I Can Only Call It What I Think It Is.....

(...The Grace of God.)

I have received a plethora of emails from them over the past few weeks, reminding me as a participant from last year that it is time.....time to submit another piece of work, should I choose, and time to pick up last years' submission. The Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo sponsors submissions to the jury of their Collector's Gallery once a year; if your submission is accepted by the jury, they will display it in the Collector's Gallery for a full year; businesses can rent your work to have in their offices for a few months at a time , or your work can be sold out-right to an interested party. It is now the time of year where those of us whose work did NOT sell are requested to come to the gallery to pick it up; if we choose to submit something else, there is a later date in May for that.

When I submitted my photo last year, at the urging of a dear artist friend, I figured it was a long-shot; I mean what chance did my one photo have amidst all the other submissions that were accepted and on display in the Collector's Gallery? So many pieces, only so many visitors to the gallery...difficult , as always, to know who is in the market for what kind of art. But it was a good "next step" for me as I began putting my work "out there"; I had success with the photo at our Image City Photography Gallery's first and now annual juried show and from that I was encouraged to continue the building of my latest creative venture as a photographer. I have had success as an actor, a dancer, a writer, a voice artist, and an artist; it was time to move forward with my photographic "captures" of moments in life, and so I did.

NO ONE could have been more surprised than I when I saw the envelope in the mailbox..the envelope that announced through its thin nature that it more than likely held.....A CHECK.

SOMEONE BOUGHT MY PHOTO.
I have sold my first photography.
Someone liked it enough to buy it, to have it as their own.

YAHOOOOOOO!

Here I was, just minding my own business, preparing another image for submission to the Collector's Gallery, actually kind of looking forward to picking last years' submission up on the fifteenth of the month, a reunion with a much-loved image, all matted and framed and beautiful in its presentation...but no....SOMEONE BOUGHT MY PHOTO!!!! Oh, but I already exclaimed about that, didn't I? Heck, YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO again!~ It is, after all, "a first". I mean how many more of those will I get in my life?? (smile)

And there's a copy of the photo: I called it "Watching the Watchers"; I took the photo aboard a whale watching ship in Cape Cod last fall...it is an image of the silhouette of people on the upper deck in the huge white foam created by the ship in the deep blue of the Atlantic. I had been on my way to the side of the deck fearing that I may..well, you know, toss my cookies, but then I saw this image...and the rest is history.....it saved me from feeling sea sick too!

The Grace of God brought me this gift and I am grateful.

All Grown Up...Or Are They?

"Are you going to wait or will you be coming back for it?"
"How long of a wait will it be?"
"At least forty five minutes..."
"Hmmmm.....I'll wait..."

With that part of the decision made, I decided how I would spend those forty five minutes in the hospital while waiting for a prescription to be filled at the pharmacy; our insurance offers a nice discount on medications if we make use of it, so we do. I decided to go up to the gift shop and do some browsing. I'll say!....I was in there for the entire amount of time I was told I would need to wait. I think I touched everything in the small shop at least once! I actually took the time to read cards, a luxury I never indulge in as I am usually on the move: I see the heading of a section, "birthday for HIM/HER" or "encouragement" or "sympathy", thumb through a few and quickly make my choice. But on this day, I read and enjoyed many cards BEFORE making my choices.

I was making my way to the stuffed animals, just because I wanted to, and the "text" feature on my phone began its chiiiit chitttt sound; it was my son...he just needed to talk; he is 27 , lives down south, and is struggling to make sense of the economic meltdown we are living through, struggling to keep his thoughts positive as he waits even longer to really get his career back on track. One more time, for emphasis: HE IS STRUGGLING, and he was looking for a place to vent and get encouragement. So for the remainder of the wait-time for my prescription, I listened to my son and thought about how odd it suddenly seemed that I think of him as "grown up" at 27. I thought about how even without the global crisis we are experiencing, he still has much growing to do and that the same could actually be said of ME. It was with that realization, that basically we are ALL always "growing up", that I started to lose my footing a bit: here my son was turning to me for a listening ear, maybe for a bit of guidance, in the grip of a situation that is bigger than anyone could have imagined, and I suddenly felt very young and ill-equipped to help him hold his sorrow and frustration, even though that is really all I CAN do, help him to hold it: I cannot fix it, and to realize that I found myself to be basically bereft of words of wisdom on the subject, well.....it made me feel like I am in need of as much "growing up" as he is!

