I truly believe all things are possible in this life. With a lot of hard work, focused goals and a steadfast belief in one’s passion, most anything is achievable.
It doesn’t matter which pile of crap you have been handed in this life. It doesn’t matter how ugly things have been at times. We each have the ability to shovel out the muck and create the life we deserve. Believe you can, and you will.
This past December I finished all the requirements to graduate with my Master’s of Fine Arts in Photography at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. This past Thursday I walked in the graduation ceremony held at the Cow Palace in Daly City.
This was not my first spin down the academic catwalk while donning that Darth Vader robe and mortorboard. It was my third.
My first time down that catwalk was 30 years ago when I received my Bachelor of Arts. On that particular day, I felt the happiest I had ever felt to that point. I had beat the odds after surviving a horrendous childhood that statistically should have landed me permanently on the streets either drinking, drugging or otherwise abusing my life away. I had earned what no one else in my family had earned: a college degree.
That first degree was not my magic ticket to success, but it definitely opened many doors for me that would most likely not have opened had I failed to stick with it.
M.A. graduation from University of San Francisco
My second spin on the catwalk occurred 15 years ago following a divorce and my constant struggle to provide for my son as a single mom. I was accepted into an accelerated Master of Arts program at the University of San Francisco. I somehow managed to work full-time, attend to my son who was born with special needs, and carry a full load of classes. After two years of extreme sleep deprivation, I received my degree and graduated with honors.
That was the second happiest moment of my life. I had once again beat the statistical odds of both single motherhood and an ugly past. I was beginning to believe the notion that all things are possible.
My M.A. definitely opened more doors for me and soon I found myself rising to the top of the computer software and internet industries. I was flown to countries I had never before flown. I was pampered in first class and stayed in hotel suites that were larger than my apartment at home. Soon I was able to buy a new car and a house on a lake. Vacations were suddenly possible and I was no longer worried about paying the bills and providing for my son. This new life was the opposite of the life I knew as a child.
That life continued until the crash of the technology industry in the year 2000. Stock was suddenly worth zero and pink slips were handed out like candy. I found myself walking out the door with a box in hand and a severance package with zero job prospects and a mortgage to pay.
Sometimes seemingly negative events can actually be the best thing to happen in one’s life. This layoff was my opportunity for re-evaluation and over the next year I was able to reconnect with my creative side and my passion for photography. Once I began to shoot again, I felt happier than I had ever felt in life. I took the plunge and sent in my portfolio to the Academy of Art and was accepted into their M.F.A. program.
After five intense years at the Academy, I made my final spin down the academic catwalk to receive my M.F.A and graduated Cum Laude. So many wonderful things have already occurred in the five months since I presented my thesis project. This degree finally feels like the most truthful, honest, from-the-soul and the depths of my passion piece of paper I have earned.
So where to now? Well why not hitch a ride on a minnow to the moon? There are no limits, only possibilities.
This has been the best week in regard to the recognition of my iPhoneography. In addition to all the aforementioned humble accolades in my previous post for this week, I woke up this morning to find my new piece “If You Teach a Man to Fish” had been chosen by Pixels: The Art of the iPhone (here – click “Previous Entries” if it is no longer on the front page).
I was doubly surprised to find out I had been chosen “Artist of the Day” on iPhoneArt.com for the second time in a matter of months. You can see my work displayed on their home page here (today) or visit my iPhoneArt Gallery here if you are reading this after today.
In the psychological realm of dream interpretation, water is the harbinger of “emotion.” In the world of creativity, emotion is the motivator for the creation of meaningful art.
A “muse” is a person or object that provides creative inspiration to another. Whenever I wander along the shoreline, emotion makes its way to surface and I am transported into that deep creative mental space of artistic possibility.
As I walk in the soft sand, I find myself hypnotized by the waves lapping at the shoreline and am somehow transported to another, simpler time in life.
From the North coast of California’s rocky formations formed over time by harsh winds and churning waves, to the white sands and azure blue waters of the Caribbean or Hawaii, I have been moved and touched by the oceans power quite often and with depth.
The ocean has been the place I have journeyed to when life became too stressful. It became my “safe place” in the midst of staring down my ugly childhood during therapy. It became my “happy place” when my son was young and I could sit for hours and watch him build castles in the sand and dodge the tide as it rolled onto shore. It has become my “creative space” in later life whenever I need to find my muse.
The following images are iPhoneography pieces I created after a recent trip to Northern California’s beautiful coast. The rocky shorelines found there are hypnotic and mysterious and have a way of conjuring mental images that at times exist outside the “norm.”
As I wandered those beautiful beaches, I found myself wondering about the people who have wandered there before me. I could of course peruse the historical photographic archives of the area in order to quell my curiosity, but why do that when I have such a vivid imagination?
“Rubber Band Man” was featured on Pixels: The Art of the iPhone on May 19th. The pixels site can be viewed here. If you view this blog post after May 20th, you can do a search for “Tracy Thomas” and you will find the list of my images that have been featured on Pixels over the last several months.
“On Pointe” was chosen for Pixels: The Art of the iPhone on May 19th and was chosen as the “Pic of the Day” for Pixels this morning. You can view it here. (Again, just do a search for “Tracy Thomas” if you are reading this after May 20th).
“An Elephant’s Kiss” made it into The App Whisperer’s Top 10 Showcase this morning and can be seen here. This piece was also chosen as a feature on Pixels: The Art of the iPhone this morning, here (click on Previous Entries at bottom of the page if it is no longer on the first page).
Just a quick post to show a few new iPhone photos and some links to recent accolades.
My piece “Drowning in a Speed Queen” was chosen as a featured photo for this week’s Life in Lofi: iPhoneography‘s Faved on Flickr Showcase (here). I was very happy to find myself in this mix. There are some amazing iPhone artists in this showcase and I feel humbled and honored to be included this time around.
I have been very pleased to have several of my pieces chosen for Pixels: The Art of the iPhone site, curated by Knox Bronson, over the last few months including: “Drowning in a Speed Queen,” “Blue” (seen below), “Spare Pennies 4 Pizza” (below) and recent pieces “A Day at the Beach” (below), and “Grapes of Wrath” (also below). You can view the site here.
For the month of August, my iPhoneography portfolio will be on exhibit at Gallery 1075 in West Sacramento. I am really looking forward to this show and am planning to include several QR codes that will launch step-by-step videos of how I created a few of my pieces. Ahhhhh, cutting edge technology – love it!
Me on the far right front, preparing to run for my high school cross-country team at the Mammoth Lakes Invitational, 1975.
“Distance running by women was thought to be un-ladylike, a violation of natural law. The common wisdom held that a woman was not physiologically capable of running mile after mile; that she wouldn’t be able to bear children; that her uterus would fall out; that she might grow a mustache; that she was a man, or wanted to be one.” – The New York Times
The above quote is a reflection of a skewed belief system that existed well into the 60′s. In my opinion, it was another ruse to keep women “in their place” as submissive domestic slaves and child-bearing agents. It was an overt attempt to belittle the strength and abilities of women to succeed in any way independent of men.
I grew up in the era that touted these ridiculous notions. Although I had a hidden desire to run as I watched the Olympic men compete in their marathon, I had few female role models to encourage me to move my body over long distances.
But in 1967, twenty-year-old college student Katherine Switzer became the first woman to “officially” challenge those notions when she signed up for the Boston Marathon without telling the race officials she was a woman. Switzer was not being devious, the race application simply did not ask those who entered to state their sex. They assumed everyone knew only men would and could enter this race.
There had been several women who ran the marathon without numbers before Switzer, but none drew national attention in the way she did. As the press discovered a woman running with #261 pinned to her sweatshirt, they quickly surrounded her and began shooting photographs.
Boston Marathon official Jock Semple attempts to push Katherine Switzer off the race course.
Race official Jock Semple jumped off a truck, ran after Switzer and attempted to knock her off the course while he shouted “Get the hell out of my race and give me that number!” Switzer kept running. Semple made a second attempt and Switzer’s burly boyfriend gave him an elbow and sent him flying. Switzer finished the marathon and the photo of an enraged Semple attacking her went to press.
Women were not allowed to officially enter the Boston Marathon until 1972, four years after Switzer’s heroic finish and the year I started high school. This was the year Title IX came into existence; created to allow equal opportunity for female college athletes. And this was the year I began to run.
Running for me became a lifeline. When I put on my Nike’s and sped out the door I felt a freedom I had never felt in my life. I was the one who was now in control of my physical body. I was the one who could overcome the doubts of others and my own doubts about my self-worth and stomp them into the ground. When the noise in my head became too loud and the visions of my ugly childhood began to play, I could run faster and farther and longer until they faded with the resultant flood of endorphins.
When I ran, I felt strong. I felt happy. I felt accomplished. I had finally discovered something I could do well and nothing in the world was going to take that away from me.
So I ran, and I ran and I ran.
When I look back now I realize in ways I was running through my past. I was not running away, but I utilized running to help me deal with the pain and move through it. I still continue to do that to this day.
Avenue of the Giants Marathon, Humboldt Redwoods State Park, CA.
Last weekend I ran my first half-marathon at Avenue of the Giants in Northern California. I had trained for this run for a period of four months with the goal to run the entire 13.1 miles and cross the finish line as close to the three-hour mark as possible. I wasn’t out to break any records nor to win any prizes.
I was there as a 54-year-old woman who can glance back in my lifetime to a period when women were not allowed to officially compete in a run longer than a mile. I was there as a testament that no matter the difficulties, no matter the hurdles nor the negative odds one might face in this life, it is within one’s power to move right through them and cross the line victorious.
And I didn’t even lose one single internal organ in the process…
My finisher’s medal, 2012 Avenue of the Giants Half-Marathon
Death is not a stranger to me. I have been aware of its presence since the age of seven when I witnessed the aftermath of a murder.
There were two women. They were stuffed into the back seat of a dark-colored Cadillac parked illegally on the curb along a busy boulevard. One was crumpled on the floor face down. The other was lying on the back seat in a fetal position with one arm stretched over the top of her head. There were pools of dark blood on the seat. Pools of dark blood on the floorboard.
Blood.
Everywhere.
Dark crimson strings of coagulated blood stretched from deep gash wounds on the neck down to the floor, as if suspended in time.
So much blood.
And the smell. I remember the smell quite well. It was a musky-sweet, putrid smell that caused me to gag. The kind of smell that made me cover my nose the minute the police officers opened the car doors.
The night prior, these two women were animated, full of life, as they shopped together in the mall. They were surprised by some unknown knife-wielding assailant when they carried their packages back to the Cadillac.
He made them drive to an unknown location, then used his knife to inflict multiple stab wounds. While their husband’s reported them missing, he drove the car around as they were dying in the back seat.
Maybe he had some deep inkling of virtue or Catholic guilt or possibly unbridled bravado. Whatever it was, it caused him to drive the car back to the mall where it all began.
It’s as if he left the car parked illegally at the curb for someone to find. And then he fled. Or at least they thought he did.
Maybe, just maybe, he was now standing with the rest of us. Watching. Waiting. Taunting. Relishing in the reaction of the crowd to his crime.
The scene was akin to a horror film. We stumbled across it when my best friend’s older sister Donna drove us to the mall for ice cream. She was curious about a small crowd gathered near the sidewalk. Donna lead us to the low brick wall, a few feet from the busy street and the dark Cadillac parked there.
The car doors were still closed. The police had just arrived. The first officer looked through the tinted back window, turned to his partner and shook his head.
More police cars arrived, then the Coroner. The news crews were everywhere. They interviewed Donna who crimped her 60′s bouffant and asked us if she looked okay.
My stomach had butterflies. My mouth felt dry. My eyes were fixed in a wide stare as the detectives began to methodically poke and prod the lifeless bodies and search the car.
I already knew bad men could inflict pain on women. I already knew bad men could inflict pain on little girls. But on this day which is burned like an indelible tattoo in my memory, I suddenly knew bad men could do more than inflict pain. Much more.
The bodies, now stiff and drained of blood, were a mixture of pale white tinged with blue. They placed them one-by-one on a stretcher, then zipped the body bags to transfer them to the morgue. There they would be identified by grieving husbands, these mothers and wives. Never again to kiss, to hug, to love.
There are some things to which a seven-year-old should never bear witness.
Ever since I was a wee little lassie I have loved to boogie. My favorite television shows were Soul Train and American Bandstand. I still remember the day Chubby Checker performed “The Twist” and my 3-year-old booty was a twistin’ and a shakin’ along with the rest of the dancers on the floor.
I still love to dance, so when I was asked to contribute an essay to the upcoming Seal Press anthology “Dancing at the Shame Prom: Sharing the Stories That Kept Us Small,” I had my dancin’ shoes on my feet in a heart beat.
The book is edited by two amazing women, Amy Ferris and Hollye Dexter, who I have the honor of calling not only colleagues but dear friends. It is available for pre-order here on Amazon.com and is set to be released on October 2, 2012.
Amy Ferris is author, editor, screenwriter and playwright. Her successful memoir, Marrying George Clooney, Confessions From a Midlife Crisis recently had a run as an off-Broadway play at CAP21 Theatre in NYC. She also co-wrote the movies Funny Valentines and Mr. Wonderful. Amy is on the Advisory Board of The Women’s Media Center, is on faculty at The San Miguel de Allende Writers Conference and is a visiting teacher at the UCLA Writers Workshop (extension), among other things.
Hollye Dexter (aka Hollye Holmes), first touched my heart in the television series “The Adventures of the Wilderness Family.” Hollye played the role of “Jenny,” the sickly daughter of a family that fled the city for a life in the wilderness away from all the mundane stresses. The grown up version of Hollye is an accomplished author, editor, teacher and singer/songwriter with four albums under her belt. Hollye was also on faculty at The San Miguel de Allende Writers Conference and is a visiting teacher at the UCLA Writers Workshop (extension).
“Dancing at the Shame Prom,” the book, is filled with brilliant essays by a group of amazing, accomplished women who share their shame and how they rose above it.
I am deeply humbled and honored beyond words to be included with this group of outstanding human beings.
These writers include (links go out to extended bios):
Brooke Axtell: Singer, songwriter, poet, Brooke is the author of Kore of the Incantation and Daughter of the Burning, she is the winner of the Phyllis Smart Young Prize for Poetry. She won “Best Traditional Ballad of the Year” from KOOP Radio, Austin (91.7 FM) and first place for her short story “Maya’s Mirror” in the Young Texas Writer’s Awards.
Nina Burleigh: Author of The Fatal Gift of Beauty, a New York Times bestseller. She’s written for numerous publications including Businessweek, The New Yorker, Time, New York, The New Statesman, New York Times and is a contributing editor at Elle. She has appeared on Good Morning America, Nightline, The Today Show, 48 Hours, MSNBC, CNN and C-Span, on NPR and numerous radio programs.
Rachel Kramer Bussel: a New York-based author, editor, blogger and event organizer. Rachel has contributed to 100+ anthologies, edited 40+ anthologies and is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations. She has written for numerous publications, including Alternative Press, CNN.com, The Daily Beast, The Frisky, Gothamist, The Hairpin, Huffington Post, Jezebel, Lemondrop, Mediabistro, The Nervous Breakdown, New York Post, New York Press, Playgirl, Salon, San Francisco Chronicle, Time Out New York, The Village Voice, xoJane and Zink.
