Archives for posts with tag: picture this

My Weekend, My Way

September 1, 2018 //
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I don’t honestly feel at all like sleeping on the ground, or dealing with overnight chill, or having to use vault toilets or a hole in the ground… or… any of the things that go along with camping, really. Not this weekend. I do, however, very much feel like hiking a few miles alone with my thoughts. 🙂 It’s nice having the car. It’s nicer that it is my own, and of the sort far more appropriate to trail heads and rougher roads than the luxury sedan I’d been driving. (None of that diminishes my gratitude for having the use of my partner’s car for a year; I needed it, he was right.) The weekend is my own, and I’ll go where I please, travel the roads I like, and find the miles that suit me most to wander.

I sip my coffee and consider my rather lengthy list of hikes I’d like to take. I decide I’d rather not drive more than an hour this morning, having slept a bit later than I expected to, and also wanting to go to the Farmer’s Market this morning. My smile becomes a grin contemplating the luxury of being able, if I chose, to also just get in the car and drive down to my Traveling Partner’s location, and visit him there. Any time. There is nothing to stop me doing so, and no one to whom I must answer. That feels amazing. I sit with the feeling and the awareness awhile longer; I haven’t always truly had the freedom to be accountable primarily to myself, only, and it’s an intoxicating level of adult freedom.

This is a weekend of choices. One of those is that I chose to invest in my longer-term emotional and physical wellness by making this particular weekend mostly about self-care, also. Yesterday was spent advocating for important social issues as a citizen, and getting ample rest as a human being. Today? Today I want to get out into the trees, put some miles behind me, take some pictures, find some solitude and relief from the din and background noise of the world. Tomorrow, too. Even Monday (after my first Qigong class, fairly early in the morning). Something about the car I’d been driving was keeping me from hiking in some subtle way. (I think perhaps my reluctance to leave a largish luxury car parked at a trailhead and at risk of break-ins, when it wasn’t even my own car, was a bit of baggage I didn’t manage well.) The Mazda fairly begs to be left-along-the-side-of-the-road-back-soon-I-promise at every trail head I spot on every drive I take. lol I literally want to just park it, however abruptly, hop out and walk down each unexpected mystery trail just to see where they lead. 😀 This bodes well for future fitness, and I’m not inclined to fight it – I just want to get out there, and explore the world on foot, with a significant lack of human companionship.

New beginnings aren’t just an assortment of lovely sunrises, or yet another work shift, or one more morning waking from one more night of sleep; there are opportunities here for growth, change, and transcendence. These are chances to work through past pain, to set down more baggage and walk on – both metaphorically, and for real. What was yesterday about? Can I do better today? What choices does that take? How does this particular morning hold the potential to see me become more the person I most want to be at the end of this particular day? It’s a process filled with verbs, and my results vary. Still, I get as many chances to begin again as there are sunrises – or moments. There are choices involved.

I’m ready. It’s time to grab a map. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, inspiration, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, Washington Trails, weight loss secrets

Storms Pass

May 14, 2016 //
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It’s a true thing, is it not, that storms pass? That change is? That impermanence is a durable characteristic of this human experience? Well, in my own experience it sure seems to be the case that all those things are true. This morning, I woke to an entirely different experience than yesterday morning – to be fair, it is an entirely different day.

My black mood yesterday morning didn’t even last to lunch time. My refusal to take it personally, catastrophize it, spend all day root-causing the emotions, or to give up on myself (and the day), paid off. The turning point was twofold; my traveling partner reminded me that having yielded to the need to take more robust steps to manage my pain (an Rx pain reliever) for a couple of days and then… not, most likely resulted in having to slog through ‘the down’. Withdrawal symptoms, however mild, however transitory, totally suck – and I reliably fail to remember right away that I am at risk, particularly complicated by my limited executive function in the area of emotional regulation. The other turning point was a matter of human connection and intellectual distraction in the form of a new neighbor interested in my art work. Inviting him in to take a look at my work, talk it over, (and discuss a possible commission as it turned out) put my issues of the morning to rest, and left me feeling excited to be alive…and something else that I couldn’t quite place, but felt very good.

As the morning developed that ‘something else’ developed too, and as I was chatting with my traveling partner, it developed further still… a certain pleasant tension in the background of my emotional experience, an eagerness… something lost felt found… I wanted very much to paint. I paced a bit more, and fussed over the idea. I found myself having this peculiar inner dialogue about ‘not painting from this place’, and feeling as if I had ‘always painted from the positive’… but… as I considered it this was recognizably not the case. I looked at other work. Other times in my life. I have quite a lot right here to look at… I clearly paint mood pieces from any number of deep dark vile places, and quite a lot of my work bears the stamp of emotions other than joy, contentment, happiness, love, desire, eagerness… It’s true. I have paintings with titles like “Portrait of the Artist’s Tears”, “Anxiety” and “Broken”… definitely not ‘painted from the positive’… so what is this line of bullshit, and where is it coming from?

"Anxiety" 10" x 14" - and she feels much bigger than that, generally.

“Anxiety” 10″ x 14″ – and she feels much bigger than that, generally.

I decided that was less important than being who I am, authentic, inspired, and grounded in all the things that are real about my experience – regardless of positive or negative. Painters paint. The studio is ready. What more do I need?

I let my traveling partner know I would likely be difficult to reach for the weekend; we coordinated plans for later. I updated my calendar with considerable excitement, “Artist @ Work”. I spent the remainder of the day in the studio.

As yet untitled, 16" x 16" acrylic on canvas w/glow.

As yet untitled, 16″ x 16″ acrylic on canvas w/glow, one of three new pieces painted yesterday.

