musings | Words + Images

Posts Tagged ‘musings’

reflections

Posted in Inspiration, tagged Inspiration, life, musings, New York Times, Photography, reflections, storytelling, travels on December 30, 2013| 3 Comments »

Here I am in 1996 standing by a creek in Missoula, Montana. At the time I worked with a Boston-based nonprofit conducting sustainability-themed workshops for universities. For a number of years, I was able to travel around the country interacting with people of all ages and cultures. I was able to view landscapes like this that I’d read about but wasn’t sure I’d ever see in person. Few photographs did I take but I loved to tell stories of the places I’d visited with family and friends, in letters and by phone. In 2014, I hope to do more writing and storytelling about people and places and be more strategic with my photography. Meanwhile, as the year wraps up, here is a link to one of the most moving sets of images on the web — The New York Times 2013 Year in Pictures — and a page of wonderfully orchestrated New York Times Op-Docs.

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dona nobis pacem, a series of sights and sounds

Posted in Inspiration, Music, Uncategorized, tagged beauty, home, Inspiration, landscape, life, music, musings, nature, peace, Peteris Vasks, Photography, sounds 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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waiting on the music*

Posted in Inspiration, Music, Nature Notes, tagged colors, humor, Inspiration, leaves, music, musical note, musings, nature, Photography, poetry, prose on October 29, 2013| 5 Comments »

As I work with this image of a leaf

for this post to share with you

I find myself singing these words

with great zest and sincerity

and yes I sound pretty good (or maybe not)

but since I cannot read or write

a musical note of any kind

the rhythms of this song will be lost to time

but this image of the leaf

in its fine autumn dress

will hopefully brighten your day for quite a while.

* The title refers to a guest post I have asked my younger brother, who does have an ear for music, to write about music and nature based on his life experiences down in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It is a treat I hope to share before the end of the year. Stay tuned. Get it? Tuned … Have a good day, folks. 😉

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at the center of it all

Posted in Inspiration, tagged apples, compassion, family, flowers, friendship, happiness, Inspiration, life, musings, nature, petunias, Photography, relationships 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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walking across sand dunes

Posted in Inspiration, Nature Notes, On the Road, tagged deserts, imagination, Inspiration, movies, musings, Photography, random, sand, travel, walking on October 20, 2013| 5 Comments »

After smelling an open jar of wild mint (that’s all it was, I swear) I once had a waking dream of setting up camp in the desert, my feet sinking into the hot sands, the air filled with the sounds of horses snorting and the jingle of their bells. I was perhaps influenced by a conversation with a man from Morocco. Even before that dream I had been planning to visit the Sahara, as well as deserts within the U.S.

Some of my favorite movies have depicted vast dunes of sand in shades of sparkling white to dusky cream and even dark gold. Lawrence of Arabia. The English Patient. Dune. There’s that opening scene in the 1979 movie, The Black Stallion. And, of course, Star Wars. 😉 I love the depiction of man or beast making their way across the shifting landscape. I have been lucky to visit many different landscapes and to photograph them.

But no deserts yet. Not really. This morning, as I lay in bed, photographing the hills and valleys of the cotton sheets, I wondered anew if I ever will see such sandy sights firsthand.

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and then there are those other windows …

Posted in Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged birds, cityscape, colors, Inspiration, life, musings, nature, Photography, pigeons, Somerville, urban wildlife 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 …

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

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if obama were white, would republicans fight so hard?

Posted in Inspiration, Nature Notes, tagged autumn, culture, government shutdown, landscape, leaves, light, Martin Luther King, musings, Mystic River, nature, opinion, Photography, politics, river, society, water on October 1, 2013| 5 Comments »

Just one of those random questions running through my head this morning as I have the luxury of sitting in my home sipping strong coffee in the warmth of my kitchen while there are those in great need of food and shelter who have nothing this morning because the politicians in the fortress of solitude in DC can’t get it together to stop being children in a playground. Anyway, racism, classism, and all those other -isms are too easily used to excuse the behavior of the men and women in Washington (and those who pay them in the various ways our system allows). If Obama were blonde haired and blue eyed and with the same ideals there’d still be a fight … because indeed there was one. Look at the Clinton Years.

Politicians aside with their blinders, fat pockets, or indeed “righteous ideals,” what bothers me most are the people who sit back and do nothing. And maybe that’s because there are too many distractions. I mean, on the morning news, immediately following one story of government shutdown, there was a story of a movie star’s fight with his girlfriend. Really? That’s the next important story?

One of my favorite letters in American history is Martin Luther King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. It was not a letter written to Klansmen or segregationists or to all those others who outright hated; it was a letter written to those who expressed a desire for change but were waiting for the right moment or not wanting to make any waves or simply did not understand the gravity of the situation. I fear that people have lost sense of our interrelatedness, and thus do not understand the implications – the ripple effects – of the actions (and purposeful inactions) certain politicians are pushing. If you have a well-paying corporate job with great benefits, why engage in a dialogue about health insurance or food stamps? But as MLK wrote, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

I am proud to be an American, of its landscapes and its peoples and of course its opportunities. Or at least of those opportunities that I perceived as a child growing up in Virginia. And I was proud of its politics. Probably using a different set of text books than are being allowed in school today, I thought I learned in World History, Civilizations, Civics and Government courses that, my goodness, what a wonderful system of government with its checks and balances, and opportunities for dialogue and debate (and yes, negotiation and compromise). What a wonderful system. What has happened?

Anyway, no more caffeine for me today. Caffeine plus anger gives me a headache. Perhaps I will be able to take another walk by the Mystic River, the source of these images. I hope where ever you are, you find a peaceful moment too. Have a good Tuesday.

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the human voice

Posted in Inspiration, tagged human voice, Inspiration, musings, oral history, silence, StoryCorps, storytelling, Studs Terkel on August 15, 2013| 2 Comments »

That first time he pulled me over after the library alarm had sounded, I actually put my hands on my hips and said, “Come on! You’ve got to be kidding. I’ve been coming to this library for years. Do you really think I’d steal a book?” All he said was, “This way, ma’am.” Together we walked over to the machine. He had me empty my pack of all books and together we discovered which one I’d improperly demagnetized while doing self checkout. During the whole procedure his face never changed. Aside from the initial pull over, and then a statement about “it’s the rules,” his lips never moved. He could have been a Nubian statue. I became determined to make him smile. Years later, I’ve yet to succeed. Our relationship has progressed. Now when I race by to drop off and pick up books, I make eye contact, smile and wave. He blinks once or twice and then nods in acknowledgement. Sometimes there’s a subtle bow. One day, I’m tempted to dance a jig just to see what he does. Bet he has a great laugh. Meanwhile, my interactions with this guard and others this summer have had me musing about both silence and the human voice. Not sure what will become of such thoughts but they have led me to the following lovely little video. It’s less than 3min long, but if you’d prefer to simply listen to the original recording, click here. Hope you find time to view and/or to listen. Have a good weekend.