Sunday Serenity

This last week was another painful one if you live in the United States. 19 fourth-graders (10 and 11 years old) and 2 teachers shot in Uvalde, Texas. How this has happened YET AGAIN in America is what I can’t stop thinking about. It’s kept me up past midnight the last two nights, trying to understand how we got here and how we can stop the gun violence without falling into the trap of polemics or politics. I’m not sure we can at this point, with the post-shooting discussions taking wildly divergent paths, from banning AR-15 rifles to arming teachers.

So, maybe like me, you need a reminder that this world is not all pain and heartache. I’ve been working on new photo galleries on my website, and while they are a work in progress, it seems like people might need the beauty in them to get through yet another day, another week, another month of 2022.

You can wander through the national parks in Utah, savor the sweetness of Peg’s Garden, or simply let yourself fall into a beautiful sunrise or sunset. I hope they help. It’s all I can manage today. Link: PHOTO GALLERIES

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The victims of the Uvalde shooting (warning: this will make you cry. If it doesn’t, you might want to check your humanity.)

I spent last weekend in eastern Arizona at a family reunion. The oldest of us in attendance were mid-80s, the “youngest” one just turned 60 last year. We were mostly first cousins and second cousins through our grandparents (Kempton, Colvin, and Gilliland), and most of us had met before but not often enough. After it was over, I got to thinking about the importance of family and of knowing your place in this world as you go through the stages of your life.

[Read more…] about Sunday Serenity: Grateful

For all the time I’ve spent in deserts over the last five years, I’ve never actually witnessed the coming of Spring. This winter in the southwestern desert has been fierce cold winds, freezing nights, and brilliant blue skies between dust storms. I’ve gotten used to seeing brown mesas, weathered bushes bare of leaves or blooms, and dead branches bleached white by the sun.

[Read more…] about Sunday Serenity: Desert Spring

I’ve been thinking a lot this winter about life: where I’ve been, where I am now, and where I want to go. Not in the physical sense, but in the “I can do anything I want, so what do I really want?” kind of questions. Winter in the southwest is a good time for that kind of reflection. Everything is quiet, hollowed out, waiting. Me, too.

[Read more…] about Sunday Serenity: Wintering

Every night, as the sun sinks behind the Organ Mountains to the west, I stand still and watch how it lights up this one tree.

[Read more…] about Sunday Serenity: Still

Silence from one edge of the horizon to the other, here in the desert land of New Mexico. I’m three nights into six at a place where I can see the sky from edge to edge and it’s glorious.

[Read more…] about Sunday Serenity: Desert Silence

If 2020 has been the longest year ever (and it certainly feels like it), then the last week has been the longest week ever. Everyone’s been used to elections being called within hours of the polls closing, so it figured that 2020 would change things up and make us learn once again the values of patience and persistence.

At 11:25AM on Saturday, the AP declared Pennsylvania for Biden/Harris and suddenly, everything changed. I cried. I smiled, too, but mostly I cried, releasing a depth of tension I hadn’t let myself truly admit over the last four years. I felt hope that America has decided on a new direction.

Instead of divisive rhetoric, chants of “lock them up” and dog whistles of racism, last night I listened to a man and a woman with specific goals, with energy to tackle our biggest problems in American, and hope that we can do those things. But most of all, what I heard was that we’re not perfect by any means, but we ARE stronger together than we are divided.

So as we move forward into this new morning, let us figure out how to talk to each other again. Let’s figure out how to dismantle structural racism, provide decent health care for everyone, and truly make America the shining light of liberty and hope we all want it to be.

Sit down with friends, with neighbors, with people you don’t really know. Let’s talk AND listen and figure out how to fix things. Some of it is spending time, some of it is donating to causes that work for social justice and changes, and some of it is listening to others speak their truths.

It won’t be easy. It won’t be fast. And it definitely won’t be perfect. I don’t know how we’ll do all of it. What I do know is that I’m ready to begin.

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Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.

Mary Oliver

I’ve been thinking about reflections, the theme of this week’s 52 Frames challenge. Part of me kept coming back to the more personal idea of reflecting on things, rather than seeing reflections in water or mirrors.

No one had this kind of 2020 in their plans, did we? Each of us had has to adapt to changing conditions and learn to live differently. If you’d asked me a year ago how many face masks I owned, I would have simply stared at you in confusion, not quite understanding the reason for the question. Ten months into 2020, I can answer it easily: four cloth masks and two boxes of disposable ones.

It’s not at all clear how the vast extent of changes in 2020 in will play out over time. It’s not just about remote working, video classrooms, or online grocery shopping. It’s about how we have already changed, individually and as a society of humans. It’s not at all clear  what lies ahead of us.

So instead of submitting a pretty water reflection, I submitted this one. A small stream at low water and a boat ready to paddle should conditions change, it’s a visual metaphor for 2020. We’re experiencing a collective low tide right now, exposing divisions and fault lines in ourselves and others.

May we each reflect on where we are and how we’ve changed. Let us reflect on where we want to go, as individuals and together, as move into the uncertain future.

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A rising tide lifts all boats.

John F. Kennedy

2020 has been what feels like a constant series of surprises, most of them not very pleasant for most of us. From lockdowns and border closings to always carrying a mask and missing out on museums and other indoor places where I’ve visited, it’s been a year unlike any other. Add in the runup to the Nov 3 US election, and it’s been stressing me out big-time. So today, join me as I retreat to my happy places.

Try taking three slow, deep breaths while you look at this image.

Now, three more. Breathe in the stillness, breathe out the turmoil in your soul.

Three more. See the colors, the textures, the beauty of this world with each breath.

Take care of your precious self in these precarious times.

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If you want to use these or other photos as your screen background to help you unwind and relax, you can browse my smugmug gallery and download images for free, my ongoing gift to you. (Don’t click the Buy Photo button, look for the Download button instead, which may be on the left side or bottom, depending on your device or browser).

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As long as you’re dancing, you can

     break the rules. 

Sometimes breaking the rules is just

     extending the rules.

 

Sometimes there are no rules.

Mary Oliver