“Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.”
Is there a point in life when we no longer need to hear that we’re beautiful?
Would you rather someone comment on how smart you are? Or how accomplished you are? Or how kind, maybe?
Does it matter who it is that’s making the compliment?
I spend a lot of time listening and not saying much. I pay attention sometimes to the ways that my students or my friends interact with one another. Some girls expend an awful lot of energy making themselves beautiful and then wait around for their female friends to notice. Grown women do the same. What’s the point?
Why the constant need for reassurance?
“Female beauty is an important minor sacrament… I am not at all sure that neglect of it does not constitute a sin of some kind.” -Robertson Davies
Even after 13+ years of marriage, it’s still sort of awkward-feeling for me to call my mother-in-law *mom*, but I’m getting better about it. I never felt comfortable calling my father-in-law *dad* or even *Hank* as he would have preferred it, instead it was always the formal Mr. followed by our family name. That was just as well, I guess; he couldn’t often seem to even remember my name, and instead called me *girl* with the sweetest Southern drawl. The rest of his daughters-in-law were not so tenderly regarded as I.
She’s been bugging me for the last year or so to choose a piece of crystal from her china cabinet that I’d like to have. I’ve avoided doing so, partly because I have no need of any crystal, but more because I understand the thinking that’s behind her wanting to give away these treasured things. She’s been thinking and talking that way for a few years now since my father-in-law passed away. For a very long time she was depressed and talked of wanting to go be with her dear Hank. Her first great-grandchild seems to have turned her around and I’m glad for that, but still she has this need to give away her things.
So I relented yesterday and took this Waterford crystal vase and filled it with roses. It’s the perfect size for a small bouquet of very short-stemmed flowers, yet seems out of place in my no frills early americana style dining room. I like that sort of contrast and how it reminds me of her and how different our lives are. I chose it because rather than being something to be treasured and tucked away, it’s a beautiful thing that I can put to use. And my taking it made her happy.
Thoreau believed that we all have our solitary places; places we go to in order to escape a world that closes in on us; a place neither physical nor geographical, but instead mental – a state of mind that exists within all of us and which offers the chance to think and to listen.
Thoreau called his place “Walden” and I’m wondering about what name I might give to my solitary place. Where is it that I take myself to be away from the here and now? Would it be a place like this sand trail through the Pine Barrens? Is that solitary place more about being very present in the moment and separate from memory and its weight? What view in my mind’s eye quiets the thoughts and endless questions from an overactive mind?
There is a place that I feel peace and safety apart from the world, but I don’t know that it’s one that I can photograph. It’s part blue sky and loneliness, the music of water and birdsong, the dazzle of sun and the whisper of wind, and the question of what lies ahead, just around the bend and out of view.
There are certain things I like to do each day to make me feel as if it’s been worth the effort of dragging myself out of bed. I’m not a morning person and other than that delicious cup of coffee first thing, there isn’t much to lure me from the warm covers. The workday is something to be gotten through, unfortunately, and mostly I look forward to my time in the evenings. I stay up too late trying to fit in all the things that make a day worthwhile to me. When the weather and increased daylight allow it, I’m outside for as many hours as possible. Weekends and other days off from work are filled with as many postive and fun things as I can manage. I go to bed early and contented on the weekends.
I’ve often thought that I’d be happiest in a job that allowed me spend most of the workday outdoors. This realization only really came to me after I finished two degrees, both of which confine my days to a desk or a classroom. Before deciding to start my master’s so that I could teach and have the summers off, I used to daydream about a job picking vegetables. Or delivering mail. Anything to avoid sitting at a desk all day surrounded by people and their negativity. And office politics. I taught full-time for a few years and enjoyed summers free of any responsibility but to my own joy. I then decided to teach just part-time and took courses in horticulture and volunteered with a few favorite environmental organizations. I took a second part-time job with the park system as a naturalist. I learned to play the tin whistle, although not well.
