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Posts Tagged ‘life’

dona nobis pacem, a series of sights and sounds

Posted in Inspiration, Music, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on December 15, 2013| 4 Comments »

And so the morning began with sounds.  Laying in bed listening to snow slide from the roof.  Over breakfast listening to Steve tell stories of his night.  My brothers’ voices, one via voice mail, him singing a made up song about getting up and getting started with a cup of coffee.  His words inspired me to pour some beans into a white cup and photograph a single image and hope it came out well.

I continued to take random shots about the kitchen, of lemons in bowls and of rosemary.  I don’t think I’m supposed to let indoor herbs bloom but I couldn’t help myself. No sounds there, just lovely periwinkle silence.

During the midst of all this, something happened.  Nothing serious but one of those incidents that can color a day, darken it … if you allow.  I told myself to let the incident go.  To help me do so, I pulled from my bag a list of desired tasks.  One of them was to look up composer Peteris Vasks.  I’d only learned of him yesterday at an organ recital.  The organist had played one of his pieces, Te Deum.  During my research I came across this piece, Dona Nobis Pacem.

A beautiful, calming piece.

As it played on repeat in the background, I wandered around taking other photos, indoors of items on tables

and through windows of ice melting beautifully.

What that music inspired exactly I can’t say.  It did encourage me, remind me even, to be present, to appreciate the beauty before me that I could see, that I could hear, and that I could imagine.  We all need reminders on occasion. 😉

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a walk in her world

Posted in Inspiration, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on December 11, 2013| 2 Comments »

Growing up in Virginia, my parents made clear quite often that “times are tight.”  Many a fellow classmate wore more expensive clothes but mine were just as clean and it didn’t matter that they were purchased via layaway.  And my brothers and I still share stories of how well my mother could stretch a can of Campbells soup.  But it wasn’t until I was accepted into college, completing financial aid forms and trying to figure out how my family’s income fit on various grids … that’s when one day I looked across the table at my parents and said, “Did you know we’re classified as poor?”  That I did not feel poor despite my family having little money says a lot about my parents and the neighborhood in which I walked.

Virginia Dogwood

It is a very different neighborhood in which the little girl Dasani lives.  It is a Brooklyn neighborhood in transition.  Thanks to the New York Times series, Invisible Child, readers can journey with her through that changing world.  You the reader can walk with her, run, kick, and dance.  You can even hear her voice and those of the people around her because it is a multimedia presentation with short videos at the end of each of the five parts.  It is a series provoking a lot of conversation, dialogue, debate … and hopefully, most importantly, some good actions.  It can sometimes be tough to read and to watch but I hope people do.

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individual drops

Posted in Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged , , , , , , , on December 2, 2013| 5 Comments »

“If we are a drop of water and we try to get to the ocean as only an individual drop, we will surely evaporate along the way.  To arrive at the ocean, you must go as a river.” — Thich Nhat Hanh in Creating True Peace

 

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at the center of it all

Posted in Inspiration, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 27, 2013| 6 Comments »

It has been a hard month, a hard summer, a hard year, for so many family and friends.  I read their words and hear their voices, and all I have been able to do, in the end, is absorb and listen.   On occasion I have been able to touch, to hug, and to encourage others to take such action.  Sometimes I have offered words of advice but I am beginning to think that, for the most part, those words of advice could be a song or poem or a passage from a book.  The words from my mouth are not so important as is my literal or figurative presence.  I am lucky to have them in my lives as well.

Despite the title of this post, I do not feel at the center of it all, whatever “it” may be.  As a writer, photographer, storyteller, I feel on the periphery, observing the chaos of life from odd angles that reveal ambiguities, sadness, horror, pain but almost always, great beauty, too.  When I talk with the friends and family who are struggling I find myself wishing … and then I stop myself.  I cannot live other peoples’ lives, but I can and often do ask them, “Without ignoring all that’s going wrong, what is going right? What’s one thing making you happy?”  One lovely friend will have a tendency to say, “Well, at least my cat is not dead … yet.”  And I’ll say, “Exactly!” 😉

These are the rambling thoughts that come to mind this Sunday morning as I hold close in my heart those who may be feeling a bit alone or vulnerable or just unsure of next steps.  I certainly feel that way about some things too.  And with that said, what is one thing making me happy at this moment?  It is the morning sun falling upon this apple creating a little apple universe.  At least I see the stars.

