I Will

I wrote in my journal last night, "You should write a blog about practicing facials and about trees and about letter-writing personas and about finding your life's purpose today at the library - making and publishing photo books."

Can I do this all in one blog post?

You betcha.

But not a short, sweet one.

I often write notes to myself about possible blog subjects and never follow through. But these are good ones.

Let's start with letter-writing personas. I have within the past several months discovered the beauty of the hand-written letter. I love sending notes and churning out a bunch whenever the mood strikes - just like that one time years ago when I felt inspired to bake many, many loaves of dessert bread to share with any and everybody.

I do believe that when I have extra time to choose my words,, my notes take on a different voice than my real one. For example, while writing to a friend I haven't seen in years, it is easy to pretend I don't feel awkward or sad that I'm not in her life anymore. I can direct the conversation in any way I want because I have the floor.

Often I direct the conversation to (1) I'm doing well and God is blessing my life, and then (2) this is what I love about you, and then (3) how are you? - and other questions to which I will never receive an answer, and (4) peace and blessings on you and whatever is going on in your life (being as specific as possible).

I'm great at letter-writing.

I have also taken to heart the "sandwich" approach to negative messages which I was taught several times in grade school: compliment, complaint, compliment.  Or praise,  constructive criticism, more praise. You get the idea.

I have taken this very literally. Angry messages get us nowhere.

I used the word 'persona' because, just as people develop a personality online or a kind of brand that is not exactly like how they are in real life, I have noticed that pen and paper have the same effect.

Someone (like in the colonial days) once said that the pen is sharper/mightier than the sword.

I wonder if that is only when it is writing sassy things down or if when I'm writing stupid letters I'm still wielding that power.

Twenty-one Pilots' lead singer raps, " some see a pen, I see a harpoon." I wonder how he feels about the sassiness issue.

Segueing from letter-writing into trees, I did once write a letter to a good friend telling her that I saw trees paralleling her ordeal.

I really hope I was praying when I wrote that.

She told her daughters to thank me profusely for it.

Trees make me think of women, their arms stretched to the sky. The represent life's seasons, rebirth, flexibility tenacity, the seed thrown on the good soil, deep roots in God's heart, the stubbornness to grow in spite of harsh conditions and even in spite of falling down sometimes.

Growth and reaching toward heaven, the tree of life, the tree for the healing of the nations. Young king Arthur witnessing the slow, slow dreams of trees as they watch the world move quickly around them. A sort of stability and inner peace.

I'm getting a tattoo of a tree.

I have a mom who made sure there was deep, deep symbolism in each part of the design before she resigned to it, and one adamant naysayer who half-listened to my sound reasoning while performing other activities and without responding (I had been hoping for an actual conversation). I assume dad knows because mom and dad tell each other everything in my imagination. Sometimes I imagine that since the  Bible says when people get married they will become one flesh, mom and dad don't even have to talk to know and think exactly the same things. This imaginatory "one flesh" thing has been proven wrong several times.

I should mention this tattoo thing to dad.

Segue: maybe someday I'll give dad a facial.

Was that a good segue?  I gave mom one while my friend read me step-by-step facial massage instructions from Milady's esthetician textbook.

Ever since I went to that esthetician's convention in Philly, I have been very good at following trough on my intention of practicing facials on my friends and family. Tonight I am going to perform my first repeat facial! Hopefully my friend will notice an improvement from last time.

I have also done a double facial where I tried to perform two facials at once with limited success. The reward of that session was that one of my subjects suggested I warm the towls, not with hot water, but in the microwave (since I don't have a steamer and am not about to purchase one).

But facials are not my life's purpose. Photo books are. I went to the library and perused the new books section while waiting for my dentist appointment the other day and discovered two books: "one woman, one hundred faces," about hair, makeup, and photography transforming one woman in countless ways, and "the oldest living things on earth," in which a photographer/scientist journeys around the world creating a complete guide of all plant life older than 1000 years old.

I want to make books like that.

I can make books like that.

I will make books like that.

I alter books and collage in them already. Books are my preferred medium. They are more time-based art than single pieces hanging on a wall. I will be published someday and make a difference in someone's life with my books.

I think that's all I wanted to blog about.

Central Park NYC

"So which central park did you go to?"
"Uh, I thought there was only one Central Park."

Apparently there is more than one.  But I went to the one in NYC.

As an experiment, because my job is somewhat mind-numbing (I love it though), I joined a camera club in my area. I discovered it through Google and it seemed pretty legit.  It includes "lectures," optional outings, and competitions.  I put lectures in quotes because it depends on your definition of a lecture.  I rarely take notes because they are either too stat-heavy or too opinion based, but I still find them valuable.

Mom makes fun of me because I often say "It was good/fine/valuable but I was bored out of my MIND." Such is the case of camera club meetings.

This outing to NYC, however, fit into my work schedule and sounded not boring, so I signed up.  It was a bus trip so someone else would have to worry about parking and traffic, and all I had to do was show up for the time allotted with a camera in order to probably get decent pictures.

That's another reason I joined the club.  As an artist no longer in school, it's not easy to tell myself, "You're going to take photographs today." - With someone else organizing my outings, a club fee is a small price to pay.  It sucks that a bunch of midlife-crisis club members with huge lenses will also be there and will be be taking almost exactly the same pictures as me, but once again - a small price.  I joined the club so that I would take my camera out more.

Actually, the midlifers warmed to me throughout the duration of our stay at the park.  It was nice.

