Category: writing

Ramblings

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I am a little off kilter today. I had a stressful morning just sitting in a courtroom for an hour and a half watching how slowly justice does move (don’t worry, I was there as “the victim,” not the perpetrator!). The thing is I have to go back next week. It saddened me to be there in the first place. I don’t understand dishonesty and lack of integrity or doing things that hurt other people, even if the hurt is not physical.

I am out of sorts.

I’ve been somewhat active this afternoon—filling the bird feeders, playing in the Happy Planner, trying to make stuff.

I just don’t feel like “myself.”  You see, for a long time after the theft (the reason I am in court), I felt as though someone had taken my “life”—my identification, my personal information, the “stuff” that was uniquely mine at that time. I felt violated in a way, that someone had encroached on my personal space and invaded my life. I felt like someone else controlled my life until I could get things pieced back together—new driver’s license, new bank accounts, new credit cards, new Social Security card, new wallet, pocketbook, sets of keys. . . .  It still bothers me that that stuff is still “out there” somewhere for someone to find.

I believe there are more paths to justice than jail sentences. I am willing to explore those alternatives, especially when young people are involved. I have been a teacher for thirty-six years, and I have learned that I never know how my actions will influence and affect someone else. I want to be a good influence, and I want my actions to reflect my faith. I believe in mercy.

However, I am not feeling all that merciful today. I know that petit larceny is not that big a deal. After all, if I had to put a value on the physical things that were stolen from me, it would be less than $100.00. It’s the other things that were taken from me, the things that cannot be priced and replaced, things like trust and faith in other human beings and security. I hate feeling suspicious; I hate feeling that I constantly need to look over my shoulder just to be sure someone isn’t lurking and waiting to snatch something from me. Today, I wanted the defendant in this case to go to jail and for the jailor to throw away the key.  No, I’m not myself today.

I don’t know what the final outcome will be. I won’t know until next week. I do know that, in spite of my feelings, I did extend the hand of mercy this morning. I hope that in doing so, the person who took so much more than a purse with less than $5.00 in nickels and dimes and pennies, will reconsider the path she had chosen that day three years ago. I hope that she is making some changes in her life and that in some small way, I will have helped to make that change.

Justice is slow, not just in the court system, but in life as well.

One Word—Abide

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I’m not sure how long I’ve been selecting a word to guide me for the year. I think I began in 2009 with the word Joy, after we lost everything in the first of two house fires. Since then, I have chosen words such as Intention, Create, and Seek. The word Seek has had special resonance with me, and wants to cling to me as I go into 2016. But so does “abide.”

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This word came to me this morning during my quiet time. I set aside about forty-five minutes to an hour each day to write my three pages of “morning pages” (a la Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way), read my Bible and write in my prayer journal. This morning, after weeks of thinking my word would be “reframe,” which still clings to me, but not in a way that I feel comfortable with, I found the hymn “Abide with Me” floating through my mind.

Perhaps the word came to me because I sometimes think “musically.” I hear melodies in my head, portions of lyrics drift through my consciousness. Or maybe, after weeks of hustle and bustle and busy-ness of the holiday season and all the preparations, I just needed to think of “abiding” in peace and quiet. I had finished a study of the book of Numbers, and while I wait for the next “big” study, I knew I needed to find something that would allow me to abide in God’s word. And there it is: ABIDE; Jesus’s invitation to “abide in me” while I ask him to “abide in me.”

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There it is. My word for 2016—ABIDE. I have “joined” the tribe at One Word 365, a huge community of others who have joined this movement to let a word guide them throughout the year. In addition, I have joined Ali Edwards’ One Little Word class to find ways to keep the word in the forefront during the year.

An old hymn begins, “I don’t know about tomorrow.” And I don’t know what tomorrow or the day after that will bring. But I can begin to abide in today and in God’s love for me and in creation and nature to find that peace.

The End of a Year with “Seek”

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Last year, the word “seek” seemed to be calling my name constantly. I resolved to “seek” after things that made me feel satisfied, that energized me, that settled a longing for “something.” I made “seek” my word for 2015. As I think back over the year, I’m not sure what I found! Well, I found plenty, but I’m not always sure that what I found was what I was seeking.

Perhaps the one thing that I did find was a reconnection with my music. I fell in love with the piano when I was about eight or nine years old. Mama bought a Cable-Nelson spinet and installed it in the living room (you know some houses had formal living rooms back then!). She was my first teacher before we found Mrs. Wessinger, who taught me until I finished high school. I could practice and play for hours, and I did not mind the hard work that went into that. I even thought I could major in music and become a concert pianist.

Those plans did not work out.

When a neighbor and friend gave me his piano a summer ago, I began playing after a LONG time away. I found that music filled an empty spot. During this year, I even engaged a piano teacher and resumed lessons. I was playing Chopin, Brahms, Beethoven, Debussey as I never played before. And I didn’t have to practice scales, arpeggios, or technical exercises before I played the pieces.

