tongue and groove

TECLOPOLIS

if you can spare 12 minutes, this is a beautiful stop-motion film. gorgeous visuals. brilliant storytelling.

Poetry the movie

Poetry looks like a beautiful film. from the NY Times review: "The importance of seeing, seeing the world deeply, is at the heart of this quietly devastating, humanistic work from the South Korean filmmaker Lee Chang-dong."

here's the trailer:

i feel as if i've been holding poetry at arm's length lately...pretending i don't even know it. for me, poetry requires a quiet engagement...a diving-in that on the surface can feel like a simple act...yet one that requires my willingness to open to expansiveness.

which poets have you been reading lately?

for my people

all i could think while watching this video was: that chair is my life...and i'm trying to live within its confines. that thought sat there through the whole video...and i allowed myself to enjoy watching a dancer who's close to my age move her body so beautifully. i let my dancer (i'm sorry i buried you so long ago!) revel in the pleasure of this.

a message to our younger sisters

Jamie Ridler has a new project at Roots of She called The Elder Sisters Project. as i've told Jamie, i have some, shall we say, issues with the word "elder." :) but i adore Jamie and i'm trying to look past that label to see what she's trying to create with this new project. she has a post today asking those of us who are a little older if we'd like answer some of the questions she's received from younger  sisters--questions they'd like to ask someone who's, say, 10 years farther down their life path. these are the questions:

• What do you wish you'd done more of? Less of?
• What should I be sure that I do now?
• Would you have changed anything about the last 10 years?
• Do things keep getting better or worse?
• What do you wish youíd known earlier?

i feel like most of the wisdom i'd share with younger sisters is in the birthday post i wrote a couple of days ago, but i'll do what i can to add to that post by addressing these specific questions. let me preface this by saying that i have no answers for anyone other than myself. all i can do is share my truth. and it would be helpful for you to know that i've been clean and sober for 20 years, because a lot of my wisdom, if i have any at all, is largely the result of simply showing up every day and dealing with whatever life brings without numbing myself. 

for me, the answers to the first and third questions are the same:  i don't believe in regrets. are there habits or routines i wish i'd been more diligent in doing? oh, sure. i wish i'd been meditating and exercising and taking dance classes regularly over the last 35 years or so. but in the larger scheme of things, i wouldn't un-wish anything that's happened in my life because there are vital lessons to be learned in even the most crushing hurts. and without that pain--without experiencing those kinds of lows--one can't fully appreciate the highs when they show up. those moments when one feels genuine joy or contentment feel so much better when they're tinged with what's come before them. have you ever had a really hard cry where you're overwhelmed with heaving, wracking sobs and can barely breathe? of course you have. it's not fun to cry like that, but don't you feel cleansed afterward? isn't there a certain kind of beauty that comes in those moments when you feel so completely spent, as if whatever was causing you such pain and torment can't hurt you in those moments. you don't even care that your eyes are swollen and your face is blotchy and your nose won't stop running. in those moments you just want to curl up and sigh and just...be. yet the beauty lies in knowing that the worst has passed. things can only go up from there. we can't change or undo the past, so regret is really wasted energy. just embrace what comes and look for the light and goodness in whatever life hands you on a platter.

in answer to the second question i would say this:  you should steer clear of any shoulds. ;)  seriously. eliminate that word from your vocabulary as much as possible and i promise you'll be happier. i have a magnet on my refrigerator that serves as a reminder: "I just should myself."

i'm not a big fan of viewing life through a comparison filter. how can i possibly judge whether something feels better or worse for someone else? my better might totally feel like your worse. as you grow older, will you sometimes look in the mirror and wonder, "who the hell are you?" hell, yes! :) it sucks getting older on the outside, but that's only because we don't feel older on the inside. that's why it's such a shock when we encounter that stranger in the mirror. i can remember being about 20 and overhearing my mom and aunt talk about their experience at their 25-year high school reunion. they were talking about guys in their class who still looked pretty good. i was completely grossed out! ohmygod, those guys were ancient! they had to be, what, 42!  ;)  i just turned 56. when you get to be my age, you'll realize how young 42 seems. all i'm trying to say is that it's all relative. don't worry about better or worse because for every change you'll experience on the outside you'll have gained so much more wisdom on the inside. and who would you rather be:  someone who still looks 25 but has no clue about life, or an older woman whose outside might not be what it once was but who can share her wisdom with others?

the last question echos the first and third ones. you can't know...until you get there. i wrote about that in my birthday post. there are lessons i've known for 30 years that i still have to keep relearning sometimes. we try to impart some of our hard-won wisdom to the children in our lives, but they have to go through it themselves. they have to make their own mistakes and sometimes make the same ones repeatedly until they get it. i don't spend time wishing i'd known something earlier because if i had, i'd have missed out on some really important lessons. anyone can skate through life on beauty...it's our mistakes that make us truly beautiful.

expertise is overrated

"I just kind of started doing it...My lack of knowledge in the beginning really helped and really just made me refine what little I knew."  ~The Sartorialist

whatever it is...that secret idea you've had squirreled away for someday...take it out, dust it off, let it see the light of day. breathe some life into it. don't wait for permission or for someday...just start doing it...now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

if you missed it earlier this week, i hope you'll check out my La Salonniere interview with the very talented musician and filmmaker Eric Shiveley.

