Eyeglasses Required

Has anybody else noticed the oversized late 1980s eyewear is coming back in 2007? And the term geek seems to be used a lot lately. I made this assemblage a couple years ago when I noticed the similarity of the specs. I collect found pictures and make a few myself using an archaic 35mm Pentax camera.

Wikopedia claims...The definition of geek has changed considerably over time, and there is no definite meaning. The social and rather derogatory connotations of the word make it particularly difficult to define.

A definition common among self-identified geeks is: one who is primarily motivated by passion, indicating somebody whose reasoning and decision making is always first and foremost based on his/her passions rather than things like financial reward or social acceptance.

Geeks do not see the typical geeky interests as merely interesting, but as objects of passionate devotion. The idea that the pursuit of personal passions should be the fundamental driving force to all decisions could be considered the most basic shared tenet among geeks of all varieties. Geeks consider such pursuits to be their own defining characteristic.

Yes.

The geek on the left is Bill Gates...brainy billionaire brandman. On the right is a former version of me....more quirky than geeky, something that is more true over time as my choices and lifestyle are decidedly unconventional.

No Plastic Bag

Where do they all go?

One small action at a time

Take that canvas tote.

Sunday Bike Ride

Lush Ellicott Creek

Warm breezy cool jade water

Eighteen mile pedal.

Remember Simon Luna

Sun rises sun sets

Don't forget the lineage

Wake up wake up now.

Crazy Sexy Cancer

Healthy and well now

No evidence of disease

Moment by moment.

Reflection

Self-reflection becomes tedious.

Listening to Arcade Fire's Black Mirror...my latest favorite music.

Mirror mirror on wall...

I admit to possession of five substantial mirrors hanging in various locations...not counting the very large one attached to the dining room wall and smaller one on the medicine cabinet door.

A heavy squarish one with pale grey art deco base was once the mate to a vintage dresser I was given when I moved into my East Village apartment the summer of 1979. Over the years, I painted and re-painted the walnut wood with red, white, black, grey. The functional piece had annoying sticky drawers and I dropped it at my local Goodwill store before leaving Denver in 2005.

The rectangle framed in weathered aqua wood was captured at a Denver flea market in 2001.

Another with an avocado green architectural frame is back in my life again. Found in a New York junk shop during the 1980s, then passed on to the family cottage in 1992, I wound up with it again when I found myself furnishing my new life in Buffalo.

Hanging by the back door is an oval mirror attached to a silver plywood backing. It features a question handwritten in red lipstick...Who are you? Originally one section of a five-part installation shown at Boulder Artists Gallery in 1993.

Most recently acquired at a garage sale down the street is another detailed wood frame painted my favorite metallic silver.

Mirrors reflect vanity, curiosity, disconnection, unity. The universe is my mirror.

When I'm Sixty-Four

I am a bad blogger, but I am back. I enjoy the process...still, I tend to drop away. Lack of discipline.

When The Beatles entered my consciousness at age eleven, Paul was ten years older than me. Five years later we heard him sing When I'm Sixty-four on the Sgt. Pepper album and it was very funny because it was an inconceivable notion at the time.

I was moved to see a lengthly article in the latest issue of The New Yorker all about Paul's upcoming June 18th sixty-fifth birthday and the fortieth anniversary of The Lonely Hearts Club Band. I still have my original vinyl record and I am listening to it now. I have not read the article, but I will.

Tears streamed down my face when I saw the gorgeous photo of a weathered Paul McCartney at sixty-four (nearly sixty-five). This response has nothing to do with Beatlemania. It has everything to do with the heartbreaking beauty of reality. Despite the dyed hair with just a splash of silver at the temple, there is no denying the passage of time on Paul's face. He wears a dark high-collar shirt and the pose is reminiscent of the Meet The Beatles cover.

A line from The Velveteen Rabbit speaks well to this...

Real isn't the thing you were born with. It's what happens to you.

Life on the planet seems to have a way of shaping us. The eastern Wabi Sabi defines true beauty as rooted in the mark of imperfection. It does not reveal itself until the winds of time have had their say. True beauty is in the cracks, the worn spots, and crooked lines.

I seek a little grace in my own weathered crooked reality.

History Lesson

After our turkey dinner on TG, complete with a lime-green and pineapple jello mold, I went to the movies with my Lynn, Liz, Erin, and Allie. Watching BOBBY was nostalgic and thought-provoking. Two days later, I continue to ponder my own slice of personal history related to that era.

Bobby Kennedy entered the presidential race at the end of March 1968. I had just turned sixteen. Not yet old enough to vote, my thoughts were on driving, clothing, friends, music. President John Kennedy had been assassinated just five years earlier.

Martin Luther King was murdered a few weeks after Bobby's announcement to enter the presidential race. The war in Vietnam and civil rights riots sometimes felt far from the suburbs of Buffalo, but thanks to up-close-and-personal broadcasting, these events arrived on our television set each evening. The world out there seemed to be a troubled and violent place.

We grew up with the hopefulness aroused by the Kennedys and Martin Luther King. The rules were changing. An emerging youth culture was bursting with flower power, hippies, humanity, rock and roll. Daily casualities of the war had reached about two thousand. Most kids were against the draft and the war. Everyone knew somebody there.

Bobby was shot in early June. Ever since his brother's death, tragedy seemed to be woven into the fabric of our lives. Yet, day-to-day existence for a sixteen-year-old girl remained intact. I lounged on the beach at a Lake Erie cottage with girlfriends during the week of the violent August protests at the Chicago democratic convention. Kids just a couple years older were getting their heads bashed in. A revolution was underway. Nixon was elected. The killing in Vietnam would continue for seven more years.

A year later, this photo of Hillary Rodham (Clinton) was taken....a girl like me. I am not convinced she is the best candidate for our next president, but I do like to see her in context in this history lesson.

Not Helpless

A helpless jelly poured into a mold. Henry James said that about human consciousness. Formless, expansive, receptive...we can wonder about ourself and the world, knowing the life that allows this wakefulness may end anytime.

I am quite certain that tomorrow on Thanksgiving Day in America I will encounter a colorful quivering mold of gelatin and I will be sure to be grateful for my own formlessness taking shape daily.

Karma

Finally, a little breath of fresh air. His Holiness The Dalai Lama on a windy September afternoon delivered inspiration at UB's north campus. A few days later, I was off with the pink suitcase to New York City for his teaching weekend on The Blade Wheel of Mind Transformation at The Beacon Theater.

Then...broken branches and broken glass...an October lake effect storm and a random home invasion.

The thief made off with a couple precious rings and a spare car key. I resorted to using The Club for security. I taped a note to it...THE LAW OF KARMA IS YOUR SHADOW. The law of karma is my shadow.

I began this blogging a few months ago with an intention to reflect on and explore living with multiple myeloma. The writing veered into various directions and I rarely mention the word cancer. I tend to re-frame whenever possible....for good reason. My American Heritage dictionary defines it as any various malignant neoplasms that manifest invasiveness and a tendency to mestastisize to new sites...a pernicious spreading evil...creeping ulcer.

No Thank you.

Thus far, I remain in the best kind of remission. I am well. I am better. Memory of treatment drifts further into the background of my mind like a passing cloud. Buddhist teachings maintain that the physical body is a vehicle that carries us and our karmic inheritance through the world. I especially appreciate Dr. Andrew Weil's belief that intense feeling gives power to the body...passion heals. Many buddhist teachers have received cancer as their final life challenge. The cancer wants to live too, proclaimed Shunryo Suzuki Roshi before he died of the disease. He also instructed You are perfect as you are AND you could use a little work!

I am working.