photoflow: handmade holiday table placecards

as per the last day's instructions in my picture fall class, i made these photo placecards for thanksgiving. 15 of 'em. and then promptly proceeded NOT to go to that thanksgiving (come back thursday to find out why ... ). so i fedexed all 15 of 'em to their rightful table. and made a few more for the thanksgiving table where i ended up. 

it's so much fun to share photography in our actual, real-time, analog lives (i can't believe i just wrote that. as in, analog life vs digital life? we live in very strange times ... ). so often in this digital age, our photos remain only on our computer screens, or buried in digital folders and drives, deep inside our machines. why not bring out those photos and share them? 

for the end of my picture summer class, i made a photo garland which is still hanging from my living room rafters. 

here are some great ideas for bringing your photos out into the light of day. and this is a great book for more of the same. and here is a photo garland you can drape on your tree! 

how do you share your photos in your life?

I think a photography class should be a requirement in all educational programs because it makes you see the world rather than just look at it. 

~Author Unknown

 


monday memories / RTW trip: the promised land

while i have my around-the-world photos out from their usual home in the garage, i think i’ll continue telling some more stories from that adventure. after the last post about egypt ... 

we took a bus from cairo -- worrying if there would be any issues entering israel from an "arab country" (no problem) -- to jerusalem. spent a few days in the old city, soaking up the ancient ambiance and the LIGHT reflecting all that white and gold colored jerusalem stone from which the entire city is made. stunning.

i love love love the church of the holy sepulchre where they say christ was crucified, buried and resurrected. the space divided into six sections for six different christian denominations. the entire ceiling adorned with ancient oil lamps and incense burners, making it easier to imagine what it might have been like 2000 years ago. dark. mysterious. holy.

arab market, old jerusalem

my other favorite thing in the old city was watching everyone scurry around on friday afternoon, running last minute errands and doing last minute doings before shabbat which paralyzes the place. no running, no errands, no doing from friday sunset til saturday sunset. everything closes. full stop. a real day of rest. the one thing open on shabbat is the wailing wall, where many and especially the orthodox converge to sway and pray. we placed little notes to god in the crevices of the rocks, along with all the other notes from people over hundreds of years. 

my friday afternoon scurry to the store before sunset ended in tears. just outside the jaffa gate to the old city, a huge man was selling postcards displayed on poles. laden with a plastic bag of groceries in each of my hands, i stopped to look at his cards ... when he reached up with both hands and touched my breasts. fucker! enraged at him and at all the men who had dared to touch me throughout our trip and throughout my life, i dropped my bags and pounded on his chest. i always thought i was the kind of girl who could throw a punch as good as the guys. NOT. i pounded away while he -- completely unfazed -- just laughed and laughed at me. aaaaaaarrrrrggggggghhhhhhh. adrenaline racing, i picked up my bags and marched away. i thought about going to the police. but i just wanted to retreat to the safety of curt and our little room. (rrrrr. this still makes me mad as hell!)

then we moved to kibbutz yahel, an amazing piece of green in the negev desert right next to jordan, for a month. 

most kibbutz employ "volunteers" ... usually young travellers who work in exchange for room and board and per diem. we worked HARD in the HOT sun -- curt picking watermelons, me packing galia melons -- made $120 per person per month and spent it all at the kibbutz store on chips, ice cream, water and beer. 

NOTE: the above photo was the security memo they gave us upon arrival at yahel. THIS IS THE LAST PHOTO i have of our RTW trip. and i'll tell you why next week. below are photos i found on the internet of yahel ... 

when we weren't working, we swam in the beautiful swimming pool and sipped in the bombshelter bar. other than that, we slept. didn't have much contact with the kibbutzim. while israelis are renowned for their exotic good looks ... they are not famous for their politesse. from my journal pages ...

the kibbutzniks treated us a hair better than they treated the arab workers. then the office ladies read my postcard on which i said just that and then they were REALLY RUDE to me.  

NOTE: 20 years later, i now know what a stupid/insipid/immature thing that was to think/say/write on a postcard. but it's what i did at the time.

but then there was also this from my journal:

in spite of everything, we did learn a bit about what kibbutz life is like, and had good times as well:

- waking up at 5am, dawn, and hearing hundreds of birds chirping away. slouching to the dining hall to find a cup, any cup, and wash it and fill it with instant coffee.

- driving the tractor to the dump, amidst all those hazy purple mountains, and the mountains of jordan, and feeling very free.

- going running around the perimeter road, inside the barbed wire, happy to be in a country again where they don't think you're totally crazy for doing such a thing, especially a woman.

-working so hard all you could do is go home, take a shower and fall asleep -- totally exhausted after a hard day's work. it actually felt GOOD some days, if our bodies weren't too sore.

