I dug through the archives and found a poem about early mornings in the city and a Haiku about kissing a littler person.
It Is Only Our Morning
The sun lights the sky and the glass on the tall buildings before it lights the air where we walk. We walked to under a canopy of warm refractory light in the darkness this morning.
We claim a bit more ownership of the city at this hour. Sharing it only with delivery trucks, school kids, and the barristas that make our coffee. The empty sidewalks and streets, the dark shop windows, the last of the summer blooms are all ours. We share them with each other and witness the city waking up together.
There are no gods and goddesses in the sky watching over us. Karma is not a good deed savings account. Nothing EVER happens for a reason. Horoscopes. Fortune cookies. Dreams. Superstitions. All devices created by people that need answers for the unanswerable. I do not believe in impossible things because it is hard enough believing in possible things. I do not believe that people are fundamentally good and that they can change, I believe that water flows downhill and people are about as lazy when left to their own choices.
So this is how it is: the innocent suffer, the guilty go free, and truth and fiction are pretty much interchangeable. There is neither a Santa Claus nor an Easter Bunny, and there are no angels watching over us. Things just happen for no reason. And nothing makes any sense.
2012 is so over. I have compiled a month-by-month list of the ‘Best of SPA/Waldina” and posted it below. I love best/worst lists at the end of the year. In fact, I included some that I found over the internet at the end of this post. I hope 2013 is astonishingly kick ass for you.
Instagram. We love it. We hate it. I have chosen one photo of a moderately artsy nature (less faces and such) from each month of 2012. There is a link to my Instagram profile on the right-side navigation bar, I am parkeranderson.
JANUARY: A street mural in Puerto Vallarta.
MARCH: “Re-Bar” The photo booth where so many great memories have been captured over the last 20 years.
FEBRUARY: The photo booth at Re-Bar is responsible for some of my favorite memories for the last 20 years.
APRIL: “Push For Signal” We are the 99%, we are. I love the small messages that are placed everywhere in the city, I love that activism.
MAY: “Uh, what are you trying to say?” This was seen on a walk near the train yard in Interbay.
JUNE: “Drive in Movie” It is still a real experience, still exactly the same as you remember it.
JULY: “Pistachio Pac Man.” I found these little guys on the street when I was stepping out of the car.
AUGUST: “Moped a Go Go on the Ferry.” A group of 30 mopeds and scooters all got on the Vashon ferry with us, it was amazing.
SEPTEMBER: “However, the alley is free game and slightly cleaner.” Columbia City, keeping it classy as always.
OCTOBER: “The discarded wig at the CC Station is easing my transition to suburbia. #RoughNight” I do miss that wig.
NOVEMBER: “There goes the neighborhood. #haters #liars #crooks.” It’s true, they use their new-found born-again christian spirituality as a weapon against everything they disagree with.
DECEMBER: “I love how the glow of the street lights refract off the aluminum foil over the windows. #MobileMethLab” Seriously, I need to know what’s going on in there.
Now let’s take a look at my favorite blog post from each month. Amongst all the Style Icons and Not So Secret Obsessions, I have chosen the ones that I like the most. Or the ones that I think are worth a second look. I may be re-fry some of them for 2013, but for now these are my favorites of 2012:
JANUARY: Screwball – If you have a chance, you should see “Holiday.” It is probably one of my very favorite screwball comedies, although choosing one is impossible. You could just add everything that George Cukor directed to your Netflix and that is a great start.
FEBRUARY: “Mrs de Florian – Style Icon” – For 70 years the Parisian apartment had been left uninhabited, under lock and key, the rent faithfully paid but no hint of what was inside.
MARCH: “Open Letter To Politicians.” – I want to cast my vote for who I believe in the most, not for who I disagree with the least.
MAY: “Tornado” – Tragedy blows through your life like a tornado, uprooting everything, creating chaos. You wait for the dust to settle, and then you choose. You can live in the wreckage and pretend it’s still the mansion you remember. Or you can crawl from the rubble and slowly rebuild. Because after disaster strikes, the important thing is that you move on. But if you’re like me, you just keep chasing the storm.
AUGUST: “What Was Saved” – Your house is burning. You have to get out fast. Suddenly you are forced to prioritize, editing down a lifetime of possessions to a mere handful. Now you must decide: Of all the things you own, what is most important to you?
DECEMBER: “Stick Figure Model Confidential – Fire” – I like the end results of the shoot and think that my work here will save lives. That’s what it is all about, isn’t it?
You have the chance to write one last post on your blog before you stop blogging forever. Write it.
I rarely have the chance to participate in the “Daily Prompt” because I only have a few minutes in the morning to post and the thought of crafting an entire entry before my very first sip of coffee is terrifying. But this one, I got. Sort of.
I worked with a man who had a dear friend in the last days of his losing fight with AIDS. On their last visit to his apartment before he was moved to hospice, my coworker commented on his large collections of things. The dying man related that you buy one because it’s cute and figure it needs a friend to hang out with on the shelf, so you buy one or two more. Your friends and family visit, see that you have a few of them and decide that it must be your passion, so you get them as gifts and the collection grows and grows. Before you know it, your apartment is literally choked with the stuff. He leaned over, as if telling a well-guarded secret, and half-whispered to my coworker:
This week’s photo challenge is wrong, in many ways.
I spent almost a whole day looking for things that were wrong that I could photograph. A day of focusing my energy on looking for negativity.
Enough.
That is mostly what everything is.
Think about the number of signs you see daily that tell you “NO.” Think about the negative news stories, internet articles, even facebook posts from your ‘friends’.
When was the last time you received a positive message? When was the last time you focused on the good? I does not help that it is an election year and candidates seem to find it easier or more compelling to tell you about how bad their opponents are instead of telling you what good they want to do.
At Interlochen Center for the Arts, one summer we took little pieces of paper and wrote the word “YES” on them and placed them all over summer camp. We did it at night, so in the morning, everyone woke up to tiny affirmations everywhere they looked. We left them everywhere (on trees, buildings, doors, music stands, benches, etc.) and they migrated all over as people moved them, wore them, created more. It was simple. YES. Yes to everything. Yes you can. Yes you are good enough. YES. No limitations or definitions.
So last night as I was walking to dinner and scanning the streets for something wrong, something right was right at my feet. Literally.
Today, spend a little time noticing the YES in the world and let the wrong fuzz out.
I do enjoy getting the photo challenge and then looking through my “stock photos” on my phone and/or computer to see if any of them match what is required. Luckily, I had three that I thought matched “create.”
This photo is well known to my family, it is a handprint in wet cement created by a very young Reed Anderson some 50 or so years ago. It is below the hand rail on the steps leading down to the Minnesota “Minnie” Building on the waterfront at Interlochen Center For The Arts. This photo was taken last summer when we were all gathered for Reed’s father’s (my Grand Uncle’s) memorial service. The Anderson family has a strong connection with Interlochen, three generations deep. I love it. I miss it. It changed my life and possibly saved my life.
These two photos are macramé wall hangings done by my grandparent’s friend and neighbor, Mrs. Richmond. They must have been created in the 1970′s some time, at the height of the craft-craze. The Richmonds passed away quite a few years ago and the house has been sold, but to their credit, the new owners have kept Mrs. Richmond’s handy work hanging, even after painting the house. I love these guys, in a way they remind me of my grandparents.