there's a brand-new interview--and a surprise--coming on Monday!

reverb 10 - wisdom

i've been composing my Reverb 10 posts first thing in the morning, but this has been a day filled with interruptions, starting with the phone call that woke me from a deep sleep. it's taken me until late afternoon to finally have the time and clarity to answer today's prompt.

when i first read Susannah Conway's prompt--"Wisdom. What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out?"--i thought of one answer. a couple of hours later, i thought maybe it was something else. my mind ricocheted back and forth between various answers in between lending assistance to loved ones and answering phone calls and running errands. and then it hit me:  what's the one thing that has remained unchanged this entire year...the one constant that never wavered despite setbacks and disappointments and unexpected news? 

the wisest thing i did this year? stay sober. i've been sober 20+ years. as i hinted at in my "party" post below, i'm not really keen on being around drunk people anymore, but that doesn't mean that the thought of drinking never enters my mind. for those of you who drink (even the tiniest bit), think how lovely it is to enjoy a nice glass of wine or a cocktail or even a beer after a really stressful day. there were moments this year when i could have really used something to take the goddamn edge off, ya know?  :) but i didn't take the edge off because i know where it can lead (for me). the longer i stay sober the stronger my emotional muscles get. i know what it feels like to get to the other side of pain without numbing myself and i can't even describe how empowering that feels.

my sobriety is at the root of any wisdom i've acquired over the last 20 years, yet you'd be shocked how quickly i can forget that in moments when i feel overwhelmed with putting out fires and dealing with family drama. sobriety reminds me that the good moments wouldn't feel nearly as good if i hadn't gone through some dark ones. it's at the very core of my being because i've worked so hard to maintain and nurture it.

so if you ask me how that's worked out for me this year, i can only say this:  i'm still sober. sobriety touches my life with grace because it allows me to feel. and it shows me something beautiful every day.

 

reverb 10 - wonder

the day 4 Reverb 10 prompt is from Jeff Davis who asks how we cultivated a sense of wonder this year. that's easy...i communed with nature...i breathed in Mother Earth.

today's A Month of Music video was an easy choice. this is the amazing Lizz Wright singing the jazz standard, "Nature Boy," accompanied only by her percussionist. [bonus:  a great percussion solo opens the clip.] close your eyes, take a deep breath, listen to Lizz weave her magic with this song and take the message of it to heart. then go out and touch some nature.  ;)

 

capture

i've been shooting photos since a family friend handed me a black & white film camera when i was eight years old and let me take pictures at the San Francisco zoo. then, because he was a high school photography teacher, he took me the school's film lab on a weekend and let me develop them myself in the darkroom. i've been in love with photography ever since...even though i don't know the first thing about it and use almost exclusively basic point-and-shoot cameras.

what i love is the action of photography. i love capturing an image. anyone who knows me well will tell you that i'm not someone who cares about owning things. i've given away my possessions time and time again as i've moved and moved into different chapters in my life. what i do love to collect are memories...and photographs help me to collect them.

i also like to play with photography...to be silly or absurd...to care less about making pretty pictures than about stepping outside of my comfort zone.

i might get down in the gutter and shoot the 'trash' there... 

or take a walk around the block, shooting random photos in all directions but never once holding the camera up to my face...it's interesting to shoot over your shoulder...to see what you've just left or passed...

or to suddenly realize that as somone who spends a lot of time browsing in libraries or through thrift store bookshelves you've never captured what the view looks like from down there... 

there's a lot of technique in photography as an art. you may use a little or a lot of it. i use, well, none. i shoot with intuition and whimsy...because i'm not shooting for anyone's pleasure except my own.

if you ever find yourself questioning your uniqueness, you have only to look at your photographs. they're hard evidence that no one sees the world exactly the way you do. i know lots of people who shoot beautiful photographs, but i don't try to emulate them nor do i aspire to achieve their pretty results. it's not that i don't admire their work...i do. it's just that i can only capture what *i* see...and that's enough for me.

playing the part

the other day Jamie wrote a lovely post called The Vulnerability of Desire. she referenced the line from poet Mary Oliver that says, "You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves." in that post, Jamie talks about fearing that she might be judged as not being down-to-earth if she's honest about some of the things her soft animal craves. it's a spot-on post and i encourage you to read it.

following up on that idea, today Jamie asks us for Wishcasting Wednesday, "What does the soft animal of your body wish for?" i read that prompt very early this morning and then spent some time thinking about what i crave and truly love.  i thought about places i love. i thought about activities i like to do. i thought about locations and things that make my heart sing. and then i drew inward and thought about something very, very basic...about my physical self. i thought about how over the past several years i've allowed circumstances and some unpleasant experiences fuel an urge to be invisible. i thought of how i often leave the house to run errands without so much as brushing my hair. (granted, i have a cut where you can't really tell, but still.)  :)  i thought of how i have a jewelry box full of cool stuff, most of which goes untouched most of the time. i though of the great, funky handbags i own and those leopard-print stilettos that sit most of the time gathering dust in the closet. i thought of how now that i'm at home all of the time, i can get unbelievably lazy...wearing the same, comfy items over and over. 