- seeing bicycles left in the middle of the paths with no worry, never to be stolen.

we had committed to staying two months at yahel, but left after one. and i even had to talk curt into staying for the whole month. his work in the fields was really tough. so after our 30 days, we hopped a bus and went north to haifa, where we ate the best falafel in the world at a little sidewalk stand. which signaled our exit from the promised land. and thus we headed north via ferry to greece ... 

~~~~~

lessons learned: manual labor can be very gratifying and grounding. a weekly, real day of rest is beautiful and revitalizing. 

+++++

put on the to-do list: learn how to throw a proper punch.

what are you thankful for?

i am thankful that i have a loving family with whom to celebrate thanksgiving. daisey and i are heading to utah for the holiday week. so i'm taking a little break from this blogspace. but will be back the following week. 

and i am thankful for YOU, dear reader, for reading, looking, commenting ... THANK YOU.

celebrate well. peace.

xh

five things singing

i love to sing. it feels so good and lifts me up. and singing with others? very powerful. unifying. measures of melting into oneness. 

i'm an alto though my maestro says i could be a soprano if i worked at it. but i wouldn't want to be a soprano in a million years. no, alto's the place for me with all the lovely alto ladies. we swim in earthy, rich harmonies.

1. we sing with marin oratorio, a 100+ voice choir. and we're having a concert:

2. our choir director maestro boyd jarrell rocks the house! old world and hip, learned and funny, teacher extraordinaire. shares stories of music history and theory between directing us with such high standards. when we sing, his head twitches with the music, feeling it. he urges us to look up! get our noses out of the pages, keep the rhythm above all else, and e-nun-ci-ate. with bettah diction so we pronounce our "Rs" like the english. (fortunately i spent last summer with all those english folks working on the movie, so i'm brushed up on my english accent!). and when we sing and maestro smiles, marking the rhythm with his baton, i smile inside -- can't really smile and sing at the same time (but i can certainly smize!) -- knowing we have done a great job. 

3. ok, so maybe we're not glee and don't have gwyneth guest appearing as our soloist, but we're pretty damn hot all the same. 

4.  singing is good for us. and more people are singing in choir than ever before. maybe you can join one, too.

5. in our upcoming concert, we're singing haydn's the seasons (about nature's seasons, and the seasons of life) in english, not german! it's going to be a stirring, rousing, beautiful concert. YOU SHOULD COME! email me to get tickets ... it's selling out fast. shows are december 11 at 8pm, and december 12 at 3pm. 

 

help girls. it matters.

you know how some movies can really get under your skin? four years ago i saw the movie blood diamond. i vowed never again to buy diamonds. and i started sponsoring a girl in a village in zambia. 

jane is now 12 

i knew my monthly help is life-changing for Jane. and i knew how imperative it is to educate girls and keep girls safe. but i had a real aha! moment when i saw this video, below, and grokked that I AM REALLY HELPING A GIRL, AND IT MATTERS. 

the girl effect ripples outward. every girl we help makes a huge difference ... 

girleffect.org is here to help you help girls.

see the original girl effect video (don't let the beginning deter you ... )

the international community understands the power of the girl effect ... 

and see this powerful girl in ethiopia.

i urge you to do whatever you can to help girls. you could save a life. and save the world. because the most powerful force of change on the planet is A GIRL.

what YOU CAN DO right now: 

1. donate (you can even help buy film for kenyan girls photography lessons)

2. be informed

3. share the reports

4. download the fact sheet

5. raise awareness by joining the girl effect blogging campaign

6. spread the word! 

7. oh, and read half the sky

photoflow: my flavor, my picture

we borrow ideas all the time. we see things, "digest" them in our body/mind system, and then they surface in a myriad of ways. usually not as explicitly or directly as this:

in my picture summer e-class, one day our "assignment" was to photograph summer fruit. i noticed a great shot in the group pool by becky, and remembered it. blueberries. that oh so cute and delectable treat. i wanted to borrow becky's idea and make a blueberry photo, too!

as summer wound down and fall arrived, berries were becoming more and more rare in the supermarket. i bought so many baskets of blueberries with the intent of photographing them. but ate them before they had a chance to pose for me! 

finally i did it. i wrangled those berries until i was blue (more like red) in the face ... oh how they roll! i went back to becky's photo to see how many she stacked. how did she get four? maybe there's a mystery toothpick inside that stack of four. otherwise, she has the patience of the gods. my blueberries were rolling and tumbling and scooting all over my counter and onto the floor. i managed three. 

but as you can see, my blueberry shot is totally different than becky's. i love the simplicity of her shot. she called it "zen blueberry." the composition so gentle and flowing. mine is more busy, but maybe that's a reflection of how i felt wrangling blueberries! 

i don't believe there is any such thing as "stealing" ideas. we get ideas from absolutely e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. we encounter. and these things -- sights, sounds, smells, tastes, experiences -- all become a part of who and how we are. our experiences form our particular "flavor." and our flavor comes back out in our photographs (and in everything else we do).

all we can say is a hearty thank you to whoever or whatever inspired us. in this case, thank you becky and thank you blueberries!

