This is finger man

He entertains our son. Sometimes he just stands around, looking at everything. Sometimes he walks and jumps and tickles. Sometimes he lays down and takes a nap. We love him.

break the mold or die trying

 

“Some choices are made for us before we’re born. Some traditions are set in hard patterns we’re expected to follow, their seams welded, their strengths and weaknesses hammered into place. We don’t cast our own shadows until we know who we love and where we belong. Only then do we understand.

Sometimes you’ve got to break the mold that’s been made for you, or die trying”

On Bear Mountain by Deborah Smith

  

a tribe

I’ve always felt oddly protective of my musical preferences.

Perhaps it stems from the fact that I grew up listening to country music, while living in Los Angeles. It didn’t take a whole lot of sophistication to realize I would be even more noticeably the odd girl out if my peers knew I could sing along to Helen Reddy, Johnny Cash, or Conway Twitty. But sing alone I did, and I loved it. All through my childhood, on long car trips to my grandparent’s home in Northern California, or camp ground hopping in the summers, I sang with twang. When I discovered rock, in the late 80’s, I felt more evolved. I kept the other stuff quiet.

But even now, with musical tastes that are fairly diverse, focused on solid lyrics, poetic themes, and whatever sounds accompany that also rock my soul, I feel protective.

I always thought how odd it was, in high school, that music choices could completely define who we were, what group we belonged to. In my school, if you listened to rap you were a banger (and probably some other things that I didn’t have much insight into). If you listened to mainstream alternative or pop you were a football player, cheerleader, on student government, or generally a conforming, well rounded, balanced kid. If you listened to heavy metal you were a pot-head looser. If you listened to punk or goth, you were, well, punk or goth. It was simple.

I always wondered… why music? Why was it music the was the defining feature, the badge we wore, the club we in which we enlisted ?

Then I read this quote (from A Gentle Rain by Deborah Smith):

“Didn’t he realize I believed music to be the intuitive mirror of the human soul? That entire civilizations, from the smallest tribe to the mightiest kingdom, spoke in the unique rhythms of their songs? And that to listen to the music of [his] choosing would give secret and viable insights into his psyche?”

We must all realize this to some degree and align ourselves, at least when we are young, with like souls. If our musical choices were windows into our souls, we’d need to be amongst our own tribe in order to feel safe and understood. I kept and keep my eclectic musical choices under cover, perhaps knowing in advance of being discovered, that I was a tribe unto myself.

 

At any rate, I’ve been very into music lately (I go through phases), feeling more passionate about than I have for a while, and far far less self conscious. In celebration of that, I’ve added a new section in the bar there to the side, sharing my latest musical influences.

Caution: Adult Language Ahead

It’s really kind of the strangest thing for me that my reading habits have changed so much in the last year. I’m voraciously reading fiction, faster than I’ve ever read before, almost gobbling it up like secret chocolate bars at fat camp. Also strange is that I’ve become very particular about what I read. It can be dark, and often is, but there must be love and there MUST be hope. These two are key.

I just finished “Crossroads Cafe” by Deborah Smith, which I came upon by accident (as it seems all of my favorite books have made themselves known to me). I sucked it down as fast as I could. I loved it. And, per usual lately, I’ve been toiling over some of my favorite parts. I feel compelled to share them. Forgive me, kind reader, if this turns out to be boring and the magic I see in these words is only visible to me.

–Thomas is convinced to take one step away from his fortress of solitude, his devoted habit of emotional self torture over the death of his wife and child, to reach out and help someone (Cathy) in need.

“I stood there, my head bowed, my shoulders hunched. This is how it feels to be dragged from the cement shoes of a comfortable rut. The slow, steady strain on my legs became an excruciating amputation. My ankles pulled free from my feet. Bones snapped, cartilage tore, veins pulsed blood onto the soft brown clay of the yard. “

- Thomas exploring the depth of his guilt and soaking in is, as he is apt to do.