Sharon Doubiago: Author of South America Mi Hija, nominated twice for National Book Award and was named the Best Book of the Year by the LA Weekly; The Book of Seeing which was named one of The Ten Best Books of 1988 by The Bloomsbury Review, received Gloria Steinem’s Woman Writer Award, and The Woman Writer Genius Award from The Kentucky Foundation for Women, plus more.
Samantha Dunn: Author of Failing Paris (Toby Press), a finalist for the PEN Center Fiction Award and Not By Accident: Reconstructing a Careless Life (Henry Holt & Co.), a BookSense 76 pick & Faith in Carlos Gomez: A Memoir of Salsa, Sex and Salvation (Henry Holt & Co.). Dunn’s essays have appeared in numerous national publications including the Los Angeles Times, O (Oprah) Magazine, Ms., and Shape.
Amy Friedman: Writer of internationally syndicated children’s column, Tell Me a Story, which is published in 150 newspapers; her audiobook, Tell Me a Story 3: Women of Wonder, won the 2010 Audie Award for Original Work; and a recently completed memoir Desperado’s Wife.
Elizabeth Geitz: An Episcopal Priest and award-winning author of numerous books including Soul Satisfaction: Reclaiming the Divine Feminine and Gender and the Nicene Creed and her most recent book I Am That Child: Changing Hearts and Changing the World. Elizabeth’s books have been hailed by Desmond Tutu, John Berendt, and Helen Prejean.
Colleen Haggerty: A writer of creative nonfiction and memoir, Colleen has an essay in the anthology The Spirit of a Woman (Santa Monica Press) and another in He Said What? (Seal Press). She is an ambassador for the Prosthetics Outreach Foundation and created a walking campaign – to walk 100 miles in 100 days – to raise money for prosthetics limbs for people in developing countries.
Robyn Hatcher: Best Actress in a Short Film for her work in “Asbury Park,” Robin is a contributing writer to American Express Open Forum and has a book on presentation skills in development with Motivational Press. She is a TV and film writer, has done radio commercials and has appeared on TV in commercials and dramas.
Monica Holloway: Is the critically acclaimed author of the memoir Driving With Dead People, described by Newsweek as “unforgettable,” and deemed “irresistible” by the Washington Post. Her bestselling memoir Cowboy & Wills was called “sweet and heartbreaking…” by PEOPLE, and is a Mom’s Choice Awards Gold Recipient. Monica recently received the Women of Distinction Award from Special Needs Network in recognition for her work and contributions to the underserved special needs communities in Los Angeles.
Liza Lentini: An award-winning playwright, journalist and author. Liza’s plays have been performed around the world, including Off-Broadway’s McGinn/Cazale Theatre, The Women’s Project, Chicago Dramatists, and The Cherry Lane Theatre. In 2009 Manhattan Repertory Theatre performed a festival of Liza’s early plays aptly titled LIZAFEST. Liza founded Elephant Ensemble Theater (www.elephanttheater.com) a charitable organization which brings educational, interactive productions to children in hospitals.
Meredith Resnick: Her work has been published in Newsweek, JAMA, Los Angeles Times, Santa Monica Review, Culinate, The Complete Book of Aunts (Twelve) and many others, and writes the Adoption Stories and More Than Caregiving blogs at Psychology Today. She is the creator of The Writer’s [Inner] Journey, a 2012 Bloggies Award finalist.
Jenny Rough: A lawyer-turned-writer whose articles and essays have appeared in a range of publications, including AARP The Magazine, More, The Washington Post, Whole Living, and Yoga Journal.
Laurenne Sala: A storyteller, comedian, and regular contributor to the Huffington Post, KCET, and her own blog, Humans are Funny. With a Master’s degree in Spiritual Psychology, Laurenne teaches writing therapy workshops that encourage the sharing of human truths. She produces and hosts Taboo Tales, a storytelling show with the same mantra.
Marianne Schnall: Founder and Executive Director of Feminist.com, Marianne is a widely published writer and interviewer. Her writing has appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine, Glamour, In Style, CNN.com, EW.com, the Women’s Media Center, and many others. Marianne is a regular blogger at The Huffington Post and a contributor to the nationally syndicated NPR radio show, 51% The Women’s Perspective.
Julie Silver: Julie is one of the most celebrated and beloved performers in the world of contemporary Jewish music today. With over 100,000 CDs sold, her songs have become “standards” in worship, camp, and academic settings. It’s Chanukah Time, recorded in 2007, was the first Jewish holiday CD produced exclusively for the Barnes and Noble bookstore chain, and the only Jewish album to ever be recognized on Billboard, peaking at #5 in 2009. Julie speaks nationally at high schools and universities, and has become the “go-to role model” for people struggling to come out as gay or lesbian in the Jewish world and beyond.
Teresa Stack: For the past 15 years, Teresa has worked as president of political news magazine The Nation. She previously served as circulation department manager for Fairchild Publications’ 14 magazines.
Lyena Strelkoff: Lyena’s critically-acclaimed, autobiographical one-woman play, Caterpillar Soup, has been touring throughout the U.S. since 2007. She regularly speaks to university students, health care professionals and civic groups about her disability experience and the transformative power of loss.
Kristine Van Raden: Co-author of Letters to Our Daughters (Hyperion,1999). Kristine is a partner in Matters That Matter (LLC), offering workshops around the country. Their mission is “to inspire all to live according to their own deeply held values and priorities by bringing courage, contentment and grace to life.”
Kate Van Raden: Kate is a self-taught photographer who pens a fashion and photography blog. Kate is also a twenty-seven year old woman who has struggled with the trials and tribulations of anorexia for the better part of five years.
Kedren Werner: is a published writer of personal essays. This is her first inclusion in an anthology.
Amy Wise: Author of Believe in Yourself ~ Inspire Others ~ Spread Joy (2012); Divorce, Dance or Dare (forthcoming); and is a contributing author in the anthology, Oil and Water and Other Things That Don’t Mix (2010). Amy is a contributing writer for EmbraceUS Multicultural Magazine, TheNextFamily.com and the Oil and Water blog. Amy recently edited The Eat From Home Diet: How to Get a Slim Body and Fat Wallet, (2012), she is currently writing a memoir, and working on a screenplay.
Marcia G. Yerman: A contributing writer for EmpowHER and Women News Network. She has been published at Huffington Post, AlterNet, The Women’s Media Center, Daily Kos and The Raw Story — among others.
Victoria Zackheim: Author of The Bone Weaver and wrote the documentary, Where Birds Never Sang: The Story of Ravensbrück and Sachsenhausen Concentration Camps (On the Road Productions), and Maidstone, a screenplay in development. She has also edited 5 anthologies and is a 2010 San Francisco Library Laureate.
And then of course there is little ole me, Tracy J. Thomas. If you have been following this blog for a while then most likely you know quite a bit about me. If not, you can always read my bio on the About page here or journey out to my “big girl camera” photography website or to my iPhoneography obsession website to learn and read more.
So steady yourselves for some powerful, gut-wrenching, humorous, harrowing, nail-biting, “oh-my-god!,” “I can totally relate!” stories come October.
But for now, break out those dancing shoes because we are going to celebrate each little victory over our own shame and just do “The Twist!”…
My whole life I have struggled with the presence of a stranger. A shadowy figure who lingers at the periphery of my existence. I have seen him in my dreams, this man without a face. Lurking… Watching… Waiting…
I never knew what he wanted exactly, but if it was fear he meant to instill, I felt it.
Hyper-vigilance as an adult is a reality for most who were victims of childhood abuse. Since trust becomes a big issue, every human encounter comes into question. I would wonder why that man on the street corner glanced at me a certain way. I was positive he meant to do me harm so I would cross the street in order to avoid him.
For many years I would double-check my blinds, pull the curtains tighter, glance into the back seat of my car before climbing in. A constant vigil of fear, bordering on paranoia, in order to protect myself from the lingering sense of danger.
It took many years for me to make the connection between that lurking stranger at the gate to the memories of my father. Eventually I realized I was still giving him power over my life by dwelling in the fear of what “might” happen.
I learned with the help of many wonderful, caring humans how to face my past and throw the ugly parts away. When the dirty memories would begin to creep in again, I would metaphorically throw them into the washing machine and cleanse them from my life.
Tomorrow is my birthday. Every year around this time that stranger has a way of creeping back into the shadows to pay me a visit. An ugly reminder that he played a role in the creation of my being. His unwanted DNA is intertwined with my own. But today I hold the power. He is no longer allowed to creep back into my life and cause me fear, not even on the day I was born. He did not earn that privilege, instead he lost it through his endless brutality and attempt to destroy my soul.
Today I am doing a little laundry. I will toss the dirty dregs into the machine, turn the scalding hot water on high and walk away with a smile.
Just the other day I realized I have been so obsessed with creating iPhone art that I haven’t written any fiery musings about politics, strange religious movements, same-sex marriage, or even arrogant bastards in quite some time (yes, these are links to past blog posts if you are interested).
Since the political atmosphere of late seems to focus on all things related to women, I have decided to jump in on the conversation and use some of my iPhone art purely for illustrative purposes.
Women are of course as varied, unique and complicated as any other creature on this planet, but for today’s purposes, I plan to explore four levels of women.
The first being the “Geisha.” We have all of course been awe-struck by the beauty of the Geisha girl in movies and on television. However, the history of the Geisha is not so pretty. Though most were entertainers, poets and writers, the majority were held in slavery and many served as prostitutes. Their life was focused on one thing; to bring pleasure to men. They never spoke without being spoken to nor did they ever disobey a man.
There seem to be many Geisha-like women existing in our country today. Most have been swept up into right-wing conservative or fundamental religions that preach antiquated doctrine which states the man is always ruler over a woman. And a “woman of God” is a subservient one.
Though these women are not physically bound by slavery, they are being held by the power of a belief system that appears to be picking and choosing verses exclusively for the benefit of men.
Not all women are subjects of religious tyranny. Some are simply silenced by the misogynistic men they have chosen to accompany through life.
These are the women who have lost their own thoughts, their own voices, their own independence, after years of unending verbal and or physical abuse. These women become the doormats of overpowering male bastards who want nothing more than to dominate and control.
I feel sad for these women and I implore them to dig deep inside themselves and find a way to get out, now…
But there is one level of women these right-wing conservative control freaks and these misogynistic idiots, seem to be overlooking. These are the women who have had enough of the caveman-like attitudes who are attempting to keep them in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant. These are the fired up, politically savvy, more than just pissed off multitudes who won’t sit quietly on the sidelines any longer. These are the women who fight on the front line, who use their voices loudly, who will cast countless votes against the barbarians whose desire is to squash their inimitable power.
These are the glass ceiling breakers. These are the women who will rise up and vote. These are the women who will march en mass through the streets of our nation while making a very loud and angry noise. These are the women who will roar and make a difference for the future of their daughters.
Many in this country have a decidedly sexist view of a strong woman. When a woman speaks her mind she is labelled a “bitch.” A man doing the same would be called “strong” or “admirable.” When a woman rises to the top in business or politics and raises a ruckus for the rights of other women she is labelled a “feminist.” When a man rises to the top in business or politics he is labelled a “success.”
This has to change. Women have been fighting this battle for far too long. But there is hope.
A strong, peaceful woman is a woman who always follows her convictions and states her mind without fear of being silenced by a man with control issues. Always believing in ourselves and the strength and beauty we have to offer this world is the attitude that will send us over the moon, forever rising up to the top to the place that was meant for us since the beginning of time.
It does not matter what kind of woman you are or at what level you currently exist. All women have the potential to be great women. Women of conscious, of great strength, of great and equal power.
I have been busy lately with all the important, responsible tasks one must attend to in order to run a viable business. For several days my brain has felt like mush and I began to develop a severe case of the antsy’s. My iPhone sat patiently next to my laptop while my hind end became numb from the hours at my keyboard.
Yesterday I reached the point where something just had to give so I went on a nice long run. While on that run I spied a beautiful grove of live oaks in the middle of a freshly plowed field. After my run I returned to the grove and took a couple of shots with my iPhone.
“Ahhhhhhhh…” deep sigh of relief. But once I was home and scrolled through the few snapshots I took, it all seemed so empty… I knew it was way past time to shake out all the cobwebs and start “puttin’ on my quirky” once again.
I have no explanation for how or why the neurons in my brain decide to fire in the way they do, but when these odd synapses occur, I am compelled to honor them.
This past weekend I happened to capture a quiet photo of one of our dogs sitting in the yard. So, the photo of the grove of oaks was graced with the presence of my dog who suddenly sprouted a pair of butterfly wings and multiplied into a whole herd who to took flight beneath a full moon. And “Where Puppies Fly” was born.
All this thanks to several great little iPhone apps: Juxtaposer (for the montage); Lenslight (for the full moon); Art Wings (for, well, the wings); Modern Grunge (for that hip, scratchy, grungy look); and Jazz (for some popping highlights).
It started when I decided to shun all responsibility, grab my iPhone and do a walkabout through Old Sacramento this a.m. in search of some fun iPhoneography fodder.
There were hordes of elementary students touring the train museum and I just happened to walk by a candy store at the same time a whole classroom of 4th graders converged on the barrels of sugary sweetness.
For reasons beyond me, their teachers decided it was a good idea for this group of hyperactive, screaming and screeching urchins to buy a supply of cavity-inducing, attention deficit disorder petrol on their way back to the classroom. Hmmmm…
All judgment aside, I knew I just had to whip out my iPhone and snap this madness in progress. I wasn’t quite sure what I would do with it, but my gut told me to shoot away.
After leaving the candy store I made my way to “Evangeline’s,” a famous costume shop in the middle of Old Sac. I can wander through this store for hours taking shots of all the creepy goodness that is on display. When I made my way upstairs, to my delight I discovered a whole wall of rubber monster masks.
So I shot… and I had a quirky neural synapse… and I smiled.
When I got home I immediately set about merging the monster masks with the scene at the candy store. This was achieved with Juxtaposer, then I added a little blur effect with BlurFX and a bit of grunge with Jazz.
This piece became “Little Monsters in the Candy Store.” It’s not that I think children are inherently bad you see, but I believe we can all agree this white, granular American staple can at times turn our kids into unrecognizable little demons post sugar binge.
Who remembers the television show “Diver Dan?” Yes, I am dating myself by admitting this, but I used to watch this show all the time as a wee little pup. For those of you too young or perhaps too age afflicted to remember, Diver Dan used to swim around in the ocean with an old-fashioned diving suit and helmet talking to the passing fish. There was a beautiful Mermaid named Miss Minerva and well, just see for yourself:
And you wonder why I have such a bad case of the quirkies. Yes, my childhood was filled with talking fish, flying monkeys and lions seeking courage. I have an excuse…
Anyways, as luck would have it, Evangeline’s just happened to have a mechanical diver fighting off a giant squid hanging in one of their entryways. Diver Dan swam immediately back into my memory so I whipped out my iPhone and brought him home.
What’s a diver without water? I took a shot of our backyard fountain and proceeded to merge the two shots in Juxtaposer then added a bit of grunge in Modern Grunge and a new episode called “Danger! Diver Dan” emerged.
I have a feeling my creative energy will dwell in this quirky state for the next few days. I still have a whole lot of photos left to edit and a lot of memories squeezing their way to the surface.
