Tag Archives: awareness

Weekly Photo Recap

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My online photo class is over and I thought I’d put up the weekly photo recap today to celebrate! It has been a challenge to keep up with Nablopomo and Photo101 this month, and I feel proud and a little fatigued.  And strangely, a little bored.

I’m curious about the relationship between fatigue, boredom, and the ending of a chapter in one’s work life. I feel it with this month’s ending, a sense of relaxation and relief, mixed with a “what now” feeling.  It’s a microcosm of the ending of my teaching career. For the last year or so, I’ve been working at not working, and strange as it sounds, it’s not easy. I have to learn to be free.

What if there is no “they” out there telling me what to do? Telling me the “shoulds” and “have tos” of life?  Sometimes, it’s easy as pie.  Relax, do some crafts, read, watch tv, go for a walk, visit with friends, do chores. But sometimes, it’s hard, like, “how do I do nothing?” “Am I allowed to do nothing?” “What do I want to do?” How to we get so accustomed to just following directions, coloring within the lines, buying our lives off the shelf?

Reflection

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Thanksgiving is a time to reflect and be thankful.  Today’s photo prompt is glass.  I took this shot at the row of cafes near my house.  I’m thankful to live near cafes, be able to walk to town.  I was amazed by how full the shot is, with trees and cars and lights and doors and windows, and people, and shapes, and glows and reflections. This photo is kind of like thinking about life.  So much there, hard to find a pattern, hard to interpret, but still somehow it works.

For me, I am so thankful to be (basically) free. To know that I’m (basically) safe and cared for. That I am recovering from my illness. That  my extended family, disjointed as it may be, loves me and hopes for the best for me. I’m thankful for my fabulous husband and my crazy pupper. My home and my friends. I’m thankful that self-created drama is not part of my life. I’m thankful to you for reading my blog.

There is really so much going on in the world, in each of our lives.  In the life of our crazy democratic yet still not very democratic society. I don’t write or want to write a political blog, but recent events sure have me thinking–thinking about justice and privilege.  I am not thankful for the troubles of our nation, our world.  I wish I knew how to not feel them so deeply, but then I wouldn’t be me. I want to write a positive blog, to share gratitude and joy.  And I am thankful.  And I am joyful–but part of me is just aching today for the lack of justice in our world, and I can’t not say that.

Cloudy Day at Oyster Bay

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Dog walks in nature are good.  Crazy puppy can be off leash and risk sticking his nose in gopher holes.  Pupper runs and leaps, skips and jumps.The moment I try to photograph the Peregrine Falcon, he flies from his perch.  The thorned pod reminds me that Autumn is here, and the red berries, that Christmas is on the way.

A friend recently lost her pet.  I said, “when Krishna died I was so brokenhearted.  Like he, and only he knew me the best. Deeper than humanity.”

She said, “Right.  You nailed it.”

Got me to thinking about a favorite poem.

WILD GEESE

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

-Mary Oliver

I love the line, “you only have to let the soft animal of your body/ love what it loves.”