Journey to the American West

It’s a bit before dawn, a noisy damper clanking woke me up. As sometimes happens, my mind starts going and, well here I am.

Yesterday a fellow at work passed away. He was younger than I am. I had seen him just a few days earlier, I think he was talking on his hands free microphone and thought he was talking to me. This often happens and before I realized he wasn’t talking to me, I was talking to him. He looked at me, gave me a wave and turned so I could see the phone, I made an “oops” gesture and continued on my way, and that was it, the last time I saw him.

It makes you feel pretty humble, knowing that we don’t know when the hello or goodbye is the last words we might say to someone. Not that a hi or bye would be especially meaningful, but, it does affirm a person in some way. I say this because when you pass a person you know, and they say nothing, it takes a little something out of you.

Nolen’s passing made me think of lots of you yesterday and today. Lots of students I’ve worked with, staff in the offices (hi to Peggy and Norma) people at the universities, I’m thinking of you all, hoping I said goodbye when I left, good luck when you graduated, thanks when you helped and how much it means to me to be able to dial the phone, and talk with you like it’s only been a week, even if it’s been years. I’m not quite to the “I love you man” stage of life, but I am able to say that to my daughters and steady girl these days. I hope you are too, each time you hang up the phone, or head out the door, because you just don’t know when you’ll get to say it.

I’m thinking of some friends who fight and work hard just to live each day. Kz, you amaze me. You are without a doubt the toughest 75 pound person I know. (http://cancerismybleep.blogspot.com/) You’ll win this fight, I know it. I saw the determination in you years ago at your desk. I tried to talk you out of that design direction knowing how hard it would be but you stuck to it, made it work, and you’ll make this work too, I’m sure of it.

Thinking of you all
Remember to say hi and bye
And to tell those you love
That you do

Be good to each other
Think kindly of each other

Its the second of January and the New Year is underway!

One of the first orders of business was to recycle “treezilla,” an 11 foot tall Fraser Fir that my favorite oldest daughter thought was a “must-have,” “Texas-sized” tree. We had talked the seller down to about half-price and helped him load it into the pickup. It was a good size for the pickup, hanging out the endgate just enough to look respectable. We had stopped by UPS to mail a few gifts to my sisters and brother (who forgot his gift when he left the party?) and the ladies in the UPS store had seen us drive up and when we walked in they said they had been worried we were going to ask them to pack and ship the tree!

It took all Erin, Maggie, and I a bit of wrestling to get treezilla up the stairs, around the corner and into the living room, but once we tipped it up, stood back and looked at it, it was magnificent, and just the right size for the room. Erin was right!

The girls spent an afternoon making snowflakes from paper, some little twisty ornaments from pipe cleaners (a Christmas cat?) and then we all assembled the tree. It didn’t take long to get lights, garlands, ornaments, snowflakes and pipe cleaners on the tree, and it made a beautiful tree. The first Christmas at Brook Hollow. Treezilla, all dressed up, held the room’s attention for a bit over two weeks with its lights and glitz and piney-woods scent. But today I had to take it down.

Its hard to start Christmas all over, with none of the old ornaments or the old angel for the top of the tree, its easier when Maggie makes Christmas cookies, and Erin narrates contemporary culture with her decorating of the cookies, and really, having their energy here in Brook Hollow was the best part of Christmas. It was hard to take them to the airport, but they were still here when the tree was up so it didn’t hit me till just now that Christmas is over.

I took down the garland, snowflakes, small ornaments, pipe cleaners and began repacking the larger glass ornaments in the boxes and was thinking that these spheres of glass in silver, gold and green were pretty anonymous compared to the snowflakes when I came upon a message written on one ornament. It told me they were thinking of me, something that as a parent you secretly always hope but you know they have to live their own lives and that they can’t think of you as often. I tried calling a few times but didn’t get through so I collected myself and finished packing lights, now its just a matter of figuring out how to get an 11 foot tall and 7 foot wide tree through the 3 foot patio door and out on the balcony for a brief flight to the adjacent woodlot….

