodka & cranberry juice, and let it flow.  Life moves and changes and goes on.  We are the bearers of our own memories, the crucible of our own journeys, and no one else shares that responsibility with us.  That can feel very lonely sometimes, but it also feels satisfying.  I am filled with the weight of my life and still have room for more.  For that, I am especially thankful.

Conversation

 

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Special Photo Challenge: Inspiration

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The WordPress Daily Post sent me an interesting challenge: “For this special mid-week photo challenge, we want to see portraits of you doing something that inspires you to blog.”  The challenge for me is that I am rarely in a photo, as I’m usually the one behind the camera!  However, I found a selection of 5 photos that may serve this purpose. 

The theme of my blog is “Striving to live gracefully in my 50th year.”  I began it on my 49th birthday, and its purpose was to give me a vehicle for sharing my journey toward maturity in writing and pictures.  I find inspiration for growth all around me.  These pictures illustrate just a few examples.  Here is a self-portrait of me wearing the corset that was part of my costume as a historic interpreter.  That job inspired many posts about history, lifestyle, and preservation.  Here is a picture of me with my father before he died of Alzheimer’s disease.  I have met others who are caring for a parent with dementia through this blog, and questions of facing mortality, change, loss and frustration with grace have inspired many posts and comments.  Here is a picture of me hiking in Zion National Park.  Nature inspires me and demands my maturity every day.  How are we to live in harmony on this planet with all other living and non-living things?  Here is a picture of me with my children and my partner and other members of Team Galasso setting out on a walk to raise funds for the American Diabetes Association.  My husband died almost 5 years ago from complications of diabetes, namely heart disease.  The process of grieving his death and parenting our children drives much of the writing which finds its way into my blog.   And finally, here is a picture of me beside a campfire with an abandoned lamb who is dying of starvation without its mother.  It illustrates the compassion that inspires me to blog, to connect with humanity through words and photos, to face the reality of our common suffering without looking away, simply to be present in the world, aware, and alive.

Me and Dad, in the final stages of Alzheimer’s
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Hiking in Hunting Season

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It was a quiet Sunday along the Ice Age Trail…until the Packer’s football game ended.  “Blaze orange” jackets and shotgun blasts began to add noise mid-afternoon.  Steve and I are both creeped out by the gun culture.  Not that we don’t acknowledge the usefulness of procuring food and enjoying exercise.  The violence that these weapons invite seems to us completely unnecessary.   Is that an integral part of “hunting”?  Why is hunting a social norm in the Midwest?  I don’t remember fall being a time when people went hunting when I lived in California…they were mostly anticipating ski season.  Anyway, here’s what I shot on my excursion:

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Green

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Like Kermit says, it’s not easy being green.  It’s not easy building green, either.  My son has a degree in Construction Management and is interested in green design.  He’s having a hard time finding an entry-level job in this field, but it seems like a very useful career in the long run.  7 billion human beings generate a lot of construction; we need to be wiser about how and what and where and when we build because it makes a huge impact on our environment.  That’s common sense.  What does it look like when that is taken into consideration?  It takes time.  It takes money.  It takes intelligence and skill.  So, “forget it” is the conclusion many construction companies take.  Fast, cheap and easy…up goes another WalMart with a parking lot the size of an inland lake. 

I’ve visited two LEED certified buildings here in Wisconsin.  (click on the links to read about their energy-saving and environmentally responsible features) The Schlitz Audubon Nature Center was certified on the Gold level.  It houses a pre-school, among other facilities.  The Aldo Leopold Legacy Center was certified on the Platinum level.  Built where Leopold died while fighting a brush fire, it houses office and meeting spaces, an interpretive hall, an archive, and a workshop organized around a central courtyard.  I took some pictures for my son at the Aldo Leopold Center, and this prompt is the perfect opportunity to post them and share!

