Give advice to yourself in the past.
(age 10) - don't push Jere down the stairs on his Ninja Turtles bean-bag chair, he'll never forgive you.
(age 15) - be warned when you watch Romeo and Juliet for the first time, love will be unobtainable in your eyes hence forth and needn't be tragic to be real.
visit your Grandmother before you leave for Germany, you won't see her again before she passes away.
pay no mind to the people who comment on your day dreaming and quiet nature, this behaviour will be a great source of inspiration for you.
(age 16) - don't make your mom cry... ever, you'll feel terrible about it for years to come.
don't be discouraged your first day of soccer try-outs, return the next day and give it your all, you love how you feel when you're on the soccer field.
don't come home from school and cry in the bathroom everyday, you're beautiful.
(age 17) - don't kiss Christopher on his 18th birthday, will lead to over 10 years of great confusion.
(age 19) - don't move to Las Vegas, will be 8 years of heartache and unbearable heat.
(age 23) - be a better example for your younger brother Jere, you'll feel guilty for his mistakes in the future.
(age 24) - don't leave the ky jelly on the kitchen table, will lead to extreme embarrassment.
(age 25) - don't kiss Thomas, he's married and completely unavailable.
(age 26) - don't eat at the asian fusion restaurant in London with Toni, you'll get the worst food poisoning ever.
(age 27) - after your break-up, don't move back to America immediatley but instead, move to the Shakespeare and Company bookstore, write your children's book and make a life for yourself in Paris.
do realize you can and will love again.
(age 28) - be you, mistakes and all.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Friday, August 14, 2009
Learning to Love You More #52
Write the phone call you wish you could have.
ring, ring, ring...
Me: Hello.
Him: Hi Karen… it's Him.
Me:…
Him: Hello?
Me: Hi Him, I’m here… just really, so surprised to hear from you.
Him: I know... it’s been some time.
Me: Yea... it has… amazing how time passes, actually it seems longer than it has… Him, did you by chance receive my email…
Him: No, no I didn’t.
Me: Oh, well that’s okay... I’d rather of you not received it than just not having responded... How have you been?
Him: I’ve been just fine, you know me... So um, what did this message of yours say?
Me: Oh… well, I... I... said how... grateful I was to have shared the time together that we did... and hoped you were well and... I wanted to let you know that I still think of you sometimes. I also said how I realized we were meant to part ways just as much as we were meant to share a time together.
Him: Oh, well... You meant something to me too Karen, you always will. I don’t regret having met, I knew you loved me and I loved you but... our time was up.
Me: You don’t know how happy that makes me to hear you say. Here, all this time my heart hurt, thinking I meant nothing to you all along. I sent the email with no expectations but when you didn’t respond I… I… just came to the conclusion that you’d... you'd long forgotten me.
Him: I didn’t forget you... I just kept moving forward, that’s how life works... You always struggled with keeping a life’s pace.
Me: (laughing...) I know... that is true and I’m afraid I’m not much better... Was there a particular reason you’d phoned me?
Him: Well actually, I guess… I was just calling to tell you the same thing... that I was grateful for you too.
Me: … that’s really wonderful. I always thought you were one of the best you know...
Him: I know... Take care Karen.
Me: I will... Goodbye Him.
Him: Goodbye.
ring, ring, ring...
Me: Hello.
Him: Hi Karen… it's Him.
Me:…
Him: Hello?
Me: Hi Him, I’m here… just really, so surprised to hear from you.
Him: I know... it’s been some time.
Me: Yea... it has… amazing how time passes, actually it seems longer than it has… Him, did you by chance receive my email…
Him: No, no I didn’t.
Me: Oh, well that’s okay... I’d rather of you not received it than just not having responded... How have you been?
Him: I’ve been just fine, you know me... So um, what did this message of yours say?
Me: Oh… well, I... I... said how... grateful I was to have shared the time together that we did... and hoped you were well and... I wanted to let you know that I still think of you sometimes. I also said how I realized we were meant to part ways just as much as we were meant to share a time together.
Him: Oh, well... You meant something to me too Karen, you always will. I don’t regret having met, I knew you loved me and I loved you but... our time was up.
Me: You don’t know how happy that makes me to hear you say. Here, all this time my heart hurt, thinking I meant nothing to you all along. I sent the email with no expectations but when you didn’t respond I… I… just came to the conclusion that you’d... you'd long forgotten me.
Him: I didn’t forget you... I just kept moving forward, that’s how life works... You always struggled with keeping a life’s pace.