This little piece of metal, plastic and glass has begun to open up a plethora of doors in the art world, at nothing less than warp speed. Before I could utter the word “gigabyte,” my work was instantaneously transported to a gallery in Loano, Italy for a show titled “Physical Streams.” There were over 400 submissions from Europe, the United States, Canada and Asia. Fifty eight of us were lucky enough to be chosen by curator Alessandro Gimelli to be included in an eye grabbing iPhoneography mosaic display at the Overpass Gallery. The show runs through April 25th so if you happen to be in the country, stop on by and say “Cioa!” to Alessandro and peruse some amazing art.
"Physical Streams" mosaic consisting of 100 iPhoneography pieces, exhibited in the Overpass Gallery, Loano, Italy. April 1st through April 25th, 2012. Photo courtesy of Alessandro Gimelli.
These are my three pieces that were chosen to be in the exhibit:
For the sake of maintaining a professional division between my serious Documentary work and my more whimsical iPhone art, I have created a separate website for my iPhone pieces.
You can visit my new site, peruse my portfolio and even purchase prints by clicking on the screenshot below or by visiting www.tjthomas-iphoneart.com.
The wonderful crew at the Lunch Box Gallery in Miami put together this fun time-lapse video of the opening night for the iPhoneography: Updated Visual Dialogs show. I have two pieces exhibiting in this cutting edge group event, “UFO Refueling Station” and “Gelato” which can both be seen in previous posts on this blog. The show has been so successful it has been extended through May 7th. So if you are in Miami, swing on by the gallery in the Wynwood Art District.
I was also pleased to have my piece “No Diving” chosen as a featured photo in the Mobile Photography Awards Weekly Gallery. You can view it along with many other wonderful iPhone photos here: http://the-mpas.com/the-mpa-weekly-gallery-march-18-25/
To top it all off, my piece “Time Flies” (above), was chosen as a featured photograph this week on the site Pixels: The Art of the iPhone curated by Knox Bronson. And I will be making my international debut this afternoon in the “Physical Streams” exhibit at the Overpass Gallery in Loano, Italy (more on that in a future blog post).
Who would have thought that this handheld piece of communication equipment they call an iPhone would lead to such wonderful surprises in the art world? If you had mentioned the possibility to me a year ago, I would have self-righteously laughed you out of the room with the belief nothing could compare to a professional DSLR for capturing stunning images. But what I have found, along with the multitude of more polished iPhoneographers out there, the iPhone is a wonderful and freeing tool that allows the hidden parts of your creative soul to make their way to the surface.
I love this new obsession! And I cannot wait to see where it leads…
If you would like to take a peek at my ever-building portfolio or even purchase a print or two, please feel free to visit my new iPhone art website by clicking here.
Maybe it’s Spring Fever… Whatever it is, I am finding myself feeling very quirky and creative over the past few days. Too busy to get out and take photos in the “real” world, I find myself grabbing my iPhone first thing in the morning and searching my house high and low for some interesting little tidbit to shoot before my work day commences.
On Monday I stumbled across my bright orange wooden fish that sits on my nightstand. I decided this lonely fish needed to multiply and swim in a nice blue pool of water so I shot the fountain outside and created a montage by using the app Juxtaposer with final edits in Snapseed. It was very fun positioning the fish and I ended up with a 3-D like effect.
Tuesday was turtle day. I have always loved turtles, especially sea turtles, so I am blessed with multiple turtle gifts at every birthday and gift-giving holiday. I decided I needed to shoot one of these turtles to show my love. I used the Autopainter II app to get the pen and ink effect, then created a mirrored effect in Pictureshow with a few additional tweaks and edits in Lenslight. This resulted in what appears to be two turtles with a heart in the center. Of course I needed to title it “Turtle Love.”
Tree frogs are another love of mine. Today’s find were two ceramic tree frogs that grace the bookshelf in my office. We have had clouds and rain over the past week and for some odd reason I had a vision of umbrellas, clouds, the moon and tree frogs raining from the sky. I suppose it is a little bit Daliesque and perhaps he is the subconscious influence to my temporary insanity, however I enjoyed creating this piece more than most.
It started out with separate photographs of the cloudy sky, the two tree frogs and an umbrella. I carefully cut out the frogs and umbrella in Juxtaposer, arranged them on the cloudy sky background and multiplied and flipped and resized each element until I was happy with the visual. I then added a full moon in Lenslight and grunged it up a little bit in Modern Grunge. When I looked at the final result, I decided it needed one more thing, so I changed the DOF with a little blur in iQuikDof and voila! It’s Raining Frogs!
As a child my fantasies took me far away to places that were much more pleasant than my sordid reality. I would daydream about beautiful meadows filled with rainbows and fairies, where children were safe to frolic and play. I would journey to the stars and explore other planets, meet the man in the moon and slide around the rings of Saturn. There were always castles and caves made of crystal, unicorns with rainbow-colored horns and little people who would hide under teacups and come out to play after sunset.
As an adult I moved far away from that magical mind and became somewhat of a “realist.” Thus my love of reading and writing non-fiction and my journey into the world of true-to-life documentary work. But lately, the imaginary mind of that child buried deep inside has been begging to come out and play. She hit the jackpot when I began to embrace the abilities of my iPhone.
I remember believing in leprechauns. Maybe it was the Lucky Charms cereal commercials that pulled me in or the whimsical stories my Irish grandmother used to tell me from a wee age. Whatever the cause, I remember crawling on my belly in the grass every St. Patrick’s Day in search of the elusive four-leaf clover and running through the fields on a chase for the end of the rainbow and that shiny pot of gold.
I was certain the leprechauns bunked down in little houses under rainbows not too far from where I lived and that one day I would finally stumble across the little buggers.
My thesis project for my M.F.A. at the Academy of Art University consisted of twenty photographs which were edited down from over three years of work. I spent those three years out on the streets of several California cities shooting portraits of homeless individuals. In addition to my still portraits, I have multiple hours of raw video and audio interviews that I plan to one day weave together for a documentary multimedia piece.
This project has been very near and dear to my heart for a plethora of reasons and will continue to be a part of my life’s work for the remainder of my photography career. The strength and dignity I found in each of the individuals I met on the streets, served to remind me that we are not so different from one another. We are each human, with our own set of issues and frailties. It is through interaction with others that we become defined by way of a quiet recognition of our souls. When we look deep into the eyes of another, we cannot help but see ourselves staring back.
My series titled “An All Too Familiar Reflection: Portraits of the Homeless” is currently being featured on Socialdocumentary.net. You can view it by clicking on the screenshot below:
Florida. The land of cruise ships, Disney World, space shuttles, hurricanes and ultra-bronzed retirees. Also the home of several contemporary, cutting-edge art galleries who are not afraid to take the leap and celebrate the phenomenon that is mobile photography. They embrace it as having a substantial and relevant impact on the contemporary art world.
I am pleased, well more like giddy with glee if I am being honest, to have three of my iPhone photographs included in two separate group gallery events for the month of March. The first, “Drive Thru,” was chosen for the Depixtions show at the Orange Gallery in Orlando, which opens March 10th.
Two additional images, “Gelato” and “UFO Refueling Station” have just been chosen to hang in the group show iPhoneography: Updated Visual Dialogs at The Lunchbox Gallery, Miami in the Wynwood Art District. This show opens March 8th and runs through April 7th.
These little successes are definitely motivating me to get out there more to continue my personal dialog via the use of this wonderfully freeing tool that is my iPhone.
Last Sunday I ran 8 miles in preparation for an upcoming half marathon. At the end of that run I felt the healthiest I have felt in a long time. Strong and at peace with the endorphins surging through my tired body, I felt ready to take on the world.
Today, a mere week later, I barely have the strength to make it from the living room to the kitchen. The culprit? That nasty of all nasties; a flu virus. Yes indeed, the very same virus I had in my “Got Soup?” post on Tuesday.
It still lingers…
Fever, cough, chills, aches and pains. No sleep due to the persistent hacking of my bronchial tubes. The kind of cough that makes you wish you had a compression helmet to hold the fissures together in your skull for fear they’ll break apart and release your brain from its casing the next time you cough, cough.
With deep red, watery eyes and a raw nose from all the tissue removing the top layer of my sensitive Irish skin, I was still able to pull it together long enough Friday evening to attend the Art & Ag show opening at Gallery 1075 where my View of Farmlands series is hanging for the month of March. But just those few hours of meeting and greeting and discussing my work set me back a few strides and once again, I have not felt well all weekend.
Part of my "View of Farmlands" series hanging in Gallery 1075.
I realize my flu is menial when compared to the chronic illnesses some friends and acquaintances are contending with right now, but it definitely causes me to appreciate my health in a way I don’t normally consider in my day-to-day.
I have been fortunate in my life to be a pretty darn healthy specimen with only one surgery so far that occurred after blowing out my Achilles tendon while playing softball. I have always been the athletic, outdoorsy type who made it a point to workout and eat right only occasionally suffering from a cold or the flu.
But I am not naive and I know that debilitating illness could strike any one of us, including myself, at a time when I/we would least expect. This thought keeps me humble. This thought helps me to realize I should appreciate life in the moment and embrace my good health while I have it.
So for now, during this time when I am feeling but a mere shadow of my former self, I plan to embrace the lessons of this nasty bug; this great equalizer that has left me vulnerable and caused me to stare into the pale face of the weakness that is this human shell.
Today I will sit in the sunshine for a while and try to breathe the fresh air into my lungs as deeply as my bronchial tubes will allow. I will envision myself running down the healing path at a record-breaking pace and revel again in that endorphin induced high.
I am coming down with that darned cold that seems to be visiting everyone I know. Rumbling bronchial cough, nasal congestion, general malaise and a grumpy attitude to go with it. I despise being sick but I realize sometimes it is just my body telling me to slow down and take a little break.
I remember all the Campbell’s Soups commercials and ads when I was young. You know, back in the day when everything was just 10 cents a can and those cans were packed full with noodles. The ads featured that plump, golden-haired girl who said “mmmmm, mmmmmm, good!” as she extended her tray of hot soup in your direction.
Marketing genius? Perhaps, yes, during simpler days. It seemed to work for me as I do remember consuming multiple cans of Campbell’s chicken noodle whenever I caught a cold and it always seemed to make me feel so much better.
Maybe it was the fact no one was at home when I was tucked away shivering under the covers. My mom was the single money earner in our house and couldn’t miss any more days at work without pay. She would rush home on her lunch hour and fix up a big bowl of soup with saltine crackers, take my temperature, give me a few more aspirin and read me a story before she had to rush back to work. With my belly full of warm soup, I would then drift away into sleep for the rest of the afternoon.
My whole life I have struggled with the idea of self-worth. That struggle of course came out of being raised in the extremely dysfunctional home from which I came. For far too long I embraced the consistent, negative message that had been hammered into me from early childhood that I was “not good enough” and definitely “not deserving.”
Though there have been many times in my past where I received awards or honors for accomplishments, those instances always felt so incredibly surreal and I would not allow myself to become emotionally invested in the moment. Instead I would shrug my shoulders and chalk it up to “luck.” While those around me were celebrating for me, I would fall back into that negative self-talk that surmised I could have done it much better than I did.
Perfectionism… What a highly overrated, most definitely subjective, unnecessary waste of time and energy.
Fortunately, I have been able to face the self-worth issues head on during my “later” adult years and have finally begun to slay that dragon so to speak. The negative self-talk does continue to creep in on occasion, however now I am able to flush it out of my mind the minute it threatens by replacing it with positive words of self-love.
The past few weeks have been an incredible test of this journey for me. My photograph “Tower Bridge Sunrise” was gifted to Nippon Shokken by the Mayor of our city and made its way onto the pages of several local newspapers.
Photo courtesy: City of West Sacramento. Mayor Christopher Cabaldon presents "Tower Bridge Sunrise" to the Chairman of Nippon Shokken.
My series “View of Farmlands,” which I created after winning a public art commission supported by the Yolo County Arts Council and the James Irvine Foundation, is heading out on tour with a March 2nd launch at Gallery 1075.
My “Occupy Oakland” series is being featured on SocialDocumentary.net.
My series "Occupy Oakland" featured on SocialDocumentary.net
On Tuesday of this week, I was honored to meet and film an interview with Rocco Landesman, the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts where he told me my “View of Farmlands” series was incredible and that I am a very talented photographer.
Then Saturday morning, I received notice that I was chosen to be iPhone Photographer of the Day (out of thousands of artists) on iPhoneArt.com.
My iPhone art featured on the home page of iPhoneArt.com for Artist of the Day.
Today I am smiling widely and have a funny butterfly-like feeling in my belly. This tells me I am finally emotionally vested in these most recent accolades. So I am writing this post with what should have been the giddiness of a shy second grade girl who just received her first Brownie badge; the beaming smile of the 8th grade graduate who did so with honors; the overwhelming pride of the track athlete who just obliterated her half-mile league record; the beaming high school graduate who was the recipient of the largest college scholarship given out that night; and the excited college graduate who just earned her third degree.
This contented photographer and writer proudly embraces the quiet accomplishments of my past that I once so hastily dismissed, and is over the moon excited about my most recent accomplishments and accolades.
“I do deserve this!”… May the positive self-talk continue forever.
Home page of iPhoneArt.com on Saturday Feb. 25th with me as featured artist!
I opened my email this morning to find the following message from iPhoneArt.com:
“Dear tjthomas,
Congratulations! You have been selected as our iPhoneArtist of the day. Your work is currently being showcased on our home page at www.iPhoneArt.com.
We are honored to have you as a member of the fastest growing mobile art community online. As an IPA Artist of the Day, you will also be invited to help select our monthly awardee. You have been added to our Featured Artist section on our site. And with the upcoming release of our iPrints program, this will be the most visible place online for art buyers and the general public to find and purchase mobile art from the most talented artists in the field. Our mission is to enable artists to promote their work and generate income. We encourage you to also take advantage of all other sites, programs, and opportunities available for mobile artists. At IPA, the artists will always come first. We have big plans and we want you to be a part of them. Together we can rise much higher.
A few evening’s ago, I decided to take a run along the deep water channel, which is now known as the “Barge Canal.” When I run, I carry my iPhone since it is loaded with this cool pedometer app that measures my overall mileage, elevation gain, average speed, average pace, etc. The perfect training tool for my running ventures.
The only problem I have with running along the canal is my desire to stop every half mile in order to take a photo with my iPhone. There’s just something about the Barge Canal and the Port in particular that captures my attention and my imagination.
While running, I stumbled across five short yellow posts that surrounded two large concrete circles with candy-cane shaped pipes on either end. This strange configuration of metal and cement sat in a clearing of dirt at the edge of a row of trees. This odd patch of color and geometric shapes simply begged for me to shoot it.
I am certain there is some logical engineering explanation for my find. Of course my creative mind immediately took the leap to UFO landing pad. So when I got home I had to add my interpretation of some mysterious craft hovering off in the treeline by way of the LensLight app.
Further up the trail sat a tall pole with multiple lights balanced on top with a fenced-in generator at its base. With no other light poles around, it seemed so out-of-place. I imagine it is used for lighting up the bank of the channel when one of the big ships come in to the port on the opposite side, but when I looked at its silhouette against the approaching stormy sky, all I could think about was lightning rods. Thus the addition of the lightning bolt via another app.