He did not know of my hesitation, did not sense it; I don't think he ever does: no matter what the topic, the struggle, the disappointment, I am first and always Mom to him: just the sound of my voice, in real-time or through my thoughts appearing in text on his phone, I am just as grown up as he needs me to be.

How come my soul was ever-so-slightly shaking when we disconnected then?
Parenting never ends, even when the children look for all intents and purposes like adults, like grown ups.

Some days I sure do wish MY parents were still here to talk to; I doubt that we would be texting each other, but I sure would like to ask them if THEY ever felt this way.

God-speed my son.....all will be well.

SOME PHOTOS

Hunger

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between two "wolves" inside us all.

One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

And To Think He Was Criticized For Not Wearing One At The Beginning of The Campaign!!!!

HA!!! Look at that LAPEL FLAG PIN sparkle NOW!
I was oddly thrilled to find out that CNN has a page dedicated to folks posting THEIR inauguration images captured from the TV screen in their homes. I didn't really imagine I was the ONLY one doing it, but still...to see how many people captured images of their families sitting together at THE MOMENT the Oath "took" just brought fresh tears to my already overworked tear ducts!


LOOK at that flag pin SPARKLE as the sun hits it.

(SMILE)

The Nature of The Louse

i like facebook, i really do. i like running into theater friends from years ago, revitalizing memories long stuffed away in the archives....i suppose it's pretty amazing that it took as long as it did before someone came 'round trying to stir up political mayhem....someone who disagrees with my stated politics, slim as that statement is on facebook, who decided to try to rub me the wrong way....so i deleted the louse. what an incredibly stupid thing to do on such a flimsy, cream-filled website as facebook: people go there to post thousands of photos of themselves, to reunite with old friends, to PLAY.....why this guy thought it would be good to get confrontational in honor of the upcoming inauguration of our 44th president is beyond me. i ditched the louse and yet i feel oddly prompted to make a statement out into the ether: i do NOT think Obama is the New Messiah; i do NOT look at the inauguration as the CORONATION; i fully expect more of the same....i'm just glad we as a country saw a sweeping victory for african americans....IT WAS ABOUT TIME! that's all. and i like him, true enough: and i wish him well, our new president. i don't expect him to change the world as we know it, but i believe he will give it his best try......i know he won't wear a crown as he goes about his business as president....it would only get in the way when he has to scratch his head and rub his aching brain as he tries to fix our nation...

good luck President Obama.....and good riddance to the louse who tried to start it up on facebook.....really: that's like picking on a small child, taking combative politics to facebook.

GET STUFFED you LOUSE...

just when i think i see, when i think i know, when i start to feel comfortable, some small little rug of consciousness gets ripped out from under me, and down i go....never really knowing why, or how.....i seem to be perpetually slipping on well-oiled wood floors...sliding down hallways not of my own choosing.

why am i drawn to that which will eventually and inevitably bite me?
is my life like that of the moth, drawn to the brightest light only to find that it will be a bad burn from which i may not recover?

or is it all just emo-muscle memory, from which i cannot escape?

Silent Night

The sound that comes when they go is filled with echoes, soft wrappings of "Mom?" waft through the rooms, suddenly, out of thin air, snippets of a conversation, moments in time left in my lap to caress, to marvel over, like beautiful, shining gems. I replace the stuffed animals I got out for my son's dog to play with and I feel sad. It's a big cardboard box full of eager faces that greets me down in the basement, where the remnants of their childhoods sit, wating to be reclaimed when my son and daughter, perhaps, have families of their own. I can remember the story surrounding each and every one of those stuffed animals, how much they were cherished, and still they seem to smile expectantly, knowing that some day they will be called into service again. I don't think any of them had imagined becoming a chew toy for a young yellow labrador pup, but they don't seem to be any worse for the wear.

The sound of their voices, aloft in laughter....yet they are no longer here. They have returned to their homes. My children have grown and are gone from me. Watching them adjust to the adult world is, at times, far worse than watching ANY bicycle accident either of them EVER had.

