Do you ever feel like you have become the Scary Clown?   You know…. …. THE Scary Clown.

Tonight, I gave some Photoshop Demonstrations at the Preble County Art Association.  It was a great turnout for the Open House.  There were a couple of us doing demonstrations.

But, toward the beginning of the evening, and near the end, it got a little slow.   So I mingled about the classroom area of the Center for a bit.

Early in the night, there were four girls painting at a table nearby.  One was fashioning a rabbit on her little cardboard canvas.  To which I said… “I’ve never met a rabbit I didn’t like.”  And the little girl laughed and laughed.   But a moment later, she was finding her mother, and scrunching up her face, and looking my way.

Oh my gawd.  I’ve become the Scary Clown.

Late in the night, a little boy sat at another table with his Mom.  He was munching down a plateful of baby carrots.  To which I said… “When I was your age, I loved carrots.  I ate more carrots than Bugs Bunny.  I still love carrots.  Yep.  Carrots. Cabbage.  And Cauliflower.  Hey… they all start with ‘C’!  My middle name starts with C.”

The little boy smiled at me and nodded.  THEN…. a couple of minutes later…  I saw him  scrunching up his face, looking my way, and holding on to his Mom’s arm.

Again… I fear… I have become the Scary Clown.
Am I now the guy in the Shriner’s Hat?
Or have I become Aunt Eleanor, who pinches the holy-crap out of your cheek when you see her?

Perceptions.  How we perceive ourselves, and how other’s perceive us… are two entirely different things.   And it changes with every person we encounter.  When I see myself… I always have this picture of Might Mouse in my head.  (Okay, not really… but I liked the way that little mouse dressed).

But when others meet us, or know us…. what do they see?  The Scary Clown?  Or some sweet old funny lady?  Who knows.

The thing I wonder is….. should we care?  I think some people don’t give a Rat’s Booty about what other’s think.  And then there are those who are extremely concerned about other’s perceptions.  I know I tend to put way too much weight into what people think of me.  Somewhere in there… I bet there is a healthy balance.  The trick is finding it.

If we stop for just a few little moments….   and take the time to contemplate ourselves and our lives…. we can see one thing is apparent.   It is not difficult to recognize that “familiar” inner feeling…. that we are different from anybody else.  We are individuals.  Each our own.

You are.  I am.  Individuals.  And somewhere in there is the balance of knowing this is okay… and not worrying so much about what other’s may regard.

But I can’t help but wonder.
Are they thinking…. “Dang, that is a cool reptile.”
Or…. “See you later alligator.”
Or maybe… “Don’t EVER smile at a crocodile.”

I guess all I can do… is smile back.

How could I possibly have known.
That is what I said tonight.

I’ve decided to revisit some of my old images for a little while.  At least from time to time.  I literally have boxes of Hard Drives, in my office, filled with tens of thousands of images I have taken in recent history.

Many of those, I will probably never look at again.  My method for organizing them comes down to one line:  “Oh.  I’ll get to that later.”  Sure, I have them all backed up.  More than once.   But there is no rhyme or reason to them, mostly.

This evening, as I began to explore a random hard drive, I found this photo.  Happenstance.   And when you find a photo, you begin to find memories.  Like it, or not.

Two years ago, this month actually, we took a trip to Hawaii for Mary’s 60th birthday.  The family went.  It was joyous. …. a tremendous trip. We had so much fun.  Great company, great weather, food, and adventure.  So. I saw this photo and remembered the exact day…. walking on the beach with Levi.  I stopped and shot this photo of a shell… because I thought it looked like a face.  He concurred.

A few minutes later, my phone rang, and it was my brother.  He called to tell me Dad wasn’t feeling well, but that everything was okay.  Dad had recently had a bout with pneumonia, and was, once again, having a low period.  At 90 years old, he never been seriously sick before.

I asked if I should come home, and Jerry said, no way, no how.  All was okay.  So we stayed the remaining 4 days of the trip.  I went back to shooting on the beach.  And there I was…. never imagining that in 2 months… my Dad would be dead.

Yes, we just don’t know the things we don’t know.  I had written something completely different tonight about acceptance of being in the moment … until I found this photo.  But that is what my photo told me once again.