even if there is a much more direct link between seeing something and wanting to do the same, there is no such thing as same. impossible. because each one of us is unique. like snowflakes. or blueberries. 

No place is boring, if you've had a good night's sleep and have a pocket full of unexposed film. 

~Robert Adams

monday memories / RTW trip: ancient egypt ambiance

while i have my around-the-world photos out from their usual home in the garage, i think i’ll continue telling some more stories from that adventure. after the last post about kenya ... 

 

arriving in cairo after two months in kenya was like landing back in civilization ... albeit a muslim civilization (our first experience of muslim culture except for a few days on java and yogyakarta at the beginning of our trip.). in a great city ... great coffee. great food. movie theaters. museums. history. peace. safety. we were psyched!

people were quite friendly, wanting to have a coffee and practice their english. different from kenya where we felt we couldn’t trust people, they wanted to rip us off.

we spent a few days in cairo getting acclimated and doing some business and banking. stayed at the nicest place on our whole trip (except, of course, the uber fancy hotel in bombay, which is in a whole tier to itself) ... the very friendly, clean and well-run pension roma ... in an old building with tons of character, huge rooms with ultra high ceilings and antique armoires and furniture, private bath, and complimentary breakfast. curt bought roses for me several times, just like in portland where he bought me a beautiful bouquet every friday. a far cry from our stay in kenya! and all for 30 egyptian pounds or $10/night! so good that i even noted it in my diary: 

the fruit juice was cheap, too! 30 cents for a big glass of fresh squeezed anything. our favorites: orange and strawberry/banana.

you have to understand ... this was straight off the heels of two months in kenya, preceeded by a month in india, and a month in nepal. all fascinating places in which we, as budget travellers, had stayed in some mighty grotty places. thailand and bali were really quite clean in comparison ... high standards of cleanliness. nepal, india and kenya ... not so much.  

then we headed to luxor. and stayed at possibly the very worst place of our entire trip. ah well, this is budget travelling. sometimes the little budget finds something great, sometimes not so great. i was pretty much the master at finding good places. i have a need for “ambiance.” (my college pals will laugh at this word, but it was true even then, a nascent sensibility and vocabulary word for me!) but it took some looking. curt got used to it, and we developed a system. we would arrive in a new place. he would sit with the luggage while i ran around looking at all the accommodation in our budget. and i'd always find the best! except in luxor :-(

and since we were travellers -- distinct from tourists -- we decided to rent bicycles and tour the valley of the kings on two wheels. hah! we dumbly handed over curt’s passport as collateral for the one-speed bicycles (we'd been travelling for six months by then and we KNEW BETTER!). but off we went sans passport. saw tut’s tomb, hatshupset’s magnificent tomb, and more. and it was the hottest, sweatiest, dustiest day of my life. and perhaps the most dangerous with all those monster wide tour buses racing past us, with their fancy schmancy air conditioning. i was jealous, but it was too late to turn back.

eventually curt’s bike failed ... we can’t remember exactly what ... flat tire? sticking brake? if i recall correctly, curt and i both got on my bike, he pedalled and i sat on the seat holding the broken bicycle to the side. it wasn’t pretty. when we got back to the bike rental place, they wanted us to pay for the repair. we said no, we didn’t do anything wrong, the bike just broke. they were holding curt’s passport until we forked out. i’m sure it wasn’t much, but we were on a budget and didn’t have extra funds. we argued for 20 minutes, loudly, before getting the passport back, without paying for the repairs. not exactly my proudest moment. and limped back to our crappy hotel. NOT the best day of the trip.

back to cairo and pension roma. we toured the fabulous egyptian museum. shopped in khan el khahlili souk. bought perfume. needed a usa fix so went to see “born on the 4th of july” in a movie theater which was an experience in and of itself. you had to sit in your assigned seat and the vendors came to you. weird. no popcorn. not the greatest fix ...  i much prefer the movie-going experience at home!

the absolute best part of our egypt time was wandering around the back alleys of cairo. i admit i'm not the usual tourist or traveller. even now when i'm on a short trip. i don't love going around to tourist sites, just because the place is significant historically. just because the guidebook says you have to see it. i don't usually care to go SEE things. ruins. churches. museums. you know. it all becomes a blur after the first two or three. unless it is significant and meaningful to ME for whatever reason ... to me, this sightseeing is of the head.

i want to have an EXPERIENCE. of the heart. my heart. i much prefer to wander around and meet people, see what their daily lives entail. soak up the ambiance of the place. experience it. 

while meandering the little dirt lanes in the ancient coptic christian area of cairo, we found ben ezra synagogue. having been raised jewish, i was interested in this place. what? jews in egypt? i thought they all left with moses! crossed the red sea and all. the passover story. the man at the door said he had been offering tours of this tiny temple for 40 years. 

this man took us around the old synagogue where he said moses and jesus, mary and joseph spent time. moses was found as a baby in the reeds of the nile near here. this man showed us stones and stairs and all kinds of unphotogenic sites, always asking "photo? photo?" charming.

this man was my favorite part of egypt. just. look. in. his. eyes. now THAT is an experience. i'll take that over any ruin, no matter how historically significant, any day, any time, anywhere.

