http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/eecummings/11928#
Guy Browning, in Never Hit a Jellyfish with a Spade, tells us that:
celebrations require the four elements of earth, wind, fire and water: the air is in the balloons, the fire is in the candles, the water is in the champagne and the earth is what they cost.
In our eight years of marriage, there have been numerous celebrations (all encompassing affairs complete with balloon bouquets, face-painting, fabulous cheese plates, sexy cocktails, tuxedos, rhinestones, laughter, and animal carcasses roasted over open flames); we've also had our fair share of earthly adventures (Greece, Italy, Cook Islands, Hawaii, Arizona, Mexico) and well, everyone that's been a guest at our home, knows that our danger bar has a well-stocked assortment of spirit water (each with a different cask strength.)
To write that our life together is an adventure, is not only a cliché but an understatement. We are fully in the dance, dancing - living, loving, traveling, learning, debating - fully immersed in what our good friend Zorba calls "the full catastrophe" And he would agree that our biggest accomplishment is becoming parents to our strong-willed and spirited bright star, EM.
In our eight years together, we've lived in three homes, sold tea-cups on e-bay, endured the loss of mama to dementia, and our beloved Aunt Barb to cancer. Through it all, we've maintained our sanity and kept our sense of humour.
It's true, that despite our best efforts, our home will remain beautifully chaotic due to our love of books, technology, gadgets, clothes, shoes, movies, art and antiques.
We've created a welcoming space for our friends and family and a warm, animated, comfortable and creative space for our little one.
And through all these changes, we've managed to hang onto our orange tabby, Alistair.
Yes, it's our love, our marriage, our partnership that makes this crazy kaleidoscope possible (over 6,000 digital photos)
It's impossible to imagine life without you, without us, without our chicken, so I won't.
While I may not always adequately express my gratitude; you are my one true star, my partner in this dance of life, of love.
We are blessed. And so, on the eve of our wedding anniversary, I say thank you.
Efharisto agape mou, XINE
Through Sofi's eyes, we are able to gain access to the interior life of the third wife of Felipe: the young, Elisabeth. At fourteen years old, she is expected to satisfy the King and produce an heir, all as part of deal for peace between France and Spain. The young Queen Elisabeth wants desperately to please her mother (Catherine de Medici) and the women of the Spanish court, but her youth, naïveté and impulsive nature set her on a collision course with the King.
Lynn Cullen's novel is well researched and written. She has an appreciation and understanding of painters and painting techniques. I could picture many of the scenes described as vignettes in an exhibition. Sofi is the perfect portrait artist, she remains in the background, allowing her main subject, the Queen, and court life, to come into clear focus.
If you enjoy historical fiction and want to learn more about the Spanish Court during this time period, I highly recommend The Creation of Eve.
]]>I first discovered Anne Lamott on Salon.com. Her writing was always honest, poetic and inspiring. Blue Shoe is one of my favourite books. And, whenever I need to find my place in the world, I turn to my dog-eared copy of Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith.
I thought I'd feel the same way about Anne Lamott's latest efforts: Imperfect Birds. Sadly, I didn't. I didn't find the relationship between Elizabeth and Rosie credible. Anne tells us in the very first chapter that Elizabeth is aware of the many evils in the world. Despite all the warning signs, she chooses to ignore them. And Rosie lies with impunity. I found myself becoming impatient with the tone and the pace of the novel.
(A big aside: Anne Lamott is a strong writer with a poet's heart. There are some lovely, sparking sentences in the book, but they are few and far between - until we get to the last section of the novel.)
It takes two-thirds of the novel for the story to move its climax. By the time Rosie is sent into the wilderness, there are only about 75 pages left. And this is where the story gets interesting. This, I believe, is the heart of the story.
Because Anne tells the story of Elizabeth and Rosie from different vantage points, it's difficult to get engaged. I wanted just one strong voice. One strong narrative that took me from beginning to end.
Anne has done a great deal of research on narcotics, teenage experimentation and rehab facilities. And at times I felt the story was overwhelmed by the weight of all these details.
Overall, I read this book out of loyalty. It's heartbreaking to not be able to give my whole-hearted endorsement.
]]>It's not so much a report card, as a report folder. Parents are asked to return the signed report cover to school.
The school's motto is: do your best through truth and courage. And, for a quick moment, our heart's raced as we opened the front cover. We stared at the report card and read the comments aloud. Dev raced to call his mom. I'm now online.
- We learned that EM enjoys songs, stories and presentations.