I sang to the one who holds my heart yesterday, and well, my voice is not so good. Some words disappear completely when they fall out of my narrow gravely range, and…she sang back to me! I’m hoping its a good omen, we both gave our imperfect selves to each other and received the other without judgment, without critique, just openly gave our voices, inches from each other, an amazing moment, one of many, but a good omen for the start of the new year.

My last ramble for the day. We watched a TED talk on vulnerability last night.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html

It was quite eye-opening on the whole subject of acceptance, being accepted, risking hurt to become meaningfully connected. Take a look if you have a moment, its less than 20 minutes and the speaker is pretty entertaining. I’ll replay it today and try to pick up what I missed (as I contemplate how to get treezilla out the door!)

Hope your New Year started safely, and that you were in the company of the one you love.

Be good to each other.

Well, the longest night came…and went. The moon was eclipsed during the solstice, an omen of some kind to be sure. Reports say it turned deep red before being completely covered by the shadow from the earth but…i missed it…

The interesting thing about the longest night is that I always feel a bit more optimistic once it passes because I know the days will grow longer now. I remember living in Fargo, where we’d be going to work in the dark, and coming home in the dark, that this little bit of knowledge, that the nights would not be so deep, made me very happy, and relieved, and optimistic because I knew it was all going to be better.

The season of the long nights is also the cold and flu season. I lived through one variant of the flu yesterday. It started sneaking up on me like the aftermath of a hard gym workout, but by noon it was clear, this was no ache and pain from a workout. The girls and I had driven south and east and were having lunch with someone I’m pretty sure will change my life (another reason for optimism!) We ended up changing plans and Erin drove me back home where I slept another 18 or so hours.

This season of the long night is also the season of giving (hoping I haven’t given my flu!) and the season of receiving.

I’ve written about receiving before, about being a good receiver, so I won’t go into that now. Gifts are a way to tell someone “I was thinking about you,” “I think about you as I made this,” it might be a scarf, or a homely table but, its the thought that counts, wait, I’ve heard that before! Thinking about someone else while making, while wrapping, while presenting the gift nervously, is all good energy sent into the cosmos. All of us sending good energy out into the world is what makes Christmas the optimistic season of giving.

Its an incredible thing really. If 200 million people in the U.S. send positive energy out across the miles its as though there’s a net of positive energy all over the place! Optimism could run rampant! True, there are tempering forces…that argument that always happens at Christmas dinner (turkey or goose?) or that thing that the guy did that kind of irritated you, or even the exuberance for a deity that you aren’t completely on board with, or the cost that’s often associated with thinking about your loved ones through gifts and such. Put all that aside in the next few days though, make cookies! eat cookies! Sit at the table together and cherish the moment. We all know these moments of peace and optimism are fleeting. Take in every smell (well ok if the flu is in the house not every smell) cherish the colors, the glimmer of the sunset on the tree filled with ornaments, the wrappings on the gifts under the tree, the sounds of Ralphie choking up in Santas lap, or of Vince Guraldi playing the Peanuts Christmas music.

Take it all in.

Be there with your loved ones.

See what you are part of, what your year has made,

and love it.

Be good to each other, I’ll talk to you again on a longer day!

The Geminids are coming!

Well they’re here, mostly this predawn and tomorrows. I’ve been out a few times tonight trying to shade my eyes from the lights of my neighbors yards and stay warm long enough to see the bits of ice and stone flare up as they scratch across our atmosphere.

You can’t stand in the cold at 2, 4, and 6 A.M. hoping to see the meteorites and not think of these words

“When you wish upon a star,
Makes no difference who you are,
Anything your heart desires will come to you.”

I think I heard these words weekly watching “The Wonderful World of Disney” just before the Ed Sullivan show on Sunday nights growing up. Its funny how when you’re 10 or 15, those words seemed meaningless but I find myself both remembering them and hoping their message is true.