~~~~~ 

lessons learned: never turn over your passport, for anything! ever! and especially not for a broken bicycle! and don't think for a minute that being a traveller is any better than being a tourist. it's the same! that was just my egotistical youth talking.

five things: atkins (including, they might just come to your house!)

WANT TO MEET A FUN ENGLISH FAMILY LIVING IN THE FRENCH COUNTRYSIDE?

1. my friends the atkins family are coming to the usa next summer (!!!), and touring with their film. you know, the one they made with their uber-talented family and friends last summer in france and spain ... you know, the one i worked on, too. 

2. they are calling this the "throw me a rope" US road trip, a kind of extension of their "welcome to the world" tour in europe, only this time they have a film to show!

3. they'll be entering film festivals and doing Q and As in as many cities as possible.

4. they want to show their film to YOU! they'd like to do in-home screenings or "film parties" in people's homes all over the country. and they are looking for drama/music groups, summer schools and colleges, fundraising groups, any group or organization which might want to screen 'if you ever get to heaven' for any reason. who knows, they might do some concerts, too!

5. so, if you would like to meet this warm, friendly, open, generous, interesting, and fun family ... WHY DON'T YOU CONSIDER HOSTING A SCREENING? whether you are a family or single, all you need is a tv screen and some friends. just contact manny atkins and set a date sometime next july or august and invite your friends over for a "film party"! watch the film with the atkins family, ask questions of the parents (director & producer & actor) and the children (actors & crew), have a gathering, have fun, meet new people, open your world, open your home ... to this delightful english family living in france. 

contact manny atkins at amanda@43pictures.com.

and follow them on facebook and twitter.

ps - i met this family online, after reading and commenting on their blog. we became online friends, and i ended up working on their film! and we'll be friends forever. you just never know where these connections might lead. and at the very least, you can have new friends in another part of the world! and ... i'll most definitely be hosting a screening party at my house next summer!

 

womenfolk and their jewels

my aunt carol gave me this watch. it was my birthmother's. [i wish i knew of a better way of describing her. maybe just mother? i have two of them. or maybe my mother and my mom ... any lovely suggestions?]

when i went to visit my aunt carol -- the one i had met on the phone just a month before -- she had a special box on the table. this box was filled with little boxes. in each little box was a memento of my birthmother's that carol wanted me to have. i could barely bring myself to open the box. each time i reached over to it, tears came. so i waited while we talked.

finally it was time. almost time for me to leave, and time to look in the box. i sniffled and opened each little box, astounded at carol's generosity.

carol gave this watch to my mother nancy. and when nancy passed, carol got it back. and then carol gave it to me. 

i finally replaced the battery yesterday. i love it! it is light and delicate and reminds me of both carol and nancy. i will treasure it forever.

oddly, i am currently going through my mom's jewelry, seven and a half years after she passed. it is time. time to clean my closets. and time to move it all on to new owners and admirers. new mothers and aunts and daughters and nieces. so i'm keeping a few special pieces, and boxing up the rest and shipping it off. 

and oddly again, i'm sending it to a friend with a jewelry store whose mom (adopted mom, like my mom) is in hospice with not much longer to live.

strange how Life presents these little riddles and coincidences. when i see Life bringing sets of circumstances strung together such as this, i know there is something important here for me to see. 

maybe it is how somehow, we womenfolk -- mothers and aunts and nieces and daughters and sisters -- are really all connected. ALL womenfolk everywhere, for all time ... connected. in such a precious way. gifting each other our precious jewels. and hearts. 

photoflow: smize of the soul

so in last week's photoflow, i wrote about portraiture and included my friends who are really open to having their pictures taken. 

on that subject, my beautiful friend (since college) laura falls into the not-so-much category. she's always been a reluctant model and photo subject. 

but i want to share a photo shoot with laura that may have changed all that. we worked it! and came away with some great pictures. but it took some time. 

here's when i first approached laura with my camera. granted she was naked in the hot tub. "oh my god, you are not going to take my picture!":

i talked her into letting me photograph her. "we'll get a great picture, you'll see." but she was not convinced:

and here she is with what most people do in front of a camera, the cheesey smile:

but i wasn't stopping there. 

i was going for the tyra banks “smize” (smile with the eyes) and beyond. tyra coined the phrase on her show “america’s next top model.” i love that show. not for the in-house dramas between the girls. but for the stunning photography by the world's top fashion photographers. and for tyra’s mastery of finding and drawing out each girl’s quirks. tyra helps each girl embrace and reveal her own uniqueness. very empowering.

so i coached laura. and here she is becoming conscious of her face and her eyes and trying to control them. not so great:

i asked laura to open up her eyes more. not working:

then i told her not only to smile with her eyes, but to also open her heart. "remove the armor covering your soul." we were getting somewhere:

then we lost it again. self-consiousness returned. after the openness, she felt too vulnerable, and laughed:

trying to return to openness, but still armored:

come on laura. stay open. not just in the eyes. in the heart. in the soul. let your soul shine through. and boom:

and boom. right there, all of her. completely open:

and boom:

she did it. she not only smiled with her eyes. she smiled with her soul. a gentle smile. an open smile. 

it takes a lot of trust to be able to be this open. to lay down the shield protecting our innermost vulnerable place. when a model or photo subject opens in this way, it makes for great photographs because it touches the viewer in that same place inside of her. 

and it makes for great connection between people, in our day-to-day lives being with people, no camera in sight. open hearts meeting open hearts. soul to soul connection. i'm a human being, vulnerable just like you. try it with your loved ones. try it with the checkout person at the grocery store. open. open. open. saying inwardly "i see you. and i'm letting you see me." 