- She can accurately describe how her pupil works, can follow directions in French and is a risk-taker in Mandarin (!)
- She is learning to sing in tune and keep a steady beat.
And on one occasion, informed her teacher Miss V: I can balance on one foot, and I am balanced because I eat all my vegetables. I am good at making the number four and want to get better at riding bikes.
Her favourite senses are smell and taste: I liked smelling and tasting because I liked making applesauce and tasting sweet things, but I don't like tasting walls.
Our home may be filled with crayons, markers and sparkles; she's attended art classes at the Victoria Art Gallery since she was 18 mos old. And we have had, on more than one occasion, a lengthy discussion about drawing on walls - but in class we learn that she rarely participates in craft sessions, responding with a polite "no thank you."
The report card gives us a glimpse into our daughter's world. This green folder, casually strewn on the floor, marks the beginning of her academic struggles and triumphs.
EM is now fast asleep. I am typing in the dark and reveling in the wonder of it all.
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.
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Hannah Arendt, I'm certainly not. And I'm not equating my daughter's desire for attention and affection with Hannah's vision of the modern age .
But her drawing and comment did make me wonder about our the nature of our relationships. And our basic, primal need for love, interaction and approval. At four, EM's world is focused around our family. At 14, it's safe to surmise, she'll be focused on her peers. And at 60 . . . well, who knows.
The simple equation of a) doing something for b) receiving a (positive) (re)action will be enacted time and again throughout her life - in all realms: public, private and social.
Shampoo, rinse, repeat.
I started this blog with the strong desire to reach out to the writing community and share my creativity with a larger audience. Through my blogging I developed strong friendships with writers and those connections have enriched my life to no end. I remain committed to chicken-scratch, to blogging and to my writing. What makes a blog come alive is not only the content but being authentic. And, I've always been me. I'm now doing research on how to embrace and link comments so that they become part of a larger conversation. So here's another invitation - do you, my readers, have any ideas, suggestions on how to make that happen on here? How do we make chicken-scratch more interactive without breaking the bank?
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Our garden has come back to life with a riot of colours: pinks, purples, yellows and green. Our majestic magnolia stands out, a bridegroom, dressed head to toe in white. These photos were taken yesterday after the Agape Service for Pascha.
Christos Anesti. Alithos Anesti.
Nature bows before Christ and rejoices in his resurrection. For our little family, it's a reminder that for "everything there is a season." We are thawing out, stretching our limbs and minds. And rejoicing in the arrival of Spring.
]]>But to me, they sound like excuses. And so, I'll share a secret with you: I started the blog to keep my writing alive, to find an audience for my unpublished works. Along the way, I met some really cool, intelligent women writers BUT I didn't really write anything new. I posted lots of pretty pictures and shared some prose - but didn't really share anything too risky. I wanted my prose to be polished and pure - free from any critique.
It's because words carry so much weight. I expect the written word to be perfect, profound, whole. And so, I wrote myself into a box. I wanted a friendly readership, an adoring readership to nurse my ego and affirm that my writing, that I, have talent.
- No need to write about sex. Too dirty, too earthy.
- No need to write about relationships. Too real and would leave me expostulating. Or worse, gasping for air.
- No need to write about death. OK - so I did post about my father's passing and my mother's passing - but not the grittiness of their deaths. The death of one's parents make you do crazy things. And not once have I talked about the crazy.
- No need to write about my life. Other than in the most general of terms, because the blogosphere is full of stalkers. And yet, I belong to Facebook and post 140 character updates on Twitter.
And so I collected and posted quotes, photos and articles. And wrote the pithiest of posts.
I turned 41 in October. Maybe this marks my middle-age crisis? Perhaps. What I do know that in order for me to reconnect with this blog, chicken scratch is going to get a whole lot louder, messier and less constrained.
My first drafts and postings may not be polished but they'll certainly be authentic. My writing may be erratic - and you may see many iterations of the same piece - but at least you'll get to hear my voice and see how my art progresses.
What good is this blog, if it's just pretty to look at?
]]>1. Allow events to change you.
You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.
2. Forget about good.
Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you'll never have real growth.
3. Process is more important than outcome.
When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we've already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we're going, but we will know we want to be there.
4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child).
Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.
5. Go deep.
The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.
6. Capture accidents.
The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.
7. Study.
A studio is a place of study. Use the necessity of production as an excuse to study. Everyone will benefit.
8. Drift.
Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.
9. Begin anywhere.
John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.