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steve’s hands

Posted in Inspiration, Kitchen Inspirations, Photography, Publication Updates, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 17, 2013| 2 Comments »

Steve Hands for Vine Leaves Literary Journal Issue 8

Steve Hands for Vine Leaves Literary Journal Issue 8

The best part about having been given carte blanche to use his words and my images of him however I choose … well, it is just so much fun to say out of the blue, “Hey, Steve, guess what?  There’s a picture of your hands appearing in a magazine next month.”  He pauses, takes a deep breath and then says, “So, when did you take this picture?”  And I get to make statements like, “Oh, don’t you remember that afternoon you were peeling shrimp and we were talking politics?”  Anyway … 😉  His hands are paired with a vignette in the online and print publication, Vine Leaves Literary Journal, Issue 8.  As explained on the journal’s website, a vignette is a word that originally meant “something that may be written on a vine-leaf.” A snapshot in words.  Here’s a link to the freshly launched issue filled with great brief reads and a wonderful array of images.

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and then there are those other windows …

Posted in Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on October 10, 2013| 1 Comment »

… some bubbled with age and double paned

through which are seen such sights as red eyes staring back

and which draw the hands of visiting young artists.

They are portals onto worlds of concrete and asphalt …

and dead trees …

branches… all of which are places where great beauty can still be found.

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the music man (a vignette with 2 footnotes)

Posted in Inspiration, Music, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 25, 2013| 3 Comments »

This past spring I met a man in Boston Common.  He sings.

I don’t remember if he had an instrument in-hand that first meeting. Most striking were his looks and that voice. Skin as dark as night. A scraggly beard and bushy eyebrows, all white as snow.  His voice carried across the park.  A gentle rumble.  Bass, perhaps.  Imagine Paul Robeson in sound.

“Can anyone spare some change? Can anyone spare some change? Can anyone spare some chaaaaaange?”

At first I ignored him.  I generally have no spare change.  And I have mixed feelings about giving money to panhandlers.

“Can anyone spare some change? Can anyone spare some change? Can anyone spare some chaaaaaange?”

But then one day we made eye contact.  It has been ingrained that if eye contact is made with a stranger no words need be exchanged but at a minimum try to nod in greeting.  And so I did.

“Can anyone spare some … ooooh … Does anyone have a pretty smile?  Does anyone have a pretty smile?”

Ever since that moment, when our paths cross in the Common, which is not very often, he will change his song for me.

“Oh there’s that pretty smile.  There’s that pretty smile.”

I know I can’t be the only one he does this for.  I have yet to place coins in his cup, but he sure does make me feel like I brighten his day.  At some point, I shall have to tell him that the sound of his voice brightens mine.

—

Footnote 1:  Checkout the blog Lust & Rum by photographer Anton Brookes.  There, he shares pictures that are heartbreaking and deeply moving of the homeless on the streets of NYC.  Following his photographic journey helps remind me to keep my eyes open to those sights I might like to ignore.

Footnote 2: If you’ve not heard the voice of Paul Robeson, you can hear a sample via the following 1 minute and 22 second clip.  Enjoy.

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you should write …

Posted in Guest Contributor, Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on June 23, 2013| 6 Comments »

We spoke by phone.  I sat in my kitchen in Somerville, MA while my younger brother sat outside his home in Lynchburg, VA.  After I had described my latest walk by the water and what I might write about, he said, “Mmmhmm.  I think you should write some more about porches.”

“Porches?”

“Yes.  About what it’s like to sit on the porch steps at night, in the quiet and in the cool, with fireflies in the distance.  They look like stars.”

I imagined him sitting on his little back porch.  I thought about the seeds I had sent him and his family.  “Next year, I am sending you night blooming flowers.”

“That’s fine,” he said, and then he added, “And you should write about wearing glasses, how we wear them to see clearly, these wire frames that are not heavy but somehow you feel their weight all the time, and if you have long eyelashes you’re constantly batting them against the lenses.  Yeah, there’s always contacts … but somehow when you wear glasses and then you sit and you take them off … you can’t see as clearly and yet there is a certain sense of freedom.  A weight has been removed.  Though your view is a bit blurry somehow you can see with greater clarity the beauty all around.”

“I gave you a blank notebook.  Why don’t you write these things?” I say.

“Because you’re the writer,” he said.

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a TW interview with Terry Tempest Williams

Posted in Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 17, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Please, please, please treat yourself to this Talking Writing interview, “Silence is Where We Locate Our Voice,”  by Lorraine Berry with Terry Tempest Williams.  I consider myself quite lucky to have met Terry Tempest Williams at a pivotal point in developing my voice.  You can read about that experience in this blog post, Birdsong.

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fragile beauty

Posted in Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on June 10, 2013| 7 Comments »

There is a time and place for everything.  I guess now is a time and place in my life to collect seashells and rocks and blossoms that I let dry in the sun.  As I collect these things, I ponder.  Here is a recent essay inspired by a broken bowl of stone and shells:  fragile beauty.

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