About being “here”

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in the water, beach

Today, I read some of Coming to Our Senses by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Though I picked up this book about 2 years ago, I only got  partway through the book at the time. The ideas within – about living in the moment, momentary awareness, meditation, and the practice of inhabiting our being – really resonated with me, and I wanted to learn more about them, but I was too busy to really do so.

Two years later, after juggling with trying to complete a graduate thesis, raise my pre-schooler, support my spouse, contribute to my department’s global expansion and recruitment, keep a clean house, volunteer in my community and maintain a healthy life-work balance (ha), I see that I am in need of SPACE – space to breathe, space to not worry, space to be quiet so that the balance that has been sorely missing can be found.

So many things have been in limbo, mostly because of the thesis-in-waiting, and there is a perpetual feeling of life-on-hold. But lately, I see that waiting for the future and planning on things hinging upon the outcome of other things are contributing to a general dissatisfaction in my own heart that has somewhat seeped into my work and home life.

Yesterday, I came to the realization that being “here” rather than off dreaming about “there”, and the practice and ability to focus on now/today, are things lacking in my life. I think this is hindering me from living out life more fully, and enjoying life completely. I am persuaded that though we plan and look forward to the future, the quality of our lives improve as we focus and relish what is in front of us today.

I picked up Coming to our Senses again, motivated by hearing Jon Kabat-Zinn on a podcast episode of Krista Tippett’s NPR program, On Being, earlier this week on a drive back from Vancouver.

I was actualy coming back from a memorial service of the very young son of a dear friend of mine, and both the death and the service hit home the point and desire to cherish and enjoy today the people and the things in our lives since there is absolutely no certainty of what lies in the future. The podcast conversation that I heard on the way home between Kabat-Zinn and Ms. Tippett, entitled “Opening to our lives,” compelled me to dig out that book I’d never finished.

So today, I have finished a couple of chapters and am profoundly hopeful that I, too, will find a way to come to my senses and in doing so, will bring a better self and effort to my home, my studies and to my work.

Why I love the Kamloops Farmer’s Market

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It’s that time of year again, when the farmer’s market is in full swing. They’re open in May but it’s not until the weather warms up and the produce has begun to flourish that the variety and richness of local growers and artisans become really visible.

succulents and cacti, kamloops

There is produce galore – the spinach from the little truck of the East Indian farmers, the little fruit pies to die for from the Spanish lady, the super wide variety of lettuces and little cacti from the truck near the entrance of the market.  Then there’s the aromatherapy headache remedy from the yoga lady, the gorgeous hair accessories for little girls from the korean lady (my friend Sharie), kettlecorn, locally roasted coffee and bannock!

Not to mention the school playground where we’ve met at least 4 families who have become more-than-acquaintances, and a half-dozen who have become regular familiar faces.

Yesterday, I had a wonderful encounter that reminded of why the farmer’s market is also a hub for community-building and expansion. I was looking for a plant for my friends who had just opened a new Japanese restaurant, Nishino, up in Westsyde, and considered buying them lavender, which they could grow at home if they wished. I found a bunch of lavender plants at this one truck. I started talking to the lady, and BOY, did she know lavender. She spoke with such assertion and JOY, about the varieties and heartiness of lavender, and the hollows to avoid when planting it, and about which varieties were so hearty they could grow in Edmonton. Then I moved on to ask about chick-and-hen plants. And she knew all about them, too.

Her name is Shirley, and she looks like how I imagine the ideal gardener: weathered hair and skin from the time spent outdoors, strong hands, a kind, wide smile and a down-to-earth aura of common sense and time-earned wisdom. She and Ken, who helped us with the actual purchase of the potted chick-and-hen plants, were so kind, so genuine and obviously so passionate about their greens. She actually said, “Gardening is my passion,” and it was her mother’s and her mother ‘s before that. It runs in the blood and it was obvious she loved it.

Shirley and Ken Wells

Together with Ken, they run Laughing Swan Farm, mostly wholesale plants, grasses and shrubs and trees, but it turns out they are open to the public on Sundays from 11-3. We will have to visit one Sunday afternoon.

I love the market for introducing me to folks like Shirley and Ken, whom I might not ever have met otherwise.

Shadows and light

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Now that I’ve been thinking about photographic communities and thinking about themes, when I went back to look over some of the pictures for the month of April, I noticed that some of them were linked by a common thread: that is, shadows and light. I think when I was snapping away, in the back of my mind I was influenced by a group I saw on EyeEm, called Shadows and Light.