Then other stuff came along and I had to go back to full-time work because, while I was having plenty of fun, I wasn’t making enough money at any of it. Being a grown-up stinks. So now I have the full-time job and all the drudgery that entails, plus I teach part-time, and still volunteer for a few groups. I’ve had to let the tin whistle fall by the wayside. I wasn’t making very much progress with it anyway, plus it scared the bunnies. My point (I think) is that all of our lives are very full and that’s a good thing. At least, for me it is. I’m not really focused in my interests and I’m as likely to pick up something new as I am to let something go when I find that it’s not working for me. Must be the Gemini in me.
One constant in my life and something that keeps me focused is nature and a love of the outdoors. Everyday I try to find some little bit of time to spend there. I look to it for optimism and strength. I look to it for the beauty that is so often lacking in other aspects of daily life.
Five beautiful things that I’ve spotted recently are:
A multitude of small delights constitute happiness. -Charles Baudelaire
The colors of the fading sun made me take a fresh and attentive look at this scene transformed by ice and shadow and I saw something quite beautiful then. Like many, it’s difficult for me to admire the things I see everyday because there is so little novelty, but without admiration for the common there can be no attentiveness to its beauty.
My focus this day were the Hooded Megansers that were concentrated in the bit of open water around the dock and pilings on the river. Cursing the fading light just as the ducks became accustomed to my presence there, I packed up my things and began the walk back up the hill to my car. I turned and looked again and saw the colors of the setting sun and th
e rest of the scene with a new perspective; rather than an impediment to my view of the birds, the sun and ice had made the everyday into something sort of wondrous. Just a short time earlier in different light it was the same old view and nothing that would cause me to even notice it. I learned that it’s wise to turn around and look again, and renew my enjoyment of things with fresh attention and open eyes.
The contented person enjoys the scenery of a detour. – Author Unknown
I headed out of the house late this afternoon with scope and camera and no real plan about where I might end up. I was hoping to find the large rafts of scaup and goldeneye than I’d heard mentioned on the bird hotlines; the river had begun to freeze during the last few days of cold weather so I thought they might be hanging out in the bay, but there were only the usuals there.
I know of one other spot on the river where large groups of scaup often settle and set about trying to get there. The problem is access. While I live in an area surrounded by rivers and marshes and the ocean, it’s near impossible to get to any of them because of the multi-million dollar homes that line the shores of every waterway. I swear those views are wasted on the wealthy! We commoners have to settle for the view from the one public dock along the river or the bridge that spans it, but of course the ducks were nestled in that little cove beneath the castle on the far shore. The dead end street that runs beneath some of those mansions on the water is often a good place to see ducks close, but when I finally found my way there today and got ready to set up my scope – along came two fire trucks with sirens blazing, followed by a few police cars, and then the blue-light yahoos and off the ducks went to the far shore of the river.
But I did have this view from the day – from the bay side at Sandy Hook with the company of gulls and a few cold fisherman.
I came home from my brother’s this past weekend with a humongous tub of family memorabilia that had been in storage since we sold my dad’s house after he passed away. I’m having a good time going through all the old photos that I haven’t seen for quite a few years.
Most of the stuff in the huge tub had been kept forever in the bottom of the china cabinet in my dad’s dining room – that’s where my mom always kept the baby albums, homemade cards from us kids, the report cards and graduation certificates and all the other stuff of a family’s memory.
My brother being the pragmatist (and the one paying the bill for storage) has decided that we need to finally figure out what to do with the things we haven’t been able to bear to throw away or to give away. None of us has the room or the need for a dining set, or two bedroom sets, or another side chair and end table.
What do we do with these things that we grew up with; what do we do with the sentiment attached to them? Throw it away? Give it away to some faceless stranger that has no sense of the lives and stories that are a part of each piece of furniture? Will the little girl who ends up with my canopy bed care about the dreams that visited me in that bed, or how I used to hide beneath it when my parents had an argument? Will another family share Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner over our dining set and know how my mother loved that table or how my dad re-tooled it in later years as his computer desk? Do these memories matter to anyone but us? Of course they don’t; they’re just things after all. But knowing that doesn’t help with the feelings of guilt.
My mom liked to pose photos like this one, with us lined up from eldest to littlest. According to the date on the back of the pic I was 3 and Kevin, the eldest, 13 and Brian in the middle at 11. I’m guessing it was taken at Holmdel Park where we used to go sledding and I think the dog may be Rufous (or is it Fritz?), who I don’t remember but for pictures of him.
