Full-Bodied: Creativity Boot Camp

I've had to cut myself a lot of slack lately. There are so many things I want to do: organize my new room, hang art on my blank walls, get up early to run, stay up late to "be productive", finish books long drawn out, move on to new equally relevant ones. Between my hours of work, bus travel to and from, and the appointments in my planner, I'm being reminded that so often I set unrealistic time lines.

I know I am not the only one participating in Creativity Boot Camp with a million other things weighing on my mind. So, I read Madeline's guidance for each day and do what I can with each one and sometimes I get through the journal prompt, other days I pull out my camera for the word prompt, sometimes I do both, and some days I just carry the additional thoughts and awareness in my head.

I loved today's daily thoughts to heighten senses and simply savor each encounter with scent, sound, touch.

While my job does not revolve around artistic creativity, there are a lot of sensory elements that feed this aspect of my spirit. I touch cheese, I smell it, I taste it, and I describe each of these elements to my customers. Our primary "wine guy" stopped in this afternoon and poured me a glass of a white and a red and we swirled and inhaled and savored. These are the obvious elements of sensory engagement in my daily life.

In response to a few questions from Creativity Boot Camp, the most pleasant sensation I recall is in the nose of the Sauvignon Blanc. It was satisfaction alone.

The most memory-invoking was the experience of drinking my tea as I read the prompt for the day and sat at the table with my breakfast. I have a strong affection for hot milky black tea thanks to the four months I lived in Oxford in which I survived mainly on PG Tips and Digestives.

The heart-tugging sensory experience of seeing the sky transition from grey to purple to orange to pink drew me to the stone steps outside our door with camera in hand. I ditched the cliché photos I had snapped of a glass of Pinot Noir and hung onto the definition of full-bodied found at Merriam-Webster:

"Having importance, significance, or meaningfulness"

I looked at the house that has turned into a home in the last week and the sky that was my salvation when I lived in Abilene, TX, where natural beauty rarely amazed, much less surfaced. Since leaving West Texas I have seen many beautiful corners of the world and the contrast I know now makes encounters with beauty that much more beautiful.

Place is important to me, though I hold the term "home" loosely. I'm swift to attach it to geographical locations and particular bedroom walls, but I'm also lax to pick it up and move it along to new scenery when the time comes.

So, for as long as this place is appropriate to call home, I'm finding importance, significance, and meaning in inhabiting and enjoying it. I'm so grateful the sky follows us everywhere we go, and there will always be sunsets and sunrises and reminders through them of how striking beauty is to the soul.

Fluid: Creativity Boot Camp

Yesterday's Boot Camp assignment was to create a work outside of our typical style, to embrace who we are but also stretch ourselves and perhaps stumble upon a fresh discovery of ourselves.

At first I struggled with how I could intentionally do this and with the question of what was outside the bounds of my self-imposed "rules" of creating that I could capture in the few hours I have after getting home from work at seven o'clock. So often my subject matter in photography is limited to food and still life details with wide aperture settings and swift shutter speeds. The first idea that came to mind was people - photographing people. I squirm at this idea more than so many others because I have strong opinions about the sort of people photos I do not like and very rarely succeed in capturing them how I do like. But, then, I rarely try.

I do not like people to feel uncomfortable or under scrutiny so my most successful shoots have been with friends who are already very comfortable in front of the camera. Children are great in this way, too. But I do not feel like I have mastered how to relax people who would not otherwise be at ease and this is where the discomfort and doubt of my abilities come into play.

I hoped to get some people shots yesterday if the opportunity worked itself out, but instead stumbled upon these more spontaneous shots on the ride home from the grocery store. I do not like to do sloppy work. I love that food and flowers and chairs do not move, so that I can get the negative just right and focus in just the way I want. Being in a moving car doesn't allow this to happen easily. So I threw my shutter wide open to a setting that caused it to slowly wink and ramped up the aperture to make sure the exposure stayed balanced.

