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Tag Archives: pay attention


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kitsch. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

i suppose if i opened my 1977 john h. glenn high school yearbook i would find these words. in fact, i am almost positive i would find them. scrawled in pen by more than one friend, on the big white space of the inside hard-cover or the inside back-cover, maybe across the page for the art and literary magazine. there would be other sage phrases too…like “life is a journey, not a destination”…as if there was a what-to-write-in-a-yearbook handbook or maybe taken directly from the blue mountain arts meaningful-phrases calendars of the time. my personal favorites were the susan polis schutz/stephen schutz calendars, books, bookmarks…the colors and shapes of the seventies. pause for a sigh…

hiking on our trail, i am whipping my camera left to right, capturing the gorgeousness of the underbrush, trees in their green glory, a very-blue sky.

the litter almost under my footfall gets my attention. it’s not just paper.

this time, it’s a succinct message – kitschy as heck – but, alas, to the point. “cherish yesterday. live for today. dream of tomorrow.”

i don’t know what to do.

i photograph the torn positivity mantra. richard bach’s words in “jonathan livingston seagull“, rearranged.

i try to decide. do i pick it up, as litter? do i leave it for someone else to read?

because i have been privy to the wisdom of the 1970s – in print form, not just IGs or memes or jpgs, i left it. i thought that someone might need to pick it up, tuck it into their pocket, keep it on their bedside table or tape it to their mirror.

who doesn’t need a reminder to truly cherish yesterday? who doesn’t need a reminder to truly live for today? who doesn’t need a reminder to truly dream of tomorrow?

kitsch has its place, after all.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY


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like loons. [two artists tuesday]

i wonder if they wondered.

we had stopped right in front of their front steps. like came to a dead stop. and just gazed.

but their blue eryngo had called to us, their seafoam green step risers, the perfect backdrop. a dead stop. full immersion. color – like the sound of loons on a quiet lake. so beautiful.

i took just a few pictures, knowing we should keep going on our sidewalk-amble, breezes off the shore beckoning us to walk through the park.

saturday we spent the day in our front garden beds. we transplanted the sedum being overrun by the tall ornamental grasses marching toward the old brick wall. we cleaned up the daylilies, proudly wearing their glorious orange blossoms, high above the green leaves. we – well, he – dug out a line all the way across the front, so that we can place a stone wall of sorts. nothing fancy and certainly nothing measured or pristine, a wall that will mark where the lily garden and the growing-grass meet.

ornamental grasses love this yard and the beachy feel suits this house. we know there are many fancy-plants out there, but we have learned, through experience – finally – to not fight with what works. ornamental grasses it is.

as we walk the ‘hood we try to get some ideas. our neighbors own a garden business and are gifted gardeners, so their yard is precise and, elegant and, well, pretty perfect. we are not making an effort to achieve perfect. we’re artists. we know there’s no getting there from here and we kinda like it that way. our yard is less magazine-like and more a folksy invitation to hang out, kick off your shoes, tell a story, laugh, sing, dance.

but it’s a treat to wander in this neighborhood, every house different than the next. there is no sameness here and there is no real garden or lawn-olympics. there are gorgeous ideas and there are misses. there are old hedges and new wildflowers. there are yew and big stately oaks and pines and delicate daisies and coneflowers, and there are hosta and ferns and container gardens and raised beds we can see peeking down driveways and around the sides of houses.

i suppose that there is an hoa somewhere that would cite the homeowner with the seafoam green step risers. they’d get a note that would give them a certain amount of time to re-paint those risers, wearing from weather and the front of many shoes climbing to go inside and be home or go inside and visit.

i’m glad we don’t live where this would be cited. because the day i took this photo all i could think about was what an eye – an aesthetic – the owners must have who put blue eryngo next to their seafoam-green-weathered steps. and what a gift it was to those of us wandering by who noticed.