Walking in the woods or along the beach at any season reveals an endless variety of forms. Nature is full of delicate colors and intricate shapes – the mosaic of a butterfly’s wing, the coordinated movements of a flock of birds or school of fish, the patterns of seashells, the architecture and symmetry of a beehive.
These patterns in nature captivate the naturalist and photographer in me. To those with an inquisitive mind, not content to just gaze in wonder, nature’s complex patterns may provide the added appeal of mystery surrounding artistry.
“And while I stood there
I saw more than I can tell,
and I understood more than I saw;
for I was seeing in a sacred manner
the shapes of things in the spirit,
and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being.”
Native American, Black Elk
Vicki left that quote on the comments to this post a while back. Also in the comments to that post, my brother Kevin made reference to the idea of the divine in nature which he reminds himself of by displaying a few found objects from nature on the shelf in his cubicle. He sees similarities in all apects of nature’s design and believes that if you can’t find God in a pinecone, you won’t be finding Him in church.
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A co-worker of mine also likes to display found objects from nature in her cubicle. She is a budding naturalist (whether she knows it or not, Linda!) and rather than seeking the divine in nature, I think the variety of co
lors and textures are what most appeal to her. Linda is the Martha Stewart in our department, and generally serves as cruise ship director and party planner. She’s good at what she does. She loves baking and interior decorating. She’s also a bit…. I would call her ditzy, but that might sound mean… let’s say instead that she is easily distracted. Vicki did a post about a particular food channel celebrity which contained a description that I think is hilarious and that I like to apply to Linda when her social tendencies are particularly annoying to me on a Monday morning – Linda prides herself on her advanced degree in tablescape architecture. (You’ll just have to go and read Vicki’s post before you’ll understand the reference – go ahead, I’ll wait ’til you’re back).
So the other day I picked up the pinecone you see above from Linda’s cubicle-top menagerie. Turning it over and round and round in my hand I noticed the pattern and turned to Kathy, who God-Bless-Her-Sits-Next-to-Linda, and remarked that it looked to me as if someone had actually taken a sharpie marker and drawn the design you see on each of the scales. Linda was only half-listening at this point, which is her usual state with any conversation. Kathy wondered aloud that anyone would go to the trouble to do this and I said that I thought that, yes, someone had actually gone to the trouble to design it that way. “Really?” Kathy asked. (Kathy and I talk this way all the time – on the surface very mundane, but we both know what we’re really discussing). “Sure,” I told her, “that’s divine design at work”.
At that, Linda’s ears perked up.
“I love Divine Design! Candice Olsen is my absolute favorite! Her designs are so innovative and inspiring. Did you see the last episode when…”
Linda. Gotta love her.
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If we keep our minds and hearts open to it, nature’s creations may delight the imagination and challlenge our understanding of the world around us. How do these patterns develop? What rules or guidelines shape the world we live in?
What draws you to nature – the mystery or the artistry?
“Somewhere in time’s own space there must be some sweet pastured place, where creeks sing on and tall trees grow, some paradise where horses go…” -Stanley Harrison
Some of us (not me) will be busy tonight with the season premiere of American Idol. I have work to do to get my head together to teach the semester premiere of College Reading Skills II tomorrow night. So I’m sharing just this pic of some pretty horses that I pass by on my way to work in the morning.
Just up the road from this peaceful scene there was a car crash last week that killed four people – 3 of them high school students. Friends and family have already begun to erect the sad roadside memorials that seem to take on a life of their own and become the focus of a community’s mourning. Why people should choose to remember a loved one in the place where they met a fiery death is beyond my understanding. I didn’t know these kids and sort of resent being reminded of their passing with sodden football jerseys and crooked homemade crosses stuck in the mud at roadside. I should think they deserve a more dignified rememberance.
They’re young adults just learning to deal with grief and, I suppose, haven’t yet learned to mask it and make it more palatable to others, like we grown-ups do. Their pain of loss is raw and they feel the need to do something to demonstrate how much they’re hurting. I understand that.
Me, I keep my eye on the horses as I pass by. I see the beauty and tranquility of this place and think of a few young boys in too much of a hurry to do the same.