It was a gorgeous day and the breeze felt good on my hair as the golden dusky sunlight soothed my skin. As my sister drove, I leaned out the window and sporadically snapped pictures of the upward view. They're nothing worthy of hanging in a gallery but they're outside of my norm and happen to incorporate fluid strokes, which is perfect because the word "fluid" was our theme for the day.

Grow: Creativity Boot Camp

I meant to get on board with this Creativity Boot Camp from day one, but the weekend got away from me and I forgot all about it until my run yesterday morning. By last night I had made it back around to the website and was determine to get down to business. And this is the best sort of "business" I've ever had to do. Yes, it is soul-digging but refreshing and rewarding and worthwhile.



The word for the day was "grow" and the journal prompt was listening to music of your past to conjure up those feelings of deep emotion experienced in younger years, at times of more naivety and/or rawness.

It was perfect timing for me to leap in. I am a music junkie.

I have assigned certain songs or bands to different stages of my life and places I have been. Damien Rice's O and Sixpence None the Richer's Divine Discontent epitomize my senior year of high school. Throw in Brandon Heath's "Small Town Flame" and certain pieces from Les Miserable that I mourned through on the piano and flute, and you have a girl with dreams but concerns about the world's safety in heart matters. Not just in love but in freedom and companionship and the purity of beauty.

To a degree I suppose I still have these ideas and wonderings but with a bit more seasoning. Time has proved both beautiful and tragic in the six years that have passed since I threw my cap in our little school gym and envisioned a life of independence.

I have laid claim to the self-titling of artist. I have trembled with paintbrush in hand, anxiety overwhelming; I have seen brushstrokes moving and colors inspiring beyond my humble inclinations. I have seen brothers marry, friends grow to near-family, and a dad walk out in a way that still sends reverberations. The music and the hope and the dreaming and the loving and the losing have all mixed together and clashed in varying degrees, and I'm left knowing that the best way to move on is to keep sowing beauty. To keep believing Beauty. To keep creating as I was created.

I was reminded of this by the draw to engage in this boot camp, and as I prepared today, one of my favorite bloggers emphasized the notion. A past entry of hers always brings me to tears over the innocent sincerity of this internal desire to re-create that so many of us bear.

I'm participating in this boot camp for me. Because my creative juices need a good, proper uncorking. It's been awfully dry around here. However, a blog is a shared space and I never mean for what I write to be purely selfishly focused. I hope the things I publish in the next week and a half bless and inspire you as I grow and am inspired.

Here's to growth. Here's to the little green fruit I discovered on our tree today in this new yard. It's the tree outside my new window, and I had no idea it was a fruit tree!

This New Ol' Life

In all the new ways of life in an old place such as Bellingham, I am being reminded of the motivation and renewed energy that can come with change and of the opportunity to shed and refine bits of my old self. Surely, the opportunities are here, but the motivation only occasionally raises its head.

I'm not only needing to be intentional with digging into the darker inner parts of self but intentional in keeping a grasp on the little things that bring me joy: making art (this is a big joy-source), breathing fresh morning air when the world is still mostly silent, baking for others, cooking a meal that I'm excited to eat, and savoring the joy that lit my steps as I prepared to walk into my present job.

So many things to be grateful for in this day...

• An art project that led me to discover this beautiful tree at a quiet new-to-me park.
• Roommates to come home to.
• Bright and deeply green lush hillsides.
• New names to learn and hands to shake.
• Sunshine after yesterday's rain.
• Hot tea on cold hands.
• Music for just the right mood.
• The smell of a shop full of cheese.
• Squirmy dissatisfaction that signals shifts (for the better) must come.
  

NZ: The Loose Ends

I've been thinking about New Zealand a lot this week. Not just the country as a whole or the way saying it tugs at my heart but the specific memories from my most recent residence there.

Finding a coffee shop to frequent in Bellingham reminds me of Caffe Massimo in Takapuna and the strength of their cappucino, which always came served with a familial wink from the owner.

