I don't like to get political; this is not that kind of blog. But I'd feel like a fraud if I pretended all was joyful in my house today. Tears have been shed, probably not the last. It all seems so...raw.
If you're happy with the outcome of this election, I'm sincerely glad there is some happiness to be found. I hope you will share that happiness with grace and kindness.
But if you're sad, well then, like all flight attendants robotically tell us: "Put on your own oxygen mask first." Most likely, there's somebody who really needs you right now. Perhaps someone much younger and smaller, someone who can't even begin to process the sadness all alone. A little self-care goes a long way towards helping the people you love.
Self-care and "family first" are my most important priorities right now. This means not only many group hugs with my family, and cuddles with my velvety-eared dog, but also extra helpings of chocolate hazelnut spread for the kids without lecturing that it's really not so healthy. (I plan to steal a few spoonfuls myself. Tablespoons.)
Bubble baths have moved way up on my personal to-do list. And trips to the movies. And game nights.
I think it's more important than ever for us to seek out the little pockets of beauty in each day. To appreciate what's good in our lives. To use all of our senses to re-engage with the natural world around us. (In other words: Go for a walk.)
And I know, from experience, that some relief can be found in tears.
My goodness, the trees seem to be having a raucous ticker-tape parade right now! To celebrate the cheerful new season, I rounded up some of my favorite finds this week. Enjoy and kindly share them...
Delightful & delicious pictures from apple orchard to apple pie: Posie Gets Cozy
And last but not least, my friend Lois wrote a lovely piece about the changing seasons: Preparing for Rest
Learn how to beautifully capture the season wherever YOU are:
FINAL CALL 'til 2018: I'll be shelving my first (and most popular) e-course, How to Take Better Photos of Nature and the World Around You, for a couple of years while I concentrate on some new online courses in 2017, so if this nature photography course has been calling your name, sign up for the session that's right around the corner--starting this Monday, 10/17/16! No fancy camera is necessary; you can even use your phone's camera. To treat yourself or a friend, click here for all the details and registration. (If you're on Instagram, check out my profile at @joy_sussman for a discount on the course.)
I set out the door this morning on a quest for perfect autumn leaves. (Why? For "Leaf Portraits" of course!)
But over and over again, I found myself falling in love with the "imperfect" ones.
Leaf after leaf was a little crinkled, a bit torn, or quite curled up at the edges.
Far too often, I think we strive for the smooth,
the flawless,
the closest we can get to perfection.
And yet, it's the quiet things that seem to say,
"Here I am; my flaws are etched upon my skin.
Will you take me anyway?"
I came indoors with an exquisite pile of leaves,
each one of them imperfect in its own way,
and yet:
Just Right.
Pretty things sometimes (often) have little holes or wrinkles,
a tear here and there.
Fall reminds us there is beauty to be found even in our own scars.
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Before you go...
LAST CHANCE 'til 2018: I'll be shelving my first (and most popular) e-course, How to Take Better Photos of Nature and the World Around You, for a couple of years while I concentrate on some new online courses in 2017, so if this nature photography course has been calling out your name, sign up for the October 2016 session that's right around the corner! No fancy camera is necessary; you can even use your phone's camera. To treat yourself or a friend, click here for all the details and registration. (If you're on Instagram, check out my profile at @joy_sussman for a discount on the course through 10/10/2016 only.)
I need the stillness of the early morning even more now. I need to know there really are peaceful things in the world, things not yelling and clawing and thrashing for our attention, things that are just there...just being.
I need to focus (quite literally) on the quiet things.
I think the librarians sense that we've all got a collective headache right now, that our nerves are on the very edge. When I walked in to our town library yesterday, this book was prominently on display:
I knocked over two little old ladies to get to it.
(Kidding.)
(See? I had to actually tell you that I was joking, because these days, it seems like any whacked-out thing can happen.)
Anyway: back to the book. It's great. A tonic for the times. I gobbled it up in one sitting. So many nuggets of wisdom, like this one below that inspired me to make a photocollage (calming in itself), from Admiral Richard E. Byrd after he spent five months alone in a shack in the Antarctic:
It's a short book, but there's a fair amount about musician Leonard Cohen spending years in a Buddhist monastery and finding out that "going nowhere isn't about turning your back on the world; it's about stepping away now and then so that you can see the world more clearly and love it more deeply."
I've written here before about going on a news diet. Lately, I seem to be on a "binge and purge" cycle: Consume the morning news about all of the awfulness that took place while I was fretfully sleeping; feel nauseated and mad at myself for checking the news; retreat to an area (usually outdoors) with no news at all.