“It may be its the time of year, or maybe its the time of man…” those words from Joni Mitchell are rolling around in my head too as I was waiting for a shooting star. Its a time of uncertainty, I feel it in me and in people around me, like everyone is waiting for the other shoe to drop, but hoping it doesn’t. The economy is the question for most, and I couldn’t help but think how many other eyes were trained on the sky with me in the night, wishing for a few more weeks of work, or a callback from an interview, some way to put Christmas light in the lives of their children or loved one.

But it may be mostly the season of the long night that has us looking at the dark sky, hoping our eyes will adjust and catch a glimpse of the miracle of the shooting star. Most people don’t seek out the night, maybe its the way humans are wired, we try to survive the night, to work and dance in the light of day.

We use wishes to help stave off apprehension, help push back the veil of personal failings, and let us once again enter the light of grace, the light of the day, the light of family, and given how spread out most families are today, this wishing season is the season of family, and we all wish for it to be like it was, laying on the carpet around the 12 inch black and white tv, waiting for Ed Sullivan.

Yes, you’re right, I’ve avoided telling you the wishes I made tonight. You know the categories though, wishes for my daughters, wishes for the one who holds my heart and her family this week, wishes for Fred’s family this holiday, and wishes for us all that we make it through the long night and earn our way back into grace.

Tiny Tim (no not the one with the ukulele) had it right with his closing, I’ll end today being happy to share the sky with you tomorrow night when the Geminids appear in full force, wishing you all get your wish.

Bring your light to your family this holiday season, it will warm you.
Take care, be good to each other.

A few minutes ago I received an email from my friend Steve, letting me know that a fellow who was one of my life-models, Fred, passed away this last Friday.

I first met Fred at MTL in Fargo in the summer of 1976. Fred was the quiet fellow who sat in the back of the office under the mezzanine in what was the most “permanent” of all the workstations out in the big room. That summer was filled with the excitement and terror of a first job in my profession. The partner in charge had assigned me my work schedule as he walked me to what was to be my workplace … “On mondays you build models with David, Tuesdays you follow me around jobsites, Wednesdays you pick up redlines for Fred, Thursdays you help Harold and Steve, and Fridays you work on your project, its a bank in Casselton, the owner has fired pretty much every firm in town and now its our turn and its your job.”

I was excited, and not smart enough to be worried about how much I didn’t know…yet. Drafting was not too much of a problem, and the instructions I had been given was, “whenever you don’t know something, ask Fred.”

Redlining is an easy task, which is really making corrections on drawings. The job captain, Fred, would make a set of blueline prints, or have a new person like me make them by placing the transparent drawing sheet (a two foot by three foot piece of beautiful linen fabric!) over a paper sheet with a green chemical coating on it. You’d push these two sheets through a machine that had a UV? light that burned off all the coating except what was blocked by the lines of ink or graphite. Then you’d put the sheet through the upper part of the machine which would turn the green lines to blue (or black depending on the paper) by exposing them to anyhdrous ammonia…a pretty stinky process and if you spent enough time doing it, and were exposed to ammonia long enough, can’t be great for your health either.

Once the blueline prints are prepared, my job pretty much was to put away the drawings, and give the prints to Fred, or Steve, or Harold. They’d look over the drawings very carefully, looking for incomplete thoughts, errors in materials, or assembly, or drafting errors that could cause confusion in the field. They’d mark up these drawings with a red pencil, and add the next level of detailed information to each page, then hand off the “redlined” sheet to someone like me who’d go get the right drawing page (yes, I “corrected” a drawing from the wrong building set once!) and tape it down, then erase, redraft, reletter or whatever as directed by the redline.