Boarding a bus and seeing Bellingham from a whole other viewpoint reminds me of the rides across the Harbour Bridge into downtown and how I spent my last few trips trying to engrave that beloved skyline into my memory. It reminds me of giggling with high school girls as we headed to the shops or the beach and how beautiful those young ladies were (are). It urges me to seek out eye contact with the bus driver as I step off and make sure to send a "cheers" his way...but it's not the same here as there. And it would be dull if it was.

Changes have been stewing ever since I landed in Bellingham (much more permanently than I expected). I feel so grateful that, in the settling, newness and adventure still have created days of inner smiles as I squirm uncomfortably and/or excitedly. I still have reasons to take big gulps of air, to wonder about the unknown, and to be reminded that so much of what I picture isn't at all what comes to be. And that's for the better.

I'm seeking community once again and yet am in the unusual place of already have some automatic "ins". Family, for example. A few lasting friendships from those days when Bellingham really was a brand new place as well, when I was a (naturally) blonde nine-year-old with a lingering Kiwi lightness to the ends of my sentences. I'm grateful for what has lasted through so many years and for what is to come.

Before getting further into Bellingham life on this blog, though, I need to wrap up the loose ends from New Zealand. It will come more in pictures than words because there are just too many stories over the course of the three weeks my mum and sister and I spent traveling the north and south islands. Reunions with old friends are among the dearest moments. But swooping narrowly between peaks to land in Queenstown, cutting through water of the darkest teal as fjords framed the way for our voyage to the Tasman Sea, and slipping into the rhythm of left-side driving while leaning to the right and the left with each curve of road that took us around the Coromandel and through dense fern growth and alongside near-deserted white sand beaches, these experiences were priceless in their own right.


Road to Milford Sound I


Road to Milford Sound II


Milford Sound


New Zealand Flax


Our friends' llama


Ella and her chicken


Inside Christchurch Cathedral


Mum


At She Chocolat at Governor's Bay


On the Mount in Tauranga


Bush walk to Cathedral Cove


Cathedral Cove on the Coromandel Peninsula


Elise


Northern beach along the Coromandel


Looking west across the Coromandel

A Summer New Year's: A New Cafe and Its Fries

In these catch-up posts on my four months in New Zealand, it's worth including an update on the coffee shop I endorsed so highly back in October after a weekend in Raglan. My friends and I returned to their bach for New Years weekend and we were all very excited for stops at the distinctive artsy Tongue & Groove as often as we could justify needing coffee in one day.

As it turns out, we walked right by the entrance to the cafe and then stopped at the doors to the next store, confused and bewildered. (I was the one more so bewildered as my confidence in how well I had learned the blocks of Raglan's main street in my last visit were now in question and my generally reliable sense of direction also up for examination -- at least internally, for, upon stopping, the rest of my company immediately understood that this familiar spot had simply been replaced. That's right, entirely gutted and replaced.)

While we all shared in a healthy dose of mourning for Tongue & Groove as we sat down in these new surroundings, it didn't take long for us to appreciate what was before us: The Shack. A bright white sunny old beach house turned cafe with less grunge than its previous resident and a bit more swank. The wide wooden boards lining wall and ceiling had been entirely painted over in clean white and uniform paper globe lights hung high over our heads. Apart from the warm-hued wood trim still around windows and doorways, the only other prominent colors came in striped fabric in cheerful oranges, yellows, pinks, and whites that covered a low L-shaped bench running along the back wall and part of the length of the room.





I have no critiques of their redesign. I think they created a lovely new space that I would be happy to live in. However (if I must point out a negative), it did seem awfully chick-y, though that didn't keep the place from staying full all weekend long with both men and women...my sister and I even sat next to some high school age boys while waiting for a take-away order of curly fries.

Somehow I neglected to get any pictures of the food and don't remember anything too distinct about it. Except those fries. Kiwis seem to live their fries (most often referred to by the British term chips) because I really don't think the amount of fries I'd eaten the previous five years amounted to the quantity I consumed in New Zealand...especially if you count Burger Fuel's kumara chips, which have already received one mention of affection on this site.

