Learning Make-Believe Truths

I brought some work to the local Starbucks this afternoon and the shop is made for group sitting. About half the available seating is made up of long, narrow tables. They work great for Mom groups and police officer get togethers but they are a little weird for strangers perched next to one another. Today I was seated just kitty corner to a 7(?) year old girl and her grandmother. The young girl had as a snack a wedge of the blueberry coffee cake. And I couldn't help but notice how she ate it. Loudly. With open mouth smacks while talking. Out of the corner of my eye I could almost feel the fistful of cake go in and then half of it falling back out again.

Now I am not perfect when it comes to eating food and talking. Within the last half an hour I have proven myself quiet inept in such food/talking logistics but it got me thinking about the complexities of dealing with children. As a stranger, I kept waiting for her grandmother to tell her gently that it was, well, really gross to eat like that. (More like, "It isn't polite to eat with your mouth open.") They were both clearly well groomed women. This young girl is going to join a sorority some day and be part of Young Business Leaders of America. Wouldn't she just figure it out on her own? Or is it someone's responsibility to tell a child when they are or aren't fitting into the society's modes of acceptable? Or should parents just let their kids grow up without constraining them to all these socially-structured rules?

Glitter

Portraits of Collections Past Present

Hey remember when this as half photo blog half thought rambles?! Photos are back! (But only kind of :)

Importance of Sleep

Z surprised me with a weekend in San Fran for my birthday. We emerged from the plane in Oakland and all the Oregonians let out a gasp at the 65 degrees and sunshine. Z and I actually had to buy sunscreen day II so that we wouldn't come back lobster style.

Part of his unofficial itinerary was a Planning Morning where I would hang out in the hotel room journal in hand and Figure Shit Out. (While he got champagne and bread for brunch.) I no longer do New Years resolutions. Not really. Any major resolutioning I do happens mid to late Februaries. This gets me out of the New Years malaise but throws me double into the birthday malaise. And this one could be a lot of malaise. This year it's 30.

Sitting down with a journal and 30 years to come to terms with wasn't a historical re-visitation. It was more of a lesson in perspective. Every day we are breathing we are learning more about ourselves. Whether or not we recognize it and log it is a totally separate issue but every day we bump into good and we bump into bad and we react emotionally to those experiences.

Family Matters

At some point in college or quickly thereafter, the way my family communicates stopped working for me. I've known this on an emotional level but never on a level where I could put terms and definitions to it. And even in its unpleasantness we could interact fairly well. We work together. I lived with them for almost a year after moving back from Portland. Holidays are pretty OK. But I still feel it. I'm exhausted in my childhood home. In family gatherings I feel like I am speaking a language that all of my friends understand completely but these people who raised me can't.

2011

A new year. Get ready set go. Z and I spent the New Year at the beach, and on the lovely drive we began talking resolutions. I do most of mine on my birthday, but New Years is still a good excuse to add one or two and reflect on the ones I've already got cooking. I listed off all of mine and then when I asked Z for his he gave me two. "And that's what I think I can do," he said, and he was finished. This is a wonderful example of how we operate differently. I throw a net out and see what I catch. He focuses his spear on one fish, eyes it, calculates and throws.

Feb 2011 Goals

Life has resumed enough to create goals again. *Ah* feels good. There is a lot of finishing that I need to do before I move on in some ways. Finish moving in. Finish vaulted video projects. Finish throwing out wedding stuff and writing thank you cards. This winter will be about making good on creative promises and closing the book before I begin to open more. Finishing is a really important part of the artist (and life) process that I have never been very good at. The next three months (until my birthday) I'm going to try really hard to strengthen that muscle. And maybe some others.