I also found a “family” of colleagues with whom I enjoy working. Maria and Kim and Antoinette and I are a “sisterhood” so to speak. We support each other and encourage each other. We laugh and share and have fun. Our students often think we’ve lost our minds when we have music battles before classes begin at 9:00 a.m., but we don’t care!

I am finding my artistic side as well, seeking to discover what I can do, instead of what I can’t. I may never be a da Vinci, but at least the last face I attempted to draw actually looked like a human face instead of a sketch for the latest horror movie mask!

And I am seeking ways to create community through photography. This one is a toughie, though, and it has been hard to figure out the ways to do that.

Now, it is time to choose another word for 2016. I will have to give that some thought.

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It’s not a huge list (yet), but it’s a start.

Belated Gratitude

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It’s Saturday morning, and I realize that I did not post the Thankful Thursday entry. In fact, I didn’t even begin to write until this morning. I can make excuses, and I can give reasons (there is a difference, you know). But I won’t because I’m positive that if I had tried really, really hard Wednesday night, I could have written before I went to bed. I was tired; I was on the border of exhaustion. Not quite, but nearly there. But it is the kind of tired and exhaustion that meant that the day had been well-spent.

As I think back over the week, I know that I have a good life. It may not be the “Martha Stewart” picture perfect or the fairy-tale perfect life, but it is very good. It has been a hard year, though, with so many losses. Yet, in the loss, I have gained much.

This week, I went back to my job at Remington, teaching college-level composition to many students who are not academically prepared for that level of instruction or writing, yet those students are working on the skills and putting themselves into the task. These men and women are working to make better lives for themselves and for their families. They have stories. And I am thankful for every one of them because these people inspire me to keep striving for my own dreams.

Yesterday, I went to the Palmetto Health Baptist Breast Center in The Women’s Place for my annual mammogram. Now, I dread these appointments every single year. I kept trying to get someone from my classes to go in my place, but I had no takers. Still, I am glad that I have that opportunity to go for this exam. Two years ago, my mammogram detected a suspicious lesion in my left breast. It happened to be benign. Still, it was caught early and removed before it had chance to grow into something more serious. I am thankful that I have access to this kind of health care and services.

This morning I woke to a crisp thirty-eight degree morning outside. All I had to do to be comfortable is turn up the thermostat. I am thankful for a warm home in winter (and cool in summer), for shelter from the elements. And as I look out the windows, I am thankful for the sunshine today. Inside, I look around at the orchids that are blooming. God’s glory shines through every morning.

“They” say that naming lists of things for which we are grateful helps us keep positive attitudes even when times are hard. When we are positive, we are more productive as well.

I know that compared to many in this world, I am blessed beyond measure. This Thanksgiving, I will count my blessings, perhaps not one by one each time, but I will look upon life as a gift given to me for this day.

Memories

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On Saturday, I had the pleasure of “shooting” my niece and one of her best friends. Grace wanted color guard pictures. We met at the lakeside next to my church and sent the next hour taking pictures. I had a few poses in mind, but when you have fifteen-year-old clients, you go with their flow. They had their own ideas for poses, including “action shots.”

What made this a special shoot for me is that it brought back memories of my junior and senior years in high school when I was in the marching band color guard. Marching styles were completely different. In 1975 and 1976, we used a strict military marching style. The band marched into the stadium to full cadence (I miss hearing the various drum cadences. Drum taps are just not the same) in block formation. The concert number was played standing still; there was a separate percussion feature. And the color guard performed either band front or in the back. I was part of the honor guard the first year in the band. I carried one of the rifles at “right-shoulder arms.” Occasionally, we went to a port arms position.

The next year, I worked the flag. Yes, I said FLAG. We used the heavy brass pikes with 4 ft by 6 ft silks. We twirled and spun them. We used strict positions: right shoulder, port, and similar positions. The flag work was extremely precise. And if there was any dancing, it was done by a dance team (there were a few) or by majorettes (and there were quite a few of them).

And without further ado, let me introduce you to Grace and Marcy.

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The girls decided not to use all their props or wear their band uniforms. Grace designed and ordered the sweat shirts. (I should have taken some pictures of the back of the shirt!).

I don’t know about the girls, but I enjoyed this photo session.

Thursday Thanksgiving

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I mentioned Monday (or was it Tuesday?) that I spent the weekend in Bennetts Point with Mama. It was a “girls’ weekend.” Mama wanted to check up on the place down there, visit with some friends, and attend the community meeting to see what was going on. She also planned to attend services at the new community church, but it is not yet ready for occupancy. We had hoped to take pictures of the new church, too, but the weather interfered with that project!