10. Everyone is a leader.
Growth happens. Whenever it does, allow it to emerge. Learn to follow when it makes sense. Let anyone lead.
11. Harvest ideas.
Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas to applications.
12. Keep moving.
The market and its operations have a tendency to reinforce success. Resist it. Allow failure and migration to be part of your practice.
13. Slow down.
Desynchronize from standard time frames and surprising opportunities may present themselves.
14. Don't be cool.
Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.
15. Ask stupid questions.
Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.
16. Collaborate.
The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.
17. ____________________.
Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas you haven't had yet, and for the ideas of others.
18. Stay up late.
Strange things happen when you've gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you're separated from the rest of the world.
19. Work the metaphor.
Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for.
20. Be careful to take risks.
Time is genetic. Today is the child of yesterday and the parent of tomorrow. The work you produce today will create your future.
21. Repeat yourself.
If you like it, do it again. If you don't like it, do it again.
22. Make your own tools.
Hybridize your tools in order to build unique things. Even simple tools that are your own can yield entirely new avenues of exploration. Remember, tools amplify our capacities, so even a small tool can make a big difference.
23. Stand on someone's shoulders.
You can travel farther carried on the accomplishments of those who came before you. And the view is so much better.
24. Avoid software.
The problem with software is that everyone has it.
25. Don't clean your desk.
You might find something in the morning that you can't see tonight.
26. Don't enter awards competitions.
Just don't. It's not good for you.
27. Read only left-hand pages.
Marshall McLuhan did this. By decreasing the amount of information, we leave room for what he called our "noodle."
28. Make new words.
Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions.
29. Think with your mind.
Forget technology. Creativity is not device-dependent.
30. Organization = Liberty.
Real innovation in design, or any other field, happens in context. That context is usually some form of cooperatively managed enterprise. Frank Gehry, for instance, is only able to realize Bilbao because his studio can deliver it on budget. The myth of a split between "creatives" and "suits" is what Leonard Cohen calls a 'charming artifact of the past.'
31. Don't borrow money.
Once again, Frank Gehry's advice. By maintaining financial control, we maintain creative control. It's not exactly rocket science, but it's surprising how hard it is to maintain this discipline, and how many have failed.
32. Listen carefully.
Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our own. Neither party will ever be the same.
33. Take field trips.
The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer graphic-simulated environment.
34. Make mistakes faster.
This isn't my idea -- I borrowed it. I think it belongs to Andy Grove.
35. Imitate.
Don't be shy about it. Try to get as close as you can. You'll never get all the way, and the separation might be truly remarkable. We have only to look to Richard Hamilton and his version of Marcel Duchamp's large glass to see how rich, discredited, and underused imitation is as a technique.
36. Scat.
When you forget the words, do what Ella did: make up something else ... but not words.
37. Break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it.
38. Explore the other edge.
Great liberty exists when we avoid trying to run with the technological pack. We can't find the leading edge because it's trampled underfoot. Try using old-tech equipment made obsolete by an economic cycle but still rich with potential.
39. Coffee breaks, cab rides, green rooms.
Real growth often happens outside of where we intend it to, in the interstitial spaces -- what Dr. Seuss calls "the waiting place." Hans Ulrich Obrist once organized a science and art conference with all of the infrastructure of a conference -- the parties, chats, lunches, airport arrivals -- but with no actual conference. Apparently it was hugely successful and spawned many ongoing collaborations.
40. Avoid fields.
Jump fences. Disciplinary boundaries and regulatory regimes are attempts to control the wilding of creative life. They are often understandable efforts to order what are manifold, complex, evolutionary processes. Our job is to jump the fences and cross the fields.
41. Laugh.
People visiting the studio often comment on how much we laugh. Since I've become aware of this, I use it as a barometer of how comfortably we are expressing ourselves.
42. Remember.
Growth is only possible as a product of history. Without memory, innovation is merely novelty. History gives growth a direction. But a memory is never perfect. Every memory is a degraded or composite image of a previous moment or event. That's what makes us aware of its quality as a past and not a present. It means that every memory is new, a partial construct different from its source, and, as such, a potential for growth itself.
43. Power to the people.
Play can only happen when people feel they have control over their lives. We can't be free agents if we're not free.
In the meantime, for your reading pleasure (and perhaps amusement), I post the results of a recent quiz. Turns out, I am wonder woman.
Could it be because I answered the question about a push-up bra with a resounding yes?!
Your results:
You are Wonder Woman
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You are a beautiful princess with great strength of character.  |
Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz
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