Fred made great redlines, so did Steve and Harold, who’d been taught by Fred, and David, and Rick, and Kerry, come to think of it, Fred taught all of us to be precise, to think, not just draw, and to stay calm. I remember my first visit to the construction site of the first project I ever had project architect responsibility for. It was a 12 unit elderly housing project in Ulen, Mn. We’d been called the day before by the builder to officially inform us they would be pouring the foundations the next day. I drove up and…clipboard in hand, walked around the formwork, looking inside as Fred had told me to, checking for pop cans, debris, souvenirs, and counting the bits of steel to make sure it was all there. I had walked by the corners a few times, and thought something wasn’t there, looked again and realized the rebar that would tie the corner together wasn’t in the form. By this time the concrete drivers had joined along as I looked, checked the drawing, looked again and almost apologetically asked the superintendent “where are the corner bars?”

The crowd got bigger as more concrete trucks arrived, the drivers being impatient to dump their loads and get on with their day. Most looked at my age and gave me improvised reasons why corner bars weren’t needed. The superintendent joined in saying the steel fabricator hadn’t sent them so they must not be needed. It was pretty intimidating, but I remember Fred saying I should call if I had a question so, I went to the job shack (no cell phones back then) and called Fred. He checked the office set and told me what was likely to happen if there were no corner bars, and that since they were on the drawings, and the drawings are part of the contract, that the builder would be in violation of the contract terms if they weren’t installed, then Fred said, “look around in the weeds, I’ll bet there all piled there.” I hung up, walked out into the crowd, walked to the tall grass around the excavation and sure enough, there were the bent rebars. I picked one up, walked back to the job shack and told the super that they bars were in the tall grass, that they must have missed them during installation and that “Fred says if there are no corner bars, we won’t be able to recommend that the owner pay at the end of the month, and will recommend removing all the concrete and starting over.” That did it. The super had his crew digging through the grass, tearing forms apart and even the concrete drivers joined in, then successfully poured the foundations.

Thanks Fred.

That was one of many many things Fred helped me learn, helped me understand that when on the job and discovering a mistake, to treat it as such, give the fellows a chance to make it right, or don’t recommend payment until its done right. No ego, no raised voices, no smugness, just facts and business. That’s when I started learning professionalism.

Fred built a cabin for his family on a beautiful Minnesota lake. I felt honored that he invited me along to help frame it on cold autumn mornings. I never saw it finished, but know that Fred did it beautifully, precisely, and without any angst. He knew how to put a building together and was happy to share that knowledge with everyone in the office.

Friday, I didn’t know he was passing away. I had spent the day sitting with students talking and sketching wall sections with them. I have a pretty good idea how to put buildings together today, and I know he taught me that. So, to Tammi, Jason, and Amy, I was channeling Fred on Friday as we spoke. I shared with you-all as Fred shared with me.

Please share what you know with those who want to learn. Its a gift and even though they don’t realize it then its a way of building a culture. Fred built us, helped all of us become some of the few who could pass the licensing exam at first sitting, and unfortunately, at the time, we didn’t credit him enough. He never sought credit, was happy doing a job well, living a life well, and as a result made the world a little better.

Thanks Fred
Share with each other, look out for each other as we approach the longest night.

Well, its Thanksgiving! For my new subscribers from Eastern Europe, Happy Thanksgiving! I’m not sure why you all subscribe but hope you find these posts of some interest.

As I remember my elementary school history, Thanksgiving was a party, a feast, a full dinner at the very least. But as I consider that first event, it was an alliance, a celebration of collaboration between two peoples. I find it interesting that the “weaker” of the peoples pretty much saved the “stronger” of the peoples by teaching them how to survive in a new land….and ultimately, the “stronger” forgot and today those peoples who taught survival are not so visible anymore.

Getting on in the world is usually a collaborative effort. We form alliances, partnerships, joint-ventures in the business world to survive and flourish as companies and corporations, and ultimately the “weak” who teach the “strong” get bought out, or are competed-out of existence in the market and the teachers disappear from history. (What was the name of the two fellows who’s company became a core brand of GM?)