It reminded me to remember…. just how important it is to cherish the moment we are in…. whether it is on a beach in Hawaii, or spending the night in a dark hospital room … holding my Dad’s hand.

I am not sure how many more of my old photos I want to revisit.  I am not so sure at all.

You know how one memory can lead to the next and on and on?  Tonight, I heard a song from way-back.  It was “Safety Dance” by Men Without Hats. In one moment, I am thrown back 30 years, dancing at a Mega-Dance Bar in Dayton, and in the next moment, I was roller skating in the basement of my childhood home.

But all of the thoughts, the memories, somehow had to do with taking risks or playing it safe.

Back to the basement.  We had a huge old coal furnace down there.  It looked like an Octopus.  It had been converted to gas, I think, at some point.  But in the back… at the narrowest pass, it had a duct that hung way down, with a big square vent on it.

So we would roller skate around that furnace, like Roller Derby Queens.  I was pretty dang young.  But you would get to the backside of the Octopus, and if someone pushed you a little, or you miss stepped…. WHAMMMO.  You would crack your head on that vent.  Trust me on this one.

It was a risk we took.  We were young.  We were Roller Derby Queens.  We were girls without helmets, and we didn’t care.

I used to take a lot of risks.  A lot.  Some happened as a result of my having an underdeveloped child brain. (See comment above about “cracking head on vent”)   Yes… it still had lots of years to grow-up and into reason.

The other times I took unnecessary risks…. typically were a result of my impaired judgement from external influences.

These days, I am not much of a risk taker.  I do the Safety Dance a lot. By definition…. taking risks usually involves some kind of danger, or unpleasant occurrence.   Yet, on closer inspection…. it is….simply life.

Every time we place our feet on the floor when we get out of bed in the morning, we begin taking risks.  There is no such thing as a sure thing.   Our safety, our health, our well-being can be disrupted at any given moment in time.  Our Safety Dance could lose its beat.

Sure, we can make educated guesses, well-informed decisions, and even believe in weather forecasters.  But it is all open for chance.  I think the happiest people in the world are the ones who embrace this…  the unknown.  The risk. The chance.

I’m going to try and be more like them.  Yep.  Once again, I shall skate like a Roller Derby Queen.  I’m going to dance without my helmet on.

I have this thing for photograph….. just in case this little detail about me has slipped by you.  It is true.  I am completely fascinated with them.

These days, I am not sure people think about them too much, one way or the other.  We are so inundated with information, digital media, and social networks… that seeing a photograph seems inconsequential for most people.

But I see a photo, and it is like a piece of perception…..  from a Time Machine.  One that has traveled to some other neverland.  And this two-dimensional image is what we have…. as proof of the venture.

In that moment, in that space in time, in this universe, that never was before…. and never will come again… is that photograph.  Those faces looking back at the camera lens, will never be the same again, as they were in that moment.  And all those moments, from all world, and all over the universe, bring us to this very moment right now.  And here we talking about them.

You would think I’d be terribly rebellious against the photograph.  From the time I popped out of the womb and said… “What on God’s green earth just happened to me?  That was one heck of a tight squeeze getting out of that place!”…. I was met with Paparazzi Lucy.  My dear Mom Lucy.  She was relentless in her “picture taking” and as kids, we resented it.

Now….. as an adult….even though there are nearly 100 photo albums compiled by Snappy Lucy…. it does not seem like enough to me now.  I want to see more.  I want proof of that Time Machine Journey.

I want to see more of my Grandma K and me.  I want to see what the screens in the house looked like after my brother painted them.  I want to see a really good photo of my baby feet.  And I want to have a glimpse of our brand new puppy when I was five. ….. OH WAIT.   We weren’t allowed to have a dog.  I was totally getting carried away with my “want” list.

But I digress.  Photos.  I collect them.  If I see an intriguing photograph on Ebay,  I buy it.  And then I wonder.