When you photograph people in colour you photograph their clothes.  But when you photograph people in B&W, you photograph their souls! 

~Ted Grant

~~~~~

when i spoke to laura yesterday about this blog post, reminding her of the photo shoot in the hot tub, she said ... "i trust you. just remember my dad will be seeing it!" 

and here's laura 30 years ago in college, on a backpacking trip in oregon, beautiful then and now:

monday memories / RTW trip: in to africa

while i have my around-the-world photos out from their usual home in the garage, i think i’ll continue telling some more stories from that adventure. after the last post about india ...

**note: most of these photos were scanned from contact sheets, thus the low quality.

we flew to nairobi, our luggage arriving splayed open on the conveyor belts, along with many other bags arriving in similar shape. curt was missing a few items, but we were glad to see our bags. many fellow travellers' bags didn't arrive at all. an airport luggage worker, either in bombay or nairobi, jimmied open the zippers on our bags and rummaged around. both places are filled with desperate people. still, we have a feeling it happened in nairobi ... 

curt and ngugi

we were there visiting curt's friend ngugi in ngong (pronounced "gogi" and "gong") outside nairobi. ngugi lived in curt's neighborhood in portland from age 10 to age 20, and they grew up playing together. at 20, ngugi had an apartment, a car, a job, a girlfriend, a bank account, and was going to college. he decided to make a trip back to kenya to visit his dying father. had all the necessary visas and paperwork. he took two suitcases, one with his clothes, and one filled with gifts for his family. at the end of his visit, he went to the airport all ready to head back to portland, and was denied transit. as in, the airport officials denied his visa, which had been fine a month prior when he had departed portland. ngugi later learned that while he was overseas, president reagan had changed the law. ngugi was not allowed to return to the US.

ngong

what? curt's family and all the neighbors worked on ngugi's behalf to help him return to portland, to his LIFE. but they were unsuccessful. and unable to send his things. ngugi had one suitcase to his name. 

with nowhere else to go, ngugi first built himself a mud hut in a shanty town. then eventually he married, moved in to a compound and had two beautiful children. ironically, he worked sporadically as a photographer of passport pictures. 10 years later, he was still bitter about how he was treated by the united states government. yeah, i get it. 

ngong

curt and i stayed with ngugi, his wife mama-ciku (once a kenyan woman has a child, she takes the name of her first born preceded by "mama") and their children ciku and jack in their two-room home for a few days until we were able to find lodging. we rented an unfurnished house -- a mansion compared to ngugi's place -- with an eastern (aka: squat), but porcelain and flushing, toilet. at ngugi's place, the shared toilet facilities were not porcelain, not flushing, and ...  how can i say it ...  the worst i've encountered ... anywhere, ever.

ciku (left) and jack and neighbor (right)

our house was clean and simple. we borrowed a single bed and a propane burner, and lived there for two months. but we only had running water for the first few days. from then on, we had to join in the queues of people with our five-gallon buckets. we had to boil our water for drinking, we used one-liter bottles for bathing and for flushing the toilet. 

mama-ciku and neighbor girl

we did take ngugi's family on a low-budget/high-adventure safari (the post which started this whole series of our trip around the world).

and we did visit ngugi's family farm one weekend. they even killed a goat in our honor (i was a vegetarian at the time. horrible.)

ciku and jack on family farm

and curt and ngugi got to spend a lot of time together. they had 10 years to catch up on. but two months was a long time for me. ngong was a poor african town with not much happening, no opportunity for the locals, people having to walk far for water. lots of people hanging around not working because there just wasn't any work. it was depressing, hopeless.

one night we visited ngugi's brother who was living in his old mud hut in the shanty town. we were drinking beer. two local policemen paid us a visit, and from what i could gather, demanded beer. they stayed and drank it, loosened their uniforms, disheveled. they had guns. it was very scary.

i also made a collage out of newspaper stories and headlines while i was there. horrific stories about people hacking each other up with machetes. police raping women with coke bottles. astounding brutality. 

mombasa

we also visited mombasa on the ocean. curt got really, really sick. more sick than when we were stranded in that nepali village. 

i literally just found my travel journal out in the garage. here's an excerpt from that time:

mombasa was a bust, we are nonplussed and both got bacterial dysentary. curt was so sick and with such a high fever (i'm glad we had no thermometer!) and chills, i thought he might even have malaria. but after several hours of his suffering and my nursing, his fever broke. he was still not well enough to take the bus back to nairobi, so i exchanged our tickets for tomorrow and got more medicine from the nice indian pharmacist. 

mombasa

and i have to say, africa -- or maybe it was just travelling in general -- was taking its toll on me. 

the morning we were going to the family farm, curt and i took our usual path to ngugi's, but the monsoons had started and it was pouring. i stepped in mud down to my ankles and basically had a meltdown. we got to ngugi's and i wouldn't stop crying. the children were concerned. curt laughed at me. i was not a happy camper. it was kind of funny that a little mud would warrant such an explosive reaction, but i just had had it up to here (karate chop in the air over my head).  

view of ngong hills from the karen blixen museum

to escape our heartbreaking surroundings, we snuck away -- somewhat guiltily -- and rode the insanely dangerous matatou (minibus) from ngong halfway to nairobi ... to karen. ah, karen. karen was the wealthy suburb where many europeans had plantations and farms. karen blixen (also known as isak dinesan, "out of africa"author) had her farm there, which had become a museum and which i visited often. and there was a great restaurant with a safe salad bar, candlelight and cold beer! curt tried game meats. i soaked up the sparkling clean ambiance. heaven.

another journal entry:

curt and i really do get along well, we have had nothing but time on our hands and have managed to keep ourselves and each other entertained -- thank god we both like gin rummy. he really is a pleasure to live with ... 

exotic plant at karen blixen museum

i'm embarrassed to say that i needed to get away to karen. but i really did. i just did. it was peaceful, subdued, beautiful. 

in spite of the hardships, in spite of my heart breaking over and over witnessing so much hopelessness, i did find beauty in the landscapes, the majestic animals, and the courageous people who live and laugh, day in and day out, with such rawness of LIFE. and what a treasure for curt and ngugi to have had that time together.

