The Third Act

Halloween 2014...

It's a very different Halloween this year.  I'm doing what I can to embrace it and do the things that I love.  I made an ofrenda...for my family and loved ones.  I carved some pumpkins.  I'm trying to be present.  One step at a time...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Home

It's been a while since I've posted.  Last week I took a little road trip up to Delaware, stayed a couple days and then stopped to stay in Alexandria a couple more before coming back home.  It was a lovely trip away...I had time spent with friends, birthday celebrations shared and as well as monument viewing.  That being said, it was still a bit tough to return home.  Not because I don't love this place into which I'm settling, but because I'm simply not used to "returning home" alone.  

You'd think it would be just the opposite...that time away would have reinforced this as my new home upon return.  But nostalgia is quite a powerful force in my mind and heart.  I remember the family trips and getting back, opening up the house, firguring out what we needed in the fridge (or to eat for dinner) and once again finding our rootedness as a family in that familial abode.  It's definitely a learning experience for me, to be in the now, to enjoy what I enjoy because what I've created around me is a pleasurable expression of who I am.  And to do this without attachment to the past.  Easier said then done, but I do what I can to work through it.

And so, here are some pinholes of my current surroundings...the river to which I love to walk and the stately yet rustic trees that ever surround me.  

 

 

The Enchanted Forest...

It sometimes feels that way, living here.  I've never lived amongst such tall trees.  There's a multitude of life out there...up high, and down low.  On my morning meander I spotted this lovely!  It's probably six or eight inches tall.  Fortunately, I came upon the scene when there was a shaft of light shining down in just the right spot.  

 

 

October in Baba Yaga's garden...

Here's a selection of pictures I took in the garden yesterday morning.  Today I worked on a spiral herb garden.  Bascially I dry stacked brick in a spiral form, gradually increasing the height of the "wall."  There's still a ways to go...maybe a couple more rows of brick...but there will be pictures at a later date.  Until then...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday...

...I dropped off a couple rolls of color film to the lab, then headed over to the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden . It was unusually warm, but pleasant.  While autumn wasn't showing in full force, there were still some nicely coloring trees and as you can see, they were getting in their spring bulbs.  Which reminds me...I've got to get some bulbs to put in...and peony roots too!

It was a nice time.  I shot a roll of color Portra160 in the Holga and managed to get quite a few digital images that pleased me.

Today, it's raining and I'm scanning 365 negatives.  It's a good rainy day activity.  Rainy days make me nostalgic, though, so I'm feeling a little sad.  I've been making the effort to be more *here*, pulling myself into this new life and letting go of my attachment to the old.  Not easy stuff, but necessary.  I've had a habit of checking the bay area cams (there's an awesome one up at Lawrence Hall of Science) every day...but that's got to stop for a while.  I've yet to find the balance between a healthy connection to my old life and being fully committed to this new experience.  So, I allow myself some tears and look around me, right in this moment.  I do love the sound of the rain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mid-October near the river...

Maybe not *quite* mid-October, but close enough.  Every time I walk down to the river I see a little bit more color.  Sometimes off ahead of me leaves are floating down from the trees and the footpaths in the woods are definitely littered with the aforementioned.  It's a magical and lovely time of year and seems to be nearly everyone's favorite.

Not much more to say today.  I'm working hard on a number of things right now...not necessarily with outward tangible results, but perhaps those are the most important.  The weather was cooler and now warmer again...my neighbor Mary says, "Indian summer."  As long as it's not a return to upper 80's or 90's I'm okay with it (and if I wasn't?  what then??).  Please enjoy a few images from today's walk...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Autumn projects...

Yes, it's finally starting to feel like fall around Baba Yaga's house.  The acorns have been falling like mad (one even ticked off my car alarm the other morning!) and the leaves are getting some color.  It's cooler too...cold enough in the morning last weekend that I found out I had a problem with my furnace!  Better to find out now, when there was bound to be a rebound of warmer temps, then in the dead of winter.

The furnace issue is resolved for now...until I have the funds to replace the oil unit with one that uses natural gas.  However, I also decided to put in a wood burning stove.  Let me back track...over this weekend, when it got down to 39F and my furnace wouldn't work?  Well, I decided to test out the fireplace.  There were smoke issues the first go I had with it a number of weeks ago and therefore called in my chimney people.  A smoke guard was put in and the wood grate raised, and I really hoped that would address the issue.  No such luck.  While the smoke wasn't AS bad, it was definitely floating around inside and that's really not good to breathe.  The option that the technician had offered in case the smoke guard didn't work was a wood stove insert.

 

I ended up opting for this sweet little free standing stove, instead of an insert.  The inserts are more than twice the price and require electrical to run the blowers (so the heat that's still inside the firebox of the fireplace isn't wasted, but if there's a power outage, you do end up losing the heat).  With a free standing unit, all the heat is avaible to radiate into the room.  This one is supposed to produce enough warmth for a 1200 square foot house.  While the room it'll be in is in the basement and significantly smaller than that, the heat should rise up to the other levels.  I'm certainly going to find out!  Since it's the time of year when everyone is getting ready for winter, my install won't actually occur until the beginning of November.  Being that the weather has gotten warmer and beautiful, I do still have some time.