The photograph I posted tonight are people which I have never met.  But I KNOW they were there.  I have proof.  And I can see them in that moment.   The one point in time…. which never was before, and never will be again.  Dutch and Freda are seated.  Dutch’s real name is Dietrik Kaufman, and he used to be a Jeweler in Germany.  Now, here in Northern Ohio, he is a farmer.  His wife, Freda, is a strong woman.  Her father owned a thriving vineyard in Germany.  Both families were very well-to-do.  They have come to the U.S. to escape religious persecution.    Their two sons, Heinrich and Georg are good boys, and very bright.  Musically gifted. Yes, both are skilled violinists.  Oh, I could go on and on about them.  How they met Fr. Theodore Reinhold in Philadelphia.  He was the one to tell them about the land they would find, cheap, near a town in Ohio called Spencerville.

But I’ll stop, because I don’t know if any of those stories about them are true or not.  I’ll never know.   But there they are.  In my hand.  At this point in time in the universe. Never before.  Never again.

And that is what amazes me about a photograph.

Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.  —  Nathaniel Hawthorne

Lost time is never found again.  —  Benjamin Franklin

High Strung.  Oh yes I am.

As much as I would like to be some other way, I would have to say that I pretty much border on the side of intensity.

They say the origin of the word comes from the mid-1700s, referring to instruments being strung in a high tone.  But I say it is more like someone walking a tightrope.  The rope is high strung.  Tense.  Edgy.  Danger, young Will Robinson.

Serenity is where I would much rather be.
One of the most beautiful, and profound prayers ever written, is by  Rienhold Niebuhr.  The Serenity Prayer.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

It is so very perceptive, and far-reaching.

The other day, I was sending my sister a text message.  I was talking about something that brings me to a place of calm.
But I was texting fast…. and mistakenly said… a place of clam.

She laughed.  LOL.  I could hear her through the text.

But the more I thought about it, the better it sounded.  It is a pretty good analogy.  Calm can be serenity, or the ability to not show emotions such as nervousness, or anger.  It can also mean  the absence of violent or confrontational activity.  But the ability to be calm is a treasure.  A gift.

And then I thought about the clam.  It has its very own little shell that opens and shuts when it needs to.  And when it is closed all the way, it is protected from all the surrounding dangers and turmoil.  But low and behold, inside, deep inside, after years of work, there is a beautiful gift…. a pearl.  Sometimes the shell has to open up and sometimes the shell has to close for the pearl to be formed.

So… as you see… my finding a place of clam is quite apropos.

I think it is my new motto in fact.  I am clam.  I am perfectly clam.

I talked with a lot of people today.  Way more so than normal.  I went to a Banquet.  Yes… a banquet.  A friend of ours was inducted into the Cincy Softball Hall of Fame.  It was quite a BIG dang deal.  So we went in recognition of this feat.  Not her feet.  But the accomplishment.

Anyway… you speak with a whole bunch of folks.  People you know, and people you don’t know.  Mostly at these things, it has to be idle chat.  Talk of the weather, and haircuts.  Pleasant hello’s and how are you’s.   It is hard to get into deep conversations about the variances in the atmospheric distribution of oxygen and the consequential effects of the earth’s core pulsations.

Unless of course the two of you steal away into a corner, and have a private conversation.  And that is never really good at these things….. because people begin to think you are conspiring against them.  Before you know it, as you are talking about molecular density patterns, they come over to your corner of the room, and call you OUT…… on your scheming and trickery against them.   Their voice begins to boom and their face turns pink.

You try to convince them that this is just NOT the case.    But it is much too late. They are hot under the collar.  So they give you a little shove… and your best friend catches a glimpse of this.  Then a girl fight breaks out right in the middle of the banquet.  The MC panics.  The room goes berserk…. mashed potatoes begin flying through the air… and before you know it… they have cancelled the rest of the proceedings ….. and are asking everyone to leave quietly through the back exits.

As such…. you pick yourself up off the floor, as you untangle your legs from the metal folding chair.  And you limp out.

So … it is just best to keep the conversation right there at your assigned banquet table… and exchange smiles, pleasant wishes,  and Sweet’n’Low packets.  It is simply better that way…. and as a bonus… your food won’t get cold.

Much more fun for the entire family.  Hours and hours of fun.  Talking about the weather…. or Kim Kardashian.

Staying true to form… we are supposed to get more snow overnight.
Oh how I miss warm days…. and wild flowers.

Those winter months have a way of bringing out the “Girl Fight” in you.