I believe it is the nature of the generous to allow themselves to be seen as not “strong” maybe its because they know…that they know…and don’t need to posture, puff up, or pretend to be strong out of fear. Those who “know” are confident in the knowing and can share their knowledge freely. Maybe because they know their fate is to be forgotten by history? Or are they comforted by that trend?

… I’m off track… Today I remember those who taught me, and thank them. They each helped to make me a person who works to teach, to be a teacher. Not all my interactions with these people was positive…a torn collar here, rapped knuckles there, a few harsh words directed to my rather informal study habits. But Thanks is still deserved to Miss Baezel, who in 1958 helped acclimate me to the civil habits of school attendees. To Mrs Ames, and Mrs. Blanchard, Sister Maria Goretti, who could make the best squirrel sound imitation I’ve ever heard. To Sister Ethelina who I’m afraid, I pushed beyond her patience on more than one occasion; to Mrs. Barranco, Sister Angelica, and Mr. Barry, who taught us words like obfuscate and ostracize…see? I still remember!

To Mr. Lane who taught me to draw!

To Larry and Alice Loh, who taught me to see problems as components, to Ron who showed me Fearless Frank Furness and led me to Owatonna, to Cecil who taught me to teach, to Bill and Jaan who taught me to become comfortable with my limits, and see wonder in the world around me. To Ben who taught me to respect the sun, and Greg who showed me the inner workings of Frank Lloyd Wright.

To Cornwall and Gary and Knule, who taught me patience and steady work.

To Steve, Harold, Fred, and even Bob, who taught me how to build, and how to be a professional. To Seth who taught me (by a series of dubious events) how to protect myself in business.

To my Dad who taught me how to be an adult with your parents.

To Frank and Ron, and Carlos and Mike, who taught me how to (kicking and screaming though I was) to be a scholar in my field.

To Sam and Dan who taught me how to be an entrepreneur in research.

To Ed, and Tom, and Ron, and Eloise, who taught me how to be a team player.

To Melinda and Ginger who taught me that commitment to craft matters, and to Mallory who taught me that a team can work hard and still have fun together. (A lesson that’s hard to keep alive in the team)

To my daughters who teach me strength and courage.

I think of you all, more often than a person might expect and thank you today, for teaching me how to survive and flourish.

Think of your teachers today, history usually only remembers those who vanquished others with their acquired knowledge, maybe this informal e-history tool will let us remember those who helped them survive.

Be good to each other!

Here’s wishing your turkey is perfect, your dressing well-cooked, and that your pie doesn’t start your oven on fire!

The low light of Fall has re-entered the painting space in Brook Hollow these days. Its low angle usually projects the balcony pickets onto the canvas, a texture I usually work to “not see” but its made me think this morning about shadows.

I finished a three part series which used some faded blooms of iris and lily today too. Its not that the partially-dried flowers represent anything, I enjoy them for their variable translucency, delicate inner structures, and colors that persist through the drying process. They also just “are.” I don’t form them or idealize them, they just “are” and this “are-ness” is something I enjoy in the painting/assemblages. Its a factor I can’t control, and have to try to read in order to make the next action. Maybe it is a form of dialogue with something that’s past. The iris bloomed one day, was cut and sold then next and the curls of the petals, the delicate veining beneath the surface, all were part of its life and being able to concentrate on that and appreciate it helps me to try to keep it “alive” in some sense on the canvas. Odd isn’t it?

Fall is a time of harvest for many people, and I can see that the walking through the fields (does a John Deere combine “walk?”) discovering and collecting the grain, fruits and vegetables is maybe the origin of walking door to door collecting candy, a symbolic sharing of our “bounty.”

There won’t be many trick or treaters stopping in at Brook Hollow tonight I don’t think. The bowl of candy will have to find another home (wake up incentives for my lectures attendees!) and its a bit too bad to not be able to share my “harvest” of milky ways and twix (twix being especially hard to pick from the twisty twix twee) but I’ll look for other ways to share.

