REDONDOWRITER'S SACRED ORDINARY

Some Waters Have Miraculous Powers

"Water unceasingly changes shapes and transforms itself. It is thus a model out of which everything can be born. Water, consequently, becomes a symbol of fertility that can be found in all the myths and all the religions. Beings and things are born of water. Water also possesses medicinal virtues. Some waters are recognized miraculous powers capable of healing the bodies." 

    -- Brit at Earth Day Network

This is the fountain at Farnham Martin’s Park in Palos Verdes Estates next to the Malaga Cove Library. It is the setting for the summer concert series and wedding photo shoots are common here. Sometimes when I leave the library I like to just sit by the fountain and listen to it gurgle.

Today was my last official work day for six weeks and I am sorely in need of some water that will heal my inertia and negative attitude. I'm burned out, so tonight I spent a few hours with my journal, laptop, and lots of colored pencils. I wrote, doodled, dreamed, vented. 

I made lists of things I want to do in the next six weeks, and two of the weeks will be spent in Tumwater, WA and Pt. Angeles, WA with family. That leaves four weeks, but what am I moaning about? Even when I work, I supposedly work 20 hours per week. 

I finally began to write my list of gratitudes and I am so blessed in so many ways. I just forget sometimes. That reminds me. My dear nephew Ted brought back two vials of water for me from the Holy Land last year. One is from the Jordan River and the other is from the Sea of Galilee. I think dipping into them is very apropos on this night of life review. 

CAPTION THIS PHOTO

OK, this is me and I am obviously engaged in a conversation on Mother's Day about something, but I leave it to your imagination what it is. Remember that there were children present. I KNOW what you were thinking. Can you share your caption? 

By the way, right after this was snapped, my food plate fell on the grass. In my heart of hearts I still see myself in my mind's eye as about 30, but this photo proves that I'm more than that. But, hey, get used to it, girlfriend, I tell myself. You're an elder now.

A Pink and Purple Day Celebrated in Haiku

These are two of several plantings on the campus of my school. Today felt like a pink and purple day (a good day, actually). My Mac users group met at my house this a.m., I went to lunch with my friend Terri who is visiting from the UK, I got to read for a few hours, take Cookie for a walk, and had Mexican dinner with my friends Rick and Orma. I found a series of pink and purple haikus from PoemHunter that matched my mood. Did you remember that the month of April was National Poetry Month? Personally I think we should celebrate with poetry every day. 

Haiku #70 Lift Your Voices In Song (1-7) We sing your praises For this pink and purple day Of sky water sand (1)  We thank you Father For this pink and lilac day With grand purple sands (2)  Pink and lilac haze A perfect day for lovers Mystic and profound (3)  A day of days In sky of pink lilaz haze Horizon mimics (4)  Pink and lilac day Where we stand on purple sand Edged in pink waters (5)  Oh mystic pink day Your sky in brilliant array How grand purple sand (6)  Pink and lilac haze Profound truth another day Pink water purple sand (7)  Dorothy (Alves) Holmes

Variations on Periwinkle Blue Flowers

Variation I

Variation II

Variation III

Variation IV

IN THE SILENCE, IN THE SILENCE

Plastic Tape Figure Casting for Your Average Joe or Joanne

Personally, I have never seen clear plastic tape figure casting as an art project, but I’ve seen it now—and I’m utterly fascinated.

 On the wall in the main entrance to the library of my school, are four knock-your-socks off plastic figures on display this month. They were created in the Art I classes as group projects. The teacher explained the process to me but it seemed so easy I wondered why I had never seen this art form before. 

One student becomes the model in whatever posture the team decides upon and one layer of plastic wrap is adhered all around—leaving nostril hole space. The rest of the students quickly wrap the plastic tape several times around so the cast will keep its shape. Finally, the tape is carefully slit down the back so the model is free of the cast and the piece is retaped to cover the slit. 

Several Internet sites explain this art form, a site called Tape Sculpture has a four step tutorial with pictures, as well as a video of how it is done. Another site, the Incredible Art Department, lays out the art form as a lesson plan.

This much I know. My body is considerably larger than it was when I was a girl. Maybe if someone made a plastic figure cast of me and I saw it, I would finally “get it” and do what I have to do get smaller and healthier. Maybe is the operative word.

