shades of greens and browns

It has been surreal to have such warm temperatures at this time of year. We took advantage of the mild weather and took a nature walk yesterday. I enjoyed photographing interesting bits of nature and the different shades of greens and browns (and grays and blues and oranges).

(photos taken on Android at the Labrador Hollow Unique Area in Tully, NY)

beach self

it is a lucky thing
to experience beach self.

you know the self...
that one that throws on
yesterday's tee shirt
because it's still pretty clean
the one that walks along cool sand
in bare feet
at 6 a.m. watching the sky
brighten
as the sun rises higher.

whoever you may briefly pass
along the walk
is experiencing beach self too
so all is needed is a quick hello
or nod or maybe no greeting at all.

it doesn't matter
who is a wall street executive or
a new widow
or a worker on a coveted vacation.
beach self is precious and levels all.

beach self swims in the cool ocean
lets her hair air dry all crazy
and takes Instagram photos of waves
and birds
and everything she tries to keep.

everyone has a beach self --
if only they can get to an ocean
loving the sounds of the sea roaring
ocean salty air blowing gently
waves pulsing here here here

like breath inside us
coming in and out
whether we are tired or rested
hungry or full
poor or comfortable
in pain or in joy or in peace.
mind occupied or empty.

wave after wave
one foot in front of the other
walking the sand
avoiding sharp things
and sea weed.

gulls fish and flutter and fly
sandpipers poke and scramble
sea birds sometimes cry out.

we vaguely listen.

© nan, 2015



[Note: I started this poem on my phone this past week. It is a work in progress.]

the way

If you don't change direction, you'll end up where you're heading. (Lao Tzu)

why worry?

That voice . . . I could have Mark Knopfler sing me to sleep. Love this beautiful song. The live performance embedded below features an ethereal solo during the last couple of minutes. The video quality isn't the best, but the song is worth it. A more recent performance with a crystal clear video can be found here. Enjoy.

Why worry? These things have always been the same . . .

all places are alike . . .

"The cat walked by himself, and all places were alike to him."

This is one of my favorite quotations. It comes from a Rudyard Kipling story called The Cat that Walked by Himself. I like it in premise, and I also like it because in the story, turns out the statement just isn't true. So, it makes it very funny. I find that I am a lot like that cat -- both in premise and in truth. This cartoon reminded me to re-read the story and have a little laugh.

Speaking of walking, it is a beautiful and bright sunny day with temperatures around 11 degrees right now (with wind chill, "feels like 2 degrees"). I am excited to get out there and walk with Darci this morning for our constitutional brisk walk. The weather has been so cold, windy and unpleasant lately, that even though we've walked regularly and it has felt good to get some exercise, I have had to tune out the surroundings. Now, I can soak in some sun and convert some vitamin D! I love vacation.

Speaking of "all places are alike to me," the new carpet is in the living room and hall and it looks great! New living room furniture arrives this afternoon. It has been a lot of work preparing for this house face lift, but worth every bit of effort. Next week carpeting will be installed in three more rooms and the place will look really freshed up to get through the rest of this long winter.

We are looking forward to having good friends over for dinner this evening and playing some board games with our boys.

pendulum swinging - redux

As I thought about what to write in anticipation of the New Year, I went back and re-read what I wrote last year at around this time. The more things change, the more they stay the same, and I decided to highlight this post from the archives. I hope you won't mind.

I'm still seeking balance. I am still trying to affirm a positive state in the *present* and not future. I am still working with the ol' pendulum. Aren't we all?

Happiness and health to you in 2009. Please click HERE to be directed to today's (last year's) post.

amazing stroke of luck

This is VERY worth the 18 minutes it will take to view.

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229

[I wasn't able to get the video to play when I embedded it, so I decided not to embed. Please click on the link above.]

Tip of the hat to both Eclecticity and to Ralph who shared this. It is meant to be passed along!

pendulum swinging . . . or, "as the world turns"

This is the time of year when invariably people will start asking each other if they have made any resolutions for the new year. I am certainly fine if people who know me really well ask me this question, because I like the opportunity to articulate my resolve in thoughts and in words in order to give the process more energy. However, I also find that this is a highly personal question, and since most people don't know me well, the question has more of a tendency to annoy me. (Resolution #1: Try not to get so annoyed with people.)

I like the idea of New Year's resolutions even though I always joke back in response to anyone who asks me about mine, "I resolve not to make any resolutions." There is some truth in that statement because in typical Stuart Smalley fashion, I am more likely to make affirmations (and most likely they are silent affirmations) throughout the year. For example, I would never make a resolution like, "I will lose 10 pounds," or "I will stop eating chocolate." To affirm is to have a present experience of mind, and to resolve, while technically meaning making a decision on something, implies a future course of thought or action.