*****

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it matters not. [two artists tuesday]

it matters not that our feet have walked this path before

it matters not that we have lingered under this canopy

we walk again, noticing, paying attention, in wonder.

it matters not that we have kicked the same pebbles in play

it matters not that the dirt sneaking into our socks is the same

we walk again, noticing, paying attention, in wonder.

it matters not that we recognize each bend, each curve

it matters not that we have watched the mayapple come and go

we walk again, noticing, paying attention, in wonder.

it matters not that we hear the same birdcalls, the same ribbiting frogs

it matters not that the train-through-the-trees is an amtrack we have seen

we walk again, noticing, paying attention, in wonder.

it matters not that the underbrush growth is measured by our return trips

it matters not that the wild daisies wave to us, friends

we walk again, noticing, paying attention, in wonder.

it matters not that the riverbed rises and falls as regularly as our breath

it matters not that the turtles show up where we expect them to be

we walk again, noticing, paying attention, in wonder.

it matters not that the sun dapples and hides where we know it will

it matters not that we can anticipate the sky – unrestricted

we walk again, noticing, paying attention, in wonder.

it matters not that playful chirping chipmunks are not exotic

it matters not that squirrels chastening us are not rarities

we walk again, noticing, paying attention, in wonder.

it matters not that this trail is not unusual, is not unknown

it matters not that we could likely close our eyes to hike it

we walk again, noticing, paying attention, in wonder.

because

life, we have learned, is

wondrous in its simplicities, in its familiarity, in its details.

life, we have learned, is

something to pay attention to – close attention – so as not to miss it.

life, we have learned, is

the more you notice, the more you notice.

life, we have learned, is

a walk, again and again.

*****

happy 101 birthday to my sweet momma. i will forever miss you.

read DAVID’S thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY


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vine-climbing. [merely-a-thought monday]

the 1977 graduating class of john glenn high school chose this song as our theme song. before the decision and ever since, it has remained a favorite. seals and crofts dominated our senior variety show – the one for which i wore a full wet suit including fins and played a piano duet -, our graduation, our prom, our yearbook. they played over and over in my bedside cassette player, on radio, on stereo systems throughout elwood and, likely, everywhere.

“so, i wanna laugh when the laughing is easy.

i wanna cry if it makes it worthwhile.

i may never pass this way again,

that’s why i want it with you…”

(jim seals, dash crofts – we may never pass this way again)

just last week jim seals died. he was 80. and suddenly, again, time flashes in front of us.

because somehow, listening to their music, i am back at 17 or 20 and they are in their early to mid thirties. but the years come and go and the journey keeps journeying, faster and faster it seems.

and so the moments and presence become infinitely more important and the stuff becomes less. the grand illusion of foreverness becomes foggy and we learn – little by little – sometimes, though, with ferocity – that we must be-here-now. we graduate and grow and regress and grow again and start to see that full spectrum is not so bad – that belly-laughing and weeping are both, indeed, necessary and that as we vine-climb from dirt to sky we are only really here to be with each other.

our beloved daughter was here for a couple days. any time we see her or our beloved son are those kind of rare-gift moments. we giggle and poke fun and talk and reminisce and ponder and there’s eye-rolling and i am astounded by them and, always, i cry upon their leaving or upon our parting. it is the hard part.

i know that we just never know. life has a way of teaching us that – again and again – though it is easy to forget, to push it aside. but the further up the vine we get, the more we recognize it. it is all so fragile. we may never pass this way again. simple. true. a calling, an imperative to say the stuff, to be vulnerable, to experience, to love, to acknowledge, to laugh, to cry, to be-with.

good choice of song, jhghs.

“all the secrets in the universe

whisper in our ears

and all the years, they come and go

and take us up, always up…”

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY


					
		
	



					



	

					
				

			
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the notion of attention. [d.r. thursday]

	


	

					








picture-of-the-day is a driving force.  every day now – straight – for over two years – i have posted a picture of the day on our thread.  when covid was first present in our world, now two years and a couple months ago, my son suggested that each of us, my son and daughter and i, post a photo a day and it would keep me feeling more in the loop; the connection would be reassuring.  i oh-so-agreed and have been really deliberate about these images.  





no words necessary, though any kind of descriptor is welcome, these photographs are a glimpse into each other’s lives.  i take it really seriously and i celebrate any time either one of them posts a photo, loving the window-in.  and all day i look for the photo-capture that will be my picture-of-the-day.  it’s a practice i love.  intentional observing of the world around me.   we all see the same things; we all see different things.  i love noticing.  and i have found – as in anything – the more i notice, the more i notice.