The organizer of our trip (you could refer to him as our "man with a plan" - like that guy from the commercial) had a pre-planned route for us, highlighted in blue on a perfectly sized map laminated in, he confided, just the right kind of plastic for our kind of outing.  Most of us followed him exactly since his route was undeniably perfect, even though I tried to be cool a couple of times and stay on the other side of the street.

When it was time to get back on the bus again, someone looked around and commented, "We all made it! It's almost like we're a bunch of adults!" I felt so adult-y.  I thought about how people like to say "high school never ends" - and compared it with his statement, and thought, well, maybe for some people it does.  This group of people included a lot who reached out to me instead of sticking with their old friends (like highschoolers would), and they also all made it to the bus meeting place early - without chaperones.

The trip was great.  I might even blog about it again.  I took lots of pictures of trees, which are everywhere, but when I'm around "everywhere trees" my camera isn't usually out. I also got great pictures of the nighttime NYC skyline, thanks to our ever-prepared, surprise-filled, man-with-a-plan trip organizer.

That's it!

Fairies

When my sister and I were little, I coerced her into mimicking my interest in fairies.  (I refuse to use the other spellings that glorify them further than they should be, like "faerie" or "feyry," you know. Just too much).  I was very convincing, I guess, when I was REALLY interested in something.

Sister, sister, let's make a list of all of the fairies we can find.  One of my fairy books said they would be difficult to actually see, living on the borders between dark and light, ocean and sand, sidewalk and road, and that if we want to find them we will have to use our senses and know they are there without seeing them.

I guessed that there was a fairy inside the vents in our house whenever they started creaking and blowing air.

I also suggested that there was a stomach fairy that was responsible for the strange "stomach beat" I could feel whenever I would lie on my belly.

I learned a few years later that the stomach contracts rhythmically in order to help digest food.  So much for the stomach fairy.

But I wanted so badly for them to exist.

I wanted so badly to find one, to become one, and really, to join their world and leave my own behind.  Based on the books, fairies were more graceful, lucky, beautiful, talented, carefree, powerful, perfect, and energetic than I would ever be.

This makes me think of societies from the past and present where there is a god or goddess for everything.  Or perhaps even a saint for everything.  Or, people with faiths that cause them to look for angels behind every mailbox, so to speak.

Just like my sister and I were trying to find a fairy for everything, people in a childlike way want to find a reason for everything or a way to put each individual thing outside of their own control.

This is a form of escapism that I defended against reality and that people of faith defend against naysayers with different doctrine because it is just so nice to imagine that there is a different world out there, one with some external, all-powerful individual to take care of each little thing (my mailbox, my moldy bread, my stomach).

I think it is harder to believe that there is one all-powerful God who is just as capable of controlling each minute thing just as well as a team of deities might be because the only image we have of an "individual" is man: confused, bad at multitasking, imbalanced talents.  The idea that an individual could surpass this enough to control each electron's placement and rotation speed, and remember each of the stars' names, is not really irresistible.  It's pretty uncomfortable.

We like delegating tasks.

Anyhow, it is in the Bible that there is a God like I talked about above.  I'm pretty sure he understands our desire to delegate tasks, but he doesn't need the help of anyone to accomplish his goals.

And I don't subscribe to any fairy magazines.
But I've flipped through a couple at B&N and the art is really cool.

Conference

The other day I went to an esthetician's conference in Philadelphia.

Side note: either blogger or my computer does not recognize the word esthetician.

I was inspired.

I just performed my first facial on a game friend of mine and am now encouraged to perform more on anyone who will lay down in front of me.  I've got the serums, so let's do this!

I told my friend to keep a watch on her skin and tell me what happens, though, because the products I got were from one of the less credible-looking booths at the convention.  Definitely more credible than SOME (cough cough "we do facial here") but I did avoid the medical-looking stands because I don't own a lucrative business that can afford or benefit from such products - or use great quantities of them.

The convention was set up like a flea market.  And man, did some of those vendors look intimidating from a distance - but it was really only the graphic design of the signage and pamphlets and the presentation of the products.  I only encountered one pair of ladies who were confused as to why I was standing in front of them if I wasn't interested in buying.  The rest had their happy selling faces on and were more than happy to talk to me.  And since I'm so sweet and innocent and doe-eyed and ignorant-looking, I received many free samples.

I used half of a free sample to cleanse my friend's face.  I wasn't being stingy.

Yay free samples!!

There were also little stages set up all over the place, and there were speakers up on a large stage separate from the vending area in the morning.  I got the hang of bouncing around whenever I got bored.  How naive of me - I thought I would actually stick with one person for an entire presentation!

There was one woman on the big stage who presented on skin peels.  At least that's what they said she was going to do.  I left before she got to that because she spent at least 10 minutes reading off her slideshow in a scolding voice about electrons and free radicals without connecting any points for us, or being excited about what she was saying.

Most importantly, what she was doing with the atom structure should have been a short intro as a reference point for her.  Instead, it became a weed-out speech for audience members who really didn't care enough about peels to get through her scolding session (e.g. me).

I wonder if she even got to peels.

I wonder if, once she got there, she ever referenced her atomic intro.

I wonder if she will be invited back next year.

There were at least three other presentations that showed me hands-on techniques I never learned in beauty school (offense somewhat intended, somewhat not to my school).  "Aha!" thought I.  "Given the right materials, and already knowing the basic steps, this new knowledge gives me what I need to gift my friends in a NEW way!"

So I spent kind of a lot even though the products weren't quite snob level and am really looking forward to being a kitchen facialist.