Here is my first recap in a long long time, then:

Being an intentional member of virtual communities

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telephone booth, analog

I’ve started so many posts for the month of April that I never got around to posting.  As someone who wants to take blogging more seriously, I need to work on FINISHING WHAT I START (…WRITING, in this case).

Something that’s been a lot on my mind this past month especially, but for a while now, is how to organize and share my photos in more meaningful ways – that is, that takes part in a community of people/gazers/observers and noticers – instead of just posting them into the ether (what’s the point, then beyond the creation of our personal archive, which as important goal but not enough for me).

That’s why I’m more active on Instagram now, and that’s what had motivated me to start participating more on Flickr. It’s also why I signed up for EyeEm, and Juxt, and AMPt – all very active, rich communities centred around photography, phone photography specifically…. and I ended up in this complicated social web of all these places, all these sites, all these sign-ups, and SO LITTLE TIME. Just keeping up with the emails and feed updates from these communities took real chunks out of the hours of the day.

So I’ve shifted my thinking to treat virtual communities like physical communities, at least in some ways: we can only commit to so much in real life activities before we burn out or fail at our commitments. I hear things, and sometimes have said things, like “stretched too thin” or “bit off more than I can chew” at work and from friends and so why wouldn’t the same apply to online commitments?  I think that’s how I want to treat my online community participation from now on – like commitments that need serious intention and consideration and yes, some investment of time, if I am to be a TRUE participating member of the community.

Which led me to think long and hard, without yet a truly satisfactory conclusion about Instagram. Even with all the hoopla over Instagram and its terms of service and the way they supposedly treat the photographic works of people, I can’t quit it, I can’t (“I can’t quit you…” rings in my head). There are SO MANY amazing photographers and creative people participating in the network that I would not have otherwise discovered without a serious amount of net-surfing and searching. I’ve had to justify to myself why I’m staying with Instagram and the biggest part is discovery, and subsequently, the ease in connecting and communicating with those you discover.

(I really did try to like EyeEm, another rich community that opened the door to Android users way before Instagram did. But the UI is clunky for me, and I can’t filter out the hundreds of ordinary and some really junky shots against the few really really good ones. And it always takes a long long time to load. But I still recommend it for people looking for an Instagram alternative – tons of terrific iPhoneography fans are part of that community. It’s just not for me, after trying three times to like it.)

So I’ve taken 2 steps recently to firm up my commitment to photographic communities, in a small, intentional way that works for my life:

  1. I’ve joined ProjectLife365 and am posting daily to the project hashtag whereever I might post (though I’ve committed to posting these pics in Instagram). In the 3 weeks since I’ve started, I’ve come across about 15 other project members with whom some kind of dialogue has started, and stumbled across some amazing women (it’s mostly been women) who are moms, business women, artists, students just sharing snippets of their lives or their perpectives on life through #projectlife365. It’s the neatest thing. I’m so so glad I joined up.
  2. I backed a Kickstarter project called Pressgram, the brainchild of John Saddington. When I first heard about it, my mind gave a tiny little groan, “Not another photo app.” But then the developer’s TRULY open attitude, perpective and sincerity about what an open community that values and respects the individual’s creative works caught my attention, and then my respect. The initial project blurb, and subsequent project update posts, are really worth reading. Ironically, it’s really different in terms and intention of what Instagram is about, but there it is: we are all paradoxical creatures.

I look forward to seeing how the Pressgram app and its resulting community shakes out. It’s particularly of interest because the plan is to be integrated into the WordPress community so it will be neat to see how that network and this blogging platform connect.

So, here’s to meaningful interactions in virtual spaces out of mutual respect and interest in photography and capturing life!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Up

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Image

I know, it’s so cliche, this ground-up perspective at an amusement park.

But seriously, this ride at the weekend ride fair (the kind that goes up in a mall parking lot on Thursday and is gone by Monday), called “Vertigo,” was really really high. From the safety of cement under our feet, we watched the brave riders rise and rise and rise and then spin with such speed, and then we gasped.

The other marvellous thing about today’s visit to the fair was that it was bloody cold and snowing. Snowing. In mid-April. It made the riders seem even braver.

Visiting the Lang residence in Cherry Creek

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This past Sunday, we drove 15 minutes outside our city limits and entered a whole new world of sheep farming, milking, farm machinery. It was also familiar territory of warm-hearted people opening their home and life to others. The people were Josey, Todd and Jensen Lang, folks I’d seen a lot of Sundays a couple of pews down from us, and Josey was le Petit’s Sunday school teacher sometimes, but you never know about the people you casually see: I never would have imagined they were people who raise sheep and care for 20 acres! (But then, I could never imagine anyone of my personal acquaintances living a farm life – we’ve just always been city dwellers.)