I mentally and physically need these retreats from the news. As Pico Iyer writes, "Not many years ago, it was access to information and movement that seemed our greatest luxury; nowadays, it's often freedom from information, the chance to sit still, that feels like the ultimate prize."
I'm not saying to withdraw from the world completely. In fact, it seems more important than ever that we pay attention to what's going on so we can collectively take the reins. But I do recommend, in these loud times, that we all mindfully envelop ourselves in silence, daily. Closing with more wise words from Pico Iyer:
"The point of gathering stillness is not to enrich the sanctuary or mountaintop but to bring that calm into the motion, the commotion of the world."
I hope you'll run, not walk, to your local library for this book. Careful of the little old ladies, though.
Thanks goodness we have a couple of "friends in high places." No, I'm not talking about business connections--I'm talking about our friends who have a lovely cabin way up in the Catskill Mountains and were kind enough to invite us to their place last weekend. (Thanks SO much, Mark and Kim!)
It was peak season in the Catskills for the fall foliage, so we were ooohing and aaaahing all over the place! My son and daughter have caught the photography bug (all my fault), so they were snapping shots right along with me. Truly, it was spectacular! How can dying leaves be so darn pretty?
Of course, we HAD to go apple-picking and pumpkin-picking, because that's just what you do in the northeastern U.S. in September and October. I think it's mandatory in some states. (That's Wilklow Orchards in Highland, New York, pictured at the very top, and in the next four shots.)
The kids were begging us to bake apple pies when we got back to the cabin, but luckily, I remembered how looooooooooooong it took me the last time I baked an apple pie from scratch. (Answer: Over three hours! Lots of washing, peeling, coring, chopping, mixing, kneading...it's no small feat to bake an apple pie, let me tell ya! But yes, the results were delicious, so it was worth it...kind of...I think? Anyway, this time we cheated and bought a pie at the orchard.)
I love everything about autumn. The crispness in the air. Pure blue skies. The crunch of leaves underfoot. The scent of homemade cinnamon doughnuts and hot apple cider. Little children enthusiastically trying to lug gigantic pumpkins uphill to the parking lot. Heavy bags of freshly picked apples with leaves still attached. Dogs sniffing everything, everywhere, excited by the sheer magic of the season. (Well, dogs are like that pretty much every day in every season, aren't they?)
It was the perfect fall weekend: Great scenery. Great weather. Great hiking. Great eats. But most of all, great friends.
Before I dive into this weekend's round-up, I just want to send out a very heartfelt "thank you!" to all who've signed up for the next session of "How to Take Better Photos of Nature and the World Around You", starting this Monday (10/12/15). I'm thrilled that I'll be meeting so many new friends from around the globe, and I'm truly humbled and happy that you found my little corner of the blogosphere. (If you'd like to join the e-course, the more, the merrier--but this is the final call!)
Okay, here are some things that tickled my fancy this week:
The more pictures I take (goodness, I think I'm getting into the hundreds of thousands by now!), the more I realize that I have an ever-growing soft spot in my heart for the underdogs of the natural world.
The rough-and-crumbly things, instead of just the smooth-and-shiny.
Overgrown gardens with weeds aplenty.
The "ugly" bugs. (That naturally excludes the exalted butterflies and the ever-adorable ladybugs.)
I'm so plugged into social media for my blog that I'm hyper-aware of the constant barrage of "Perfect." Instagram perfect. Pinterest perfect. Facebook perfect. Martha Stewart must think she's died and gone to heaven, with the whole world rallying around her like angels, sharing their carefully crafted visions of perfection.
And, let's be honest here: I fully admit that I strive pretty darn hard to take "picture-perfect" shots for this blog. Because who doesn't like pretty things? I'm guilty, too.
But here's the thing: I also want to embrace the "perfection-challenged."
The raggedy edges.
Curling leaves that have been gobbled up and heartily enjoyed by a bug (or two, or three).
Faded blossoms that have been fried to a crisp by late-summer sun.
There's a delicate beauty, a quiet grace, in time-worn things.
I'm reminded of The Velveteen Rabbit, the part about becoming real. (Can anybody read that book without misting up? Honestly...)
“You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” ― Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit
And so I ask myself: What gentle, worn-down, perfectly imperfect thing is whispering for my attention today? Let me celebrate it, while it lasts.
Tiny silver droplets on deep-green leaves. Just another reason that I don't mind the rain. It's been a very wet June around here (you could say "downright soggy"), but with droughts and the accompanying wildfires out west, I'm reminded of just how lucky we are to have the lushness, the intense greenness, the cooling rain.