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You Know It’s November When…

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The temperature drops 30 degrees overnight.  Oh, but we were warned, so we went out to embrace the front, the wind howling from the south, still warm.  The clouds gathered in the valley, the sky darkened, the weeds shuddered…very gradually, drops began to fall.  It rained all night.  This morning, I went through the house pulling the glass panes down over the screens in all the windows.  The furnace rumbled to life every few minutes.  The trees are mostly bare.  It is late fall at last and winter is just around the corner.  I dearly wish I had a fireplace or woodstove…

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Renewal

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This prompt complements my previous post for today, I think.  Renewal, new beginnings, evolution, the marvelous process of life.  I have two photos that illustrate this concept, both taken with my old camera (the little Lumix, not the Rebel T3i).

 

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U.S.A. Evolving

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The 2012 presidential election is over, swept up like confetti in the parade of change and movement.  The conservative, religious, wealthy White male was defeated…for the second time.  This seems to be frightening a lot of people.  Our nation was founded and shaped by those types.  Isn’t that what America is supposed to be?  Or is America “The Melting Pot”?  Is evolution, change and movement something to resist, or something to embrace?  Why?

Fear is a powerful agent.  Safety is a motivator.  Primal survival instincts are very active in our social species.  However, the history of the planet shows that species evolve, they change, they adapt to the environment, and they die out.  It’s natural.  Is it acceptable?  Can you accept that your country, your “club” and your family will change?  Elements that may threaten you WILL be introduced.  How do you respond?  How do you want to respond?  Who do you want to be?  The “fighter”?  The “opposer”?  The peacemaker?  The tolerater?  Do you change along with the rest of the Universe…or do you go down stubborn as plastic into the landfill?

You can probably guess my preference.  I want to be mulch.  I believe something beautiful will always grow.

All the best, America!  Be joyful and courageous in change and movement!

Detail: Aldo Leopold’s shack

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Geometry

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I loved Geometry.  As a freshman in High School, I was brand new to California and scared to death.  I sat in the front row of Mr. Duport’s class and paid close attention.  He was young and funny, and his students liked him.  He made the classroom a comfortable place.  He wrote in my yearbook at the end of the year how he enjoyed seeing me change into a sociable girl who talked to her classmates and spent less time with her head down in her proofs.  I met him again at the 20th class reunion, and he remembered me fondly as smart and interesting…although perhaps that enthusiasm was aided by a few drinks.   Anyway, Jim Duport, thanks for the memories.

Playground geometry

 

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My Best Friend’s Birthday

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Yup, today is Steve’s birthday.  He is beginning to get comfortable saying that he is “in his late 40s”.  We are still working on being transparent with ourselves and each other, genuine, authentic.  This morning we talked about how difficult that is for parents to do with their children.  We want to be better people, better role models, especially in front of them.  But we miss the opportunity to be fully present, fully alive, and fully responsive when we hide behind those roles.  That can hurt.  The child may feel like they are not worthy to receive the person they love the most.  I remember how honored I felt when my father asked me to help him with something.  I was the mother of 4 children by then.  He had broken his back and was lying flat in traction in the hospital.  He asked me to help him brush his teeth by catching his spit in a pan when he spouted it straight up.  It was the first time I truly felt that he was volunteering his vulnerability.  I left the hospital in tears, not because I pitied him, but because I was so happy to feel connected to this man I adored for so long. 

A man who had been my spiritual director for years sent me a TED video this week about Vulnerability.  I highly recommend it.  See if you don’t recognize something about yourself here.  It may be a surprise.  Then see if you can find someone to talk to about it.  It may be a pivotal point in your life. 

Today is All Saints’ Day as well.  Here’s to all the truly good friends, the saints in our lives, who allow themselves to be seen, to be vulnerable, to be genuinely available and thereby, help us to find the courage to join them in that important place.  “And I mean, God helping, to be one, too.”

(Steve, dressed up to see the musical “Hair” with me.)

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Sandy

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So, hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast on Monday night.  Yesterday, the waves on Lake Michigan topped 20 feet and many stretches of lakefront were closed.  Today, Steve & I took a walk on the beach at the Schlitz Audubon Nature Center. 

Ironically, I have an Aunt Sandy who lives in NYC.  I’ve been thinking about her a lot, but haven’t heard any reports yet from her perspective.  Here’s a perspective that I find inspiring:  “In wildness is the salvation of the world.”  Henry David Thoreau