So it was a fantastic opportunity and experience to visit with them, along with a whole whack of other families on Sunday afternoon, on their “homestead,” which included: farm animals – sheep, chicken, guard dogs, horses nearby; a drum set; a trailer ride on a rickety tractor; a marshmallow and hot dog roast and tons a homemade sweets. The children had hours of discovery and running around, le Petit included.

Both Josey and Todd have day jobs, but they chose to raise and breed sheep, and some chickens as a “hobby.” They work so hard, morning till night, and I could see that they care deeply about the kind of life they want to live, and to give their daughter.

Visiting the farm showed me a glimpse of a life a bit off the beaten path, one not typical in the circle of friends that le Mari and I interact with. It’s a life a bit closer to the ground – one of working directly with hands close to the earth, seeing the product of one’s work more directly, eating the resulting food one actually grows (reminds me of Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, one of my favorite reads of 2009). It’s not an easy life, I can see that, but there is a value there, a quality of life that is different and I think, worthwhile to pursue.

We had an amazing time and I’m grateful for their generosity and openness in welcoming us, and a whole lot of other people, into their home.


Letting go of a blog

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Since 2010, I’ve maintained a collection of interesting stuff gleaned from usually nighttime travels on the web, called “Parenthesis“. It was housed on Posterous, which recently announced it would be shutting down as of the end of April 2013.  Sadly, I uploaded the last post for that blog today but happily, everything is moving over here to WordPress.

Here is that last post below (which will most likely “die” or whatever defunct web posts do, after this month):

FOUND A NEW HOME…..

Ever since the announcement that Twitter purchased Posterous in March 2012, I felt marching orders were pending. Two months ago, the not-entirely unexpected news that Posterous would be shutting down on April 30, 2013 broke over the web, and sadly, I starting looking around for another platform to which I could transfer Parenthesis.

I considered self-hosting, but seriously, with a full-time job, a young child, a thesis-in-progress, along with the normal concerns of a family with a mortgage, mobile carrier plans, and a student loan, that isn’t the option for me at this time, time-wise or budget-wise. (Though I’ve learned that there are awesome WordPress camps offered in British Columbia that inspire me to attend and develop my self-hosting mojo that may one day translate into an awesome site that won’t depend on anyone else’s service.)

In the end, WordPress was the only familiar, no-fuss platform that was available for free and that inspired some confidence in longevity over, say, competing interests of the company (YES, Twitter, this means you).

The new blog is Things in Parenthesis (alas, just “Parenthesis” was not available) and fortunately, most everything from the current site transferred over to WordPress.com very smoothly.

It is with fondness that I part with Posterous, as it was one of my first forays into any kind of web blog (Theomama’s Blits was that first foray), and one that provided newbies with a very user-friendly platform along with support, tutorials and even a bit of HTML training.

So, thank you to Posterous and its developers.

For my few readers, I look forward to seeing and engaging with you about media studies, culture, remix and visual culture at the new site.

empty chair

Remembering a good man together

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I had a fabulous weekend in Vancouver with my family and came back to work on Monday morning only to be called into an impromptu staff meeting. Very unusual.

We were told right away that our unit boss, an associate vice-president, had died of a massive heart attack, suddenly and without warning, while away on a trip in Europe for work. There were shared gasps and exclamations and one loud cry, followed by sobbing, as soon as the news broke.

This past week, we have been in shock – the entire department has really been stunned. It was totally unexpected and this VP was well-loved by his team.

On Friday, we had a memorial service for him, with 3 colleagues, 4 students and one family member standing up to share memories and words about him. It was sad, but you know, it was really really nice. It really was a kind and warm celebration and remembrance of all the quirky, inspiring and a number of really funny things about him, shared together. It was the first memorial service I’ve ever attended where there was as much laughter (maybe more) as there were tears. I really felt that Dr. Wes was fondly respected and liked by his staff.

My own last conversation with him took place 4 days before he had passed away, his last day in Kamloops. I heard that he was Downton Abbey fan and stopped him in the hall to mention it. We enthusiastically dissected the plotlines of the main characters in the previous season and speculated briefly on the upcoming year. We planned to commiserate together as the new season commenced and he invited me to his office to have post-episode discussions.

free bates, downton abbey

It’s a good memory I have of him and I will always think of him when I wear my Downton t-shirt.

Wes Koczka