Anyway, back to The Shack's fries. We got a rather late breakfast our first morning in Raglan, so my friend took it upon himself to jump straight into lunch fare and order curly fries. At 11am and paired with my morning coffee, I was not drawn in and let the rest of the table pick away. However, every time we walked by the sidewalk-lined tables outside the cafe throughout the weekend, every table seemed to have at least one large bowl piled high with the cute curly fries complete with a bright sprinkling of fresh parsley. So on the last day the craving got to me, and as we were heading out of town, my sister and I made one final stop and placed an order for the road and grabbed a cold sweaty bottle of ginger beer. I won't blow these fries out of proportion by saying that they were the best I've ever had, but they hit the spot on that summer afternoon. Their batter was crisp and lightly coated each pure white spiral, hitting that spot of salty and starchy that many of us wish we could stifle.

As for the rest of the holiday season, my sister and I got to spend Christmas day
with dear old family friends and feel truly welcomed as family. This was in Tauranga, a city we only spent a few days in and that I remember most strongly as the place with the Wild Life Park...a quirky experience recorded on my 35mm, which reminds me of all the rolls of film in my closet nagging to be developed.

Between Christmas and New Years we were in Taranaki near New Plymouth having a wonderful time at our friends' dairy farm. I kept procrastinating on pulling out my camera during this time and sadly realize now that I have very little to show of the spectacular views we saw and even less of the dear faces of people we grew closer to. I'll offer what little I have.







Stay tuned. Just one more post on NZ, and then I'm jumping into the exciting happenings of my present life in Bellingham, Washington. Truly, they are exciting! I can't believe the opportunities that have opened up to me recently and can't wait to share.

Three Girls and an Island

Think rolling hills. Think wide hedges and closely shorn fields of green. Think of all of this dropping away to rocky points and white sand beaches. You've reached Waiheke Island (or any number of islands in the world, actually), but my sister Elise, her friend Amanda, and I set out very specifically for this one on a Monday morning in December. And we're so glad we did.



It became one of my absolute favorite NZ days.

We caught a ferry from downtown Auckland and gave ourselves a full day to see the island: the quiet beaches, the artsy shops, and (mainly) the wineries. Sitting down for a cup of coffee and perusing the shops took all of an hour, so we wandered down to a beach to kill some more time before tasting rooms opened/till we felt like it was late enough in the day to healthily start drinking wine.





The wonderful thing about these two people I was with was that they were both within two years of my age - a rare experience after working and living in a community where I was most connected to toddlers, high schoolers, and moms of university students. Also, they loved photo ops, especially jumping ones and goofy ones, which gave me no excuses in my tendency to focus my camera lens more on food and scenery than people - a subject matter that still often intimidates me. It didn't necessarily make for professional material (as you will see) but the cheesiness still gave me practice. Oh, and I was back with my loverly sister again, who had been off on her own New Zealand adventure for the past two months.





Our first stop was Mudbrick, a vineyard and restaurant boasting the most spectacular views and coziest, classy decor. As soon as we pulled into the gravel parking lot and peered through our rented old station wagon's windows, we were gushing. We oohed at the restaurant's long french-door lined wall. We aah-ed at the outdoor stone fireplace bordering the rows of vines. And, really, I don't think we shut up for the next nine hours.

We had gotten to experience Waiheke on a perfect sunny summer day, and driving through the quiet winding roads on the east side of the island as well as visiting Te Whau and Wild on Waiheke (don't judge the name like we did - or the gunmen firing laser guns at claybirds in the field next to the driveway - just drive on in and make sure to taste their beers...and ginger beer!), we snapped more pictures with our mind's eye than was possible with camera lenses and said over and over, "Isn't this beautiful?", "Aren't we glad we did this!", and "Do you think the owner of Mudbrick has an eligible son who'll marry me?"











At the end of our day, we landed back at the vineyard we'd fallen head over heels for (do I need to say Mudbrick again?) and had an elegant dinner in a quiet dining room flooded with golden evening light. It was certainly a splurge but the experience will not be easily forgotten. In fact, I very much hope for it to be refreshed before I have to climb the steps from the car park with a stooped back and silver grey hair...or in the next ten years would do fine too, thanks.