Me: (laughing...) I know... that is true and I’m afraid I’m not much better... Was there a particular reason you’d phoned me?
Him: Well actually, I guess… I was just calling to tell you the same thing... that I was grateful for you too.
Me: … that’s really wonderful. I always thought you were one of the best you know...
Him: I know... Take care Karen.
Me: I will... Goodbye Him.
Him: Goodbye.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Learning to Love You More #59
Interview someone who has experienced war.
"James Ruffer, father and fighter pilot of the Vietnam War"
me: Why did you decide to join the service?
James Ruffer: We had a war, Vietnam. I had been in college when the war started, the fighting started and I was patriotic and wanted to help the cause. I believed that if we didn’t stop communism in Vietnam and south East Asia that it’d spread to the Philippines and other places in that area just like we had the problem in Eastern Europe and with North Vietnam invading South Vietnam, so on. Pretty much believed that communism was out to do just what it said it was going to do and that was “bury us” and so that’s why I signed up.
me: Can you tell me a brief timeline of your years in the military?
James Ruffer: Well, I was born in the military. My dad was in the military, we were in a war when I was born. I lived through the rest of the Second World War and then the Korean War and then the Vietnam War started and so I joined up in 66’ and except for medical school I was back in the service again by 79’ and stayed in until I retired in 95’. So it’s like a 30 year period of military service with the exception of medical school but I don’t think I ever really left the military at any time in my life. I was fighting the Japanese and the Germans as a little boy and the North Koreans and there’s always a great alarm in America. There’s always great alarm, concern for the world and for the sake of freedom.
me: What was one experience you remember from war?
James Ruffer: Well, I remember leaving my wife and three little girls. I was looking forward to going over, flying Marine Corps fighter bombers, supporting the troops, close air support and interdiction and whatever else we were asked to do. So training was exciting and we were all military men and there was no conflict of interest, we were simply all in it together.
Didn’t really know much about… didn’t pay to much attention to what was going on in society, so I missed that era of the hippies and the anti-war on college campuses but when I left in August of 69’ my best friend had just preceded me over and he was an Aviator also and before I even left he had been killed. And so when I left my wife and 3 little girls I was aware of the fact that some people weren’t going to come home, you know. And that was, that was tugging on me pretty heavily in kind of a hidden part of my awareness or in my heart, maybe in the pit of my stomach sort of a, kind of a sadness that this could be it.
On the other hand I was motivated to go and do what I was trained to do. I wanted to be a veteran of combat too, that was something I think that meant a lot to all of us was to have actually been there and done it. We were willing to take the chance that we would not come back just so that we could get into it, not to mention the patriotic and the fact that the cause was a just American cause and so that was my first sad or hard experience was leaving my family and all the time it took me to get from home to Vietnam it weighed heavy on me, you know, but I was going to miss them and possibly wouldn’t be able to get back to see them and loosing my good friend, my best friend also, you know.
Once I started flying missions, it was exciting and there wasn’t a lot of fear. It was being part of the team and doing my job and doing it as well as I could seemed to take the place of outright fear or endless worries about what if, what if.
I had a sad experience flying a mission out of, as we said, out of country in I think Laos one day, dropping on a bridge and I missed the bridge. The air craft controller who was an individual up there in another aircraft spotting the target and I had just done it poorly, even to my own standards and to his. I could tell he was frustrated with me because he was risking his life to try to get me to do something important in terms of the mission and it really hurt a lot. I realized that he was performing the same mission that my best friend had been performing when he died. I related the two that, you know, Ronald "Ron" Hamilton had died doing this kind of mission, could it have been because of somebody working with him that had done a poor job like I had just done. That he had risked himself for nothing so, that has always bothered me, it uh, it wasn’t uh near death experience, it wasn’t being, you know, blown up, it was just disappointing myself and somebody else in a situation where lives were at risk, sort of like I didn’t show up, you know, or I didn’t show up ready to fight and so that was, sadness.
"James Ruffer, father and fighter pilot of the Vietnam War"
me: Why did you decide to join the service?
James Ruffer: We had a war, Vietnam. I had been in college when the war started, the fighting started and I was patriotic and wanted to help the cause. I believed that if we didn’t stop communism in Vietnam and south East Asia that it’d spread to the Philippines and other places in that area just like we had the problem in Eastern Europe and with North Vietnam invading South Vietnam, so on. Pretty much believed that communism was out to do just what it said it was going to do and that was “bury us” and so that’s why I signed up.
me: Can you tell me a brief timeline of your years in the military?