~~~~~

lessons learned: important friendships are worth any hardship. 

+++++

while we were travelling, we didn't really have any extra money or things we could give to ngugi and his family. but when we got home, it felt good to send ngugi some extra camera gear i had. and curt still sends money. 

in kenya, i became a huge karen blixen fan. read her "letters from africa, 1914-1931." when i returned home, i found this wonderful book "longing for darkness: kamante's tales from out of africa" by photographer peter beard. he collected stories and drawings by blixen's servant kamante, the hero in blixen's "out of africa."

portrait of kamante in the karen blixen museum

today i fall into time ...

fall back. yes. i gleefully turned back my clocks today.

many bemoan the early darkness of the time change. me? i don't care about tomorrow. i don't even care about later.

because the day we turn the clocks back, whether in october or november, is one of the best days of the year.

why? 

because i have an extra hour TODAY! 

this is the day when time feels completely different. having one extra hour feels like eons. the day expands. time slows. there is time for e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g today. 

meditation. yoga. skip to the store for gluten-free waffle mix. throw in some berries and bananas, and a feast is had. with sunday paper. walk the dog between rain showers. back to the store for firewood. make a fire, snuggle under the throw, make a few calls. make tea, and sit. reading. savoring the last of my book (i always save the end of a good book for the perfect time and place, knowing this is the last time i will be with these people in their world). 

the day goes on and on ... i absolutely love today. i savor the space of time, lapping it up, breathing it out, relishing its flavor, its generosity, its gift. mmmmmmmmmmm ...

ps - what are you doing with your extra hour today?

five things: arj and flash

 orange tights

professional funny man arj barker hails from my hometown. here he riffs ...

- as a rapper buddhist who opened his third eye on his first try

- on aussie-speak at the melbourne comedy festival where they call him arjy barjy

do you like flash mobs as much as i do? here are two flashes ...

- glee flash mob in roma

- sound of music flash mob in antwerp

and the quirky improv folks doing their thing ... 

- freeze in grand central station

happy friday!

the power of one

 

i'll let mr. courtenay into my bed any night of the week. his stories grab me and take me away, straight into another place and time, and straight into another person's heart and mind. 

while living in australia many years ago, i discovered australian author bryce courtenay. back then, i was reading "april fool's day," a gripping true story about the author's son, a hemophiliac, who died young from medically acquired AIDS. heartbreaking and truly uplifting. 

now i'm reading "the power of one" ... 1940s south africa. a wise boy who knows racism isn't right. who thinks grown ups can be stupid and silly. who has one name, and one focus, one life purpose.

i'm about 3/4 of the way through. this little boy has seen so much, endured so much, and is so lovable. he attracts other lovable characters. and knows firsthand about the horrific ways human beings can be toward one another. and the power one small person can render. riveting.

just now i'm researching bryce courtenay. amazing. i didn't know until just this minute:

courtenay's very first book, "the power of one," became the largest-selling book by a living australian author within australia! and he wrote it in 1996 at age 55! (it was made into a movie, as well.)

and apparently, much of "the power of one" is based on his own life story. what a life!