Watching them hoist their belongings up over their strong shoulders as they hug and kiss us goodbye...goodbye Mom, goodbye Dad...goodbye Alex, goodbye Chloe....please come back to see us soon. And they leave us.

Our children are grown and gone now: one is in love and speaks of marriage, the other is still sailing alone.

My children have been raised, the raising is done, and it just doesn't seem right at ALL. You can't possibly realize it while you are doing the raising but there really IS just a very short period of time that we all have together, for wishing and dreaming, loving, teaching, learning....Before you know it, VOILA...your kids, as I keep saying, have grown, your life has changed. And sometimes, like after Christmas, it just seems wrong that you have to let them go.

It's A SIGN!

just when you think you know everything there is to know about your child, you learn something so totally unusual that you simply have to document it.

we lived in orleans county for two years when my son was a little boy, so he saw perhaps more than the normal number of road signs declaring either the beginning or the end of ROAD WORK. it seemed that something was always under repair and we needed to take a detour. the detours were always fun with a three year old because out in God's country there were always steel-decked one lane bridges to cross...three year olds love that.

now this son of mine is a man, he lives in maryland, and he is surrounded by m ore signs than we could ever have encountered in tiny little orleans county. he called me one day with a memory burning so brightly in his adult brain that he had to tell me: he used to think the signs that stated

END CONSTRUCTION

were signs of PROTEST...that the residents of the towns along route 104 west had just had enough of the chaos created by change and were stating their feelings for all to see!! now how about THAT?

just when you think you know everything about your child.....

1966

the eighth grade year was a year when things mattered: who was smartest mattered, who was taller, how happy you were mattered; your hair mattered, knowing if your friends' parents argued as much as yours seemed to mattered as well.

it was a year of wonders, as in "I wonder when MY breasts will arrive?"

eighth grade was the year i discovered sexual attraction, without having a name for it, when i was stopped dead in my tracks quite suddenly one day by the way bobby miller SMELLED.

best friends mattered in the eighth grade, and marion was mine. she had gold-green eyes and teeth that were as straight and blunt as her unenthusiastic red-blonde hair. marion's hands were always moist and cold.

she loved george and i loved ringo. too many other best friends BOTH love paul, and those friendships rarely lasted for long.

marion was in trouble on a regular basis. at least the things she was nailed for were BOLD things. marion was FRESH and i liked that about her....i liked it alot. she blushed easily though, and the reprimands she received in school were never easy for her because that facial red alert would sound off on her cheeks immediately and she hated that. but it never stopped her from perpetrating further catholic school girl acts of rebellion.

there was one day, however, when marion detached from every bit of the usual embarrassment when nabbed by a nun and held up for public humiliation. i don't recall what her infraction was, but i remember staring at her and thinking maybe, just maybe, she was having one of those highly-touted beatific visions right then and there and that she was, understandably, distracted, not able to absorb the insults being hurled in her direction.

it just didn't make sense that she didn't react to being called STUPID.

but later, after school, i understood when i asked her why she didn't respond. marion grabbed my arm firmly, the noticeable nascent warmth of her hand penetrating my navy blue blazer, a moment as poignant in memory as it was in thirteen year old reality, looked me in the eyes and declared:

"who CARES if she called me STUPID....she called me a stupid WOMAN!!!!!"

in the eighth grade, that mattered.

The New York Times

following the storm, i sit and watch the snow fly while rearranging, again, some of the inside of my house, my shell that cannot hide me from anything, not really, and i want to climb to the top of the trees and sway and blow crazy, kick up a fuss, in that white wind.

i am so lost in the past in my heart, amazed at the imprint of my mothers' head, and the roses, on the glass that covered the New York Times poster, covered, past tense, because today the glass broke and i had to throw it away, wrapped as carefully as possible in a white flurry of fiberfill, wrapped so no one gets cut when they touch it, as i get cut when i touch the past.

the times in New York, when some photographer guy asked to take jack and barbara's picture because they were so very beautiful and with that photo they got to stay beautiful, always young and perfect, strolling on a street in new york, before time slapped them around and snatched it all away from them, jack stuck in a nursing home chair, staring stupidly, a prisoner of alzheimers disease, barbara stuck in sadness and sighing "I DON'T KNOW...I JUST DON'T KNOW..." and she didn't, nor do i, so i frame them and try to think of The New York Times and the beauty that got left behind.