It seems to me healthy to zoom out and think about the human experience and what goes wrong when we don't have balance. And like a pendulum swinging, we try to correct the path in the opposite direction by thinking or behaving in a manner in order to achieve balance. What pulls things out of balance? It comes down to the opposite forces: + and - . Excess/depletion. Greed/impoverishment. Sloth/exhaustion. What were those seven deadly sins again?

Years ago, a friend gave me a matted piece containing some muted green and blue water color strokes and some calligraphy. The text heading is a quote by Aldous Huxley: THE CHOICE IS ALWAYS OURS. And the subtext patterns state: "Mary has chosen the good part - only a few things are necessary, really only one." And then, "art or business - body or soul - T.V. or books - city or country - be or see."

A good life - or a good year - or a good day - or a good moment, therefore, can be about seeking balance. That may mean that the act of seeking is the push and pull of the pendulum in our minds and our actions. The pendulum is moving. That motion is life. For example, where do we put our money, if we have it? What values are we investing in? How are we living our daily lives?

So here are a few things, in no particular order, that I want to think about as I go through the next year seeking balance.

free will / destiny

exercise / rest

empathy / detachment

ground / ether

output /input

impulse /restraint

and of course

good / evil

The long of it is:

I will seek to be patient, kind, and loving, and I will remember that there are times for action, strength, and ferocity

I will try not to lose the forest to the trees - at "the office," at home, and in my coursework

I will work hard, and will try to rest once in a while

I will appreciate beauty and light and will acknowledge darkness and pain

In addition to being responsible and following through on the mundanities of life, I will remember to make time for art, music, literature, and of course, laughing

I will control my thoughts, seek self-discipline, and remember to meditate and pray

And the short of it is:

I will try not to spend so much time searching for and watching Flight of the Conchords videos on YouTube.

In the inimitable words of keyboardist Viv Savage in This is Spinal Tap, I will try to "have . . . a good time . . . ALL the time." No, wait. That wouldn't be balance. Or would it? Are most lives imperfect pendulums swinging out of balance? Or are all lives perfect pendulums in process of finding balance? Hmmm. Maybe therein lies the wabi sabi.

Photo: Foucault Pendulum at the Academy of Sciences, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California from http://www.ltwautomation.com/foucault.html

Clearwater Beach Hello

I traveled all day yesterday - from sub zero wind chill factors to 30s in Philadelphia to 60s in Tampa... en route to my conference here in Clearwater Beach, FL. I arrived in the dark last evening around 8 p.m. not remembering how beautiful it is here. I was here about 10 years ago and hadn't thought it was all that special at the time. For some unknown reason, I see it differently now.

This morning I woke up early to do one of my favorite things. I took a walk on the beach as the sun was rising. The hotels on this beach are set far enough back that when you are walking you get a sense of isolation - as it should be - and there were very few people out. Just me and a few seagulls. I saw a heron of some type flying over the water about 30 yards off. As you may have figured out, I have this thing for birds. Loons, ducks, seagulls and especially herons. It was about 50 degrees outside with a wonderful ocean breeze blowing.

I snapped a few photos on the digital camera and thought about our human need to try to "keep" things. We are always trying to hold onto images. To own them. To remember them as they are. We do this with stories, journals, videos, and cameras. A digital camera, at least the type I have, is a good teaching tool in the lesson that some experiences can't be captured. I looked at the photos I had snapped and I thought, they are not quite adequate. They don't show what I see. And yet, I didn't delete them - though I thought about doing so - because even just a glimpse is sometimes enough. It is enough to hold on to in trying to re-create an experience or a reality. However, we have to be sure that we don't misrepresent with our medium; to take things too far out of context distorts the reality. This surely can be done too. I have been thinking a lot lately about photographs and their meanings and how we view them as I read a very special book, The Lost, about which I will blog soon. I am still trying to get my arms around it. I am nearly finished with it and am reading it slowly and deliberately to get everything I can from it.

Anyway, one of the things I hoped to find on the beach was one special, perfect shell, to bring home to Matthew. He loves the beach as much as I do - and probably more. Everywhere I looked, I could not find the right shell to "get" for him. I had just decided to give up, and was heading back to the hotel, when I spotted the most brilliant, iridescent, purple, blue, green shell. I picked it up. It was shiny and lovely, and yet imperfect and broken. I thought of putting it down in search of a more perfect shell - just as I had entertained deleting several of that morning's photos. And then I decided that it was "enough" - it was beautiful as it was. It was incomplete and yet gave a gift of the beach that was "enough." It was the Japanese concept of "wabi sabi" - perfection in imperfection. The broken shell was wabi sabi - and a perfect metaphor for what I was trying to do. Bring a bit of the beach home to Matthew.

So here are a few imperfect photos from this morning. The conference has been great so far. The sessions have all been good and it is nice to see colleagues from colleges and universities all over the country who do what I do. I will enjoy some seafood down here and will head home to the snow and cold on Sunday when I fly into Ithaca. I know Matthew will love the shell. He will say it is "awesome." And I don't even think he'll notice or care that the shell is not whole.