“Across the deep-blue mountain sky, a hawk, hunting, sang its fierce and forlorn call as it glided like an angle on the high currents. No past, no future, just living in that glorious moment, suspended on thin air. Hawks are practical, they know the cosmic score.”

“However, unlike a hawk, I had nightmares filled with regrets when I slept. Lots of karmic misery to pay back.”

“The hawk caught a perfect gust of air and floated, motionless, on the invisible palm of redemption.”

 

- Thomas after a night with Cathy

“The best sex takes us somewhere. Somewhere warm and expansive, a paradise of lust and happiness. Sex is and can be and should be but only very rarely is an act of communion with something bigger than ourselves. Men fuck and women make love, people say, but we men make love when we fuck a woman we adore: it’s the same thing to us. We mean it sincerely. I had places inside me only Cathy could fill with her body, and I made her happy with my body more than I ever thought I could.”

- Another character talking to Cathy. Cathy was the most beautiful woman in the world, an actress,  and was burned on over half her body in an auto accident. Her husband of one year divorces her immediately for breach of marital contract. She lost her looks, he lost the face of his new perfume “flawless”. She’s never had to be anything but beautiful and, though she is very strong and very brave, she has nothing (in her mind).

“There’s something very freeing about losing the anchors that have always defined you. Frightening, sad, but exhilarating in a poignant way, as well. You’re free to float to the moon and evaporate or sink to the bottom of the deepest ocean. But you’re free to explore. Some people confuse that with drifting, I suppose. I like to think of it as growing.”

“Happy people look young. You’re really afraid of getting older, aren’t you? You should only be afraid of getting less happy.”

An aside:

I’ve been thinking for a while about trying my hand at black and white photography. It’s more accurate to call it b&w processing since I shoot in digital.

Thinking in b&w is such a different experience. I didn’t realize until now, having worked in color for so long, how much of my eye is focused on how color behaves in a photograph. (who are the star colors in this piece? who will the supporting colors be? how do my color choices support or detract from the objective focus of the photo, or the mood / theme / emotion / thoughts I want to stimulate? how does the color flow around the plane of the image to direct the eye? etc.) In b&w it seems to be all about tone and shape / form. In some ways that makes things easier, but, of course, also much more challenging. It honestly feels like I’m forced, with full consent, to use a completely different glob of my brain. That is really cool.

story

It feels to me that there is a story here, but I don't know it. Did I know it at one time and have since forgotten? Is it a story yet to be uttered? Is it some universal truth, some collective unconscious' tale of woe or salvation? I don't know. Perhaps it's only a few photos, a collection of light and shape. (my thoughts upon finishing editing it)

The “real” story is that we’d been at home until late in the day. Insomnia and a little boy’s night terrors had restricted my sleep to beginning in the wee hours of the morning. My husband, always putting my health before his sanity, let me sleep in. Later, I was desperate for some sky and air. We went to a favorite park, banked on the ocean. I’d never been to  the beach side of the park, even though salty, sandy, stony grounds are some of my favorite, because there is a very tall, shabby, scary metal bridge you must risk your life on to get to it. I’m terrified of heights. I very nearly panicked at the top. What saved me from being taken over completely by the feeling that I stood only on air and would drop at any moment was that my son was looking at me, wondering what was wrong. {I don’t want my fears to be something I gift to him. They are mine. He will have his own crosses to bare. Let them come naturally, if they must come at all.} I’m so glad I made it. It was a beautiful place and well worth the fractions of terror I felt. I’m not even embarrassed that I had to run the last 10 feet to the car. Pride has no price when seeking art.

dumb luck

“Whether he is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts.”

Walker Evans

I’ve wanted a globe in my home for quite some time. I found this gem at a thrift store for $10. I love it so. It really has a nice mint green coloring that is not evident in these photos (cause really I can’t help to mess with the color).