part of the problem is my current environment. we live in a college town that feels uptight to me. i have often felt most like myself when pounding city streets...San Francisco, Portland, L.A., New York, New Orleans, Paris. and yet i love a good road trip, especially through the wide open spaces of the West. i love kitschy small towns. i love the Caribbean. i'm a mass of contradictions, but the bottom line is that i love to travel. i love to go. 

but no matter where i am or what i'm doing or where i'm headed, one thing is a constant:  i have a certain basic wardrobe that makes me most feel like me. give me skinny jeans (even though i'm not 'supposed' to wear them, given my age. f*ck that, i still rock those babies!)...a long white shirt...flat ankle boots to pound the pavement or flip-flops in warm weather...leopard print heels...newsboy caps (i own several)...a big, slouchy shoulder bag...a long black coat...beaded bracelets...when the weather chills, long scarves and long slouchy sweaters.

i've often read interviews with actors where they've talked about how the right wardrobe can often help them to truly inhabit a character. i think that applies to everyone, even if we don't realize it. i'm not talking about artifice...about using clothes to fake an identity. i'm actually talking about the complete opposite...about putting on that which feels so right that we can't help but feel comfortable in our own skin.

so in answer to Jamie's prompt, i wish to start loving myself enough to wear the wardrobe that feels so utterly right that i couldn't possibly play anyone except myself.  ;)

earth

yesterday i saw a post from Leah that her Creative Every Day theme for October is earth.

EARTH.

i love nature, even though i'm not even a really an outdoors-y person in a lot of ways. i don't believe in organized religion, but if you ask me if i believe if there's something at work that's larger than egocentric humans, i have only to look at nature to know my answer. i'm awed by nature. it literally boggles my mind....whether it's the topography of the land, the vastness of its bodies of water, the species that inhabit it or the overwhelming space that surrounds it.  nature blows my sh*t away.

this photo was taken in July of this year on a lake about half an hour from my brother's home in South Dakota. my brother spent the first 49 years of his life in Northern California. a year ago, he and my sister-in-law bought a home in a tiny village of 270 people and relocated their family to rural, eastern South Dakota. we all wondered if they were crazy, of course. what would they do there?  surely they'll go mad from boredom, especially when winter weather rolls in and they feel trapped. this is a couple used to traveling (a lot) and often to metropolitan areas. they love fine dining and luxurious accommodations. my sister-in-law loves spas.  they're going to go live in the country?! 

this summer i spent the first two weeks of July in South Dakota, visting my brother's family and enjoying certain parts of South Dakota and western Minnesota. one evening  my brother said he wanted to take my niece and i out on a lake, to go fishing for walleye. here's where i should interject that i'd never been fishing. i'd begged my father to take me fishing with him once when i was about eight, but when we got to the riverbank and he told me to put a worm on the hook, that was the beginning and end of my fishing career. whatever i'd imagined fishing to be, it didn't include touching worms(!) or touching fish or having to take them off the hook. then and there i decided fishing wasn't for me.

my brother is not only an avid sports fisherman (and has been since childhood), he was even a commercial fisherman for years and had his own commercial fishing boat. fishing is probably his #1 stress reliever. the man loves to fish. 

fast forward 47 years. okay, maybe go forward reeeeeeallllyyyy slowly. forty-seven years later there i was with my brother and niece, hearing myself say, "i'll go with you and enjoy boating on the lake, but i don't want to fish." my 12-year-old niece, an excellent fisherwoman since she was tiny, looked at me with a puzzled expression and asked, "why would you not want to?" good question, kid.

i don't have to tell you how this turned out, do i? my brother said he'd take my fish off the hook (should i be so lucky to catch one). it turned out that i loved the whole zen experience of it, was sort of a natural at it and ended up going fishing with him in the Black Hills of South Dakota two more times. i caught fish every time. guess what?  i love fishing. i still don't want to touch the fish (or any worms, thank you very much). but to sit in a small boat on a beautiful lake and cast my life (<----look!  "cast my LIFE"...boy, if that isn't telling) and just wait? where do i sign up?

sitting on that lake in rural South Dakota that warm July evening something hit me:  when was the last time i was in nature where there seemed to be no one around? we were the only boat on the lake that evening. there we were, just the three of us, sitting quietly as the sun set, lines in the water, waiting for the walleye to bite. and i got it...why they'd moved there...why my brother had wanted his family to experience that sort of life.

i lead a very quiet, often solitary life...on the surface...if you were a fly on the wall. but i fill my head with a firehose of information. i watch very little TV, but i consume a lot of social media. even in my blogging circle, we often about creativity. but making art (creating something tangible) is still an act of doing. how often we forget to just be. to just stand in our environment and do nothing...except feel the ground beneath our feet and the wind blowing our hair and the sun warming our skin.

so thank you, Leah, for making me think about the earth. i'm going to take her theme to heart this month...to see if i can redirect my focus from that firehose streaming into my head...to the earth beneath my feet.