Sad and Beautiful World

Girl + Girl = Love

(The comment-authentication thing seems to have broken. I turned it off now).

Hey!

I'm working on a post about my photography, which I think will end up being several posts that cover how my love developed (pun intended) and what photography means to me, and then other posts that talk about technical stuff in ways we can all understand (since I actually don't know much about technical stuff).

In the meantime, however, I want to talk about LOVE. Not mine, but theirs:

 

Since first joining the 365 Days Group, I have seen many instances of two people making a connection, following it up with an in-person meeting, and falling madly in love. It is a joy to witness because even though my husband and I didn’t meet on Flickr, we did meet through the magic of the World Wide Web and it makes me giddy to see others find that kind of fairy tale.

The most recent joy has come from watching Brigid and Xelia, and it is not just because two girls together are hot, though that clearly helps get their view counts and comments up (as a serious aside, it does really bother me to know in my heart if it was two men having such a whirlwind romance, the views and comments would be .000001% of the girls’).

Anyway, their meeting was greatly anticipated in the Flickr world, and they were generous enough to share it with us all through their photos and words. The problem is, Brigid lives in Illinois and Xelia lives in California. They need more visits with one another before deciding if a move is in order, and that takes money, something most of us don’t have. So Brigid took her creativity and set up a CafePress shop with “Very Gay Apparel” to try to make enough to go to California. Prices are reasonable and there are even small buttons and magnets for those who have very little. The slogans say things like “You make me gay” and “Girl + Girl = Love. Spread it.”

As you all know, I’m broke, but I figured I could at the very least pimp the page. If you can afford to get a little something please consider it or, if you are in my situation, please spread the word! Thank you!!

Gifts

I discovered Susan Palwick by accident, stumbling around in my local library looking for something new to read. I had no current recommendations and it is a rare occurrence that I just pick something out based on the cover and the blurbs and have it turn out good! The librarians set up display areas in various locations around the library based on either a timely theme or best sellers or their own personal favorites. It was in one of these displays (and I’m not sure what, if any, theme was holding the titles together) I saw the collection of short stories by Palwick, The Fate of Mice.

I picked it up and began reading the title story and found myself immediately drawn into it. I checked out the book and went home. I devoured those stories, marveling at how different they seemed to be on the surface while all touching upon the same themes that clearly meant a lot to the author. Love, loss, redemption, being a woman, the condition of our planet…but what struck me most was how these themes were woven so subtly into the texture of the stories when they so easily could have been clubbed over the reader’s head. That difference, for me, is the mark of a great writer over a good writer, a leap I haven’t made myself.

One of the stories, “Gestella,” left me a sobbing mess at the end because it moved me deeply, and it was about a werewolf (on the surface)! I was actually afraid to read further because I didn’t want to feel that sad again, but decided it was worth the risk because she made me feel.

As I always do after reading something I love, I sought out more work by the same author. The library only had one novel—her second—The Necessary Beggar. I read it in a few days and had that bittersweet experience of not wanting to put the book down yet not wanting to reach the end, either.

Susan Palwick is categorized as a Sci-Fi/Fantasy writer, and I suppose she fits the genre. In Beggar, at least, it doesn’t feel like a sci-fi book even though some remarkable things happen. It feels and is at its core, a story about family; about being a stranger in a new place; about heartache and heart; love and loss; hurt and redemption. But most of all, what came through to me was pure Christianity…a strange thing for me to say; being raised a non-religious Jewish girl. Maybe I shouldn’t even use the word “Christian” and say rather, “Love.” The story illustrated so clearly what ideal Brotherly Love should be—again, without shoving it down the reader’s throat. I wish I had the book still so I could quote some of the passages that had me stop in my tracks.

I’m not religious and I never have been; yet always I have longed for some sense of spirituality. Hope, really. Hope is what I longed for. I have sought spiritual well being. I find more and more of it since getting sober, but my faith in humanity is so easily called into question! It is so easy to stay cynical and bitter, and sad. And then I stumble upon someone like Susan Palwick.

You know how when you like an actor, for example, love their roles and talent, and then you see an interview with them somewhere and discover they are just as cool and wonderful as you thought? I get this sense of vindication, as if my ability to judge is sound, and I get a sense of relief. When the opposite happens, when I discover someone I thought was wonderful is actually a pretty awful person, I’m crushed.

Discovering that Susan Palwick had a blog, and then discovering more about her as I read through older entries, was like the former. She is an Episcopalian and a licensed lay preacher who volunteers as a chaplain in a local emergency room. Finding someone like her, who actually practices what she preaches, is a boost to my spirituality; it raises my faith in humanity once again. It is like receiving a gift.