It has been a long time since Mama and I have had some extended one-on-one time. You know, she has always been my parent, but also my friend. We connect on many levels. She enjoys reading; I love to read. She has been crafty in her years—sewing, knitting, wood working, some painting. She loves to learn stuff. She is interested in many things. She has taught me much about being independent. I think she was a women’s libber before it was popular! I could easily picture her as one of the original suffragettes!

Daddy was often on the road for his job through the week. He worked construction as a laborer, foreman, and finally job superintendent, until his retirement. That meant he often went where the work was—Owensboro, Kentucky; Hattiesburg, Mississippi; various places in North and South Carolina and Georgia, leaving Mama to raise three children and keep the small farm going. I learned a great deal about being independent, making decisions, and being strong from Mama during those years. Even during these last months of Daddy’s life, Mama was strong. She told me that she had been preparing herself to be a widow for the last thirty-five years or so, ever since Daddy was diagnosed with cancer the first time in 1976.

This week, I am thankful for Mama’s presence and guidance, and most of all, for her love and support. I am thankful that she “gets” me, even though I am sometimes the “odd one out” in my family. She understands my introversion (my brother is the same. It’s my sister who is the extrovert!); she gets my need to create things. She knows who I am perhaps better than I know myself sometimes.

Mama is not exactly camera-shy, but she does not like us to take her picture unless she is ready for it, so I don’t have a candid to share from this weekend. But I do have one image that I love. The bottle bush at the end of the driveway is still blooming in November. There were maybe a half-dozen “brushes” still on the bush. And they were such a vibrant and deep red. (I wonder if they would grow this far inland. I know the oleander that grows around the house at Bennetts Point does not like the Midlands of South Carolina. Mama tried to grow one at her house in Peak.)

Beauty is all around us in all places and in all weather. It just takes us being wide awake to the world.

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(I “messed” with the editing. The red is more muted in this image, and a little “bluer” than it was in real life, but art is about vision, and this is what I “see” in my head.)

Textures on Tuesday

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I spent the weekend with my mother at our getaway in Bennetts Point, a tiny coastal community in South Carolina. It’s located on one of the “barrier” islands in the ACE Basin. The weather didn’t exactly cooperate for great photographic adventures, but we did do a little exploring Sunday morning. We set out toward Yemassee and the Auldbrass Plantation, which is actually a quite modern plantation designed by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright. It was “tour” day, sponsored by the Beaufort Open Land Trust, and it was crowded. We didn’t stop, and I didn’t get any photographs.

Our next destination, in the same area, was the ruins of the Old Sheldon Church. We did stop and walk around the grounds for a bit. And I did get a few images. There were few people there. There were a couple of folks leaving, but there was a painter set up working on a canvas of the church. He told us that he had already spent about sixty hours on the canvas and had about forty more hours to go. And this was on the small canvas. He had a large canvas to paint the same subject later on.

Old Sheldon Church is one of many Civil War ruins resulting from Sherman’s march through South Carolina. Actually, there are two version of the story of the burning of the church. In one version, Sherman’s troops burn the church. In the other version, freemen, slaves, and white citizens “raided” the church for materials to rebuild homes after Sherman marched through and destroyed homes. After the church was looted, it was burned perhaps to hide the evidence. I don’t suppose we will know the true story.

These kinds of ruins fascinate me, not only because the history behind them, but because of the striking visual image they present. Naturally, I did not resist the urge to photograph them.

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This is my final version of the image. I used two layers of textures from the Photomorphis Artistic Background and Painterly Background collections. I changed the blending modes and opacities, and painted off the textures over the church ruins. Then I applied two actions: a vintage action and a twilight action, again adjusting the opacity and painting off the effects to bring out the ruins.

I wanted to achieve a kind of “brooding” look, a little mysterious, a little ominous, to match the history of the ruins.  The ruins are surrounded by graves of folks long dead. I think again of the lines from Emily Bronte’s novel Wuthering Heights when Lockwood, the narrator, looks out over the moors where Katherine and Heathcliff are buried and says that he cannot imagine “unquiet slumbers.” I can imagine the unquiet slumbers around these old church ruins, and can easily picture the men and women who founded the church and attended worship here.

Thursday Thankfulness (It’s Back!)

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I lost track of my Thursday Thankfulness. I began this series, if you want to call it that, about three years ago or so. In 2012, my family moved into our new home, almost six months after a fire destroyed the home we had. I was no longer teaching in a local public school (for a lot of different reasons), and I was feeling the loneliness set in. Then one day, as I was reading some blogs by some Christian women writers, I saw a call to apply to be an (in)courager. Not at all sure what that meant, I filled out the application, and I became a member of the (in)courage team. I co-led a group of empty-nest moms learning how to fly as our fledglings flew from our nests. One of my co-leaders and I devised a “schedule” for the week: tasty Tuesdays where we shared recipes for one or two people and Thankful Thursdays, where we shared our gratitude lists for the week. Even when I left the role of (in)courager, I kept up the practice of Thankful Thursdays.