The canal is home to a number of rowers and scullers from local clubs and universities. Though there were no boats out this particular evening, with the sun low on the horizon, the treeline reflected beautifully in the undisturbed water. It reminded me of a bucolic landscape from long ago where one would expect a young couple with bonnet and top hat to be rowing along the bank with a picnic in tow. Thus the more sepia-toned processing to add a feeling of reminiscence.
Where there is water, there are usually fish. On my way back to my car, an older gentleman clambered up the bank just ahead of me. He was pulling a little cart that held a fishing pole, a net and some gear. I walked behind him for a bit until he stopped at a bench along the path to rest. As I passed, he smiled and nodded. When I asked him if he had caught anything he shrugged his shoulders and said “no fish” and “no English” with a thick Russian accent. I pointed to my iPhone and mimed the click of a shutter button with the raising of my eyebrows in question. He shook his head yes and stood for the photograph.
I imagined him sitting next to a fire on a frozen river in Russia while he dropped his line through a hole he had cut into the thick ice while his family sat bundled up in their small house waiting for him to come home with his catch after a long day of fishing near the Caspian Sea.
Although I have most recently found myself iPhoneography obsessed, I really do still take photographs with my “big girl” camera. But my focus tends to be on subjects a bit more serious such as homelessness, the flailing economy, terminal illness, etc. (thus my M.F.A. in Documentary Photography).
My Occupy Oakland series that I shot during the General Strike last year is currently being featured on both the Socialdocumentary.net website and in the most current edition of “Spotlight.”
You can view the series by clicking on the screenshot below.
Now back to my iPhone and downloading some additional camera Apps…
There’s just something so damn sexy about Italian scooters. Oh Hell, let’s be honest, there’s something so damn sexy about Italians period.
Every time I drive through Sonoma my eyes are immediately drawn to this little import business that sits along Napa Street. They have a stable of imported Italian scooters all lined up along the edge of the sidewalk just begging to be taken for a ride. The muted colors, the smooth curves, the sparkling chrome and the shiny leather seats all work together to pull in the weak-willed, tongue wagging, potential consumer.
For a year now, I have been waging war with my ironclad willpower in an attempt to get myself to stop the car so I can run my hand along the cool, sensuous curves of one of these two-wheeled seductresses. My somewhat prudish willpower has always won that wrestling match. That is, until today.
Just say the word “Gelato” and my salivary glands begin to work overtime. Gelato aside, say the words “Italian espresso” and I would climb Mt. Everest to reach a steaming demitasse cup of that brain-cell stimulating goodness. Combine a scooter with Italian gelato or espresso and you will find me doing a u-turn on the busiest freeway in America in order to fulfill my fantasies.
Call it marketing genius. Call it savvy business know-how. Call it whatever you want. It worked. Right there, parked along Napa Street was a beautiful gold Vespa sporting a sexy wooden cutout balancing a tray of coffee with a sign overhead that said “Drive-thru.” When my eyes followed the arrow they fell first on a beautiful converted scooter with the word “Gelato” painted on the front.
But be still my heart. Just to the left of the Gelato scooter was a converted Lambretta trike that was serving fresh Italian espresso. I thought I had died and gone off to Heaven.
So what did I do? I threw out my willpower, flipped a you-ee, grabbed my iPhone and stumbled out of my car. All of my Italian fantasies assembled in one tiny parking lot? Absolutely unbelievable. La vita è Bella!
If I had the patience to paint, the resulting images would undoubtedly fall into the category of “abstract surrealism” with hints of my subconscious thoughts springing forth through the mish-mash of color and quasi-recognizable shapes. They would most likely be painted with earthy tones, lots of shadows, lacking detail and with some tiny smidgen of light attempting to break through the darkness. That’s not only due to my lack of command for the medium, but it is what I would desire to paint if I could.
Hmmmm… sounds like the perfect recipe for a little Jungian analysis.
One thing I have discovered with my new-found iPhoneography obsession is the ability to create pieces that appease both my need to photograph and my desire to express the deeper, more subconscious-based emotion that tends to drive my artistic angst. Something I could certainly do by spending endless hours with my “big girl” camera and Photoshop. But in far less time, I am able to create pieces on my iPhone that match an emotion or feeling when it strikes. Something I have accomplished by using my DSLR, however it usually takes many months and endless nights of no sleep, before I finally get the photo that says what I was feeling.
The simple act of whipping out my iPhone when the moment seizes and losing myself in the manipulation of an image with several Apps, seems to cleanse a lot of internal wasted space and transforms me into a manic creativity machine. I find it easier to write, easier to plan my life, easier to come up with conceptual ideas for new photography series shot with my “big girl” camera, and I feel an immediate sense of peace.
Who knew this little rectangular piece of metal, glass and plastic would replace my therapist? The simple act of spontaneous creation has a way of alleviating all that blasted, unnecessary white noise that clutters up my brain. All the oft-jumbled “junk” that squats inside my subconscious finally has a pathway to the exit. Who cares if anyone else “understands” these abstract creations? It’s “art” I say…
Since being bitten by the rabid iPhoneography bug and becoming obsessively swallowed up in the illness, I decided to open up a new category on this blog called “iPhoneography” as most of my other ramblings and musings may vary far and wide from the topic. It will be my goal to upload at least one new piece of iPhone art every few days along with the apps I chose to use just to keep my creative juices flowing. So today I am posting “Losing My Marbles” & “The Port and The Moon.”
“Losing My Marbles” was shot on a glass table with ProCamera and processed via a combination of effects in Dynamic Light, RainyDaze, Snapseed and Grunge.
“The Port and The Moon” was taken in the evening at the Port of Sacramento when the lighting was perfect, the water still and the reflection amazing. Snapped with ProCamera and processed via a combination of Snapseed, Grunge and Lenslight. Hint: If you haven’t guessed by now, the moon was not in the original photo .
My name is Tracy J. Thomas and I am addicted to iPhoneography…
Don’t get me wrong, I am not giving up my “big girl” camera, especially since I just spent a whole shitload of money on my M.F.A. However there is just something so free and easy and yes a bit sexy about the act of whipping this compact piece of electronic gadgetry out of my pocket to snap a photo without wrestling with lens caps, light meters and aperture settings. In fact it’s more than sexy. It’s like being granted the freedom to run around without your clothes on only you aren’t confined to a nudist colony type of sexy. And it’s as addicting as any illicit drug.
Owning an iPhone does not a photographer make. So no, I am not worried that my future earnings as a professional will be quashed by a bunch of amateur iPhone slingers. There are still a whole lot of snapshot-like iPhone photos floating around in cyberspace even when shot with those cool apps like Hipstamatic or Instagram. I’m just as guilty as the rest for taking a whole toilet bowl full of Hipstamatic photographs with every available “lens” and “film” the moment my iPhone first arrived. But such is the learning curve of said beast.
As time wore on and I became bored with the same old results from the same old “lenses” and “films,” I decided to Google iPhoneography and boy were my eyes happy with what they saw on these links. People were doing things with their iPhones that were comparable to the best Photoshop digital artists out there. I was basically blown away while highly motivated to understand how they were making such incredible art. It soon became apparent there was so much more to it than just your basic camera app.
The trick with all of these incredible artists beyond the obvious fact they have a strong eye for photography and some deeply rooted artistic talent, is they don’t simply stop with your basic camera app. In fact they bend and stretch and scratch and rip and tone and percolate and layer and enhance their photographs by using as many as a half-dozen apps or more for each piece. Now that takes vision. And planning. And of course the proper amount of memory in your iPhone to load said apps.
Thus began my journey into app stacking in post processing of my iPhone images. This whole week has been all about experimenting with a plethora of apps and combinations. I took a vow to self to jump right in and get my hands dirty, to tweak and doodle and layer and mask in order to create a couple of moody iPhone photographs. Just the act of playing with my iPhone has begun to free up the artistic funk I found myself in last week when I wrote my last blog post.
I have already connected with an amazing group of iPhoneographers on iPhoneart.com and was even more pleased to find information on art galleries that have begun to exhibit iPhone photos. I have even begun to write and design a basic iPhoneography course that I hope to teach through my city’s community center and I also plan to set up an online course for a minimal fee within the next several months in order to spread the joy.
So excuse me for now. My iPhone is sitting here giving me a rather cold stare and I am twitching to get my hands on the WordFoto app I downloaded a few minutes ago.
I realize that life is tenuous and change is inevitable, however a large part of my internal self craves to be anchored in a safe port where the rhythms of life are more predictable than not. But at this moment I find myself floating precariously in the harbor of my discontent. The waves coming in off the bow are large and choppy and seem focused on one action: to capsize.
This seemingly dark scenario is really not as bad as my words paint it to be, at least not for me. It is a familiar place that I have been privy to visit throughout my life. It is a place where I have floated and flailed and found myself breathless on too many occasions to count. One step removed from depression, it is not a bottomless tunnel that leads to that hopeless void of no return. It is instead that temporary gap between my striving for consistency and my need for change. It is that momentary dangling on the precipice of day-to-day existence and the deep desire for creative expression. The one thing that keeps me from falling into that tunnel is the existence of hope and the need to connect with the world through my very soul.
All artists have experienced it. Some have dealt with it better than others. Michelangelo must have had it; Beethoven most certainly felt it; Van Gogh was missing an ear because of it; Gauguin may have severed that very ear in spite of it; Dorothy Parker, Jack Kerouac and Ernest Hemingway drowned themselves in alcohol in the midst of it; and Sylvia Plath was damned by it.
Artistic angst… that place of inner turmoil and frustration when the artist is lost in the search for what to say and how they want to say it. That required space where discontent becomes the catalyst for renewed expression.
In order to create, sometimes it’s necessary to flail helplessly in this ethereal space in an attempt to find the shore. It is a tension that finds one foot pointed towards the earth while both hands reach towards the heavens. It is a place where one rarely sleeps and when one eventually does, dreams become endless streams of archaic symbols. The mind escapes into a fantasy land filled with colors, where light blends with line and faces become shadows on an abstract canvas of geometric shapes. It is a place where words string themselves together mysteriously as if dictated from afar and through some knowledge outside of one’s own.
The line can at times appear precarious but the difference can be measured by the end result. The tortured soul remains floating out there in that ethereal realm, failing to place paint brush to canvas, words to music, their eye to a lens. The desires of their soul are rarely expressed and they are unable to cross over the chasm, often falling into the endless depths. Theirs is the boat that floats in the harbor of discontent, fills up with water and eventually sinks to the bottom never to be seen again.
While the motivated soul sees this as a necessary but temporary place to visit in order to align themselves with truth, inspiration and personal vision. They see this flailing as required and recognize it as motivation to place paint brush to canvas, write words to music and lift the lens to the eye then click the shutter button. They can see the dark chasm but choose to jump across to the other side. Theirs is the boat that floats in the harbor of discontent, uses a bucket to bail out the water and eventually reaches the shore.
As a young girl I felt a deep, mysterious connection to nature and everything in it. It was hard for me at times to delineate where I began and it ended. Somewhere out there existed an ethereal vanishing point that was not visible to the eyes, where my own subatomic particles were merged with the wind, the water, the air, the ground beneath my feet. It took some time for me to trust people enough to experience the same, but eventually along life’s journey I began to meet certain individuals who I felt merged with even while in physical absence. Sort of an intuitive pas de deux that some would dub “coincidence” but I choose to call “psychic connection.”
I have always been intrigued by physics (which coincidentally, or not, contains the same letters as the word “psychic” minus one “c” pronounced “see”), so when Quantum Physics and its theories began to make its way into everyday layman’s terms I was smitten. Called “strange science” by many for quite some time, the theories and precepts are now being proven daily via measurable leaps and bounds.
One of its strangest theories is Quantum Entanglement… “photons whose quantum properties are so intimately linked that one always knows what the other is doing. When an aspect of one photon’s quantum state is measured, the other photon changes in response, even when the two photons are separated by large distances.” (Wired Magazine, June 2010). That entanglement can even reach across an entire galaxy. Einstein noted the theoretical possibility of entanglement and dubbed it “spooky action at a distance.” Modern day physicists have verified and documented its reality most recently through visibly measurable terms, proving one thing can be in two places or states at the same exact time and the actions of one can influence the actions of the other.
This is no longer the stuff of science fiction and fantasy. It is real and it is measurable. We are all connected. In fact everything in our world, in our universe and beyond is connected. Everything and everyone in our lives defines who we are.
Our thoughts, our actions and our reactions have a direct impact on others and on the world in which we live. With this knowledge comes great responsibility. A responsibility not everyone in this “me” focused society will gladly embrace. It is not a welcomed science for the power-hungry narcissist, the greedy politician nor the self-indulgent.
But for those of us who have somehow managed to stumble across this reality at some point in our journey, it is a welcomed opportunity to connect and encourage positive change on the deepest of levels. Through the act of taking small, seemingly insignificant positive steps and actions out of love, on an individual level, we will be enacting change on a universal level.
Just think what would happen if we embraced it in numbers. We could begin to affect change with an astonishing power for the betterment of all humans, for the betterment of our planet and for the security of our children’s future.
As the year 2011 winds to a close I find myself lost in a deep space of reflection. I have been blessed with the gift of spending the next ten days with the son of two dear friends while they take a well-earned vacation. My “home” for the duration is an extremely peaceful abode surrounded by giant redwood trees. It is the perfect finish to a very busy year that culminated with the earning of my M.F.A. in documentary photography.
John is a beautiful soul who happens to be non-verbal in the traditional sense and was given the label of “autistic” based on our society’s need to categorize those who are different from what is deemed to be “normal.” His communications and interaction with his world come in the form of a variety of whistles and deeply toned, sing-song like sounds most often accompanied by some hand or body movement. He has moments of great eye contact that tend to pierce right through to the core as if he is sharing every thought in his mind through his intense gaze. At times I feel that if I can hold that gaze for just one more moment, some magic gate will be opened and I will be able to walk right through and understand every word he cannot say.
This evening after dinner, he took a seat on one of the couches in the family room, then proceeded to cross his legs and place his hands on his knees in a very meditative pose. He stared out at the grove of giant redwoods behind the house as the sun began to set and he softly, calmly, began what I can only describe as a deep chant that was as equally hypnotizing as the most revered Buddhist monk. The golden light from the sunset lit his face in a surreal way. The melodic tone of his voice found me even more grounded than I already am and I felt for a time as if I was bearing witness to something completely outside of this world. He continued for about five minutes then slowly, deliberately, turned his eyes towards mine and held me there in that quiet space until tears began to run down my cheeks.
The blessings in this life are many. Sometimes they come to us in unexpected ways and are there for us to see as long as we choose to open our eyes to them. My hope for each and every being on this earth for the new year is for great healing, deep peace and the end of suffering. And may you each recognize your blessings and embrace them as they reveal themselves in the moment.
Yesterday I drove into San Francisco to retrieve my thesis project materials from the University. I am now the official owner of three degrees. My B.A. granted at the tender age of 21; my M.A. when I was 39 and my M.F.A. earned just this month at the half-past age of 53.
