what would you save?

A couple of weeks ago, possibly months now, my roommates and I walked a couple of blocks to watch a house burn, along with hundreds of other college aged kids in our neighborhood.

It's been awhile, probably since I was in middle school since I had considered the age old question, "what would you save if your house was on fire?" not to be confused with "what three things would you take if you were stranded on a desert island?" totally different questions, if you ask me. Practicality versus sentimentality.

What I've come to believe is that in general my generation does not have strong ties with most things that we own. Many of my friends had a hard time deciding, we'd be fine without anything. Which says something, that we're less attached to our things or less sentimental or we know that facebook has a few baby photos of us so not all would be lost of our things were suddenly in rubble.

What I really loved, was the mind of the children. They're really focused on "what do I love today?" Sadie saved her 3-D glasses, which probably are worth a dime. But she likes them and it makes sense to her that she would save them.

This project was really interesting, I'd love to keep the conversation going. I wasn't able to put everyone in the video, but I have enjoyed hearing people's three things. A pig trophy, a camera, a box of letters, a cell phone, a gun, baby pictures.... what would you save? 

for chewing on

Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day. 

             Rainer Rilke 




The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. 
                 David Orr

a good question

yesterday, i was asked a great question. somedays i wish i was asked great questions every day, other days i don't feel like thinking/sharing/articulating and am alright that it's all in my head.

i was at a conference about alleviating poverty through entrepreneurship. super good stuff, though i'm not going to go into any details now (other than post a link to a great video below).

i met a friend, a kindred spirit, a fellow full of life and ideas, a person in search of stories & truth.

off the bat, and after hearing that i'm a comparative studies major he asked what are three things that i'm most interested in. i didn't have a good answer. i could say "community" or "injustice" or "poverty" but anything without explanation just sounds like i'm someone who wants to "fix" the world. i am not. at that time, the coffee break was over and i didn't have any answer for said new friend.

during the next hour, i made a list of things that are important to me. (the bottom says *three things subject to change day-to-day).

then a list of things that i would like to do. some for a season, some for longer.

the world is BIG and full of life, our joy is in finding the connectedness of all.



watch this video:

I am currently sitting in class, a bit jealous of this cat. Today, I would love to be napping in a window.

Feist

'Bittersweet Melodies'

APRIL 9, 2012 | By ROLLING STONE

"Bittersweet Melodies," the latest video from Feist's album Metals, features the work of Argentinian photographer Irina Werning, who creates new images by juxtaposing people in the present with images from their past. "I love old photos, but I love even more to recreate them," says Werning. "When I fall in love with a picture I don't stop until I have them in front of me dressed like this doing that thing they were doing. I'm always amazed that they do it."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/videos/new-and-hot/feist-bittersweet-melodies-20120409#ixzz1raqrsmOh

how to be alone: tanya davis

HOW TO BE ALONE by Tanya Davis

If you are at first lonely, be patient. If you've not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren't okay with it, then just wait. You'll find it's fine to be alone once you're embracing it.

We could start with the acceptable places, the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library. Where you can stall and read the paper, where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there. Where you can browse the stacks and smell the books. You're not supposed to talk much anyway so it's safe there.

There's also the gym. If you're shy you could hang out with yourself in mirrors, you could put headphones in (guitar stroke).

And there's public transportation, because we all gotta go places.

And there's prayer and meditation. No one will think less if you're hanging with your breath seeking peace and salvation.

Start simple. Things you may have previously (electric guitar plucking) based on your avoid being alone principals.

The lunch counter. Where you will be surrounded by chow-downers. Employees who only have an hour and their spouses work across town and so they -- like you -- will be alone.

Resist the urge to hang out with your cell phone.

When you are comfortable with eat lunch and run, take yourself out for dinner. A restaurant with linen and silverware. You're no less intriguing a person when you're eating solo dessert to cleaning the whipped cream from the dish with your finger. In fact some people at full tables will wish they were where you were.

Go to the movies. Where it is dark and soothing. Alone in your seat amidst a fleeting community.
And then, take yourself out dancing to a club where no one knows you. Stand on the outside of the floor till the lights convince you more and more and the music shows you. Dance like no one's watching...because, they're probably not. And, if they are, assume it is with best of human intentions. The way bodies move genuinely to beats is, after all, gorgeous and affecting. Dance until you're sweating, and beads of perspiration remind you of life's best things, down your back like a brook of blessings.

Go to the woods alone, and the trees and squirrels will watch for you.
Go to an unfamiliar city, roam the streets, there're always statues to talk to and benches made for sitting give strangers a shared existence if only for a minute and these moments can be so uplifting and the conversations you get in by sitting alone on benches might've never happened had you not been there by yourself

Society is afraid of alonedom, like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements, like people must have problems if, after a while, nobody is dating them. but lonely is a freedom that breaths easy and weightless and lonely is healing if you make it.