I currently have two mannequins and one life-size cardboard cutout of James Dean in my home. Maybe I'll make one of each family member. In a Steve Martin-ish move, I won't be a lonely gal anymore. 

 

 

Every Photo Tells a Story

I'm a photo nut; I admit it. Macs have an application called iPhoto and I'm forever downloading photos I take, often in my daily life, doing the stuff I do. The photos then rotate as a screen saver and I am flooded with memories as they magically appear on the screen. I manipulate my photos in PhotoShop and keep planning to practice more of the artistic techniques I've learned, but I never quite dedicate the time to practice. One of these days-----Educated as a journalist, most of my photos are of people and they are designed to tell a story. I'm not a particularly good photographer, but I absolutely love taking photos and often use them on the blog or in my handwritten journal.  

Leah, who moderates Creative Every Day, recently linked to Nancy at Every Photo Tells a Story. The purpose of Nancy's blog is to provide photography or artwork as a prompt for writing or other creative explorations. Check it out. 

And here's a photo among hundreds I took in Portland last summer that is enigmatic for me. It was taken in the back yard of a garage sale that we went to. 

Just click to enlarge it. For several months I have been personally writing about the meaning of home and the home I live in specifically. It is the main focus of the vision board I am continuing to create. 

This is actually a playhouse and how I longed for a playhouse when I was a kid. Instead, my dad took the frame he built for the back of his truck and put it under a tree for me one summer. We put tarps over it--and voila. I had a play house. 

But, my favorite "house" was actually in an adjoining field that had lots of old trees that went all the way down to the ground--and lots of bearing orange trees. My friend Dannie reads here and I wonder if you remember how you and Claudia and I would tuck away under a tree and pretend we were cow girls? And we built a fort up on a hillside off the fire trail, again with wood my dad gave us. The Polly Pigtail Club met there and one time a bunch of boys pretended they were coyotes and scared us half to death. 

Anyhow, there's something about this photo that brings the child out in me. 

Does it evoke anything in you?

 

 

Somewhere Over the Rainbow in Redondo Beach

I It rained yesterday, most of today, and rain is predicted for tomorrow. We need the rain badly and (knock on wood) so far this year my house has held tight without leaks. It should after all the fixes and upgrades I've done every time a leak would spring up. 

At sunset, the rain stopped for a while and I literally ran outside with the camera because I could see a rainbow out my bedroom window. When I was younger, it seemed like I saw rainbows often, but never as often in the city as I did out in the boonies. When you see all the phone and electric lines (we are not underground yet in my eclectic neighborhood), it takes a little (but only a little) of the rainbow magic away. 

I did manage to duck out to a close estate sale today  which had gotten hit so hard with the rain as they had about half of everything out on the back lawn and couldn't tarp it fast enough. I saw one lady buy a totally soaking wet 12 x 12' berber carpet, which it took two men to carry to her car. Such a deal! I got some arts and crafts odds and ends and felt my usual sadness knowing that his woman's life had ended or narrowed down. 

The rest of the day and evening I have spent researching and creating the February issue of my Macintosh user's group newsletter. 

Cookie, who is still perky, does not like rain and has had two accidents in the house today. And wouldn't you know that I'm hosting my Mac group's core group in the morning. After I hit post, I'm off to prepare the living room for company. It will be a good day to have a fire, however. As for Cookie, she will go out shortly for a walk, like it or not. 

So, above is my version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." And below is Doris Day's version at YouTube. I could have placed Judy Garland's really famous version, but I loved this one because of all the nostalgia photos. How in the heck does time pass so quickly?

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Our 1939 Trip to South America: Charles and Sonia Hammer-Housestead

As many of you know, I work part-time as an archivist at a private school. One of the really interesting “mysteries” is when you first open a box in deep storage and see its content for the first time. Last year I found a box with three photo albums and two scrapbooks, two of them from Ft. Reilly, Kansas. The few names that were written in white pencil on the black pages had no correlation to the school as far as I could discern. The date ranges were from the late 1920s through the 1950s. 

