From Pucci to Pudding

committing to dreams

i'm off next week to a photography workshop in nyc that has been a dream of mine for a couple years. schedule, money, and various other nagging doubts could have continued to keep me from committing but i realized i was essentially committing to pursue my dream... or not. it will be a week of stretching and growing pains and who knows. i am going as an open vessel... experiencing whatever comes. i have this feeling it will be shifting not just my photography but perhaps aspects of my life as well...

design principles applied to life

german designer of everyday goods, and the powerhouse creative behind braun designs, dieter rams listed his 10 principles of good design. while these pertain, as he intended, to designing of products, the essence of them apply to life in a much broader sense. as little design as possible, as the book chronicling rams' work is titled, perhaps if we consciously strip away all the layers, all the excess, all the trappings, adornments, accessories, rubbish that complicate and detract from the real purpose of our being, from the primal joys in life, from the profound dreams and work we are called to do, we could all experience lives of abundance in the feelings, health, love and contributions that nourish us and our world best.

dieter rams' 10 principles of good design:

1) good design is innovative.
2) good design makes a product useful.
3) good design is aesthetic.
4) good design makes a product understandable.
5) good design is unobtrusive.
6) good design is honest.
7) good design is long-lasting.
8) good design is thorough, down to the last detail.
9) good design is environmentally friendly.
10) good design is as little design as possible.

first rays

magic hour for me is before the dawn... it is rich, mysterious, pregnant with creative possibility.

catching the light

ernie is a practiced catcher of the morning light...

daily nurture: inner child and creativity

as important as good nutrition, exercise, love and sleep, nurturing daily our inner child and our creativity is key to keeping us energized, inspired and young. what we give our focus and passion to, we fertilize. sprinkle (or gullywash) daily attention and time and delight to both and enjoy the flourishing.

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.--Picasso

I’m hungry now for having the most time I can have for my creativity and less time for managing fame and success.--Helmut Lang

whether it may appear to be sensical or nonsensical, trust where the energy is brightest.

night lights

i have been looking for inspiration in photography. my city, atlanta, holds very little inspiration for me. i do find it energizing to see everyday items and places with new eyes and to shoot them from a fresh perspective.

sometimes inspiration comes in words and wisdoms from unexpected sources. i recently ran across these two quotes from photographer steve mccurry's blog and they got my creative juices stirring. as a runner, i always preferred to run as the world awakened. there is magic in the dawn, in that transition from night to morning. likewise in the evenings, the most beautiful time is for me when the last light lingers before dark consumes the day. thank you for the night lights inspiration and here's to renewed shooting.

Night, when words fade and things come alive.
When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again.
When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.
- Vincent Van Gogh

catching the wind

i wrestle with an ongoing debate: do i opt for the pragmatic choice or do i opt for the choice that incites the butterflies in my stomach? for years, i justified the seemingly practical choice with safety. if i chose thusly, i would have a good idea of the outcome and i could manage the ramifications. likewise, if i chose the butterflies, i would be taking a risk... which meant i would not know the outcome or be prepared to manage any fallout.

what i have come to see is that the butterflies are where i stretch, grow, leap into new strata of challenges and dreams and payoffs. also, yes, some costs. but the costs are perhaps more dear with the always pragmatic path. with unrelenting familiarity comes stagnation and malaise of spirit and eventually body.

catching the wind in my sails is literally energizing, life-fortifying, rich living. i ran across these quotes recently and wanted to share, as their spirit and wisdom i found to be inspirational in choosing how we live.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed
by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.
- Mark Twain

For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go.
I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.
- Robert Louis Stevenson

 Bizarre travel plans are dancing lessons from God.
- Kurt Vonnegut

 

 

poverty and hunger as keys to love

i have just returned home from several days with my family to help support my mom, who thankfully is in rehab after her stroke a week ago, and my dad, who benefitted from extra TLC during this transitional time when there are more questions than answers.

i am reminded of how much work love is. particularly with our family and the people we love the most. it's easy to love people on their best days. the real work comes when we are on our worst days--not as easy to love then. but that's when it's most crucial.

also, i notice in observing interactions (or lack thereof), that we can stop putting in the effort with the people we love. when we take anyone for granted, we lose sight of the magic. when we grumble internally that we wish they would [fill in the blank here] differently, we focus all our energy and passion for the other person on what we perceive to be lacking. and guess what, when we focus on negatives, we amplify them.

what if, instead of zeroing in on the irritations and frustrations--because those exist, always will--we imagine ourselves without those we love. if we FEEL the poverty, the loss we would feel without them, we re-awaken the magic, the hunger we had and still have for our relationship with them. we realize how grateful we are for them--including the irksome moments--and our love for them is renewed.

poverty and hunger: excellent perspective shifters to re-invigorate love.

fresh at 106

yesterday, my grandmother turned 106. she is a phenomenal example of health and happiness at that age--spunky spirit, twinkling eyes, and quick to laugh with joy. when my brothers and i arrived at her apartment, she was all dressed up in a gorgeous peach suit and was eager to catch up with all of us over our picnic lunch.

to celebrate her birthday properly, as is our family tradition, we wanted to bring her favorite cake--coconut. my grandmother's coconut cakes are legendary--lofty, airy cake layers, moistened by fresh grated coconut and generous amounts of frosting. a week before her birthday, i called the fresh market grocery, which is close to where my grandmother lives, and asked to order a coconut cake. if anyone can come close to my grandmother's cake, they could.

the bakery manager i spoke with said their supplier stopped offering coconut cakes after easter. i shared that we were keen to celebrate mema's 106th birthday with her favorite cake. he was impressed by her achievement in years and promised that if he could scare one up he would call me, but we put a carrot cake on reserve to be safe. friday before mema's birthday, he calls me to tell me this story: he rang corporate to see if there were any coconut cakes in their warehouses. he happened to get the bakery head on the phone. he shared mema's birthday milestone and our bakery friend immediately said they would make a special coconut cake for mema and fedex it to her fresh market, no charge. they wanted it to be a birthday present from the fresh market.

mema's eyes sparkled and her joy was radiating when we shared the story of her coconut birthday cake. and despite being conscious of wanting to fit into her clothes and not eating too much, she reveled in a generous slice of her special cake.

we all are grateful to fresh market for bringing such joy to our family on such a special day. but also for being so incredibly caring and going to such great lengths to create happiness and fond memories for our mema and our family. for those in the family who weren't able to be present and enjoy the cake in person, it tastes sweet just knowing the heart and soul who were behind its creation.

thank you, fresh market. thank you, mema. happy birthday.

seeing within

my mother had a stroke last week. we have much to be thankful for with regard to the scope of her stroke and the medical support and rehab she has and is receiving.

but as is easy to imagine, there is much to process and rearrange when someone so close to you suffers a life-impacting change.

as i was walking down the hospital corridor to see my mom for the first time since her stroke, i had the thought that it is so important to register happiness when we see people we love, that it would be doubly important for me to immediately look past the wound my mom has on her head from falling and the left side droop she is experiencing from her stroke. my most important first task was to see beyond and not register sadness or shock at the external changes but to see my mom who still lives inside the body that ages more and more from visit to visit.

seeing who we are within our skins--that is our essence and who we relate to. it's not our external trappings that we relate to, but we do spend a lot of time focusing on our externals. and i am reminded how much we do attribute to a person from outward appearances.

but seeing the person, the soul, the spirit and spunk within the skin, particularly when the outer trapping may be withering, wounded, blemished--whatever has caused it to shift from its comfortable familiarity--is the key to seeing and relating to what matters most: our core and not our corporeal selves.