Since e-mailing her we’ve had a few exchanges and found more in common. She is someone I will enjoy getting to know and recognize as one of those people that are brought into your life to teach you. I have a lot to learn from her, I am certain.

This, to me, is an apt entry to post for the holidays. Let us remember what gifts are most important this holiday season as we open up packages of clothes and games and electronic equipment. Let us remember the gifts of love and family and friendship we give and receive each day of the year, and let us promise to be more generous in the future.

All the best to you and yours this holiday season, and a very Happy New Year!

Celebrating our 2nd Wedding Anniversary

Can you believe it's been 2 years already?!?

Time sure flies.

And things are still absolutely wonderful. :-)

Painfully Beautiful

For those who wanted to know,  Sandy was 55 years old. She would have turned 56 on September 27th. She died of a sudden heart attack. No warning. No lingering. She just collapsed Monday night in their home.

At the calling service on Friday night, her oldest son Matt (maybe he's 20?) when he talked with me said, "I want you to know. We are still going to do your show."
Her husband Joe said the same thing to me at the end when we said goodbye. He said Sandy would want it that way.
I can't describe the emotions it made me feel. I felt tiny, small; insignificant. Humbled…and loved. I felt loved.

And that is how I felt at her funeral, and since. Insignificant, somehow, and loved. In trying to talk with Charlie about it today I said that somehow all the love that her husband and children so obviously received from Sandy and returned to her, and all the love swelling in that church between all her family and friends was so excruciatingly painful and yet unbelievably healing at the same time. Or as I said to another friend, it ripped my heart to shreds while also making it grow to three times its size. I feel powerless yet hopeful, scared yet trusting…I feel like I have to DO something.

At her funeral close to 200 people came to say good-bye...she touched a lot of lives. It was a very long service, Roman Catholic style, and very moving. A poem of hers was read at the beginning. That brought some tears.

I didn't think I would cry so much, but I couldn't seem to stop it. One of the hymns was so simple and beautiful. And then right before the last prayer her friend got up to give her eulogy. It was truly heartbreaking to hear her recount the many ways in which Sandy impacted those around her. How much she loved her husband and how proud she was of her two boys. This friend closed by reading a poem of Sandy's that she must have written for her own lost loved one. In trying to find the words online I instead found something better.

Sandy  reading it herself from November of last year (Click to get audio file).

Memento Mori

How do we mark the end of a life?

Quiet the simple words of doing and being.

Set loose the person who rode horses,

Smiled and soldiered, believed and bled.

In the movement of color and the color of movement.

But how can we understand lifeless hands.

With no hammer or chalk, sewing needle or spoon.

Draped with a rosary that swings toward an unseen magnet.

A compass point we can’t feel.

How do we choose a coffin?

What wood, which clothe, brass or base metals,

Will show what was or what we think was.

Now, that the story is ours to tell?

What do we put in a coffin?

A photograph, or a dozen?

Some symbol of eternal life?

The eternity of a life that ended like all,

No matter how many talismans were pasted to the soul.

How do we choose a coffin, darkening the face?

Losing the last of the soul showing in an unseen smile.

Sealing fate with our hands, tightening screws.

How do we bury a life that once was?

Cover it, smooth it, plant it over with grass?

Welcome a new day the air above lifting ever bluer?

How, do we let the living put roots around a coffin, and grow?

--Sandy Crimmins

 

That evening after the funeral, my husband, daughter and I went to Charlie and Cecily’s, along with my friend S. and her cousin to see the fireworks in their town (postponed from the 4^th due to rain). We got to watch Tori’s eyes light up in amazement with the sky; to see Cecily’s joy in sharing Tori’s.

We lived in the moment as we should. As Sandy always did.

And so we continue to the next moment, and the next after that…and we try to fill them with as much love as we can.

 

Good-bye, Sandy. And Thank You.

Sigh.

Life is really strange sometimes. And it is always shorter than we think.

I found out today that my friend Sandy died on July 2nd, suddenly. Don't know how yet. I'm leaving in an hour to go to a viewing and greet her family. Her funeral is tomorrow morning.

She had just bought the house of her dreams with her husband after their kids grew up and moved on.
I was there last week, talking with her about showing my work in a large space she wanted to make into a gallery.

Yes, that woman.

She laughed as she talked about how perfect this home was for her...that it was exactly what she wanted.

I cannot believe she is gone. I am really struggling for words. I've known Sandy for about 15 years...she's seen me at my absolute worst (drugs and alcohol-wise) and has always been nothing but supportive, kind, and loving. She had a gift for words herself and a gift for being both buoyant and cynical as well as darkly funny.

