Seven Photos From My Travels

Spring makes me want to take pictures. It's the flowers. And the greenness. And the kids running around with looks of sheer joy on their faces. 

This afternoon, I took a walk around the edge of the pond near my apartment. There was a father walking with his I'd say two-year-old son. The little boy gravitated toward the blue brick wall around the ice skating rink. He smushed his face up close while wearing a huge grin, both hands touching the wall.

"It's just a wall. There's nothing to see," said his father.

But how do we know what the boy saw in the wall? He saw something amazing. Something that others didn't.

And that's what I love about photography.

Here are seven of my favorite travel shots.

1. A photo that takes my breath away

Sunsets on lakes generally do take my breath away. This shot especially so because it is on  the lake where my family has a cabin in Canada. It's my favorite place in the world. That's a loon on the lake.

2. A photo that makes me laugh.

Yes, that is a ham thigh on a bag of chips. They are dried-ham flavored. I munched on these chips in Spain. The little girl is clutching the bag she loves them so much!

3. A photo that makes me dream.

Segovia, Spain. A girl never forgets her first castle.

4. A photo that makes me think.

Tree of Life, anyone?

5. A photo that makes my mouth water.

Homemade Korean food. This is breakfast, by the way.

6. A photo that tells a story.

Inside the DMZ in Korea. These are relics from the Korean War. The red sign says "MINE." What's the story of the soldier whose helmet is there?

7. A photo I am most proud of.

Casteller competition near Tarragona, Spain. I am proud of this shot because I snapped it at just the right second. The kid at the very top only raises his hand like that for a split second. She literally climbs up, waves her hand and immediately climbs back down. It has to be fast because the people at the bottom can't take the weight of the entire tower for long. I like the details of the people in the window and the flags at the left.

I am taking part in HostelBookers 7 Super Shots.

A Sunday Night Read

Books are my life.

I actually said this to my boyfriend the other day. Melodramatic? Maybe....maybe not.

I love reading. Have for a very long time. I think my book-love bloomed in second grade when my mom bought me the complete set of the Laura Ingalls Wilder "Little House" series from a Scholastic book order. I read them during the summer before third grade. I remember my grandma told me that I carried around my latest book the way a preacher does his Bible. 

I'm pretty sure that series started my love affair with reading, just the way the Harry Potter series did for my sister several years later. Come to think of it, I haven't thanked my mom for buying me those nine plaid-covered books. I should. I will.


Anyway, here it is Sunday and if I've had a good weekend that means I've likely spent nice chunk of it reading. I'd like to try out a blog series called "A Sunday Night Read." I share my thoughts on books I've read that share a positive message or just books I loved.


The first book I'd like to share is "The Art of Racing in the Rain" by Garth Stein. The book is told from the viewpoint of a dog, Enzo. He shares with readers not only the inner thoughts of a dog, like his ongoing war with the squirrels in his yard, but also keen observations about his people.


Of course there is sadness but it's not something to dwell on because there so many insightful passages. I found myself rereading several paragraphs, marking them, dog-earring the pages, rewriting quote after quote. Enzo gives readers such a fresh look on life. I paused often to consider life from this new perspective. What I loved about the book, too, was that the message was never preachy. Just simple. Blunt. Truthful.


I read  "The Art of Racing in the Rain" a year ago, but the messages inside its pages have linger on in my mind. So much so that I wrote this quote on my bedroom mirror as a daily reminder to enjoy life to the fullest.

"To live everyday as if it has been stolen from death. That is how I would like to live. To feel the joy of life. To separate myself from the everyday burden. To say I am alive. I am wonderful. I am. I am."

-Enzo, "The Art of Racing in the Rain"

Read this book. You won't be sorry that you did.

PS - Thank you to my dear friend Sally who originally recommended this book to me.

Short-Sightedness

When I was around 13, a new Burger King popped up in my hometown on a splotch of land between the Wal-Mart and the shopping mall.

"It won't last 3 months," I told my parents, dismissively. How could it? There was already a McDonald's and a Wendy's not a minute drive down the road. 'We already have those. Why do we need another fast-food restaurant?' I thought. I couldn't understand it.

More than a decade later the BK is still there. (Though on principle, not from help with my business. I think I've only been there once, back in the days when I ate fast-food, and that was because someone else was driving.) It has actually outlasted me, in terms of occupying my hometown.

I'm not trying to provide commentary on the success of restaurant franchises. No, that's not the direction I want this post to go. This prophetic example sticks out in my mind for two reasons. One, sometimes when we drive by this Burger King my family laughs and reminds me of my silly prediction. Two, it's an example of the short-sightedness I'm trying to avoid in my life.

I started reading a book this afternoon ("Mad Like Tesla" by Tyler Hamilton) that reminded me of the dangers of closed-mindedness. Telsa is credited with inventing the radio and taking the first x-ray photographs. But he was more than a scientist who toiled away on a one or two great projects. He foresaw unprecedented things. For example in 1898, he made a remote-controlled boat and predicted a "race of robots" that will do the menial work of humans. People, many of them, dismissed Tesla and his ideas. They couldn't figure it out.

Ok, so maybe this example is on a grand scale. Tesla made predictions about technology and energy. His ideas were scoffed at by professors, the media and scientists like Thomas Edison. How can this relate to a goal by an average person (me) to limit my  short-sightedness?