James Ruffer: Well, I was born in the military. My dad was in the military, we were in a war when I was born. I lived through the rest of the Second World War and then the Korean War and then the Vietnam War started and so I joined up in 66’ and except for medical school I was back in the service again by 79’ and stayed in until I retired in 95’. So it’s like a 30 year period of military service with the exception of medical school but I don’t think I ever really left the military at any time in my life. I was fighting the Japanese and the Germans as a little boy and the North Koreans and there’s always a great alarm in America. There’s always great alarm, concern for the world and for the sake of freedom.
me: What was one experience you remember from war?
James Ruffer: Well, I remember leaving my wife and three little girls. I was looking forward to going over, flying Marine Corps fighter bombers, supporting the troops, close air support and interdiction and whatever else we were asked to do. So training was exciting and we were all military men and there was no conflict of interest, we were simply all in it together.
Didn’t really know much about… didn’t pay to much attention to what was going on in society, so I missed that era of the hippies and the anti-war on college campuses but when I left in August of 69’ my best friend had just preceded me over and he was an Aviator also and before I even left he had been killed. And so when I left my wife and 3 little girls I was aware of the fact that some people weren’t going to come home, you know. And that was, that was tugging on me pretty heavily in kind of a hidden part of my awareness or in my heart, maybe in the pit of my stomach sort of a, kind of a sadness that this could be it.
On the other hand I was motivated to go and do what I was trained to do. I wanted to be a veteran of combat too, that was something I think that meant a lot to all of us was to have actually been there and done it. We were willing to take the chance that we would not come back just so that we could get into it, not to mention the patriotic and the fact that the cause was a just American cause and so that was my first sad or hard experience was leaving my family and all the time it took me to get from home to Vietnam it weighed heavy on me, you know, but I was going to miss them and possibly wouldn’t be able to get back to see them and loosing my good friend, my best friend also, you know.
Once I started flying missions, it was exciting and there wasn’t a lot of fear. It was being part of the team and doing my job and doing it as well as I could seemed to take the place of outright fear or endless worries about what if, what if.
I had a sad experience flying a mission out of, as we said, out of country in I think Laos one day, dropping on a bridge and I missed the bridge. The air craft controller who was an individual up there in another aircraft spotting the target and I had just done it poorly, even to my own standards and to his. I could tell he was frustrated with me because he was risking his life to try to get me to do something important in terms of the mission and it really hurt a lot. I realized that he was performing the same mission that my best friend had been performing when he died. I related the two that, you know, Ronald "Ron" Hamilton had died doing this kind of mission, could it have been because of somebody working with him that had done a poor job like I had just done. That he had risked himself for nothing so, that has always bothered me, it uh, it wasn’t uh near death experience, it wasn’t being, you know, blown up, it was just disappointing myself and somebody else in a situation where lives were at risk, sort of like I didn’t show up, you know, or I didn’t show up ready to fight and so that was, sadness.
Learning to Love You More
I've recently discovered a treasure of an artist, an artist who I dare say, is one of the great artists of our time, an artist creating works that are meaningful and powerful, I'm not even quite sure what kind of art she creates... like it's technical name but maybe it's very well because it's certainly heart felt. Her name, Miranda July.
I happened upon her project titled, "Learning to Love You More" in which she had an open invite to any and all people that wished to contribute to her creative assigments. Over the course of 9 years, thousands of entries were submitted from people across the globe and from all walks of life.
I think the beauty of her project "Learning to Love You More" not only helps one to discover something special and hidden within oneself but sharing and discovering the world with others, there lay the treasure. Viewing over the submitted assignments I can't tell you how often I ended in tears, not sad tears but happy ones, feeling the world growing smaller and feeling not so much of a stranger but as a kindred friend to many... realizing how similar our hearts beat.
I was somewhat disheartened when I realized the project had run it's course and was no longer accepting entries but then decided, why not accomplish all 70 assignments regardless... a personal journey of some kind. Brilliant!
And so I begin this journey, selecting assignments to explore, experience and hopefully grow from. I encourage anybody reading this entry to do the same, I'd love to share assigment entries with you.
Her website is www.mirandajuly.com, a password is needed but rest assure, the secret already exists within.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Liquid Light
Another technique I'm beginning to explore is liquid light. It too has a great feel as does the cyanotype however liquid light is far more delicate and much easier to screw up as I have and continue to do.
I was really surprised at the tonal values it can pick up, reminiscent of a fiberbase print to me. I did print this image on the dark side, I think I prefer it that way.
I was really surprised at the tonal values it can pick up, reminiscent of a fiberbase print to me. I did print this image on the dark side, I think I prefer it that way.
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