The low light of Fall will get even lower come the holidays, we’ll share the longest night and celebrate it, making festival from fear with lights and food and gifts made with the time we don’t have to spend tilling our fields and tending our crops, in some ways, the fact that most of us don’t till or tend, or if we do, we till and tend on top of a full time job can take most of the pleasure out of the seasons. Maybe these days the best gift to give is our time.

In the meantime, holiday making season is upon me, time to get producing for friends and family! Maybe this year, in this economy we should put a tiny bit of time in on a gesture, instead of taking that part time job to afford purchased gifts…lets put ourselves in our gifts instead of our credit line! Now I have to think, which sister is a right spiral and which is a left? What to make for an accessorizable daughter, What to make for a minimalist? How can I ship a table to a brother? And what is the form of box for a handmade truffle? Somehow these questions make me think of all of you, and fills the cold husks of fall with warm memories. Thanks!

Think of each other this season, be good to each other, and share your bounty (not the paper towels!)

Its a hard day today. Nine years ago we were all in shock from the events of the day, today, somehow its harder to know all the details, to hear the radio calls, the last phone calls from flight 93, the sadness that’s still in the voice of firefighters. Its just a hard day.

As a parent of a responder, you somehow never think your daughter, or someones spouse or father or mother is at risk when they get in the truck and run towards the disaster. I feel that risk more now.

And what can one say about the heroes that day. They were among the trained, and among the ordinary people around us every day. American heroes, fighting back with hot water and soda cans, pulling at steel with bare hands, prying at concrete debris with whatever was at hand.

They showed us the best of America that day. People willing to fight for the lives and freedom of people they didn’t know on the ground, willing to risk their lives to try and get one or two more out of the fires in New York and Washington. They are the best of us, what we all hope we’re up to when the situation calls for us. We fight, we risk, we die for the principles of freedom, fair play, doing the right thing.

Don’t ever fight for retribution, there is no payback for inhumanity, there is no justice in denying anyone their rights under the law. Fight for the rights of all of us, no matter what language we speak, no matter what we call our God, the strong protects the weak, its the American way.

Never forget. Always be willing.

Take Care of each other, even if you don’t know who you’re caring for.

I think my painting period is coming to a close.

I say this because the paintings are becoming less about paintings and more about process and narrative, and there are some bits that make them more three dimensional or techniques that make them ultra two dimensional and its becoming tricky to manage to call them paintings at this point.

What I’m calling process pieces are less about the process of making and more that they include some element that is responsive to something other than the brush and paint. I enjoy this because I don’t control it. I do try to cajole it most of the time. Trying to convince it to make a graceful arc, or a convincing knot. But by and large, the material makes up its own mind about what to be…and then I try to find the next act…”well if you’re going to be like that then I’ll put this next to you” …and then the “this” takes on its own will and I look for the next move…its like a game of chess I try to outthink the material, but the material usually has its own way, and at some point, I agree with it and try to help it become more of what it is.

This is a good example of what I’m trying to say. The wood fibers have their own history. Drought, solar access, injury, nutrition, all have shaped each set of cells that make up the fiber. This history affects the fiber’s ability to make a tight turn, or stand straight, or curve gently or tightly. It took me a while to accept this, and a while more to be able to offer the fiber some discrete assistance.

The wood fibers move a lot, because they are largely unrestrained, and because the humidity here varies quite a bit. So each day on the wall, each time I relocate the piece (i don’t have too many walls that are receiving parallel light) its different in ways I can see and appreciate. It could be that if my eyes were better educated, I could see the difference in color, shadow and texture in the other paintings throughout the day too. But the nuances are too difficult for me to see. It could be a question of patience.

All this is to say today I started cleaning up the painting place in the living room. Not the way most people would clean…I thought I’d try and put most everything that was on the table, onto a canvas…but not all at once!

