Most mornings, I write two pages of stream of consciousness prose in a notebook, a habit I picked up from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. She recommends three pages because of what she calls third page revelations that often turn up in the third page. Three pages can be a grind at this point in my life so I start out with two and go on if I feel like it. Sometimes, revelations show up early, in page one or page two. Like today, halfway down page two:
Think about it.
As of today, Mr. and Mrs. Eyes (aka Muri and Bud) have been married for forty-eight years. In case you were wondering, this is what a forty-eight year marriage looks like. Yes, there were a few tough times but who takes pictures of those? Besides, they were few and far between.
Happy Anniversary, Muri
It has been 3 weeks since I’ve posted. Does anyone care? Yes. I do. My life feels fuller when I post. But it is an unfortunate characteristic of my personality (what 12-Steppers would call a Defect of Character) that I don’t always do what is good for me. In the interest of making this a better day … and at the risk of feeling like a social media trend follower … I thought I’d do a Throwback Thursday post with a picture of me from each decade of my life. It was not as easy as I thought. In my first two decades, the 40s and 50s, I was so darn cute it was hard to choose one photo. And beyond the 50s, as the primary photographer in the family, I don’t appear in most of the photos on my computer. But I was determined. Is it a bit narcissistic to post pictures of yourself? Sure, but sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do to post. Here are seven decades of Older Eyes: (more…)
Friday afternoon, I drove to Arrowhead Ranch, a camp and retreat center in Lake Arrowhead, for a retreat with a group of about 40 men from my Thursday Night Men’s Meetings. That is my official … if not totally genuine … reason for not posting since last Wednesday. The truth is, nothing inspired me to write. Yes, Jack London said, You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club, but since writing is my avocation not my vocation (avocation sounds so much more grown-up than hobby, doesn’t it?), sometimes I choose to just wait. Or retreat, in this case. But here I am, back again. Did you miss me?
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Yesterday, before I went to my Thursday Night Men’s Meeting, I decided to take a walk in the park. I have been maintaining about 8,000 steps a day since I got a Fitbit for Christmas … it was really just what I needed to remind me to get out and walk. At this point in my life, remembering to walk has a double, even triple benefit. For one, I usually listen to music while I walk and any day I listen to music is a better day than one with no music. And I usually bring my camera on my walks, giving me an opportunity to get the creative juices flowing. I reached the park just as the sky was beginning to fade from cobalt to pastel blue and wisps of pink were collecting along the horizon. I’ve always found twilight to be the most peaceful time of the day … and perhaps the most photogenic. (more…)
Walking in the park this morning, I came across three people (adults, yes) taking selfies of themselves in front of the lake. When we traveled to Italy a while back, in Pisa people were taking selfies of in front of the tower. All this focus on pictures of oneself seems to scream,” I am the center of the universe.” But maybe that’s just my old-fashioned Inner Curmudgeon talking. At any rate, here’s a repost of an alternative to selfies from 2014.
Every time I see people taking selfies (shiver … the term itself makes me throw up in my mouth), I wonder. Are we in the midst of the most narcissistic period in human history? Or does our assortment of mobile devices simply give everyman a means to manifest narcissism in more obvious ways? Saturday night before the Diana Krall concert, people were taking selfies all over the Segerstrom Hall. You’d expect that at a Bieber concert, but this was a mostly middle-aged and up jazz crowd. And really, does anyone like the way they … and their spouse … partner … girlfriend … British Prime Minister (I’m talkin’ to you, president Obama) … look in a selfie, face distorted from the parallax of the camera lens? Now, you might ask, haven’t you ever taken a selfie, Older Eyes? Yes, I have:
I have always found photography an interesting and frustrating artistic medium. After all, if I were to stop people at random, in, say, the Brea Mall, how many do you think would say, Oh, yes, I paint in oils, or Watercolor is my favorite medium. How many would confess to loving to work in charcoals? But almost everyone takes photographs, particularly since the advent of capable smartphone cameras. I know quite a few people who regard themselves as photographers whose photographs, while beautiful, seem to be nothing more than snapshots taken in very beautiful places. To me, a photo becomes art when it illuminates some familiar place or thing in a way I’d have never seen through my own eyes. That can be a matter of composition, or lighting or even a particular moment in time that makes me say, Wow! How did the photographer ever catch that? Sometimes it takes serendipity, just being at the right place at the right time. With camera in hand, of course. But look at Thomas Mangelson’s signature photo, Catch of the Day. Does that look like serendipity? Yes, right place, right time plus endless patience.
There was one day last week that didn’t go so well. There were no tragedies, no calamities, no tears. There were difficult issues to deal with and people … for some strange reason … did not line up to do what I wanted them to do. Go figure. By the end of the day, I needed an enclave so I drove … alone … to the park. It had rained most of the day and was still drizzling as I pulled up to the parking lot by the lake. Creativity general is a balm for my soul, so I took a picture of the lake shrouded in the leftover clouds of a Socal storm and posted it. Here it is again.
About 40 minutes later, I was treated to this:
I awoke early today to the sound of raindrops on our roof and stumbled to the bathroom where they beat a staccato beat on the plexiglass skylight above our vanity. Fortunately, I was able to fall back to sleep … the Fitbit HR my daughter and her husband gave me for Christmas has been giving me hell for not sleeping enough but today, it was satisfied. Somewhere in its software, it says that six and a half hours sleep is enough for an old guy. The rain was still falling and outside it was gray … the same way I felt inside. There were discussions to be had and I was expecting the worst. My first sponsor, Don, used to tell me, Bud, don’t always expect the worst. Things are just as likely to go well as badly. Today he was right. Things went as well as could be expected. Where I expected confrontation there was calm. Sadness instead of anger. So, now, I’m sitting in the park, collecting myself and watching the storm lift, at least until the next one rolls in tomorrow. El Nino, you know. It’s beautiful in its own gray way.
If you’ve been coming around Older Eyes – Bud’s Blog for a while, you know … I am very fond of birds. There is absolutely no doubt that I inherited it from Mom, whether that was an inheritance via genes or simply watching her feed the birds in our yard for my entire childhood. There was always a bird book near the kitchen window in her house and I have never been without a bird book since my wife, Muri, and I have had a house of our own. I never heard my mother say this but I’m sure she’d agree have agreed with what I say: Birds are among God’s most beautiful creations.
So, it’s photo Tuesday and I thought I’d post one of my favorite bird photos. Bird lovers have been promoting our local Yorba Regional Park as a habitat for Western Bluebirds. As a result, anyone with a camera and some patience can get some photographs. The best itme is the spring. After the males put on their brightest plumage in preparation for mating, the juveniles, plain gray with the first hints of blue tinting their wings, show up, beautiful in their own way.
Older Eyes 