You could stand, swathed by groups and mobs or hold hands with your partner, look both further and farther for the endless quest for company. But no one's in your head and by the time you translate your thoughts, some essence of them may be lost or perhaps it is just kept.

Perhaps in the interest of loving oneself, perhaps all those sappy slogans from preschool over to high school's groaning were tokens for holding the lonely at bay. Cuz if you're happy in your head than solitude is blessed and alone is okay.

It's okay if no one believes like you. All experience is unique, no one has the same synapses, can't think like you, for this be releived, keeps things interesting lifes magic things in reach.

And it doesn't mean you're not connected, that communitie's not present, just take the perspective you get from being one person in one head and feel the effects of it. take silence and respect it. if you have an art that needs a practice, stop neglecting it. if your family doesn't get you, or religious sect is not meant for you, don't obsess about it.

you could be in an instant surrounded if you needed it
If your heart is bleeding make the best of it
There is heat in freezing, be a testament.

one world, collided

I sit here, in Columbus, Ohio. With a map of Amsterdam strung around my neck, yet no longer feeling like I'm stuck between two worlds collided. True, there are collisions within my world, yet my world is much confined to the boundaries of my extended-neighborhood these days. It's really great to be local. To be plant-ing (I think it will take much longer to feel plant-ed).

I attend a small [neighborhood] church, where we've spent particular days in the past couple of years having an open-mic style service, where people are free to come forward and share what God's done in their life, what they're grateful for, how they've been changed, a brief illustration of something they've been learning or seen for the first time.

It's one of my favorite spiritual experiences of the entire year. A time to listen, ponder, remember, see change, witness vulnerability, celebrate stories of suffering that brought people closer to each other, closer to God; increased awareness. It's days like this that I just want to live nutritiously, I want to live generously, I want to love people more and not fear.

This is the first day of a new year, I'm not setting resolutions specifically for 2012. I've learned I'm learning to enjoy alone time, have artist's dates and put myself around people who nurture. I try and keep a rhythm of spending time with people who challenge me and open my mind creatively, people who share a similar perspective and people who have ideas much different than my own (I tend to hang out with them a bit less... but enjoy their patience and ability to articulate something that I don't understand).

Preferably this is something I can grow in, during 2012 and thereafter....

a bedroom view on christmas spirit

if i had facebook tonight ( i don't because i'm taking the month of december to be un-plugged - in a social networking kind of way- and to cuddle) i'd probably write a status about how four hours and a lot of money later, my christmas grocery shopping is done, as well as an unnecessary target shopping spree which yieldedsome new burt's bees, brightly colored nail polish, sweatpants and a mini dry erase board with new mini markers. it doesn't take a lot to make me happy. i'm content with one pair of sweat pants/pajamas, but mine are starting to wear thin, plus with these cold days-- i can't deal with being cold and having bare legs while i wait for my one pair to wash & dry, especially being a free-lancer on christmas break. that means long mornings under blankets reading books, both for laughs and learning. both books are really great. (mindy kaling's is everyone hanging out without me? and a book called creative inc. the ultimate guide to running a successful freelance business) maybe to begin, i should learn to spell the word successful, that might be helpful for when i'm trying to write things on my typewriter and don't have SPELLCHECK, so i don't look dumb. Because, i go to college, you know. (<--not that going to college matters at all, because i'm a fan of thinking that it does not).

well, after four hours of grocery shopping, three trips to unload the car, a whole unpacking and organization assembly line, albeit it was only me in the line, making-room-in-my-shared-between-six-people-fridge. after all that, cleaning the kitchen and carrying my laundry up to my room-- it's still sitting on my bed, i can hear it wrinkling. it's screaming "hang me up and stop blogging"

i better go. i'm just blogging to say that christmas break is nice. and although the christmas music on the radio really got to me this evening (in a bad way) i was sort of angry at the song, i'll be home for christmas, thinking-- well i'm not going home, dangit! but then i realized, my family is coming to my house, which is

being home in it's truest sense.

after fluffing and separating my laundry into will-be-mentioned piles....

i decide i should clarify--

by fold my laundry, i just realized, i don't mean fold it. i just mean spread it out and lay it in piles, so long as the stuff that will get wrinkly is laying flat. you can always take care of the rest after you check your email, work on a project, organize your bookshelf, skype your roommate in westerville, and so forth.....

(this is a bit of our beatles dance party-singalong)

i would like to be better about sharing my work. so i'll start posting it.

click HERE for the rest of this photoshoot [fashion with teresa].

click HERE for the rest of this photoshoot [zach, beth & baby].