So today I was making a spot for some silver wire and brass rods that were leftover.

And like usual, there was paint leftover, so, waste not want not…I took another canvas and the nearby mixing bowl, outlined the bowl and began working the leftover indigo and gray into the edges of the circle, pulling to center. The darkest paint went to the center and the overall effect was…uninspired. So, given that this piece was shaping up poorly to my eyes, I took bits of wood fiber that were laying about, and cut them over the top of the painting. As the fibers fell into the acrylic they made their own pattern which I realized was a function of both what i was cutting with the scissor, and where I stood to cut it. I moved to the second side of the painting and cut some more. The pieces fell as they might. There was some ribbon that I had gesso’d into to a canvas months ago, the pulled out to leave the line subtracted in the surface. It had red paint and gesso on it and so sometimes fell heavily when snipped, sometimes floated down. I noticed that when the air conditioning came on the ribbon moved on the air currents until I hit a gesso spot, then it fell heavily.

So there is a lot that I’m not controlling specifically in this one, and I’m not sure how to hold the fragments more or less where they fell. I’m thinking of a gesso pour over the whole thing to try and hold all the bits. What do you think?

The last stage of this might be for me not to control the title. You’ve seen the captions get long and maybe too convoluted or cryptic. Partly I’m not sayin’ what i’m thinkin’ when I make these paintings and things, and partly the naming is a reaction to the photo more than the painting itself. Regardless, I was thinking it would be interesting if you named this one, if you’d like, if it strikes you…

I’ve been giving paintings away lately and hope whomever gets them takes the opportunity to rename them…mostly i hope they don’t end up in the trash! If nothing else paint over them to recycle the canvas and stretchers!

Anyway, time for work.

Take care of each other. Enjoy the beauty of things you can’t control, and try not to control too much..

I’ve written a bit about song lyrics in the past. Some days certain words or phrases just seem to jump out and grab your attention.

The last few days, a few lines that I’d wasn’t able to hear clearly during the performance caught me.

The song is “Another Day” from the broadway show “Rent.” Its got a few good lines;
“forget regret”
“or life is yours to miss”
“no other road”
“no other way”
“no day but today”

I think of this in the context of the speed of life today. There’s always a text waiting for answer, an email waiting, a facebook post to respond to…and when we’re forced away from the smartphone or the computer, we rush, and in rushing around, we miss things, miss people, miss moments that are all around us.
The wind here has been blowing out of the southeast lately. It pushes a lot of moisture up from the gulf so our afternoons and evenings are filled with flashes and booms and torrents of rain. I’m pretty isolated from it in my concrete office building, but the roar of downpour is unmistakable. Yesterday after the roar ended, and the spritzing was still in the air, I walked from the office to the car. Its about two or three blocks but its not a walk through a neighborhood, its mostly through other parking lots. My eyes were drawn to the little clusters of leaves blown out of the trees, the swirling sand at the curb, the storm drain in full gurgle. I’m not sure why. Maybe the noise or the presence of curved things in the rectangle-ruled world of a parking lot caught me.
Either way, it slowed me down.
I’ve been carrying a camera to help me slow down and see the world around me and I found I had to work a bit to take it out of my pocket and take a photo of … what? … sand? … a storm sewer? It seems odd, things that are not especially photogenic and we walk by, but the camera asks us to actually look close, to SEE it, and try to frame it, to BE in the sun (in order to get the sun where it needs to be for a good photo) and it turns out, it slowed me down. I forgot all about linked learning outcomes, about impending layoffs, all sorts of things that weigh on us all, disappeared into that picture…which turns out was not a keeper!

Which is all to say, it probably is true, life is less about the destination, and more about the trip.

One other line from this song;
“give in to love”
“or live in fear”

That one I can’t connect to the parking lot.

But I think its something we all dream about.
Take care of each other.
Use that smartphone to take some pictures between here and there, it’ll help you to slow down for just a few minutes.