“the notion of attention … to see that the way the flicker flies is greatly different from the way the swallow plays in the golden air of summer…” (“our world” – text by mary oliver, photographs by molly malone cook)





we hiked over the weekend.  we hadn’t been on any trail in a couple of weeks as the weather has been uncooperative.  our hike was punctuated with my stopping and stopping again.  so much to photograph, so many changes in the forest.  i want to go slow, slow; this is not a get-your-heartrate-up exercise, but my heart was exercised nonetheless.  so much beauty to see, so many tiny miracles within my reach.





david does not rush me.  we were there – on that trail – to rejuvenate, to breathe, to take it all in.  how do i capture that in a picture-of-the-day, i wondered.  i photograph the new dandelion sharing gravel with the path.  i photograph shy tiny pink flowers bending down toward the earth.  i photograph the mayapple which has suddenly burst into the underbrush world.  i photograph the trillium not yet blooming and wonder aloud which warmer day this week they will open to the sun.  so many greens.  full spectrum, not just the verdant new spring grass.  slow, slow.





“i lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass…” (walt whitman – “song of myself”)





it rained the day of this post’s photograph.  again.  it had been raining for days, grey end on end.  my picture-of-the-day would depict the rain, a dissatisfaction with the lack of sun.  but, even in that frustration-of-waiting for the lamb days, i knew i could find something to notice about the rain, something to give pause.  





the trees in the reflection – still leafless – reminded me.  the rain falling here – brutally absent in drought-corners of this world – gentle and insistent, driving and adamant in turn, brings new growth, a transition to a new season, washing away the dust and salt of winter and its tears.





“it was my pleasure to notice such things…” (mary oliver – “our world”)





*****





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desi is messy. too. [k.s. friday]

	


	

					








because we see desi every day, it is hard to notice its growth.  she is likely changed at every sunrise streaming through the window behind her, yet we can’t see it.  we’re too close, sitting at the table with her every day; the changes are imperceptible.  





desi is a tiny pine tree, an evergreen whose genus and species are unknown.  maybe a white pine, we wonder; she’s a messy little thing.  her tiny branches are not orderly; she has a bit of wild-troll or kramer-esque (“seinfeld”) hair-branches going on.  but her trunk has gone from a tiny needle stalk to something a bit more solid, a bit more grounded.





we talk to desi, just as we talk to all our plants.  they each have a name (plants are people too).  and, though i haven’t checked on each plant’s tolerance for this, i touch each one.  we talk about the sun and the spring ever-coming and their stoic thriving through the winter.  i tell them i can see their growth, for i cannot imagine any one or thing not liking positive reinforcement.





yesterday, in mid-basement-clean, i called up to david in his office.  i asked him if he could take just a couple minutes to come downstairs and see my progress.  i told him i could use the positive reinforcement.  plus, if he didn’t look at the progress along the way, he would likely not realize what it took to get there.  





it will take tons more time.  i have so much to go through…more than thirty years of accumulation.  it’s been an ongoing project.  but the space i cleared in the workroom yesterday was significant and, if you looked, you could see the change.  





some clearing out will not look like much.  there will be boxes or bins that i will go through and things will get messier before they get cleaner.  it will be hard to discern what i’ve accomplished.  it may look a little wild down there.  but it’s changing, nevertheless.





not unlike the stuff going on inside.  we can’t really see that growth either.  we sit at the table with ourselves every single day.  one day someone tells us we seem lighter, a good trend.  positive – and negative – changes, both worthy of our attention, both glimpses into direction we choose to travel, the way we want to be in the world, how we want to ground, how we want to grow.  





clearing out – on the inside – does not look like much.  things get messier before they get cleaner and it is hard to discern what we’ve accomplished.  it may look a little wild in there.  but it’s changing, nevertheless.





desi nods her wild-hair-branch head.