Yes, I love to learn, but I kept coming back for more because of the many incredible teachers I have been blessed with throughout my life. The ones who recognized my potential even when I could not recognize it myself. The ones who showed me all the possibilities this life has to offer. The ones who encouraged me to continue even when I felt like the biggest failure ever.
It all started with my 8th grade Civics teacher, Mrs. Hermann, who taught me about our inalienable rights as citizens of this country. I will never forget the day she recited the Declaration of Independence from memory in her quaking elderly voice filled with a passion that echoes in my memory to this day. Mrs. Hermann opened my eyes to the freedoms and liberties our forefathers worked hard to obtain for all future generations. She helped me to understand for the first time in my life how each one of us was meant to live our lives from a place of equality. She instilled in me my feisty views on justice and politics.
Mr. Pratt, my high school band teacher, I am certain sensed my need to step outside my sheltered box of fears when he gave me the lead piccolo solo during the half time show at one homecoming football game. There I stood, this shivering bundle of nerves in front of packed bleachers. Though my stomach flip-flopped and my knees quaked, I delivered the solo with a precision I had no idea I could muster. This one tiny step fueled a fire inside of me and helped me to understand I was capable of doing so much more. He helped me to face my fears and do it anyways.
Mrs. Hendrix, my french teacher, saw right through my shy, withdrawn, external shell and when giving each student in my class a french name for the semester, chose to dub me Désirée or “desired one.” This of course caused me to blush but at the same time helped me to feel about ten feet tall on the inside. Though I never told her of my troubled home life, I think she sensed it and took great pains to take me under her wing over the next three years. She created an open door policy for me at her and her husband’s home, unofficially “adopting” me. This is where I began to understand what a healthy family was supposed to act and look like. She taught me what it means to be loved.
Mr. Arnold, who taught me poetry, advanced senior English, and semantics was also my cross country coach. This incredible Zen-like man opened my eyes to subjects I never before knew existed and encouraged me to train hard and excel in a sport that quite literally saved my life. He taught me how to manage my stress through healthy means.
Dr. Constance O’Connor, a fiery red-haired Irish woman a bit less than five feet tall, was able to take a big hammer to my external shell and draw me out during my first few years of college in a way that began a whirlwind of creativity, accomplishments and feats of bravery I had never expected of myself. She taught me how to reach for the stars, grab hold and shine despite my insecurities.
As I moved into adulthood and began to take on the “real” world with my new found confidence and the skill set my teachers had helped to instill, I would think often about these special human beings who played such a significant role in molding who I would become. I often wonder if they realize what an incredible impact they had on my life.
Since I am a perpetual student, I decided to pursue my M.F.A. four years ago in the field of my true passion, photography. After being accepted into the program at AAU, I soon discovered an endless stream of incredible teachers who began to impact my life and my art in ways that is difficult to put into words. Each of them uniquely special: Tracy Nichols, Adrienne Pao, Diane Choplin, Kristin Davis… all helped me to stretch and grow and strive and develop my art with a depth I had never imagined.
But there is one teacher who was able to touch me to the core like no other during my life thus far. Tamara Hubbard. She had the uncanny ability to formulate questions that caused me great angst, left me with a lack of sleep and a literal ache in my brain due to all the pondering in search of my answers. She helped me to reach a depth and connection with my work that no one has ever been able to encourage before. She taught me that it is okay to swim for awhile in that uncertain space in order to discover the truth of one’s own soul.
I am sure this is not the last of my life’s learning. There is so much more to know. But I want each and every teacher who has blessed my life with their patience, their knowledge, their care and selfless concern to know just how important you have been to me. I thank you from a space of great humility for your ability to see my potential and for caring enough to nurture that potential with your gentle guidance. You each mean the world to me and will until I finally depart this lovely planet.
For God’s sake people, no one has stolen the “Christ” from “Christmas.” Honest.
‘Tis that time of year when some of my dear Christian friends, and I do mean “dear,” begin posting their diatribe on Facebook, feeling in some odd way that their choice of religion and it’s observances have given them exclusive dibs to the whole month of December.
They begin to rant and rave right after Thanksgiving about those of us who choose to say “Happy Holidays.” They claim through paranoid logic that someone has stolen the “Christ” from that holiday called “Christmas” and I quote:
“I DO NOT CARE IF THIS DOES OFFEND SOMEONE…THIS IS WHAT I BELIEVE…I AM SICK AND TIRED OF EVERY YEAR WHEN CHRISTMAS COMES AROUND; THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO TAKE CHRIST OUT OF CHRISTMAS BECAUSE IT MIGHT OFFEND SOMEONE…WELL, HOW ABOUT ALL OF THE CHRISTIANS?…WHAT ABOUT OFFENDING US BECAUSE YOU ARE TAKING OUR CHRIST OUT OF CHRISTMAS?…CHRIST IS CHRISTMAS!…IF YOU AREN’T CELEBRATING CHRIST THEN WHY ARE YOU CELEBRATING?…CHRISTMAS IS ABOUT THE BIRTH OF OUR SAVIOR!…CHRISTMAS IS ONE OF A FEW HOLIDAYS LEFT THAT CELEBRATE “MY” CHRIST!…LEAVE “MY” CHRISTMAS ALONE!…AND TELL EVERYONE MERRY CHRISTMAS, NOT HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!…REPOST IF YOU ARE NOT ASHAMED.”
First let me say, good for you for practicing your First Amendment right to freedom of speech. I’m all for that, as I am sure you are too?
But, ahem…You still personally choose to celebrate “Christmas” in the way you think Christmas should be celebrated, yes? Has anyone actually removed that right from you lately? No… I didn’t think so.
What I find most interesting is, you choose to celebrate Christmas in December even though your Christ was actually born on the 15th day of the month of Tishri, on the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles, which corresponds to the September to October time frame of our present calendar. Please see biblical scholar facts 101.
If it concerns you so much, you might consider a redo on that date. Maybe to a month more in line with his actual birth date and where there are less holiday celebrations by others that might “interfere” with your own?
The Jewish celebrate Chanukah in December; the Muslims celebrate Eid-al-Adha in December; the Buddhists celebrate Bodhi Day in December; the Pagans celebrate the Winter Solstice in December; some in the Southern states of the U.S. celebrate Las Posadas in December; some African-Americans celebrate Kwanzaa in December; Christians and non-Christians alike celebrate Christmas in December; and on and on it goes.
Therefore, a number of holidays are actually celebrated this month and the polite greeting, “Happy Holidays!” tends to cover them all. It really isn’t some dark and dangerous conspiracy to overthrow your right to celebrate nor to kidnap your holiday nor your Christ. And if you continue to think it is, then perhaps a little boost in your Lithium prescription is warranted?
Each of the aforementioned groups celebrate in December, well, because they have a Constitutional right to do so. I don’t seem to remember seeing any Holy decree that states the month of December shall remain celebration-less with the exception of Christmas. Better yet, I don’t remember seeing any Amendment to the Constitution that states all Americans must follow one religion and therefore practice only the traditions of that specific religion and will be put in jail or stoned to death for any salutation during that season that does not include the word “Christ.”
Furthermore, Jesus was Jewish. He was born to a Jewish woman in Galilee which was located in a Jewish part of the world; the majority of his friends, colleagues, associates, even his disciples were Jews; he worshiped in Jewish synagogues and he preached from Jewish text; he celebrated Jewish festivals; and he even made regular pilgrimages to the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. And I would bet my very last shekel that he played with a dreidel when he was a kid.
Perhaps “Christnukah” or even “Chanuchrist” would be a more appropriate term to use for your chosen celebration of his birth and his life?? Words are just well, words. Maybe action is a little better way to celebrate your beliefs rather than to be wallowing in a sea of semantics.
Personally this season, I plan to celebrate a combination of holidays that occur in December because I tend to ascribe to that ethical belief of equality for all. So I have decided to create “Christmakkah-EidalAdha-Bodhi-StLucias-Hogmanay-LasPosadas-St.NicholasDay-Kwanzaa-etcetera,” and celebrate it whenever and however I choose to because I can.
Happy Holidays to each and every one, whatever your beliefs or practices might be!
Oh, and a Happy New Year that recognizes and respects the rights of all human beings to simply “be” who they choose to be and to worship whatever they choose to worship, without all this non Christ-like judgment that is so regularly imposed.
If you really want to put “Christ” back into “Christmas,” then perhaps you should begin by acting more like Him. Go on, take all those “Christ”mas gifts you have piled up under your tree and give them away to a family in need…that’s what Jesus would do.
Here is a multimedia piece I created for the iPinion Syndicate following the rally on the UC Davis campus that was held to address the pepper spraying incident of a group of peaceful student protestors. The rally featured a number of student speakers who were targeted with pepper spray by the campus police.
The general assembly put forth a demand for the resignation of Chancellor Katehi during the rally. Chancellor Katehi also spoke briefly to the crowd and offered nothing more than a feeble apology.
Since the rally there have been more than 100,000 signatures gathered asking for the resignation of the Chancellor.
There is only one thing in this world that causes me to transform into a fiery mad, post-menopausal, middle-aged Irish woman with a strong sense of justice.
That thing is arrogant bastardry.
Lately, there has been a whole lot of that floating around in our country. Case in point:
1. The banks knowingly issued a plethora of extremely risky loans with the intent to immediately sell them off. With full knowledge of how bad these loans were, they then chose to run out on the market to place gigantic monetary bets against said loans. Kind of a crap shoot where the dices were loaded and the gambler was assured a big win. Then it all blew up in their faces and Wall Street knowingly unloaded these bad loans into foreign funds, local unions, pension funds and basically anything and everything that would effect taxpayers and not their high level investors. And they did it with much glee while running around the exchange room floor giving each other the high-five. This was no less than a highly organized and orchestrated crime against the citizens of the United States for which not a single person was prosecuted nor served time. I view this as “ha ha we screwed you” arrogant bastardry personified.
2. After the implosion, the poor, sad, hurting banks then stood there with a shrug of the shoulders and a forlorn, needy look on their impish faces while holding out their tin cups as if they had zero knowledge of what had just occurred. They then reaped the benefits of bailout money from our government while our citizens continued to lose their homes, ended up out on the streets and received no form of monetary bailout whatsoever. The banks then turned around and gave all their executives big, fat inflated raises and turned significant profits that same year. Arrogant bastardry of the devious mind.
3. With the economy in one of the worst positions it has been in since the Depression, the housing market completely upside down, the unemployment rate skyrocketing exponentially, more children living below the poverty level in our country than a lot of 3rd world countries and families unable to keep a roof over their heads, the Republicans then begin to push for cuts to services for the elderly, the poor, the indigent in order to balance an out of control budget that has spent trillions of dollars on the War Machine. Arrogant bastardry with a blatant disregard for humanity.
4. Newt Gingrich, that Republican tower of moral terpitude who is now running for President of the United States, then tells the Occupy protestors to “go get a job and take a bath.” Wow. I’m left speechless with that one… Can you imagine this as our next President??? Despicable arrogant bastardry.
5. Fear begins to creep into the halls of the Robber Barons while the Occupy movement gains steam and begins to make a whole lot of sense to the masses of formerly complacent sheep who were used by these institutions to do their bidding. Out of this fear, a memo was written by Washington DC lobbyists to the American Bankers Association and proposes “the ABA pay CLGC $850,000 to conduct ‘opposition research’ on Occupy Wall Street in order to construct ‘negative narratives’ about the protests and allied politicians. The memo also asserts that Democratic victories in 2012 would be detrimental for Wall Street and targets specific races in which it says Wall Street would benefit by electing Republicans instead.” Deceitful, conniving, low-life, special interest arrogant bastardry.
6. While the Occupy protestors in Liberty Square stand up for Americans who have been continuously duped and robbed by these vile institutions of greed, the traders look down on them from the balconies above and toast them with champagne. The Royals being entertained by the Commoners? Wait, I thought we broke away from that centuries ago… Arrogant in-your-face entitlement bastardry.
7. Jaded news reports continue to classify the protestors as nothing more than “homeless slackers, anarchists and fascists who are looking for another handout.” Politically interest-controlled news agency arrogant bastardry.
8. Students on our UC campuses who are exercising their Constitutionally protected right to stand up and speak out for what they believe in, are met with brute force; beaten with batons and pepper sprayed while sitting arm-in-arm in peaceful protest. Criminal arrogant bastardry.
I am nothing less than fiery mad. Didn’t anyone ever warn you not to mess with a mama bear’s cubs? Well, look out…you just stepped in a big pile of bear dung.
I am so beside myself with anger after watching these unarmed, peaceful young adults at UC Davis become the brunt of testosterone-driven plebes of punishment who obviously own not one single cell of common sense that would urge them to “stop” regardless of the orders that came down from the top. I don’t care if God herself gave them the orders. If there were any decent neural pathway connecting the two sides of their primate skulls, they would have stood down and refused to use such force against a group that provided zero threat.
Yes, I am angry. There is nothing wrong with expressing anger if used in a constructive manner. I am going to continue to go out and stand in solidarity with all the other peaceful protesters who are brave enough to exercise their First Amendment rights. I will turn my back on the few bad apples who occasionally choose to turn to violence in order to make their point. What I have witnessed to this point is nothing less than groups of principled Americans who care about the welfare of other Americans and that is reason enough for me to take the same stand.
What does it take in this country to wake people up? What does it take to put a flame under the ass of complacency and set it on fire? If photos and video of peaceful protestors being beaten and ruthlessly sprayed in the eyes and in the mouth with life threatening chemicals doesn’t do it for you well then, step aside. You belong in the dung pile with all the other arrogant, unfeeling, unprincipled, self-absorbed, pathetic bastards who have chosen to quell the rights each one of us are entitled to as Americans…
My friend Cathy is dying. There is no cure for the merciless disease that has taken hold of her body. Cathy has Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Simply put, ALS is a “disease of the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord that control voluntary muscle movement.” Cathy’s form of ALS is genetic and she has watched an aunt, her mother and two brothers wither and die of the same disease. She knows what to expect and she views this knowledge as a great blessing.
Unlike many, Cathy has been given the opportunity to put her life in order before she passes. She has time to say her goodbyes. She has time to tell the people she loves that she loves them. She has time to ask forgiveness and to forgive when desired.
Cathy and I were fortunate to meet each other back in our wild and wooly twenty-somethings. We were fast women who drove even faster cars… Cathy, an old Rambler with the push button gears that she called “Bubbles” and I, a bright red Toyota pickup that had its rear fender dented by a bear on a suicide mission.
There were four of us who chose to tear up the town back then; Cathy, Susan, Julie (Bo) and myself. We were athletes, so our times together were a non-stop flurry of activity and occasional depravity.
There were whimsical trips to San Francisco with dancing and imbibing until all hours of the night, then crashing in some seedy six-dollar motel somewhere in the Tenderloin (none of us were rich back then; nor are we now).
There were fun times at the California State Fair with an episode of stalking Karla Bonoff (or was it Juice Newton?) as her group left the stage. And I think there was something about drooling… Yes, there was definitely drooling.
There were lots of parties and the drinking game called “Quarters.” I remember guitars, and music, and singing. There was always singing when Cathy was around.
A trip up to Guerneville on a windy road in either Bubbles or the red truck, and sleeping in an old Army tent that smelled like kerosene; pitched on some strangers lawn.