P.S. My next online photography course starts in just two weeks! It's already a wonderful group of students from around the world--join us and sharpen your photography skills. More details and registration here: How to Take Better Photos of Nature and the World Around You
I'm happy to be back here, tap-tap-tapping away at the keyboard. The holiday break with my extended family was the longest break (actually, the only break) I've taken in blogging since opening up shop here in July 2012. I love my little corner of the internet, but it was good to step away from it for a bit and really, truly focus on the people I love whom I don't see often enough.
Sometimes, you really have to give yourself permission to rest.
I remember reading a thoughtful post called Extremely Important Priorities from Tammy, one-half of the brilliant blogging team at The Great Jollyhoombah (one of my all-time favorite blogs, which is sadly no more), about how we often concoct these long to-do lists for ourselves, chockful of tasks that (if we're really honest about it) we don't actually NEED to do.
Yes, it might have been beneficial for me to keep on posting away through the December holidays, as the third session of my nature photography e-course was starting in January. (It started yesterday and I'm loving my new students already!) But as I watched more and more of my blogging friends sign off until the New Year, I felt a little twinge of envy, and it just felt right to join the holiday parade and hang up the "CLOSED" shingle for a while.
But as I said, I'm happy now to be back. Refreshed. Recharged. Revved up to go again!
That's the whole point of vacations, isn't it?
While I was "on leave", I took LOTS of pictures (no surprise there), especially first thing in the mornings. I haven't quite figured out how to work a camera while wearing gloves, so my outdoor photo shoots would usually end when my fingers and toes went numb. And then I was doubly thankful for a toasty-warm house!
Because I like to give experiences instead of stuff, as a Hanukkah present, I took my two teenage nieces out to dinner and then out for a shopping trip. (Yes, I know, the shopping part negates the non-commercial aspect, but they're teenage girls--I can do only so much green-preaching! And I admit, I did have fun scoping out makeup with them.) I love my nieces to pieces--funny, sweet, and whip-smart girls who have somehow escaped "Sullen Teenager Syndrome."
Our uncle treated us to an afternoon in New York with a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's "H.M.S. Pinafore" at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. It was good ol' silly fun! I hadn't seen a G & S show since childhood with my dad.
I also saw some very good movies, including "Into the Woods"--twice! That's always been my favorite musical. I saw it on stage in London ages ago (oh my, the set designs were GORGEOUS!), and then I saw the taped Broadway show with Bernadette Peters. I loved the movie (obviously--I saw it twice), and Johnny Depp ROCKED IT as The Wolf (no surprise there), but here's a crazy opinion for you: I didn't think Meryl Streep was as good as Bernadette Peters. (There, I said it!) Don't get me wrong: Meryl Streep is amazing (naturally), but she missed the comedic timing of Peters. Lines that had the audience roaring with laughter in the play with Peters were met with near-silence in the movie theater. (It was a little shocking, I must say!) So if you liked the movie, look up the Broadway version with Bernadette Peters and let me know what you think.
Lastly, I played "Master Chef" with my kids a whole lot during this break, whipping up yummy things like french toast, Chinese broccoli, fresh breads, and cookies. Life is really too short for bad bread, so once you get the hang of making homemade bread from scratch (I promise you, it's not that difficult), you won't ever want to eat the bland stuff in the cellophane bags again.
All in all, 2015 is off to a very yummy start!
How 'bout you?What has kept you happily occupied lately? Let's hear it--I'm all ears! (Email subscribers: Click on the blue title of the post to get to the main site; then you'll see the comments section at the bottom.)
I hope your holiday season has been warm and wonderful so far! (Mine has involved too many cookies!) We have a caravan of relatives on the way to stay with us through the new year. Eleven of us under one roof--luckily, we all genuinely like each other! I want to give them the love and attention they deserve during their stay, so this is the last time I'll be writing to you in 2014.
I just participated in Susannah Conway's "Find Your Word." (So much fun!) She led us through five days of creatively pinpointing the one thing we most want to focus our efforts on during the year ahead. On Day 4, it finally sunk in that I needed TWO words. One that focuses inward -- contemplate -- and one that focuses outward -- radiate. And because I'm visually driven, I needed to translate my words into pictures.
For contemplate, I chose a picture of the woods behind our house because I contemplate best when I'm simply looking out at the woods, letting my thoughts wander wherever they may. I keep a sketchbook in hand to jot down whatever comes to me--pictures, words, dreams, and a fair share of nonsense. It's important for me to take time to be mindful each day, instead of rushing from one thing to the next.
For radiate, I chose a picture of ice on branches, ice being melted by the morning sun. I like the idea of light and warmth, and embodying both, sending the positive energy outwards.
So, here's my end-of-the-year wish for you: I hope that you find yourword for the year ahead, something to ground you and guide you, a little bit of magic that will lift you up and let your soul sing its sweetest note. Happy, happy, happy 2015!