I woke up this morning in a very different place as a human being, feeling content, feeling comfortable in my own skin, feeling confident that ‘things work out’ and that ‘things are okay’, and looking out on the gray morning sky with a certain something… a hard to describe piece of my experience of self clicked into place quite comfortably without force in this new space, in way it hadn’t quite done at #27, or the shared living arrangement prior to that. I had welcomed myself home.

I initially woke up early, around 2 am, thinking it was 5 am… and without my glasses, in the dim light, the clock certainly seemed to say it was 5 am… a good time to get up, although… Saturday. I could sleep in… I went back to bed, thinking I’d doze for another hour at best, and on checking the clock again and understanding the early hour at that point, crashed out content to just sleep and confident I would. It was a nice feeling, and I woke feeling rested and quite pleasantly human some hours later… properly at 5 am. 🙂 I took my coffee with me to a seat at the patio door, on my meditation cushion, and watched the dawn develop under gray skies, listening to birdsong, and watching the red-wing blackbirds come and go, their cheery bold ‘chirp!’ letting everyone know it is breakfast time. I sipped my coffee awhile. Meditated awhile longer. Moved on to yoga afterward. I’ll finish this up shortly with a rather futile swipe at spell checking it; I’ll catch what I missed later today, I’m sure. Then? A walk in the morning air before returning to have a bite of breakfast and consider yesterday’s new work, and what I might do in the studio today. This feels so good!

A soft rain begins to fall. I smile. My traveling partner pings me a good morning from his place. The day begins. It’s enough – it’s more than enough. Today is a good day to be here, to be content with what is, and to enjoy this moment. Yeah. Definitely enough. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, Art, art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, Words

The Ratio

September 22, 2015 //
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I take pictures. I take a lot of pictures. My camera goes everywhere with me, although to be fair that’s not a challenge; I use my camera phone as my primary camera. Sometimes that’s obvious, since as cameras go, it’s still a phone. I don’t consider myself, creatively, a photographic artist first; I am humbled daily by the images shot by any number of other photographers – including my 16-year-old niece, who recently took up photography, and has since shot any number of outstanding images of insect wildlife, dog facial expressions, and life*.

I take pictures of squirrels.

I take pictures of squirrels.

I take a lot of pictures without worrying much about whether or not I am ‘good enough’ to be ‘a photographer’. By definition, a photographer is one who shoots photographs. I’m that. I’m a lot of other things too. What sets me apart from any professional photographer (who earns a living taking photographs with a level of technical ability worth paying them for), or an artist who works in photography as their medium (who, whether they earn a living or not, takes wonderful photographs, images that capture something about life and the world, that people want to see), is The Ratio [of great shots to wasted ones]. I am a student, an amateur, a woman with a camera phone; I take uncounted pictures to get one great shot [maybe] – and am quite willing to make use of pictures that communicate something to me, personally, but which are not particularly skillful or extraordinary pictures. A professional would take potentially many pictures, and get many that were precisely what they were looking for, and a professional would be unlikely to make use of poor quality images. An artist might take more pictures – or not – but would likely have many more shots that capture something quite extraordinary. The ratio of great shots to ‘why did you bother’ shots is very different for someone just snapping pictures along life’s journey, and someone who is skilled, studious, gifted, or driven by artistic purpose – or all of those things at once.

A favorite floral shot; some pictures capture something that lasts.

A favorite floral shot; some pictures capture something that lasts.

One lovely thing about life is that practice is a thing; I could become a more skilled photographer with study and practice. (My photography has improved quite a lot over the past couple years.) I could become a captivating artist with a camera, with more study and practice. (I occasionally take some amazing shots even now.)  There are all those verbs involved, and results that vary based on choices and opportunities – and inspiration. With practice, the ratio of great shots to wasted shots would change in favor of great shots – because we become what we practice. Yep. Some things are exactly just that simple. I can’t actually see any particularly obvious dividing line between ‘dinking around with my camera phone’ and ‘I’m a photographer’ – Only a ratio of great shots to crap shots, a ratio of meaningful images to trite images, and a ratio of great pictures taken to all the pictures taken.

Sometimes I don't quite capture what I was going for.

Sometimes I don’t quite capture what I was going for.

Having said all of that, I’ll add that I’m not certain the ratio has ‘real meaning’ or value beyond words; I love taking pictures and don’t care much whether I am ‘a successful photographer’ by any definition but my own. I enjoy taking the pictures, and in some cases even those that ‘didn’t turn out’ capture something of value, or are meaningful to me in some way. I could definitely grab hold of the ratio as an idea and beat myself down for not being ‘good enough’, or not growing fast enough – instead, this morning, I just observe that it’s there, as a thing – maybe – and that there are differences among us. My young niece has far more talent and aptitude with a camera than I do; it shows in the pictures. Happily, life is not a competition; I am free to enjoy her photographs alongside my own.

It's a journey. Each step I take is my own.

It’s a journey. Each step I take is my own.

Today is a good day to see the world with new eyes. Today is a good day to enjoy beauty and wonder. Today is a good day to be who we choose to become – by practicing. There is so much freedom to choose who we are, and who we want most to be. The labels are less important than the verbs. There is a whole world to explore on this journey.

*I am choosing not to use any of my nieces images in this post, although I am thinking about her work, and have it open on another tab of my browser, where I can look at it while I write. My choice to use only my own work in this post is based on my Big 5 relationship values; I have not been given explicit permission by the artist (my niece) to use her photography in my blog. It’s irrelevant that she is 16, or that she is my niece; she is the artist, and her images are her own work, owned by her, and using them without her permission is a theft of intellectual property. Yes, I’m serious. Please be considerate of the work of artists, get permission, give credit, and don’t seek to profit financially from their work without authorization – in advance. It’s just common courtesy.

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Categories Art, art and the artist, autumn, Free Will, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words