But what I remember the most from those days was Cathy’s incredible smile; her resonate laugh and her wicked sense of humor. There wasn’t a moment spent with her when we didn’t laugh. She was our comic relief. Our chase the blues away band-aid. Our very own private Lucille Ball.
We are now far removed from those crazy days. But they will never be forgotten. They will linger in my heart forever.
I was blessed to spend some time with Cathy this last Tuesday. We had not seen each other physically since those youthful times.
Far too long.
Yet when I walked into her home, not a single day had passed between us. There she sat with that same beautiful smile. That same embracing laugh.
That same upbeat sense of humor.
We talked a lot that day of the circle that is life; of the people we meet along the way and choose to weave into the tapestry of our souls. Of the one’s who are there for us in the beginning and who come back to us in the end.
We spoke of the beauties and the mysteries of life and of dying. We touched on energy and that great expanse of the unknown. We talked a lot about this vessel we call our “body” and of letting go.
I drove away from that visit with a warm heart, a lump in my throat and a deep feeling of gratitude. I was amazed at her inimitable spirit, her calm acceptance of her inevitable passage, her great strength.
Cathy has been and continues to be a wonderful gift. There will not be a dry eye the day she moves on to the next step in her journey. But her smile, her laugh, her wicked sense of humor, her love and her deep passion will continue to embrace those who have had the pleasure of her company. She has definitely lived a life well-loved by many.
Mazie the “Amazing Monkey-Face Pug/Poodle Terrier Princess” rests at Cathy’s side.
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For Cathy:
To find out more about ALS and how you can contribute to find a cure, visit the ALS Association website.
gyp·sy [ˈjipsē]: One inclined to a nomadic, unconventional way of life.
I would make an excellent Gypsy. In fact I am certain my Northern Irish genes contain a bit of ubiquitous “Traveller” DNA somewhere in the depths of that genetic spiral. And I am most definitely “unconventional.” If I had my way, I would be on the road full-time, taking photos and writing volume after volume about the people and places I met along the way.
Lucy soaks up the moonlight at Cave Lake State Park, Ely, Nevada.
A few months ago we purchased a 1956 vintage travel trailer that had been refurbished by a couple in Colorado. She is a beauty and her name is Lucy. The minute we towed her home I was ready to hit the highway. I created a portable solar generator that could power her lights even if we were camping somewhere off the grid. I began to research satellite internet, GPS communication enhancers and even switched over to Verizon so I would have more nationwide coverage for my iPhone. I felt this overwhelming urge to sell it all and burn some rubber on the path towards endless adventure and new discoveries.
Lucy at the Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve, San Luis Valley, Colorado.
We had what I would call our “Gypsy practice run” in the month of August; almost three weeks of pure joy camping with Lucy in Nevada, Utah and Colorado. It all just felt so right. Spending several nights camped in different places while taking side trips to National parks, ghost towns, old mining districts and hiking trails. Wherever we went we met great people, some of them had the Gypsy gene themselves and were doing exactly what I wanted to do full-time. Oh how I envied them for acting on their dreams.
Lucy just outside of Moab, Utah.
For now I am back in the “real” world and submerged in the reality that is my current life. But as I sit here writing and glance out the window at Lucy as she rests in the driveway of this thankless city, I pause for a bit with a big smile on my face, a dream in my heart and listen to the whisper of the road that keeps calling to me. Someday soon that dream will be a reality. Someday soon.
________________________________ For more on Travels With Lucy, visit my other blog:http://www.travelswithlucy.com
Okay ladies, hold onto your bonnets. There are two movements steaming right along, one entrenched in the Evangelical Christian church and one that ascribes to a far more fundamental pronatalist theology, and they both have your and your daughters hard-won equal rights lined up directly in their cross-hairs.
I’m speaking of the Purity and Quiverfull movements. Both operate under the guise of Christianity with the sordid belief that daughters are somehow the possession of their fathers and women should do nothing more than submit to their husbands every whim and birth as many babies as their womb will physically allow.
Let’s start with the Purity movement shall we?
This movement began in 1998 when a couple in Colorado Springs decided to take the typically innocent father/daughter dance several steps beyond when they threw the first Purity Ball. These events are swathed in formal pomp and circumstance. The daughters are asked to sign a “purity covenant” that states they will abstain from sexual activity until they are married. The father vows to be “authority and protection in the area of purity” over his daughter during her pre-marriage years. He is providing her with the message he is in control of her sexual destiny until he hands her off to her husband on her wedding day.
Donned in dapper tuxedos, the fathers slip purity rings onto the left hand of their ball gown wearing daughters then lead them onto the dance floor for the “first dance.” Off to the side sits a wedding cake ready to be cut and served to the happy “dating” couples.
“In much of the present literature, Purity Balls are assumed solely to address a daughter’s emerging sexuality in a ritual designed to counteract evolving American norms on sexuality; however, the ritual may carry additional latent sociological functions. While experienced explicitly by the individual participants as a celebration of father/daughter relationships and a means to address evolutionary sexual mating strategies, Purity Balls may implicitly regenerate existing social hierarchy. This ritual facilitates a sociological purpose by means of re-establishing the role of the male through halting the psychological development of sexual identity in the daughter, and these rituals are enacted in the ownership of the daughter by the father, who is responsible for maintaining the daughter’s purity, for ‘covering her with his protection’.” ~ To Cover Our Daughters: A Modern Chastity Ritual in Evangelical America by Holly Adams Phillips
It seems all so incestuous. Power and authority of the male father figure who clothes himself in the confusing armor of “protector” in an attempt to control and own his daughters sexuality. Really?
These young girls are fed the message from an early age that they are not the owners of their own sexuality; their fathers are in control now and their husbands will take over in the future. Some are “groomed” from the age of four at these so-called Balls. It is a disturbing patriarchal message indeed. A modern-day chastity belt that plays dangerously on the psyche of pliable and innocent young girls who should be allowed with a healthy dose of parental guidance, to make decisions about their own sexuality when the time comes. The last thing they need is a heavy dose of male domination that seeks to control their decisions by inflicting the fear of God in them if they should perchance decide to act otherwise.
It begs the question, “where in the Hell are the mothers and their sons during all this talk of abstinence and pledges to purity?” The fact the boys aren’t bothered with such ruthless ceremony seems to send the silent message that males are in control of their own sexuality and don’t need to give that power over to anyone else.
This leads me to the next lovely movement called “Quiverfull.”
Based on an extremely fundamental and literal interpretation of the Bible, the Quiverfull movement stringently enforces patriarchy with the complete submission of the female to the male and a strict adherence to the lack of birth control. Couples in this movement are strongly encouraged to have as many babies as they can conceive in order to populate the world with more people who subscribe to their philosophies.
Sounds very Aryan Nation to me.
Since when did the womb become a weapon of mass destruction? They are fighting their religious war via egg and sperm and grooming their psychologically pliable children to continue the attack on what they view in the world as “immoral” by filling their Quivers with brain-washed, cult following human arrows.
“In direct and conscious opposition to feminist calls for gender equality and marriage equity, women live within stringently enforced doctrines of wifely submission and male headship. They eschew all contraception in favor of the philosophy of letting God give them as many children as possible-families of twelve or more children that will, they hope, enable them to win the religion and culture wars through demographic means: by reproducing more than other social groups.” ~ Quiverfull: Inside The Christian Patriarchy Movement by Kathryn Joyce
I sit here and scratch my head while I ponder how it is even remotely possible in this modern-day and age that these Puritan values and misogynistic attitudes continue to slither around in the shadows. But then I realized those attitudes and values have been fueled by a strict interpretation of a book that was written centuries ago by men who were merely reflecting the attitudes and values of their day. That book is the Bible and it was written during a time when women were treated very much like slaves to every man’s whim.
History is written and should be utilized as a measuring device to weigh how far we have evolved as a human race. Unfortunately in the case of these two movements, the evolution of our character is ignored, especially the part about the equality of women. Instead, ancient belief systems are ascribed to as the truth.
Just another example of picking and choosing the verses and stories from the Bible that serve to empower a group of men who have the inert desire and drive to dominate a group of passive and gullible women.
Purity movement meet Quiverfull. Quiverfull movement meet Purity. Perhaps the two of you can get together and dance. It appears to me you are both headed down the same destructive path; just wearing slightly different sheep’s clothing.
When I was a young girl I wanted to be Wonder Woman.
I made a cape out of an old sheet, donned a pair of boots four times my size and would run as fast as I could from the living room, down the hallway and back again just to make my cape flutter. I hopped from chairs with my arms extended as far as they could reach, in the hope a little magic would happen and I would suddenly begin to fly.
No one would keep me from saving those who became victim to some two-bit low-life piece of hooey. I was the ultimate crime fighter inside my little mind.
“Kapow!”
“Kabam!”
“Take that!”
Even though I could not save myself, I would most certainly save others.
As I grew, my superpowers began to develop. My auditory abilities became so acute, I could hear my father’s GMC pickup as it approached from a half-mile away. The first squeak of his brakes was like Kryptonite to Superman and I knew I had to get away.
With the strength of The Hulk, I would throw my dresser in front of my bedroom door, push the screen from my window and bolt across the backyard. I learned how to leap a tall fence in a single bound and run down the street at warp speed. Up to my neighbors rooftop I would clamber with the agility of Spider-Man in my quest to hide from my arch nemesis who would then search for me in one of his drunken stupor’s.
I could perch on that rooftop for hours just like Cat Woman and hold my breath to avoid detection far longer than Aquaman.
Around my friends, I learned to become the Invisible Woman. The “real” me, the terrified one who lived a highly dysfunctional childhood, hid brilliantly behind an invisibility cloak quite like Harry Potter’s. I would peer out unseen through the eyes of Wonder Woman, the model for all that was female and strong.
I took my share of bullets in my quest to defend the helpless. When I caught my brother shooting at blackbirds in the yard with a friend, I ran out to scold him and was in turn chased down the hallway by this duo of male bravado, followed closely by a barrage of BB’s directed at my butt. Against my plate of armor they did bounce and I was able to outrun them when I summoned The Flash.
My Senior year of high school I worked in a small grocery store. Alone at the register one day, a drunk man from the local Reservation, came to the counter with a bunch of change and a bottle of rot-gut wine. I helped him count it out and told him he was a dollar short. He stumbled around the counter, reached into his pants and drew out a pocket knife. As he set the tip of the knife against my belly, he looked at the cash register and asked me if I wanted to buy it for him. At that moment I summoned the telepathic powers of Saturn Girl and caught the eye of the young butcher behind the meat counter. He jumped over the glass counter with a single bound and tackled the man from behind like a replay of the scene when Robin summoned Batman after he was hog tied by that evil Joker.
That was the day I learned the exponential power of super duo’s in the quest to stamp out crime.
While away at college, my roommate and I would often walk a few blocks to the 7-Eleven on hot summer nights. One evening we were followed by two men in a pickup truck. Like any good superhero, my senses went into overdrive. I tapped into all the superpowers I could muster and poised myself with the stance of Superman in between my friend Shelly and the pickup as it blocked our path into the adjacent driveway. The men asked for directions. Sensing trouble, I told them to go ask someone inside the store.
Like a scene straight out of a Marvel comic, a car suddenly blared its horn at the pickup blocking the driveway. The driver of the truck revved the engine, the passenger opened his door, pulled a .38 caliber and pointed it back at the horn blower. I told Shelly to run and she went screaming towards the 7-Eleven and passed right in front of the aimed pistol. The driver of the pickup became nervous, shouted at the passenger with the gun and there I stood with hands on hips and a stern look on my face as he swung the gun around and pointed it at my chest.
I learned as a child to numb my emotions and escape my outer shell whenever faced with danger. As I stood there with a look that dared, my inner-child was comforted by scenes of bullets bouncing off of Superman’s chest. No matter what happened in that moment I would be okay. I had come to the defense of those who were in danger and would stand my ground regardless of the circumstance.
Fortunately for me, the two men became unnerved by the ruckus of car horns that began to blare in unison and they sped away with a long screech and acrid smell of rubber on asphalt.
The moment I removed my cape, I cried.
As an adult I look back on all those harrowing moments as chapters in my training and an integral part of the building of my character. The circumstances of life have embedded within me a strong sense of justice. I feel bound to defend the weak from being brutalized by those who are stronger, nastier, and driven by self-absorbed, evil intention.
I have become the ultimate superhero, Defender of the Underdog.
This is an image from my recently published piece “Crossing Borders” that appeared in the June issue of Baja California Magazine. You can read the complete piece in the following blog post: Crossing Borders
There is an ugly undercurrent of self-righteous bigotry flourishing in this country. It cloaks itself beneath the veil of “Christianity” and vehemently spreads the message “being gay is not okay.” Those who subscribe to this belief will do anything to push their ultra-conservative agenda in an attempt to withhold equal rights for homosexual’s. All this in the name of “God.”
But their religion and their politics are based on fear; far more than on reality. The fear of God. The fear of liberal thought. The fear of freedom for the masses to live their lives as they so please. And most obviously a deep fear of the unknown. This fear of the unknown leads straight to misunderstanding and paranoid assumptions about certain individuals and groups of people who do not subscribe to their own personal belief systems.
Like a small child when faced with a shadow in the darkness, these fearful minds blow the shadow out of proportion as it morphs into an enormous monster poised to ravage and consume their well-being. This paranoia has led to the creation of a myth used only to embolden their cause: “gay marriage would destroy traditional marriage.” They have also come to the conclusion being gay is an abomination and a sin that is carried out by choice.
So they “counsel” gay individuals and send them the message that being gay is wrong and is an abomination in God’s eyes. They pick and choose certain passages from their Bible to drive home their fear-filled message. They get together with these “lost souls” and try their darndest to pray the gay away. That will surely fix the problem.
But it doesn’t.
And they continue to do this even though the American Psychological Association and the American Medical Association have both agreed that being gay is not a choice, but is inherent at birth.
Dismayed that their prayers have not eradicated the gays, they back political candidates who will push their personal agenda in an attempt to derail laws and court cases that support the inalienable rights of all people.
Fortunately, this minority of far-right, ultra-conservative, paranoid, gay-hating, bigots (yes, I said it) do not represent the majority of people in our country who believe in an all-loving God.
Several mainline denominations such as the Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Methodist have come out in strong support of gay rights. Now the United Church of Christ has made a statement in support of gay marriage. The Presbyterian church recently voted to amend its church rules to allow ordination of gay people who are in committed same-sex unions. Though he still believes being gay is a sin, Dr. Albert Mohler, President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and one of the Southern Baptist Convention’s leading voices, spoke recently of the “need for Evangelicals and Southern Baptists to repent (i.e., apologize for) their homophobia.”
Popular approval of gays and gay marriage continues to grow exponentially and has become the majority view in this country. DADT (Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell) – that quirky sweep your truth under the pillow and smother it because we don’t want to have to deal with it military rule – was recently overturned. Now DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act), which bars federal recognition of same-sex marriage, has been deemed unconstitutional in a recent same-sex couple bankruptcy case and the Justice Department has stated it will no longer defend it in court.
The walls they are a crumbling and soon we will look back in disdain on this time period in our history when gay people suffered blatant discrimination at the hands of those who refused to believe in equal protection for EVERYONE.