*****









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TAKING STOCK from RIGHT NOW ©️ 2010 kerri sherwood






					
		
	



					



	

					
				

			
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not a dress rehearsal. [merely-a-thought monday]

	


	

					








i don’t believe there is much more frustrating than trying to get the attention of someone you love, someone you care about.  you keep upping the ante, waving your arms above your head, metaphorically jumping up and down, raising your own bar time and again.  just to get their attention.  you try more-achievements-for-1000-please, imploring-for-800-please, passive-aggressive-ignoring-for-600-please, lonely-weeping-for-400-please, poor-acting-out-behavior-for-200-please, but none of it seems to work.  





i read in the book “the sentimental person’s guide to decluttering” (claire middleton) a few days ago that the author suspects “people who only need a cup, a plate and a blanket are cold-blooded”.  i know this was in application to stuff-in-the-house.  but i would hasten to add that it applies to relationship as well.  some people, in an unplugged, unsentimental-about-other-people way, don’t need any more than a cup, a plate and a blanket.  it all seems such a waste of good time.





when my adored big brother died i was pregnant with my second child so i was an adult, 33 years old.  though it is just shy of 30 years ago now i still vividly remember the stunning realization that the world kept going anyway.  i had lost grandparents; i was a bit familiar with grief.  but this was strikingly different.  i could not grok how the world kept going without my brother being able to feel it.  this sounds like gibberish to some, i suspect, but grief is not linear nor is it rational.  it asks questions of our heart and mind and it slays us with feelings of overwhelm at moments we don’t expect.  i looked to a gift i was given – a ceramic sign that says “this life is not a dress rehearsal” – and i thought “pay attention!”.  





a few days ago i was talking to one of my long-lost-and-now-found-cousins on the phone.  she told stories of her mom, my dad’s sister, things i had never heard.  i could literally feel my heart swelling as i listened and laughed and i wanted more tales of my sweet dad’s growing-up years.  the summer home upstate new york, the rice in the sweater pockets from mice and the snakes in the outhouse, housekeepers i was unaware they had, the mob boss around the corner in the city.  my grandpa’s felt business in brooklyn, piecing felt for pianos, of all things…that connection.  a little bit of touch-back, an hour of family-i-had-lost-in-the-confusing-shuffle-of-life.  building.  paying attention.  being astonished.  





in a world full of intricacies and details and deadlines and accomplishment and competition and agenda, to stop and pay attention is sometimes a challenge.  





to marvel at the song of birds at dawn, to watch the east sky change in answer to the western sunset, to taste the first sip of coffee in early morning, to stare wide-eyed at your grown children…astonishment in exponential depth.  





to tell stories of life’s moments, the tiny ones, the top rung ones, the puddle-on-the-floor ones…is exponential sharing of living.  





to pay attention to the other, really pay attention – without prompt and without reward – is exponential love. 





*****





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our maple-tree-christmas. [two artists tuesday]

	


	

					






and the marvel continues.  this very-large-branch-turned-christmas-tree, really like anything that is nurtured, has opened in the world.  it is as if it has actually-self-actualized.  though it would seem that remaining a limb on the maple out front might have been its endgoal, in its experience of being cut down it suddenly has new life, new possibility, new importance.  the oh-the-places-you’ll-go story of its existence has undergone transformation.  the you’re-supposed-to-be-a-branch-on-a-tree has been shattered and the old story of small-pine is re-created in an unassuming maple limb.  because we paid attention.





in this time of hyped seasonal holiday glee, it would seem that honoring the tiniest of tiny might yield the glee-est glee.  it would seem that the slightest bit of paying attention to others might pay forward the goodness and generosity that have been showered upon us.  it would seem that looking beyond the obvious – to something unexpected, something out of the ordinary – might bring unexpected, extraordinary joy.   





our small-pine-maple-branch is most definitely smiling, its branches reaching out and up and, each day, feeling more a presence.  a reminder that life is not normal.  instead, it is a chance to pay attention, really-really pay attention.  it is a chance to nurture each other.  it is exceptional.  i can hear our christmas tree 2021 breathing in and out, “don’t forget that.”