he's written a slew of other books, and i know i'll be reading on ... and inviting mr. courtenay back to my bed anytime he wants.

photoflow: here. i. am.

i have a few girlfriends whom i've photographed for a long time, since our college days. one in particular, meg, has always welcomed my camera. the others, not so much. 

with meg, it was never a case of "i am so beautiful. take a picture of ME!" not that she isn't beautiful. no, it was more of a matter of self acceptance (i yam what i yam), and a (quite rare) willingness to be seen. with or without preparation. no fussing, no "just let me put my makeup on." none of that. just, you want to take my picture? sure. here i am.

and i have a newer friend who is equally comfortable in front of the camera. terri. she, too, is always ready for a shoot. no nos. always YES! here i am!

as a photographer, i appreciate SO MUCH this willingness in people to be photographed. it just makes the photography easier, better, more free.

and more importantly, people's energy of openness feels good to be around, making those around them more open and free, too. open energy begets open energy.

but i completely understand not wanting to be photographed. i've been that way! but i am realizing that it's much more than a surface-thing of not wanting to be photographed. it's so much deeper than that.

so this week in my unravelling e-course, our assignment was to photograph ourselves. the (dreaded) SELF-PORTRAIT. 

self acceptance. willingness to be seen. ok. yes. breathe. letting myself just be. i want that for others, and i want that for myself. to love others just as they are. to love myself just as i am. in photography and in life.

so in that spirit ... here. i. am.

It's weird that photographers spend years or even a whole lifetime, trying to capture moments that added together, don't even amount to a couple of hours. 

~James Lalropui Keivom

monday memories / RTW trip: desperately seeking india

while i have my around-the-world photos out from their usual home in the garage, i think i’ll continue telling some more stories from that adventure. after the last post about nepal ... 

we flew from kathmandu to varanasi, india on feb 6. when planning our trip, india was the only place i was afraid to go. i was afraid i would be surrounded by hordes of desperate, destitute people pulling on my sleeves with outstretched hands, breaking my heart. it all happened, and more.

varanasi. holy holy. on the banks of the holy ganges river. regarded as a holy city by buddhists and jains, and the holiest place in the world by hindus (considered to be the center of earth in hindu cosmology). one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and probably the oldest of india. one of the most important pilgrimage destinations in india. you get it. OLD. HOLY.

we stayed in the heart of the old city, wanted to be in the midst of it all. thought we could handle anything after shockingly dirty, poor, mysterious kathmandu. yet varanasi was so overwhelming. all systems on overload. 

nearby were the ghats, the steps leading down to the ganges river ...  over 100 of them. some are bathing ghats, some cremation sites.  (hindus believe bathing in the ganges remits sins and that dying here ensures release of their souls.) ancient narrow labyrinth streets. teeming with people from all over india to celebrate their most important life events: to be born, get married, die, give alms. temples galore. monkeys, dogs, cows. silk merchants. maimed beggars lining the alleys to the ghats. (the best place to beg, people give for good karma.) sheer  bedlam. we witnessed it all. child wedding processions. bodies on carts being pushed by their families, going to die. burning pyres. so much assaulting the senses, we could only manage to leave our room for a couple hours at a time.

and then there was the boat ride on the ganges. with three men. lovely. until. one of the men dared to touch me where i didn’t want to be touched. i screamed at them to take us back. (this was not the only time i was touched by indian men. when asking the time, they’d brush my breasts with their arm. or, i don’t know. they did it seeming to do it by accident. but i later learned, it wasn’t by accident at all.)

after a few days, we fled to dehli. to see the taj mahal in nearby agra. we planned our day-long excursion so we could take the first class train to agra. but our taxi didn’t arrive on time. i will never forget the harrowing scenes in the pre-dawn shadows outside the train station: row after row of people sleeping on cardboard on the side of the road, hundreds if not thousands of them. by the time we got to the station, the only train we could get was second class. and my worst nightmare came true: standing room only. legless, maimed, scarred, destitute beggars – some of them children -- scooting through the car the entire two hour journey, pleading at us, tugging our sleeves, with desperate eyes. we were the only tourists dumb enough to take the second class train. and we knew if we gave anything to even one person, we’d be instantly mobbed by hordes. there was nowhere to hide.

on the train, someone told us princess diana was scheduled to be at the taj mahal that day.

disembarking the traumatic train ride, we were instantly encircled by taxi men, each wanting desperately to drive us to the taj mahal. desperation driven by survival in a land of too many people and too few resources. curt and i got separated into two throngs, each of us surrounded by pressing, pushing -- and in my case, touching -- men.

we finally extricated ourselves into a taxi with one man driving, the other guy facing backward pleading with us the entire ride to hire them as tour guides for the rest of the day for $20. we said no. they kept pleading.

we arrived at the taj mahal ... tense, frazzled, heartbroken. buying our tickets at the entrance, we learned the whole taj mahal complex would be closing in 20 minutes so that lady di could have a private viewing. 20 minutes!