All you far-right, ultra-conservative, paranoid, gay-hating, bigots can continue to get down on your knees and plead with your big, dark, scary God and try your hardest to pray the gay away while wasting your millions in support of candidates who carry your religious conservative agenda with them to the ballot box. But I have a feeling you will not get very far. You see, our Nation was not built to defend bigotry but to protect the inalienable rights of all its citizens, including those who do not subscribe to your own personal belief system and practice of religion.
For those of you who fall into the category of “misinformed sheep” and do not feel you are truly “haters”, I implore you to search outside your protective little boxes in order to seek out truth instead of falling into the pattern of “yes” men and women. Stretch a bit outside your manipulated reality and try for one minute to see these “sinners” as not so different from yourself. You both want love, support of family, friends, a good career, children, happiness. Many of those gay people you are praying for are at the same time in church praying for you.
There are many people who believe in an all-accepting, all-loving God who is much more pleasant to pray to than some ugly monster in the closet. These people say He is a God of love who makes no mistakes. They also say He created each one of us in His own image.
Whether you like it or not, gay people are here to stay, and baby we were born this way.
There are certain issues in our country that become blown out of proportion the minute one belief system is challenged by its opposite.
Belief systems are religious, philosophical or ideological thought processes that drive the personal choices made by human beings. Nothing more; nothing less. Belief systems can vary greatly and may be molded and influenced by one’s familial upbringing; by one’s personal life experiences.
Imagine for a second if each of us were allowed to run amok in the effort to defend our own individual belief systems. Chaos would undoubtedly ensue. It would be tribe of believers of one thing pitted against tribe of believers of another. There would be arguing. There would be accusations. There would be dirty, contemptuous mudslinging. And on occasion there would be blood spilled for the purpose of defending one’s beliefs.
Oh wait, that actually happens already.
So when big arguments ensue based on personal belief systems, ergo personal choices, and a group of like-minded people who share the same beliefs attempt to control or quash these groups or individuals who make certain choices based on the opposite belief system, is there a system in place that serves to protect the freedom of choice for that group or individual?
You betcha. It’s called the Federal court system.
There is no inherent right or wrong until one weighs a set of beliefs and choices made in light of some accepted form of moral or legal compass. In our country, the accepted compass is a legal compass. The Federal court system becomes the protector of individual freedoms and the slayer of ugly giants who attempt to tread on said freedoms that are enforced by said court.
“The federal court system deals with issues of law relating to those powers expressly or implicitly granted to it by the U.S. Constitution, while the state court systems deal with issues of law relating to those matters that the U.S. Constitution did not give to the federal government or explicitly deny to the states.” (United States Courts)
So when certain ugly giants decide to stomp on life choices made by groups who subscribe to opposite belief systems, sometimes those ugly giants do everything in their power to prevent those groups or individuals from living their life in the way they have chosen, and a conflict ensues.
Quite often the ugly giants spout claims that the life choices of those who ascribe to opposite belief systems from their own are harmful to specific institutions or individuals.
Take interracial marriage for example. Prior to 1967 (yes just a mere 44 years ago), the ugly giants of certain States had decided it was unlawful for white people to marry non-white people. The ugly giants created this law in response to interracial marriages that began to occur across the Nation. The presumption was interracial marriage would be harmful to society and ran counter to moral turpitude. But this ugly giant fell when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Loving v. Virginia that “Virginia’s anti-miscegenation statute violated both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
Note the Court did not base their ruling on a set of religious beliefs nor on an interpretation of the document that supports those particular beliefs, the Bible. Instead they based their ruling on the single document and its subsequent Amendments that is used to weigh in on matters of the protection of individual rights in this Country, the U.S. Constitution. The Amendments of which clearly separate Church and State.
No matter what one believes, which religion one practices or what set of moral values one adheres to, in the end it is purely a matter of the law.
A very big question comes to my mind when I mull the motivation behind this ugly giant that tried to put a stop to interracial marriage. How in the world would the personal choice a white man made to marry a black woman have a harmful effect on the citizens of the rest of our country? Did their personal choice harm the marriage or family of any other couple in the U.S.? Without a doubt the answer is a resounding no. So what truly motivated the ugly giants of Virginia and other like-minded entities to charge people with felonies and imprison them for marrying who it was they loved and desired to marry? This was in no way about upholding religious morality. It was ruled discriminatory and it smelled of bigotry. Plain and simple.
That same bigotry and discrimination continues to this day as the ugly giants attempt to quash the rights of groups and individuals who think and act differently than they do.
Take gay marriage for example. The ugly giants used a tool called Proposition 8 in order to keep a person of one sex from making the choice to legally marry a person of the same-sex. The campaign to pass that particular Proposition was pushed clearly by the claim and unfounded fear that gay marriage would be a direct threat to traditional marriage and family values so it was imperative the State define marriage as only between one man and one woman.
Hmmmm…this smells so stinking familiar.
Fortunately, Proposition 8 was struck down on appeal at the Federal (District) Court level. When weighing its merits against such precedent setting cases as Loving v. Virginia, the Court recognized discrimination based yet again on the violation of both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Ugly giants don’t always fall that easily. In order to save ugly face, they will continue to pursue appeal by grasping at straws even though the merits of their case are not Constitutionally sound. This was apparent in their feeble attempt this week to have Judge Walker’s Prop 8 decision overturned in light of the fact he is a gay man. They argued Walker should have recused himself from hearing the original case because of his sexual orientation. If that were reason to recuse, then an African-American judge should never hear a case on racial discrimination; a female judge should never rule on a case involving women’s rights; a divorced judge should never make a decision in a divorce case; a Christian judge should never rule on a case that involves the division of Church and State; a woman who was raped or sexually abused should never serve as a judge in a rape or abuse case; and a straight, married judge should be disqualified from presiding over a Prop 8 trial because he would conceivably have an interest in protecting his own marriage.
Yes, I know. It’s ludicrous.
Fortunately, the legal compass has once again weighed in on the side of the underdog. Judge Ware released his ruling on the plaintiff’s attempt to overturn Judge Walker’s Prop 8 decision this sunny Tuesday afternoon. Walker’s ruling has been upheld. Upheld in a court of law where the important decisions that affect the freedoms and liberties that have been granted to all citizens are made in our country. Not in a church, not in a school, not at a rally that boasts signs of hatred and contempt; but in a court of law where ugly giants are most often put to death.
Let the absurdities continue. I have no doubt, like all the ugly giants before it, this one too shall fall one day for good. And when it does I will be watching and cheering, and its demise will create a resounding echo that will be heard around the globe. And maybe. Just maybe. The ugly giants will finally learn to live and let live.
As a child I spent the majority of my summer days outdoors. Most of those days were spent romping through fields, splashing in streams and catching every imaginable critter that would fit inside a jar. I was mesmerized by the simple things in life. The tadpoles that grew legs and eventually turned into frogs. The wolf spider that had a bunch of wiggly black hairs attached to its back which I discovered were actually dozens of baby spiders who had hitched a ride on their mom. Then there was the occasional garter snake that would bite if you didn’t pick it up just right, behind the head. I would sit for hours with my zoo of creatures and study their habits; the way they moved, how they ate, how happy they appeared when I would eventually set them free.
Our children of today have been born into a world deluged with technology. It is unavoidable. In order to survive their future it is imperative they learn to use it, to understand it, to embrace it. In order for their tender souls to survive this ethereal universe of bits and bytes, it is extremely important they also learn to ground themselves on Terra Firma, to embrace our earth in all its glory for the sake of future generations and experience balance by learning to appreciate the little joys our natural world has to offer.
As an adult I still have that love affair with the simple wonders of this world, even though I have admittedly fallen head over heels in love with technology and spend an inordinate amount of time out in cyberspace. That virtual reality is an integral part of the career I have created for myself and is territory I must tread in order to do the things I need and want to do. I try my best to balance this digital warp-speed pimping of my soul with journeys out into the reality of nature whenever I can. Sometimes for me, all it takes is standing back to watch the natural world unfold before the eyes of a child. The memories explode from the depths of my brain cells and I am dumbstruck with the same sense of wonder I had in a world where I used to live prior to personal PC’s, iPad’s and the Web that now connects us all.
A garden snail is a simple creature from the Mullosk family with a soft, slimy body protected by a hard shell. As adults we work hard to reroute these opportunistic gastropods away from the consumption of our precious gardens and tend to view them as nothing more than a nuisance. But to a young boy the discovery of one of these slimy, unkempt creatures is par with the siting of a dinosaur and transforms immediately into the focal point of his world. There is great beauty in the viewing of those moments. They are still. They are quiet. They are wrapped up in a childlike Zen that causes the universe to disappear into that finite point in time. It is a moment where the snail becomes an extension of that child and the child becomes the snail.
It is a reminder to those of us who dwell in an adult world that is forever moving, loud and frantic, tense-filled and challenging. Just stop. Stay still for a moment and watch and wait for the miraculous to be revealed to us, as it is through the eyes of a child.
There is just something about trains. The deep resonant sound of the whistle triggers a primordial instinct deep inside my soul and I am, in an instant, sent riding along the rails within my mind. I imagine the high-pitched sound of the steel wheels as they spark and race along the tracks, the abstract blur of the landscape as it whizzes past and the wind that kisses my face as I stare out from an open boxcar that heads towards destinations unknown.
I have had the great pleasure in my life to know many who call themselves modern-day “Hobos.” Some turned to the rails out of necessity with no money and no way to get to where they needed to go. Some hopped trains to travel as far away as possible from the ugly pieces of their past. While others simply followed the stirrings of their hearts in order to fulfill their desire for excitement and adventure.
Whenever I have the opportunity to do so, I catch a ride on a train. Though I am not in the open boxcar of a freight and am now seated in a comfortable chair in coach, I find myself giddy with that sense of adventure as we move along the rails towards our next stop. It’s in the rhythmic movement as the train cars snake along. It’s the clickety-clack sound of the tracks below. The deep, guttural hum of the engine as it pulls us along. The excitement I feel when the whistle gives its curt and persistent warning blow. I transform into that overall-clad hobo with all my earthly belongings on my back, not a care in the world, ready to abandon the comforts of this train and clamber aboard the next passing freight.
Several years back I had the opportunity to ride the White Pass & Yukon Railroad from Carcross in the Yukon down to Skagway, Alaska. Several of the enclosed cars had an open porch where you could stand outside and take photographs of the breathtaking surroundings. I chose to stand on the open porch for the whole two plus hour duration of the trip. The train hugged the mountain with a steep cliff off the opposite side and I found myself hanging over the rail and the edge of the cliff, mesmerized by the feeling that I was flying. For me it was the experience of a lifetime. The cold wind on my cheeks, the smell of the steam engine in the air, the mournful echo of the whistle as we rounded the curves; it all felt so hauntingly familiar to me.
Whether it is something embedded in my DNA or a flashback from some karmic past life, it feels as if I have done this somewhere, sometime, a million times before. So if the day comes when you do not hear from me for a while, take a pause from your busy lives when you hear a train whistle blowing in the distance and imagine me with destiny fulfilled, a pack on my back and a wide smile on my face as I set out on a long journey to destinations unknown.
I blame the constant rumination of information that courses through my brain on the fact I was born with a rather large head. Something has to fill this vacuous expanse. Silly musings and semi-intelligent ramblings echo around and compete for real estate within all that gooey gray matter. Though I agree, the size of one’s head does not intelligence make, there must be some evolutionary purpose for an above average head circumference.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that my head doesn’t match the rest of my body. So if you are envisioning a huge head flopping over to one side due to its sheer weight while attached to a pencil-thin neck on the body of some petite little thing; your vision is incorrect.
I come from Xena Princess Warrior stock. My DNA chain consists of Viking plunderers, Irish bar maids and staunch German Fräulein. I was born weighing 10 pounds and 3 ounces for goddess sake.
And my mother wanted me to be a ballerina…
It took many years for me to grow into my rather long feet, which from day one served as a counter-balance to my head. By the time I reached High School I had grown a pair of curiously long legs like some creature out of Dr. Seuss and I towered above most of my friends, both male and female. My cross-country coaches were able to pick me out of a pack of runners from miles away due to my model-like upright stance. While I ran, it was important to keep my head balanced over my size 10.5 Nike’s, or the forward momentum caused by the bobbing of my head would send me tumbling. Lucky for me, by the time I reached the age of 18, I had grown gracefully into these two end points of my physique.
But then there was the problem with hats. The two things I adored most in life were shoes and hats. If I had been born a boy, the fact I had big feet and a large head would have been a non-issue. But because I was born female and graced with this Viking, Irish, German conqueror physique, I soon discovered the fashion industry’s blatant discrimination against women with Amazonian proportions. All the cute, feminine, tiny little hats were way too small for my massive noggin. On more than one occasion I was able to squeeze my head into a charming little chapeau and prance about the room. But the consequence of that action was a pounding headache and a barely functional brain due to the restriction of blood to my cerebral cortex. All this for the sake of style.
I have absolutely nothing against the people of the Philippines. Nor of the rest of Southeast Asia, Mexico, Hong Kong nor even China. I embrace and celebrate our differences and honor our universal similarities as human beings. However, if models with the physical proportions of the tiny, teeny little people in Gulliver’s Travels are going to be used to create patterns for the production of hats and clothing headed to market in the United States, a little cultural sensitivity training is in order. When you label a hat with “One size fits all,” what exactly is it that you mean? I think you meant to say “One size fits all, well, except for those of you who were born with really big heads.”
True, there are always baseball caps with their adjustable straps that fit if I expand them out to the very last snap. And of course there are knit hats of every flavor and most stretch far enough to cover my crown without too much restriction. However, I get tired of explaining “no, I am not on a softball team” or “no, I am not headed off to the half-pipe with my snowboard.”
Just once in my life I would love to wear a really, really cute, tiny, teeny, little feminine hat for the experience. Maybe something adorned with lacy bows or even a fluffy feather or two.
But there is hope. I recently spied a photo of Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie at the Royal Wedding and realized I am not the only one who struggles with the issue of ill-fitting hats. I was pleased to feel a strong sense of camaraderie with this obviously large-headed duo who were able to balance these lovely, tiny, teeny, feminine chapeau right atop their massive noggin’s. Their sense of style became such the rage that Beatrice’s hat eventually sold on eBay for $131,000. I hear there are knock-offs on the market that can now be fetched for mere dollars.
Regardless of whether I ever stumble across the right hat for my massive head or not, my heart and ruminating mind feel extraordinarily gladdened. In fact, I believe I have just stumbled across the evolutionary purpose for my enlarged head. I was unequivocally born for royalty. Of this my own mother would agree. She has always told me “you have champagne taste on a beer budget.” True that. I also have the attitude to match. I mean, someone needs to be Queen, right?
So, according to Harold Camping I now have only three days left to get all my ducks in a row. On Saturday the Rapture will occur and Jesus’ six-month reign of torture will begin for all the slack-jawed, unsavory characters left behind after the Big Event.
Harold is positive Jesus will arrive at exactly 6:00pm on May 21st. When someone asked him if that was Pacific Standard time, Harold explained there will be an enormous rolling earthquake that will occur across the globe in whatever date or time zone one resides when one’s calendar and clock say May 21, 2011 and 6:00pm. This earthquake will be the sign that the Judgment Day and the Rapture have begun.