 

The second project I'm excited about, is to create a spiral herb garden.  If you google that, you'll find all sorts of fun examples.  Apparently this method has sprung from the permaculture movement.  Right now I've mapped out the area for the placement of the spiral.  The cardboard will deter any growth underneath...grass and otherwise.  Today I was out and about sourcing material for the walls.  I would love to use stone, but it seems cost prohibitive so tomorrow I'm going to check out used brick.  As a material, brick would be a consistent appearance with the house, so it really would be fine.  After that, it'll be a matter of building the walls with the bricks and deciding on what planting medium to put in...some folks use good garden soil, but it seems the original idea is to use straw, packing it in between the walls and dampening it with water, then making little holes just big enough for a couple handfuls of soil to put the plants in.  Over time the straw will break down.

 

Lastly, though it's not really a project, I think I'm done decorating for fall/Halloween!  Well, there are enough pumpkins now anyway.  Closer to the holiday, I'll probably put my skeley friend just to the left of the door, sitting on one of my folding chairs...maybe holding a jack-o-lantern??  We'll see.  Oh, there *is* another string of orange lights for the porch too!

Art is still sort of on the back burner, even though I continue to expose/process/scan film.  That being said, there is a glimmer of desire to create (specifically artwork, that is) rising to the surface.  More to come on that front.

down by the riverside...

It's blessing to live within walking distance of the river.  To be able to pull myself together on a whim, grab a couple cameras and head down to a lovely, natural spot can be just thing.  Just the thing, when life is getting to me, when those random occurrences (i.e. problems to be solved) that should seem little become large, looming and unruly in my head.  

I loaded my Holga with some expired HP5 and headed down to the James the other day.  It's just beginning to be fall and the sky was rather brooding...cool enough for long sleeves and pants, but not yet requiring heavy outdoor clothing.  

In short bursts the inspiration and creative flow are returning to the surface.  Even if temporary, I'll take it and I'm grateful.

 

 

 

 

 

above and below

I took a walk down to the river this morning.  That's not such an usual thing.  Being just a half mile away, a walk like that is a common occurrence.  There were a couple exposures left on a roll of film in my Holga, so I figured I'd finish it off, and had another spare roll along to use as well.  I won't go into the detail about how the last exposures on the one roll and the first three on the next were overexposed because, well, I got mixed up between my B and N settings (hmmm...just went into detail on that anyway, huh?).  I will say, I took the path less traveled (for me) and got myself closer down to the water in slightly wilder areas than those with which I'm familiar.

The pathways were littered with leaves and autumn has just barely started.  In another month or two the debris will be ankle deep, I'm sure.  It smells different down there now too.  In the summer the air was heavy, earthy and green.  Now, while not crisp, the scent seems lighter and drier with just a tinge of decay (in a good way) setting in.

By the time I got to where the accompanying images are from, I'd used up all my film.  The forms from these trees fascinated me, however, so my iphone came in handy (like, duh, of course!).  Thinking about it now, it would've been interesting to use the Hipstamatic app with the tintype setting...and I may go back and do just that.  In any case, it was wonderfully cool to observe a sort of above and below perspective on the trees.  When the level of the river rises, most of the root systems are completely submerged.  Being that this is the drier time of year, how those roots connect to the trunk and also hold on to the earth can easily be observed.  I'm struck by the sense of tenacity, connectedness and strength that's expressed in these trees.  I think about how long they've been growing at the river's edge and how many times the water has ridden up and down their bodies.  And I think about how the stresses of that continual change has given them character.  It doesn't take long to make a metaphor that applies to my own life...the lives of all of us humans.  

 

 

 

Willpower...

I've been been thinking about that a lot lately...willpower...and discipline.  It used to be so easy for me to practice discipline.  Now...I'm too tired...or too depressed...or too anxious.  In reality, I need discipline more than ever.  Sometimes a pump needs to be primed...sometimes "fake it till you make it" actually makes a lot of sense.

So, I set the alarm early and don't allow myself any serious snoozing after it goes off...even if I had insomnia the night before.  And I go for walks and take pictures...I keep up the daily 365 pinhole project for this year...I at least *think* about potentential art projects, or having art projects, or being inspired.  I put one foot in front of the other, even if that means tripping over my own feet.

I write too...every day in a journal.  There's only been a day or two in the past couple years when I forgot.  It's not very interesting reading...in fact, the average person would be hard pressed to interpret my scrawl.  But I do it anyway and some days it actually feels good.  Apparently I blog too, whether or not it's interesting to anyone else (honestly, not many people read it and that's actually ok).  I even bought an ebook with creative writing ideas because, sadly, I could use some help!  

What does all this mean? Other than I'm human and experiencing the human condition, I'm not sure.  It means I'm trying, I guess...even though it's often hard.  And it means I remain at some level optimistic, that there's meaning buried beneath my thoughts and actions...for myself, if not for anyone else.  We all have to play the hand we're dealt.  That's not to say choice isn't involved and sometimes the choice is about learning to respond to those cards...in fact, it always is.

I could do better about practicing gratitude, because I know that there are myriad reasons to count myself incredibly fortunate.  At the same time, to deny that my emotions exist (or are in some way "bad") is futile and unhealthy.  There's got to be a balance between the two...that's what I'm working on.  I look forward to some day actually being inspired to create art, to feel that flow and the subsequent joy in creating.  I would take any kind of joy, though, no matter the source...it's out there, I'm sure of it.