“Can’t stop me now. Hear what I say. My feet want to move so get out the way.”
Good luck today Kels!

“The sea said goodbye to the shore so the sun wouldn’t notice
The seaweed wrapped its arms around you

I met a man today and he smiled back at me
there are thoughts like these that keep me on my feet,
that keep me on my feet.”

Sloom - by Monsters & Men

My friend Maia from julia warr on Vimeo.

“Shot in Fire Island, New York, this film captures the secrets of eternal youth as Maia Helles, a Russian ballet dancer turns 95 but still remains resolutely independent, healthy and as fit as a forty year old. Made by Julia Warr, artist and film maker met Maia on a plane 4 years ago…”

Millions of us went to our basements or shelters on Friday to wait it out. We kept things casual at our house, as much as possible, so as not to alarm our six-year-old. But after her  school dismissed early because it was coming, she sensed enough cause for concern to bring her favorite stuffed bears downstairs and her piggy bank where she has been saving for a dog since our Scout died on Halloween. I look at these images of West Liberty and Salyersville in the papers and can’t help but see us in the faces of the people combing through the splintered wood. It’s so easy to imagine pieces of her porcelain piggy bank scattered in the rubble; little symbols of planning for the future shattered.  It’s not hard to empathize with the people who have lost everything and feel how these things, these objects of people’s lives and in some cases, people’s lives, were decimated in a horrifying instant.

I don’t get fired up about Kentucky basketball. Bourbon is not my favorite. But I do love and identify with this Commonwealth and if there is anything that I know from the 96 years my grandmother was a Kentuckian through the Depression and war and hardship and the majority of my life here has taught me it is that Kentuckians are resilient, determined, unbending people who will pick each other up, come rain or come shine.

I think about the quiet of a cup of tea or book without multitasking the incoming emails. They start to feel like water dripping from a leaky sink. The silence in between messages feels like peace until PLOP, there’s another one and I’m taken away from what I was doing.

I have thought about the stillness that limiting online activity must bring. I know several people, mostly writers, who don’t have internet at home just so that they can get more done. I tried limiting Facebook to weekends and going off of all screens on Sundays, but somehow, if there is a moment between all of my responsibilities, I end up checking in and quickly I am back in the undertow of messages and there’s no time left for me. The computer alone is not to blame though. It is my lack of will power and, as is mentioned in the video below, there are so many different kinds of distractions in modern life.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote Gift from the Sea more than 50 years ago, long before the internet, and she sounds exactly like me and my friends today. “There are so few empty pages in my engagement pad, or empty rooms in my life in which to stand alone and find myself. Too many activities and people and things. Too many worthy activities, valuable things and interesting people. For it is not merely the trivial which clutters our lives but the important as well. We can have a surfeit of treasures- an excess of shells, where one or two would be significant.”  GFTS p. 107

Have I quoted this passage here before?  I probably have. I supposed  there is nothing new to say. In the five years that I have maintained this blog, I have not come up with any answers. But I still come to this distraction to try to connect the dots of whatever themes are popping up in my life.

So, I was thinking about all of these things and this video showed up in my Google Reader and though I could not be content in that much isolation, there is something very peaceful and beautiful about this way of life.

It’s SO great any you can submit YOUR photos, too. I’m going to submit some later this week, too but my goal is to find and capture non-romantic love and also photograph people I don’t know. I am often seeing strangers I would love to photograph. This weekend, my challenge is to approach them and go for it.

I posted about this on FB, but if you haven’t already, check out this inspiring documentary about the original street fashion photographer,  Bill Cunningham.