I love the quote above. I’ve struggled for a long while with an explanation that might help define, for someone who has never felt it, what it is like to live in that moment of creation. You know, that moment of magic, when something you make (of light or paint or words) takes on qualities that outweigh the raw materials you’ve put in… when it becomes something greater than you even knew existed… when you feel that the power has been taken from you from some greater force and worked a miracle in your hands… when you’ve been whiteness to a possession of your own soul by something that you can’t explain and find it has made something you almost don’t understand all in your name. You know, that moment?

I still struggle, and probably always will, with a way to understand what exactly happens when that magic occurs, and why it sometimes doesn’t. I think though, Walker Evans had a little piece of it exactly right.

It’s not an object I ever photograph. It’s the feeling I’m possessed with that speaks to me. It’s an intuitive, out of body experience. I don’t know why it comes to me.

I feel so lucky to have been randomly chosen by the muse…  So grateful that there are these small moments in my life when I’m allowed to flow out of myself and see, no feel, a beauty that is beyond my understanding. Dumb luck. Dumb, stupid, mistaken luck. I’m not worthy, but I’ll take it.

it

I was thinking of other things… reading some prose… when the following thoughts flooded my mind. I want to warn you that they are a bit dark and not at all in fitting with the joy inherent in the present season. I feel the need to share them anyway, as they really want to be seen for some reason they choose not to share with me.

I am looking for something that cannot be found. It’s small and large and encompassing almost everything. It’s specific and precise but indefinable. It’s corporeal and spirit, invisible yet made of every color my eyes can’t see. It’s new yet older than time. It’s familiar to me but something I’ve never known or touched in any way.

I’m searching for it with each breath, with each stray thought, with the pulsing of my blood, with the rot of my mortal cells. I’m chocked up, can’t swallow, holding my breath, waiting. I’ve been waiting for so long I’m not sure I can do anything else, nor would I want to. I’m legally blind to all other endeavors, hopelessly addicted, bent, and dedicated to the search. But the search is all I will ever have of it. And yet, this search is more than the nothingness that lay at the edges of my awareness. It’s something, but nothing of substance. It’s the hope, desire, need of everything and the promise, the delivery of absolute nothingness.

I don’t know what it is and I don’t think I ever will. More than not finding it, it is this awareness that kills me because I am a person who can endure suffering but only if I know why.

from my heart

How to Bowl

like a three-year-old.

Step 1: Slowly creep up to the lane while holding the ball in your arms high on your chest ( kinda like the grown ups do )

Step 2: Drop the ball straight down onto the floor at that line that Mommy said you’re not allowed to step past.

Step 3: Hesitate for just one moment to make sure the ball is rolling and to gather up your glee.

Step 4: Quickly run back to your seat with the most enthusiasm and joy your little body can display.

Step 5: Sit in seat.

Step 6: Watch and see what happens to those pins when the ball gets down there.

See, there is a purpose for starting that ball off so slowly.

never gunna grow up part 2 – self acceptance

That last thought I had, about young love and hindsight, was abruptly cut short by the sudden wail of night terrors from my son. It feels incomplete.

This is the cause of my return to adolescence. Last year I loved True Blood. I was obsessed with the passion there, and the artistic grit present in the first season ( the subsequent season? Eh, not so much ).

I resisted Twilight for as long as I could.  It couldn’t be good if everyone liked it. I got curious a few weeks ago and finally gave in. One chapter and I was a complete goner.

It has occurred to me to be somewhat embarrassed by my surrender to something so universally appealing. That’s not really typical for me. But I can’t bring myself to shame. There is an undeniable magic in this love story, and that is a theme of absolutely timeless appeal.

So, as a friend of mine asked herself the moment after she heard the snap of her broken ankle, I ask myself “What is this going to teach me?”

Aside from some lovely dreams and a little bit of pressure on my husband to be a teeny bit more romantic, what I have taken from this experience is more self acceptance.

I hereby own that I LOVE the Twilight Saga, Edward Cullen, Bella Swan, stories of love, passion, movie making, artful acting, and the self that I am in all of these things… the 15, 17, 25-year-old who was shy but hopeful that there would be an Edward someplace in her story. She lives still in me, and I love her very much. .