And then I sort of dropped the whole blogging ball. I went back to work as an adjunct English professor for a local college. It’s part-time work, and my salary is almost a third of what it was as a public school teacher with nearly 30 years experience and National Board Certification, but it suits me at this season.

I have to admit that I do miss having my “boys” around. They are all grown up and have left the nest. One is a public school band director; the other is working his way up in management of a start-up construction business.  They live in opposite (or nearly so) corners of the state, each setting up “housekeeping” for themselves. I have had to find new identities for myself, and I am still figuring it out.

I am thankful, though, that I have this season to pursue my passions. Music has been a big part of my life from the time I began taking piano lessons as a child. I thought I wanted to major in piano performance in college, but I went another path instead. Now, three years shy of sixty years old, I am taking lessons again.

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I always wanted to be an artist, too. I wanted to be able to draw and paint and create beautiful things. I even taught myself some art techniques. But my real art comes from my camera and Photoshop. I am taking this time to learn to use my camera to create art and to capture the beauty in the world. I am thankful for those opportunities.

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And in this season of grief, I am thankful that I have family to support me. This weekend, I will be going out of town with my mother. We are going to Bennetts Point, where she and Daddy bought a one-acre lot, put up a mobile home, and used this place to get away to go fishing, shrimping, or crabbing. We have some work to do to winterize the place. It will be a good time for Mama and I visit. She has always been one my best friends and inspirations. From her, I learned how to be independent, to make decisions, and to “take charge” albeit reluctantly at times. It was so for Mama as well. I’m sure there will be moments of longing for Daddy while we are gone, but I will be thankful for the memories I have of him playing and enjoying himself in this beautiful place.

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I hope that you will join me in this month of gratitude to share your thanksgiving and gratefulness for all the many gifts you have received.

Contemplative Photography Journey—Day 9 (on the 16th)

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This week, I have found the camera. Actually, I’ve been carrying it around. I took it with me to a family reunion on Sunday, and it sat on the table unused. Instead, I spent the time talking with relatives I see only once a year or so, but have contact through social media and email and such.

I made memories.

I mentioned earlier this week that I took my mother on a road trip to North Carolina to get apples and to visit a vineyard for a wine tasting. The camera rode along, but stayed quietly in the back seat. Instead, Mama and I talked and shared memories of Daddy.

Sometimes, it is important to create the images in my head rather than on a camera sensor.

But now, that Canon 7D calls me and begs me to take it out. The part of me that still grieves four losses in the last two months resists that call. The abyss still looms. Yet, in the abyss, I see beauty.

I am reading Freeman Patterson’s book Photography and the Art of Seeing. While Patterson does not call what he talks about “contemplative photography,” it is very much in that vein. He gives the “theory” of learning to see the photograph, not just through the lens of the camera. It is very easy to “point and shoot” with a camera these days, and digital photography makes it easy to shoot images without thinking, as we had to do when we were limited to twenty-four or thirty-six frames on a roll of film. I’m finding that as I practice contemplative photography, I take fewer images and spend more time looking.

Both Patterson and Christine Valters Paintner advocate looking at the world through what Paintner calls a “soft gaze.” Patterson describes it this way: we look at the scene or subject in front of us taking note of what’s there. Then we allow our vision to go out of focus, still noticing, though what is there, this time in terms of lines, shapes, colors. Then we bring the scene back into focus, looking at specifics until we take our vision out of focus. We repeat the process until we are ready to photograph.

As I walk, I seem to walk without that sense of “focus.” I become conscious of color and shape and even lines (although sometimes I think I resist the lines because of my very global learning style and tendencies). And these are the things that I tend to photograph.

untitled-2My red hibiscus is blooming even in October. Warm days and lots of rain have encouraged it. The softness of the color, the yellow and sort of pink and the cone shaped bud captured my attention.

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The purpose of the practice of contemplative photography is not to make great art so much as it is to teach us to see the world as it is. In this practice, weeds become wildflowers, and wildflowers become beauty.

Coming out of the Abyss—Day 8

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It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.

Joseph Campbell

Today, it is time to start the climb out of the abyss and return to the known world.

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Today, I took out the camera and my trusty Zune player, loaded my “Fun” playlist. It is mid-October, and the world is beginning to shift from its summer greens to the oranges, reds, and browns of autumn. The sky this morning was a clear blue, and the atmosphere was clean that the light almost hurt my eyes. Everything seemed brighter, clearer, and sharper.untitled-2

It seems that I have been in the abyss for awhile, wandering around, trying to find my way out. One thing that helps is to look for beauty in whatever form I can find. And using the camera helps me find it. Beauty becomes the boon that lifts me back into the known world.

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