So, for instance, those who live through the earthquake and are left behind in Southeast Asia will be filing their missing person’s reports a whole day ahead of those of us here on the West Coast. And of course all our East coast black sheep family members will be calling all of us Pacific timer’s somewhere around 3:00pm (PT) to inform us of the quake and all the church buses mysteriously abandoned and piling up on the streets. But this will give us time to fall to our knees and repent our misdeeds before that final bell tolls.
For once being a Cali girl has its benefits.
Since the really big earthquake will happen at 6:00pm, rolling across the globe to chase the date and time zones, conceivably those who remain will still have a chance to outrun it. Theoretically speaking, If you live in Singapore, you will be able to miss it entirely if you fly to California on the 20th then fly back to Singapore on a plane that leaves SFO or LAX at 12:00am on the 21st Cali time. You will arrive back in Southeast Asia on the 22nd a whole day after the earthquake. However you might not be able to land. But it’s worth a shot…
What then happens to all those left behind following the Rapture? Well, Harold surmises, they will be tortured. Tortured by Jesus for a period of exactly six months.
Wait, wasn’t Jesus that hippie-like guy in the Bible who spread a message of love, forgiveness and tolerance? The same guy whose posse consisted of prostitutes, homeless peeps, murderers and thieves? Since when did he add torture to his resume?
Following six months of terror at the hands of that radical bad boy, the Son of God, Harold says the world will end in the Apocalypse. The exact date? October 21st, 2011 at, you guessed it, 6:00pm.
How did Harold come up with his prediction? Well, Harold is a civil engineer by trade and he used his brilliant 89-year-old mind and exceptional math skills to solve the following complicated word problem:
God shows us by the words of 2 Peter 3:8 that He wants us to know that exactly 7,000 years after He destroyed the world with water in Noah’s day, He plans to destroy the entire world forever (Noah being that eccentric guy with the scraggly beard and sandals who herded every living species of animal onto a really big boat in pairs). So if the year of Noah’s flood was 4990 B.C. and God plans on destroying the world exactly 7,000 years after Noah’s flood, in what year will the world be destroyed?
Hmmmm…let’s see, 4990 BC + 7000 AD = 2012. Whew, we still have another year left of carefree debauchery.
Oh, but wait, wrong answer, I inadvertently left out a factor. I was never very good with word problems.
Let’s try again. 4990 BC + 7000 AD – 1 (one year is subtracted due to the fact there was never a year with the number of zero in the Roman calendar) = 2011. Oh my God! Harold must be right.
But, this is not the first time Harold has predicted the exact date of the Rapture. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, “On Sept. 6, 1994, dozens of Camping’s believers gathered inside Alameda’s Veterans Memorial Building to await the return of Christ, an event Camping had promised for two years. Followers dressed children in their Sunday best and held Bibles open-faced toward heaven.”
But alas, the world did not end then and camping admitted shortly thereafter that he may have made a “mathematical error.”
I have a strong inkling that come May 22nd, Camping’s crew will appear a bit red-faced and slack-jawed before him as they wonder why they still have their feet planted firmly on terra firma. And they will be just a tad bit worried after handing over their life savings to the man who more than likely never received anything higher than a C minus in math.
Party on Post Harold Camping Rapture people. Party on.
My son, the same one who deserves the Nobel Peace Prize from an earlier post, Loves Little Lessons, reinforced that sentiment during a recent weekend visit.
Justin was born with a big heart. Both literally and figuratively. His ability to empathize with people in life who experience pain or suffering is beyond huge. It is monumental. Though he has a difficult time with eye contact due to his autistic-like behaviors, his peripheral sensitivity to the people in his universe often astounds me. His attention span is scattered, yet the minute there is mention of some great disaster like the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan he watches the news with rapt attention and expresses his sadness for months for the people affected. He is the Gandhi of my own heart.
Though he has always struggled with gross motor coordination and a seizure disorder, the limitations of his physical body have never stopped him from playing baseball, practicing Aikido, hiking, riding a bicycle and yes, even ice skating. He is as brave as any Olympic athlete out there and faces each task with staid determination and joy.
Justin hiking along Lake Isabella
Justin's Challenger Little League portrait
Justin and his Aikido Sensei
Justin was born with amazing fine motor control and an innate understanding of all things electronic. Before he could walk he had figured out the CD player, the VHS, and all the buttons on the dishwasher. By the time he was eight, he was able to memorize dance moves and song lyrics from videos on first watch as well as quote lines from movies and recite which star belonged to which voice in animated films. When he turned ten, he could find his way around on the internet and play video games with the dexterity of a pro. Though he couldn’t read a book, spell more than his name and address and struggled to grasp basic math, he has always been my Einstein.
My son has had to work extremely hard against difficult odds to accomplish what for most of us has been second nature. Yet he continues to do things that amaze me on a daily basis. He shares a house with roommates, works for Agilent Technologies, does his own banking, navigates the city bus system by himself, goes shopping at the mall and has a social calendar that is packed full. Though he was handed a variety of labels and prognosis by doctors and educators throughout his childhood, those labels have never defined him. He is as unique as they come. And now he tells me he is “in training for the Human Race.” But I know beyond a doubt he has already perfected that task and has a whole lot to teach the rest of us about pushing on to reach the finish line.
Fear breeds fear. Fear of the unknown causes paralysis of the brain which can result in an inability to make logical, conscious decisions based on fact. Special interest groups, religions and politicians use it all the time to stir the emotions of the most gullible in order to pass the bills that pad their pockets and strengthen their personal and sometimes bigoted agendas. Truth is often twisted, manipulated or hidden in order to add credence and support to their campaign of fear.
I personally choose to make my own decisions based on fact. I refuse to live my life in a cocoon paralyzed by fear of things that might happen to me. What is the point of life if you are too afraid to experience it? Hiding behind the limiting walls of the what-ifs leads only to a very sad and unfulfilled existence. The world is an interesting, beautiful place filled with amazing human beings and I want to know them.
The last few years we have been bombarded with press surrounding the drug wars in Mexico. Fear-mongers have used those reports to twist the truth and fuel the fire of hatred and bigotry towards a group of human beings who are undeserving of such tongue-lashing and blatant lies. The “gullibles” have chosen to fall into a space of fear unsupported by fact. This saddens me deeply. It is my wish that more people would choose to face their own fears and open themselves up to experience the world first hand; not through the virulent spouting of some special interest group, but with their own eyes, ears, and skin. It is from personal experience and interaction that we reach an understanding of others. It is with this new-found understanding that we can begin to stand up for the rest of humanity that flourishes outside our own borders.
The Border at Los Algodones, Baja, Mexico.
Last week I flew to Yuma, Arizona and then drove across the border into Baja, Mexico. I wasn’t shot or killed, nor did I ever once feel threatened. I saw thousands of American citizens doing the same thing and having a wonderful time mingling with the Mexican people, enjoying the beauty that country has to offer. I laughed with my parents and their group of friends who all have houses in San Felipe as they recounted their journeys up and down the length and width of Baja. None of them have ever felt remotely threatened and they have been doing this for years.
I was moved by the Mexican people in the same way I have always been moved whenever I have journeyed there. I witnessed hard workers and loving families. I saw fishermen who rose everyday before dawn and worked until dusk so that their families would be fed. I ate wonderful food in restaurants owned by Mexican citizens, strolled along the Melicon at night and toured the barrio where the reality of poverty created a stark contrast to the azure blue sea and white sands. I fell in love all over again with these beautiful people who always have a kind word and a gentle smile.
I have felt more threatened by my own white, Anglo-Saxon, born-and-bred American next door neighbors who had constant conflict and police intervention with guns drawn than I have ever felt with the Mexican people. Whether they be illegal aliens trying to make a living in the U.S. or those who have welcomed me with open arms when I cross their border, I refuse to buy into the inflated claims and scare tactics of the close-minded. I choose instead to live my life outside the box of mislead propaganda. I choose to touch, and feel, and smell, and taste the world in all its diverse glory so when I finally do die, it can be said, I truly lived.
There’s just something about coffee. The strong, pungent aroma of a dark roasted espresso tantalizes my nostrils with the promise of impending oral satisfaction. The smooth roll of that first sip across the tongue makes the taste buds snap to attention. Halfway through the demitasse cup my brain cells begin their rapid fire. New, creative thoughts travel swiftly across the neural pathways and push forward an occasional “aha!” moment into the conscience.
Memories of my childhood contain a lot of dark moments, but the lighter memories, the one’s I love to journey back to, always include coffee.
My favorite grandmother had a pot going in the kitchen from morning’s first light, until well after dinner. There was not a day I walked into her house when I was not met by the familiar waft of coffee made straight from an open can of MJB. It was customary to gather at her vinyl topped kitchen table and drink cup after cup while chatting about family and life. For me my grandmother was all about coffee and love.
My aunt Marie, my grandmother’s oldest daughter, struggled with life in numerous ways. She was an alcoholic, a prescription drug addict, had a husband who died of a drug overdose, had two young children (soon there would be four), and struggled to feed her family and keep a roof over their heads. But she was the funniest human being I have ever known. I adored her from the day I was born. She had Lucille Ball dyed red hair and the laugh and sense of humor to match. And for a myriad of reasons, she loved coffee too.
One morning when I was three, my mother took me to visit my aunt Marie. A smoldering cigarette had started a fire in her apartment the night before. My five-year old cousin Tommy woke up to the smell of the smoke and roused my aunt before the fire could spread to their rooms. She was able to get the children out in time. The fire department saved the building but now Marie and my cousins had temporary housing in another unit.
I sat at the small kitchen table as the aroma of burnt wood and coffee grounds pierced my nostrils. There were four chairs with plastic cushions that had cracks running right where the last pair of buttocks had sat. I picked at the pieces of foam stuffing that poked their way out of the cracks and left a little pile on the top of the table. I felt left out of the adult conversation and squirmed and wiggled in the chair until I got my aunt’s attention.
Marie decided it was time for me to try a little coffee. She reached for an extra demitasse cup and filled it halfway with the thick, black, steaming liquid. She followed it with two heaping teaspoons of sugar and a squirt of cream to cool it down then stirred it with a spoon. I will always remember that first sip as it crossed my lips. It was warm and sweet and creamy and it made me feel a little older and all the more important.
That moment felt like my induction into a secret sorority of sorts. It was a temporary glimpse into a future where I would be poised over thousands of cups of the treasured dark liquid. Cups I would drink while thinking, dreaming, writing, making business deals, during all-night study sessions, laughing with friends, curing hangovers, catching up with family and after burying the dead.
Coffee has become my fondest addiction. It is the one thing I will never go to rehab for nor give up during Lent. It ties me to the best moments in my life and has helped me to cope with the moments that I didn’t really like.
It is my quintessential liquid lover. The soul mate who will be there to lift me up during my darkest moments and celebrate with me in all the successes of my life.
.
Cathy and her beautiful smile.
Mazie the “Amazing Monkey-Face Pug/Poodle Terrier Princess” rests at Cathy’s side.
Lucy soaks up the moonlight at Cave Lake State Park, Ely, Nevada.
Lucy at the Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve, San Luis Valley, Colorado.
Lucy just outside of Moab, Utah.
I was pleased to feel a strong sense of camaraderie with this obviously large-headed duo who were able to balance these lovely, tiny, teeny, feminine chapeau right atop their massive noggin’s. Their sense of style became such the rage that Beatrice’s hat eventually sold on eBay for $131,000. I hear there are knock-offs on the market that can now be fetched for mere dollars. 
Gettin’ All My Ducks in a Row
©Tracy J. Thomas, 2011. All rights reserved.
So, according to Harold Camping I now have only three days left to get all my ducks in a row. On Saturday the Rapture will occur and Jesus’ six-month reign of torture will begin for all the slack-jawed, unsavory characters left behind after the Big Event.
Harold is positive Jesus will arrive at exactly 6:00pm on May 21st. When someone asked him if that was Pacific Standard time, Harold explained there will be an enormous rolling earthquake that will occur across the globe in whatever date or time zone one resides when one’s calendar and clock say May 21, 2011 and 6:00pm. This earthquake will be the sign that the Judgment Day and the Rapture have begun.
So, for instance, those who live through the earthquake and are left behind in Southeast Asia will be filing their missing person’s reports a whole day ahead of those of us here on the West Coast. And of course all our East coast black sheep family members will be calling all of us Pacific timer’s somewhere around 3:00pm (PT) to inform us of the quake and all the church buses mysteriously abandoned and piling up on the streets. But this will give us time to fall to our knees and repent our misdeeds before that final bell tolls.
For once being a Cali girl has its benefits.
Since the really big earthquake will happen at 6:00pm, rolling across the globe to chase the date and time zones, conceivably those who remain will still have a chance to outrun it. Theoretically speaking, If you live in Singapore, you will be able to miss it entirely if you fly to California on the 20th then fly back to Singapore on a plane that leaves SFO or LAX at 12:00am on the 21st Cali time. You will arrive back in Southeast Asia on the 22nd a whole day after the earthquake. However you might not be able to land. But it’s worth a shot…
What then happens to all those left behind following the Rapture? Well, Harold surmises, they will be tortured. Tortured by Jesus for a period of exactly six months.
Wait, wasn’t Jesus that hippie-like guy in the Bible who spread a message of love, forgiveness and tolerance? The same guy whose posse consisted of prostitutes, homeless peeps, murderers and thieves? Since when did he add torture to his resume?
Following six months of terror at the hands of that radical bad boy, the Son of God, Harold says the world will end in the Apocalypse. The exact date? October 21st, 2011 at, you guessed it, 6:00pm.
How did Harold come up with his prediction? Well, Harold is a civil engineer by trade and he used his brilliant 89-year-old mind and exceptional math skills to solve the following complicated word problem:
God shows us by the words of 2 Peter 3:8 that He wants us to know that exactly 7,000 years after He destroyed the world with water in Noah’s day, He plans to destroy the entire world forever (Noah being that eccentric guy with the scraggly beard and sandals who herded every living species of animal onto a really big boat in pairs). So if the year of Noah’s flood was 4990 B.C. and God plans on destroying the world exactly 7,000 years after Noah’s flood, in what year will the world be destroyed?
Hmmmm…let’s see, 4990 BC + 7000 AD = 2012. Whew, we still have another year left of carefree debauchery.
Oh, but wait, wrong answer, I inadvertently left out a factor. I was never very good with word problems.
Let’s try again. 4990 BC + 7000 AD – 1 (one year is subtracted due to the fact there was never a year with the number of zero in the Roman calendar) = 2011. Oh my God! Harold must be right.
But, this is not the first time Harold has predicted the exact date of the Rapture. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, “On Sept. 6, 1994, dozens of Camping’s believers gathered inside Alameda’s Veterans Memorial Building to await the return of Christ, an event Camping had promised for two years. Followers dressed children in their Sunday best and held Bibles open-faced toward heaven.”
But alas, the world did not end then and camping admitted shortly thereafter that he may have made a “mathematical error.”
I have a strong inkling that come May 22nd, Camping’s crew will appear a bit red-faced and slack-jawed before him as they wonder why they still have their feet planted firmly on terra firma. And they will be just a tad bit worried after handing over their life savings to the man who more than likely never received anything higher than a C minus in math.
Party on Post Harold Camping Rapture people. Party on.
5 comments | tags: Apocalypse, commentary., end of the world, Harold Camping, Rapture | posted in Musings