Life is short. One thing I learned in recovery is that our lives are what we make them. Sadly, it takes this kind of reminder to live that way again. To grab hold of life and make our dreams a reality. To stop wasting time and start doing.

Sandy gave me a gift: she helped me see how much I wanted this. And so now I will make it happen.

xo

You can click here to learn more about Sandy Crimmins if you'd like.

Cecily and Charlie have each written lovely posts about her as well.

Could Not Love Her More...

And yes, I suck. I know.

Happy Birthday to Pete!

Today is Pete's birthday and he's now officially much older than me instead of just older (he's 48).

I bought him an inflatable 2-person kayak from Coleman's, with paddles, something he has wanted since living in France. He had no idea and was so happy when he opened the box--one of the greatest reactions to a present I've seen.

We had a bit of a rough patch early in the week as you may have guessed, but things are much better now. Lots of talk about how to make things better and actions are being taken. We even finally went to a social security office to apply for his number, something we need for taxes and for him to be able to do anything else, really. It should make a big difference once we get that number (a week or so).

This weekend will be busy...dinner at my parents for steak and kidney pie (special just for Pete's birthday), then tomorrow I may take the kiddo into town to meet a Flickr friend. Tomorrow night we get to see Nancy Falkow sing (here visiting from Ireland with her new baby) and Sunday we meet her and her hubby and daughter for a late lunch.

Happy Friday everyone! Have a wonderful weekend!

Best Baptism. Best Baby

Yesterday was Tori's baptism. Let me sum it up by saying Tori is the most incredible baby ever! She was an angel during the entire event and cute as can be in her father's christening gown.

I think it was everything Cecily had dreamed about and more. It was a beautiful, touching experience and a marvelous day. Cec will be posting about it later.

Click on this photo below of the happiest Mommy to see the set of pictures I took:

"You went years without me"

Exactly one year ago today I went to the airport to pick up my soon-to-be husband and his two dogs.

 

It was 10 days before our wedding.

It was 2 days before the first of his kids arrived to stay with us.

It was the beginning of the best part of my life.

Truly incredible that two people who lived an ocean apart and had each given up on ever finding that one person they would want to spend the rest of their lives with, could have found each other, become friends through nothing but email, and fall in love.

Even more amazing is that these same two people would decide to get married.

That they would then spend a year after that decision only seeing one another for two weeks every three or four months, then move in together, get married, work from home and have a kid and two dogs running around—that after all this they still are madly, deeply in love and more often than not ridiculously happy…

…how can they not believe there was some sort of magic involved?

We look at each other often and one of us will inevitably say: “We really did get lucky, didn’t we?”

Yes, we did.

"...someday I'll make it mine"

It’s almost 1am and I got 5 hours of sleep last night. I had to finish up some freelance work that of course I put off really working on until Sunday night.

I just couldn’t leave that last post up another day as the main entry. It’s a bit heavy, I guess. I enjoyed the comments a lot, though. I was surprised at how much people wanted to say; about what it brought up in each of you.

The reason I got only 5 hours of sleep last night is because Pete and I were binging out on the 4^th season of Six Feet Under and then were joking and laughing, among other things, until 4am. Then Cecily phoned at 9am to ask me to meet her in the ER near her house to help out with the baby while Charlie had tests done. Thankfully, they were able to rule out the really bad things they were worried about, but of course still left him with a “we don’t really know what the problem was.” He’s going to his primary doc tomorrow and the kiddo and I will go watch Tori while he is there.

So I joined this Flickr group called 365 Days—everyone is doing it, yo—and I’m fascinated with it already. I resisted joining at first because it was such a commitment to make: taking a self-portrait every day for a year. I’ve only done three days so far, and I am already enthralled. I love looking at how others choose to show themselves and the creative ways in which they make it interesting.

The most meat of the fascination is this: Why do we hate seeing images of ourselves so much? How do we change that?

Part of what is disturbing—or maybe just unsettling—is that we go through life almost exclusively looking at our faces in mirrors. We see the reverse of what everyone else sees. When we look at a photograph of ourselves (unless taken in a mirror, of course) we see what everyone else sees, and it is startling. It is very much like hearing one’s own voice on an answering machine. Don’t you cringe when you hear it, thinking “Is that what I sound like?” We all do! Just like we all make negative comments about photos of ourselves—and while women are often more ‘vocal’ about it, I think that inner voice of criticism is in all of us.

In thinking about the idea of 365 days, I have been thinking about getting used to seeing myself, about learning to see me as others might, and loving what I see. And by ‘loving’ I don’t mean to imply total narcissism. I do mean to imply acceptance. But mostly? Love.

Want to join me?