curt and i were miserable, arguing, blaming each other for this nightmare of a day (and when i think that millions of people LIVE like this. my heart breaks just thinking of it). we didn’t even want to walk together. at one of the most magnificent sites on earth! built in the 1600s by a mughal in memory of his third wife, the grandest gesture of love in the whole wide world. and my love and i, we despised each other in that moment. and then, just like that, we and all the other tourists were escorted out. doors closed. thud.

nothing to do but take a walk, regroup, have lunch. curt and i reconnected. relaxed. let the tensions of the morning float away in the afternoon breeze. we returned to the great taj mahal at sunset, lady di long gone. and had the most magical, love-filled time amid the stunning architecture, details and light.

hopped the fine first class train back to dehli. took a midnight flight to bombay and promptly checked ourselves into the most luxurious hotel in the city: the taj mahal palace. broke the budget at $200/night. put it on the emergency credit card. we were now the desperate ones, in dire need of peace, calm, safety, cleanliness. (this was the one and only time we stayed in a fancy hotel on the whole trip). were going to spend only one night but couldn’t bear to leave. to leave the fluffy duvet. the spacious clean room. the luxurious bathroom! the heavy white bathrobes. THE SALAD BAR! (we hadn’t had a salad in months – my favorite food -- can’t eat salad when traveling to these places, it’s washed in local water). we didn’t leave the hotel for two days.

our spending spree came promptly to an end. sadly and with trepidation, we stowed most of our luggage at the hotel, including both of my cameras. we were heading from the ultimate in luxury to the most primitive of accommodations, on a recommendation from a fellow traveller. talk about how flexible the human spirit can be!

 

in the early morning hours, we embarked on a mind-numbing, 24-hr bus ride. departing the city, overlooking shanty towns for as far as i could see, men squatted by the side of the road for miles, pants down, little tin cans of water for washing beside them. (apparently, indian women go discreetly in the darkness before light.) we indian bus novices were seated right under the speaker blaring jarring indian music the entire 24 hours. it took us a few stops to figure out the bathroom/chai breaks. everyone disappeared so quickly into the roadside (indian version of a truckstop) chaos. i couldn’t find the bathroom our first two stops. the third stop, in desperation, i decided be one of the first off and follow the women to the “bathroom”. oh dear. it was really just a squatting place, kind of in an alley by the side of the building, no real facilities. about as disgusting as it gets.

we arrived in diu, a fascinating melange of india and portugese influence. we had been told to find the albino lassi man. that was all we knew. but the lassi man (lassi: that yummy drink of mango and yogurt, the indian version of a milkshake) wasn’t there. we waited in the little town square in the heat of the day for hours. as people started coming out from siesta, so, too, did the lassi man! we paid him our fee of 15 rupees (25c per person per day) for the week for a hut, a “mattress” and our cooking gear. and he pointed the way to hut number 8.

the huts rented to budget travellers sat on a bluff outside a peaceful little fishing village. all the men were away fishing. the women, children and old folks remained. what a treat to witness village life up close. our mud hut was cosy and dirty, but fun! we could use the running water in the village to wash, but it only came on sometimes. after a few days, we finally figured out it came on for a brief time with a generator pump which we could hear from our hut. so when it came on, i hurried over to the village to wash my hair.

as the mornings warmed, the biting flies woke up, too, forcing us to leave our hut by 8:30am each day. we went to the beach. in the evenings the village women and children would come around to sell us food. as i got to know some of them, one day i mustered up the courage to walk through the center of the village. there was even an englishman living in this village, an artist. it was all so dirty, so poor, so basic. but the people were lovely and warm, shy but friendly.

we had ventured from the village into the larger town one day, and the place was spectacular with run-down beauty. but i hadn’t brought my cameras! so on our last day, desperate to make pictures, i borrowed a camera from one of the other travellers in a neighboring hut. i think i gave him my passport as collateral. still, i can’t believe he lent me his camera, what trust. wow. the comraderie among travellers is astounding. there’s a sense that we’re all together in this travelling way of life, separate from the locals but joined by our journeying.

that day, i found the picture making to be the absolute best on the entire RTW trip! with borrowed camera, humbled.

after diu, we made our way to bombay to fly onward to nairobi. in the bombay airport while waiting for our flight, i watched a young western guy dressed in white indian kurta wandering around aimlessly, alone, muttering to himself. after watching him for awhile, i approached him to see if i could help. he was completely stoned on something. something strong. heroin maybe? he wanted to get home to england. he didn’t know where he was.  he couldn’t find his ticket or a passport, if he even had them. i tried to find an airport official who could help this man. but it was time for us to catch our flight. and we left. leaving behind so much desperation. and so much richness. so much life.

~~~~~ 

lessons learned: don’t sit under the speaker on indian buses. don’t leave my camera behind, ever! see the inner human beings behind their desperate circumstances.

+++++

ps – i’ve returned to india twice, both times spent in the peace of ashrams. i will return.

pps – favorite indian movies: slumdog millionaire, water, monsoon wedding, lagaan. favorite book about india: shantaram.