As it turned out, our photography teacher was given these albums by a former employee thinking he might be able to use the photos for teaching purposes. Instead, he stored them in the archives where they have sat for many years. There is no connection to my school as far as I can tell, which means I can decide their fate. Archivists share their materials so ultimately I'll find the proper home for them. But for now, I've gone into my story telling mode because as I was told from early childhood, "She has an imagination that won't quit."

Above you see a photo of a woman on deck of a ship and I was instantly taken deep into who she is and what she was doing. A chinchilla lap robe, a wicker chair, a cloche, furs about her neck. My only clues of this series are The SS Florencia, 300 tons; Chalet Suisse Iguigue, and the Antofagasta Part Works. With the exception of the latter link, I can’t find anything so far when I’ve searched. The albums date from the late 1920s through the 1950s. This series of photos seems to be in 1939 and are largely in South America. Many of them are of engineering projects underway and a series of men hiking, and these of a ship.

So, out of my imagination comes Mrs. Charles (Sonia) Hammer-Housestead whose husband is a civil engineer in the United States.  He and his colleagues are on a business/pleasure trip to South America and Charles brings along his wife and their shepherd King.

In this photo, King looks out to sea while Sonia holds up a treat.

This is King and Sonia posing for Charles on the deck.
 

 

And here a very proud Charles takes a classic profile of Sonia next to the Imperial.

This is a photo Sonia snapped of hubby Charles aboard ship with his suit, vest and fedora. 

If these were your characters you just acquired through photos, what would their names and their stories be? 

 

 

Vision Board 2009 Creation Continues

Are you game to make a 2009 Vision Board? On September 25, I wrote a post called Vision Board Bloggers Project suggested by my friend Roz at Autumn Cottage Diary. Although I’ve done a variation of these boards many times, usually toward the end of one year in preparation for the incoming year, I decided I would do it again to usher in 2009. I used Elmers Display Board, 48” x 36”, and hung it vertically on my bedroom wall where I would see it each day. This time I started months early.

I went like gang busters the first few weeks but until the last few days, I haven’t added much. What I found out very quickly, unlike some years when I envisioned a new camera or computer as well as abstract concepts to enhance creativity, body, mind and spirit, I have no desire for any tangible goods this time. (Well, maybe art supplies.) I do want to take some specific art, computer and photography classes and I hope to do some travel in the summer but I don’t know where.

 

You can click to make the photo larger. The major themes this time are: home, creative projects, spirituality, dreams and plans, body and mind, and a list of potential people, places—and yes, things. But so far there are no things I’ve written down. I put up 8 1/2 x 11” paper to jot things down on as I think of them.

Instead of trying to create this year’s vision board by Jan. 1, I’ve decided it will be an ongoing project. Just thought I’d share this in case anyone else wants to make a vision board for the new year. Most people, by the way, use poster board not the display board like I have.

I do know this: I’m cherishing these last few days of 2008 with extreme gratefulness and want to add a specific sheet to this board for gratitude. Cookie has had a few very good days so I know we will be ushering in the new years together. 

 

 

 

 

All Day the Rain Spoke To Me

This morning I was awoken early by steady tapping on what I thought I was the window, but I laid quietly and realized that it was either hail or rain pounding on my new rooftop skylight. It had awoken me from a dream of debauchery I was clinically observing at a party hosted by a long-ago lover. His name was Jerry and there he was in his own version of the Playboy Mansion. I felt annoyed with the rain for stealing my dream. But, as the day and the rain continued, I fell in respectful love with it. I live very near the ocean and this image from Wikimedia images was how I imagined the rain would like down at the harbor. I wish I had taken this picture. The news said that some snow actually fell in Malibu today. 

Then I remembered this poem by my favorite poet, Mary Oliver. 

Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me 

Last night
the rain
spoke to me
slowly, saying, 
what joy
to come falling
out of the brisk cloud, 
to be happy again
in a new way
on the earth! 
That’s what it said
as it dropped, 
smelling of iron, 
and vanished
like a dream of the ocean
into the branches
and the grass below.
Then it was over.
The sky cleared.
I was standing
under a tree.
The tree was a tree
with happy leaves, 
and I was myself, 
and there were stars in the sky
that were also themselves
at the moment
at which moment
my right hand
was holding my left hand
which was holding the tree
which was filled with stars
and the soft rain –
imagine! imagine! 
the long and wondrous journeys
still to be ours.