*****





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pinch back the suckers. [two artists tuesday]

	


	

					






and so, these two dwarf indeterminate tomato plants make me want more.  the every-morning greeting, the dew on their leaves, raindrops on their fruit, the exquisiteness of having tomatoes from our tiny container garden on our table, in our salad, our pasta.  





it wasn’t much of an investment. $6.98 times 2.  we already had big old clay pots, a couple hand-me-down tomato cages, some potting soil.  we just had to pay attention.  i read articles about yellowing leaves and how damp the soil should be.  i asked 20 questions about snipping off suckers, the shoots that grow where the stem and branch v-intersect.  researching, i read, “suckers don’t serve much of a purpose. they can, however, draw energy away from the main stems, decreasing tomato growth.”  





our basil story is much the same.  basil leaves are delicate, but with gently pinching the plant back, pruning off the buds that appear, the sweet basil has been amazing.  many red pesto sauce pastas, bowls of caprese salad, salmon with basil and cherry tomatoes on the grill dinners – a smorgasbord from a few plants on a potting bench.





it just goes to show you what a little bit of nurturing will do.  these plants – like people – have responded to the attention, the up-close and personal care, the encouragement and cheering on, the constant delight in their growth.   they have risen to gentle handling, careful hydration, a bit of nutrients.  they have flourished and, in both cases, removing the suckers has been of great value, has opened a chance for maturation of the plants, has helped.  





now that we are the tiniest of farmers, it is hard to evade the tiny-farmer-metaphor in my mind.  i think aloud, “this should be a mantra for places of business everywhere:  remove the suckers…those who draw energy away, those who decrease growth.”  





for what place of business, what organization, what non-profit, what institution wants to decrease growth, to suck the life from its employees and its volunteers, to smother their energy, to manhandle their efforts, to discourage their development, to undermine success?  





only one, i guess, that doesn’t want tomatoes and basil.





*****





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discovery. [d.r. thursday]

	


	

					






back in the day crunch and i went to every lighthouse on long island’s shoreline and its peripheral islands off the coast.  i was doing a photographic study for a college class and crunch was a happy participant, lugging me around in his big green truck and taking us out in his boat, a few boats before his current beloved ‘elephant ears’.  the day i got to go up into the fire island lighthouse was memorable.  it wasn’t open to the public but the lighthouse keeper was there and generously offered us a tour.  the textures – going up the 182 steps on that spiral staircase to the light tower – were photographically inviting: the iron stairs, the cement walls, the ribbed glass of the light.  every so often there was a peek out one of the windows built into the structure in 1826 and rebuilt, more than twice as high, in 1857, its eventual black and white bands of color distinguishing it along the ocean front.  my essay is all on slides and, after borrowing one of those kodak carousel slide projectors (you can hear the ca-chunk of the slides changing even in your memory), we watched it a couple years ago.  all those lighthouses – some steadfast, tall and proud, some crumbling, some pristine and unmanned, each a source of a study in woven texture and, when you are lucky enough to hear the mournful sound of the foghorn and breathe in thick salty air, a synthesis of senses.  discovery.





when we were walking along the seine river in paris the sun was setting.  i had never been to the eiffel tower and, though i had seen pictures, kind of expected to be underwhelmed.  i’ve never been a really big tourist-attraction kind of person, preferring places of nature.  we kept walking toward it, strolling, and i could see it in the distance starting to loom into the sky.  the lights turned on as we got close and i caught my breath.  it was stunning.  gold against the early evening sky, light of day dropping away, it was one of my favorite moments in paris.  discovery.





every time we come over the pass and start to drop down – the vista of high mountains before us – i cry.  forests of evergreens to our side, snow-caps ahead, towering mountains that make my toes curl.  i literally want to pull over every few feet to capture the sheer stunning beauty of it all, to remember the green and the blue, to breathe in the cooler air and the scent of pine.  we keep driving and i memorize it for the days i am at sea level, wondering if, were we to live there, i would ever not see the incredible-ness of it.  or would it always and always be a discovery?





as we walk around our ‘hood, as we hike familiar and unfamiliar trails, i feel open.  open to seeing the textures of life as it goes on around us, as it goes on through us.  back in the day, with crunch and my blue jean cap, i took a lot of photos on my old 35mm camera.  nothing has really changed.  my camera is an iphone these days, i don’t have my old blue jean cap and, missing him, david and i haven’t seen crunch in a few years.  





but on the best days, in the best moments, when everything else drops off and we are nowhere but right where we are, i am aware of texture after texture, grain and weave and nap and frequency and harmonics, a composition of smooth and rough, woven and intermingled, softly and intensely waiting to be discovered.  





isn’t it grand?





*****





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