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.” – Dr. Seuss

“Step with care and great tact, and remember that life’s a great balancing act.” – Dr. Seuss

That good old guy, Albert “The Man” Einstein, use to say to people …. “Ask me if I am an olive tree.”  So the person would ask …. “Are you an olive tree?”  And he would say….. after a long pause…. “Nope.”

Okay.  He didn’t say that.  But he DID say this..  “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

Those miracles can come in many different shape and many different sizes…
First,  a miracle could be a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws.   It is  therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.  Not like the CIA… but a different kind of agency.

OR… it could be a highly improbable or extraordinary event.  Whatever that development, or accomplishment might be …… it brings very welcome consequences. Like a miracle finish in a race.

OR… perhaps it is an amazing product… or achievement… or illustration of something.  Like Miracle Whip.

Call them what you will.  But I am lucky enough to see miracles all around me.

Most of them… for me…. come in the form of Immeasurable Kindness….. as a result of Absolute Understanding.  Both of which are necessary measures of Peace.  Who could ask for more?  It is way better than Miracle Whip, I’ll tell you.

It happened to me several times today.  A very kind word, or vote of confidence.  A display of support.  Several things stood out… on this dreary day in January.

The first happened early in the day….  Someone really went out of their way to make me feel better.  Yes.   A friend showed me selflessness, concern, and compassion.  They gave me comfort.  I am so grateful to this healer.

Yet another, occurred late tonight.  There was a big box in our entry way.  It was to us, from US.  We were sure we hadn’t sent ourselves anything… and it wasn’t ticking.  So we opened it.  Inside was Olive Oil, Olive Soap, and Olive Lotion.   And wouldn’t you know it… a dag nabbin’ Olive Tree.  No white dove.

What could be better to exemplify Kindness and Peace… than an Olive Tree? (Well…. besides the white dove.  That would have been double peace-y.)

Yet today… it seemed to all come full circle, I’ll tell you.  When you least expect it.   Like some kind of miracle.

Some days I can’t see them at all.  Not even when they are as plain as the nose on my face.  And that is a big one.  On those days…. I don’t know why it is… that I cannot take notice.   Perhaps my mindset, my unwillingness, my evil-twin.

But I love the days when I can.

So I will just give thanks.  To those who gave me miracles.  To those who gave me peace.

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.  –Mother Teresa

If you haven’t noticed, I have been drawing a lot more lately.  Some of you may or may not like it.  I couldn’t begin to know.

But I do offer this to you…. the reason I draw.

I do it, because it makes me happy.  I am happy when I have a pen in hand, and when I get to sketch whatever my “little heart desires”…. at that moment.

I for one, need to find happy moments in life.  We can’t be happy ALL the time.  It is humanly impossible.  Unless, of course, something is very wrong with you.  The human psyche experiences a plethora of emotions on any given day.  Heck… in any given moment.

Sometimes we can feel two or three things a the same exact second.  Scared, but strong.  Happy, but nervous.  Sad, but grateful.  It just depends.

At any rate, we all search for happiness, but as I mentioned, we simply can’t have it all the time.  I am grateful to find single moments of happiness.  Like when I draw.  And it is really good if you can gather a bunch of those instances all together at once… into one big happy kind-of-bundle.

Besides all of that….. It is also an outlet.  My drawing relieves built up stress, or negative feelings that I might have gathered up from time to time. Like today, for example.   I had to drive on Rt. 35.  The speed limit was 55 mph.  The car in front of me was barely doing 45 mph.  So I passed her and went my typical 9 mph over the speed limit.  (Law Enforcement People…., if you are reading this… forgive me.)

So, away I passed at 64 mph and kept up that rate.  Well wouldn’t you know it?  Little missy sped right up on my bumper and stayed there kissing my bumper until I reached my turn off.  I didn’t play along… with the road-rage agenda.   (No slowing way down and speeding up on my part). I just maintained my predetermined intended speed.

Yet the woman in that vehicle was hell bent on proving her point.  Whatever that point, in her little pointy head, might have been.

Nonetheless, those sort of things work me up, no matter how hard I try to ignore them.

So… to alleviate that wonkiness…. I try to choose what I call… my blissful pursuits.

I draw.  And I shoot.
Law enforcement people… if you are still reading… I don’t mean guns.
That would be…… DRAW with a pen, and SHOOT with a camera.
No lead in a gun.
However… there is lead in my pencil… and of course… lead in my foot.