I think Tesla dared to dream. Not only did he not let the ridicule of others bring him down, he didn't censor himself. He wasn't inhibited by a narrow-minded perception of himself or his ideas. Now, I didn't know the man but from what little I've read, I like to imagine that he let his mind wander and didn't reign it in when thoughts became too unconventional. 

This is what I aspire to do, the lack of self-auditing, that is. I want to let myself dream. I also don't want to be the person to shoot down the ideas of others, whether it be the latest crazy invention or a fast-food business venture. 

But more importantly, perhaps, I don't want to limit myself by dismissing something that I can't yet understand. Maybe my half-formed notions -- the ones scurrying around in the corners of my mind that I shoo away with a broom, like unwanted mice -- are really great ideas waiting to accepted, first by me and then by others.

Once again, I just don't know if I was able to convey the way I feel about this topic. I think either need to form ideas that are more concrete OR just become more confident about my work and stick with it. What do you think?

The Migrant in All of Us

I'm trying to find my yellow ball, my true self. Part of that quest, perhaps at the core of it, is to find out what I'm supposed to do with my life. Or is it better said, what I want to do with my life? I read somewhere that when the way we live is aligned with our passions everything has a way of working out. It flows because there is no resistance based on money or expectations or status or practicalities.


I paused to think about this idea while reading a biography of Dorothea Lange. Know of her? I didn't recognize her name either. I had seen her most famous photo, though. It's called Migrant Mother, captured at a camp in California during the Great Depression.

Dorothea was a girl from New Jersey. A girl with a passion. After high school, her mother persuaded her to study something more conventional than photography. She gave it a try, for her mother's sake. Then she dropped out. Her next move was to go on a trip around the world because, shoot, anyone knows that's better than doing something your heart isn't into. Dorothea and a friend pooled their money ($140 -- was that a lot of money in the early 1900s?) and headed west. They got as far as San Francisco before someone stole all their savings. They stayed in a hostel and found jobs the next day. On Dororthea's first day at photo counter in a department store, she met people who became her lifelong friends and introduced to the art scene that eventually gave way to her, not career, but life of photography.

What gets me about her story is that her life path happened because she was bold. She listened to her heart -- and the call of adventure. She took a risk. She didn't make it around the world, but taking that risk, leaving home, opened a new avenue for her. 

What am I trying to say? (Not rhetorical, I'm seriously asking myself that.) Well, I think it's that we need to be aware of our dreams and desires and not put up blockades because it can get so tiresome to wade against the flow of our lives.

You can't deny what you must do, no matter what it costs. -Dorothea Lange

What are your thoughts on this? Do you have an example from your own life?

Messages from Wild Geese

Yesterday's post reminded me of a poem.

Wild Geese 

by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

Every time I read this poem a different line speaks to me. I love the idea that while we experience personal despair the world continues. And this seeming indifference isn't cruel, but rather ideal because everyone is always welcome to crawl out of their place of despair and rejoin life and its joys. We do not have to be good. We just have to BE.

Even though I love this poem, I find it challenging to pull my half-formed thoughts together in a way that I can share with others. Does anyone have any ideas they would like to share?

Out for a stroll

There I was. In Spain. Studying abroad. Fulling my dream. A dream I had harbored, nurtured,coddled even, for six years. I had worked as a grocery store cashier, greenhouse assistant and museum interpreter --  in full period costume nonetheless -- to pay for this dream.


Then why was I in my room with the door shut and tears in my eyes? 


I felt lonely. I had opted to live in a Spanish home-stay without other American students. I was picturing me, madre, padre y unos niños. Instead, I was living with an elderly lady and her live-in housekeeper, which was ok don't get me wrong but it wasn't a family. No one to show me around. No kids to play with and learn from. (Kids are the best language teachers, I've found.) 


There were just 6 of us in my study abroad program. Myself and 5 other girls, who all - from the get-go - adopted a disdainful attitude toward me.Truly. This still puzzles me.


Anyway, there I was sitting in my new Spanish room on a Saturday afternoon. We ate lunch at 2, and I'm sure I took the customary siesta. Gotta love a socially acceptable afternoon nap. My body, apparently, was acclimating to the Spanish lifestyle before my mind.


After consulting a trusty street map. I decided to go out. Get some fresh air. Observe life in Madrid. I saw a big green splotch on the map and set my course thataway. Why not? I've always loved a good park. El Parque de Buen Retiro, this one was called. In English, the Park of Pleasant Retreat. With that name it had to be decent, right?


Families, puppets, bubbles, soccer players, lovers, churro stands. Walk farther. Hear distant drumming. Go with the flow. A pond with row boats. A grand monument. Stop and stare for a moment because this is Spain. It's probably old. And important.

I am here finally. I found the people and a window into their culture. As I walk along the edge of the pond, I see a tarot card reader, artists next to watercolors, a portable marionette stage. A violinist played a Josh Grobin song that reminded me, achingly, of my grandmother, who I knew would have been so proud of me. I put a euro in his hat. The memory associated with the song was worth so much more to me.

On the other side of the monument there were drum circles and people juggling and kids running around. I couldn't help smiling and smiling. I felt so connected, so happy I was experiencing this, so thankful.

I gained more than a bright afternoon in the park. I learned that the moment when I'm feeling at my lowest and loneliest, that's the time to go out and join the world. It's having with or without me; I only need to open my door and let myself be a part of it.

Oh, what a Saturday in the Park, Spanish -- not Chicago -- style, this time.