…. and the wind in my hair…….

Meetings.  Tonight I had a couple of meetings.  Typically, a meeting is considered to be an assembly of people…..especially if they are members of a society or some kind of committee.  And generally, the reason for that gathering is either for discussion or entertainment.

I think some people like to go to meetings.  And of course, others do not.  I would fall somewhere into the “do nots.”    It seems to me that meetings are geared more toward the extroverted type of person.  You see…. for it to be an assembly …. there has to be other people there with you.  Not only that…. you have to be a little outgoing and social…. at meetings.    It is simply the nature of the beast.

Humans just seem to have this weird need to have meetings.  Which made me think about animals… and how different they are when it comes to meetings.

Birds never have formal meetings.  They just post a bunch of tweets.
Elephants?  No meetings for them.  Everybody knows they just work for peanuts.
Of course deer have them.  For sure.  There are always big bucks and a lot of doe involved.
Now horses also have meetings but they never get any motions passed.  They are typically saying nay, nay, nay.
Ducks meetings are never very productive either.  They simply sit around quacking each other up.
Zebras never have any kinds of discussions or debates.  Everything is entirely black and white.
Dog meetings are probably the best.  No bones about it.

Except maybe for dolphin meetings.  They always have a porpoise.

So there you have it.  The full scope of the assemblies with a cause.
And that is all I have to say…. until we meet again.

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If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.  —  Henry David Thoreau

Breathe in.  Breathe out.  Breathe in.  Breathe out.  Breathe in.  Breathe out.

Sometimes, when I get myself all worked up about something…. and in a tizzy, I need to remember to Breathe in.  Breathe out.  Breathe in.  Breathe out.

Yes, it is true.  I know the tizzy very well.

You know how it all plays out.  Something sticks in your craw.  And then comes the  state of nervous excitement or agitation… mixed in with a bit of a frenzy, and fret.  Mostly for me…it comes in the form of agitation.

Like…. when I hear the proverbial “It is what it is.”  (I will beat this dead horse… I will.  With a stick.)

Scientifically speaking, this axiom….“It is what it is.”…..  is mostly untrue.  In the moment… in the singular second… everything is in some portion of existence.  But in the next millisecond, it changes somehow.  Or even faster than that.

All of this universe is in a constant state of change.  The primary law of this physical-material system is change. There is no such thing as a static state. If something doesn’t vibrate, it doesn’t exist. Nothing ever stays the same.  Everything evolves or degenerates.  (Most days, I feel like I am in a state of degeneration… but I digress.)

Soooooo….  why are my undies all bunched up?  Well,  I heard a guy being interviewed on the news this morning.

The topic was controversial.  But the gentleman (Dippy Dan, I like to call him)  stated that the Supreme Court should rule a certain way on a current issue …. because that “something” should remain the same.  His argument….. “because it has always been this way.”

Now. That’s a very interesting opinion.  If something has ALWAYS been a certain way…. we should leave it that way.  Why?   BECAUSE that is how it has always been.

There you have it.  Cut and dry.  Right down to it.

But wait.  Not so very long ago…. the world was flat.  There was no such thing as electricity.  Or anesthesia.    Black people could not sit at a lunch counter where white people sat.  And women could not vote.  ALL of those things… had ALWAYS been that way.  Start dropping breadcrumbs… because now we are going to follow along the fuzzy logic trail.  You see, according to Dippy Dan, those thing MUST not change, they CANNOT change.  Because they have always been that way.

Yes….. A little fuzzy to me.  Like a dirty bellybutton.

There is a life force energy in every atom and in every cell.  Period.
Energy must constantly flow.  Period.
It then follows that things must change in order accommodate this process.  Period.

Everything evolves from one point to the next, and each point must be experienced to get to the next.  Nothing, really, stays the same.

I’ve said it a hundred times here at least.  I know.
But there.  I’ve said it again.

This Tizzy of mine is ongoing.  In a constant change.  Besides breathing in, breathing out.
But I am hoping for a change.  In more ways than one. In more hearts than I ever dreamed possible…. I am hoping for a change.

Bonus Audio Clip…..

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Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.  —  Benjamin Franklin

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 People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die.  —  Plato