Pictures from Cherie

Click here to view these pictures larger

Aubry the little fibber

I have my old camera for sale on Craigslist.  

A pleasant girl called me on Sunday to say that she wanted it and was very very excited blah blah blah so we made plans to meet on Monday night to make the exchange.  Monday afternoon i sent her a text message to confirm that we were in fact going to meet that evening as planned.  At 10 minutes before the agreed upon meeting time she called and told me that she had been locked out of her apartment and that she wasn't going to be able to meet me.  She prefaced by saying "I know this is going to sound unbelievable but blah blah blah" so we agreed to meet when her schedule next allowed us to on Wednesday.  

So on Wednesday morning I sent her a text asking her to confirm our meeting.  Nothing... So I followed up in the afternoon with a "If don't want the camera or are unable to make it please just tell me now so that I can make dinner plans."  Long after the agreed upon time I texted her again and said simply "you are lame"  to which I got this reply- 
"I'm sorry! I didn't see your texts until five thirty, and by then I didn't want to bother you for fear of upsetting you/sketchy craigslist interaction. Sorry for any upset I caused and I hope you have a lovely thanksgiving!"  to which I replied "Like I said you are lame" the answer back to that was "ok, well sorry again! Hope you don't let my lameness ruin your day too much. Have a great holiday."

This has bothered me since I read it.  
This girl was more concerned about upsetting me then telling me the truth.  All of these machinations and stories and fibs to prevent me from getting upset.... How about the truth?  I gave her the opportunity to tell the truth, even gave her an easy way out to tell that truth with just a single word, over text, not even voice to ear or in person.
  
Have we all forgotten the power of honesty?  The truth has many bumper stickers that profess it's power, how is it that this person has not realized this?  I feel justified in calling her lame because of the dictionary definition "unconvincingly feeble".  Would it have not been more just to both of us if she had professed the truth? 

This girl is old enough to go to university.  But is she mature in any way?  I ponder the meaning of the word mature often and rail on many of the current definitions that are spouted by those around me for they tend to tie maturity to ownership, parenthood, career, dress.... I instead believe that real maturity is about accountability and being honest is an integral part of that.  Honesty sometimes means saying things that may upset other people.  We can be kind with our honesty but in the end it is the content that matters most, not the delivery. 

We have become so caught up in making sure everyone likes us that in some cases we have chosen to abandon the truth.  This western society of "political correctness" has created an environment in which children learn to make people happy over everything else (this I believe is rooted in the tendencies some have to withdraw their love when upset creating a punishment of deeply unfair proportion).  We can even struggle in our adult relationships with endless trying to create happiness for another person.   

Give it up.  Say no, say I don't agree, I don't want, I've changed my mind... worry about your own damned happiness and I'll worry about mine... otherwise you can take my happy away.

falling into sunday

it is one of those mornings.
here we are first day of fall
round here everything is confused.  the fields that have absorbed the water are bright spring green. vines on fences bolted 10 feet when they should be preparing for slumber...
the calendar tells me it is sunday but I already know that.
I know because the traffic is light on the road outside and the city buzz is quiet. perhaps it is simply the years of conditioning in this society that has me feeling that sunday is still the day of rest. 
all the windows are closed because, as the moon just told us, it is harvest time and the nights and mornings are cool.  the morning sunlight beams down, baking the ground, rousing a whole new hatch of insects instinctively knowing if they exit that ray a cold atrophication awaits.  The crocus misinterprets and springs back out of bulb hibernation to receive the sun. i hesitate to remind myself this is the desert...
the sun tracks closer to the horizon pushing light into hanging crystals flooding my room with kaleidoscopes of colour.  cardigans now my constant companions.  
i realize that everyday is sunday for me now, taking time to make breakfast, read the news, meditate, exercise, catch up with friends and fam... these are daily tasks for i have given up the putting off.  I don't save up my fun or relaxation or work or chores or desires.  i strive for daily balance- an idealistic view i know, but one that erases the fear of never getting the chance or time to do/see/hear/love.  
it is one of those mornings to be grateful

trust

what inspires trust?  does saying that your product or service is used by people in extreme versions of your condition induce consumer trust? does stating your product or service is used by people in authoritative roles invoke trust? does surmising that your product or service is the best in the arena you sell in illicit trust? what inspires trust?  

my distillations reveal being an honest and empathetic human inspires trust. 

i try to communicate with the world in this fashion.  perhaps it is this interpretation of trust that makes me distrust others so quickly.  for i do not meet many honest people. i mean the kind of honesty that might hurt from time to time. 

i have approached marketing of a company in this fashion and have taken those lumps, those perceived inadequacies and turned them out for the world to see.   

i have never slept better

Pictures from Cherie

Click here to view these pictures larger

wondering the world

was just perusing some pinterest stuff an old friend had facebooked (now that is a blog just by itself...) and was met with a list of 100 wonders of this world capped with a "how many will you see before you die". I took a look, I do travel some, and i will die some day.  about half way through I decided this list was silly, it is someone else's list.  I don't think I really have a list... an active volcano and lava are probably the only things I really long to see.  But then I think a flower is far more wondrous than a building, no matter how large.  Don't get me wrong, I appreciate architecture very much, I am just saying a man built the thing but time made the flower.  Do you ever play the de-evolution game?  What did this look like 100, 1000, 10 000 years ago?  we see but a snippet during our short time here and yet we still observe change, for stresses abound,  Some the hand of man, some the nature of things.  i digress.  
i observe time in nature, the soft boundaries of the living.  I do not feel that with the inanimate. I only see decay marking time in man made things.   This quality of time as presented in the living is not about vibration, all things vibrate, it is about the co-mingling of energy.  I believe it is what is responsible for the sense of well being most everyone feels after spending time observing nature.  A recognition that the world is alive and we all mark evolution together. A grand oneness. who wouldn't feel better after being reminded of that?   

Fathers Day

i choose the font trebuchet today.  i do so because without my father i wouldn't have the foggiest clue what a trebuchet is or how it worked.  the stories my family friends recall so readily regarding my curiosity are first met with that long puff of exhaustion then a smile by my dad. apparently i asked about everything and now that I see the same qualities in myself, it is his own damned fault!  my dad is a teacher, through and through.  to create such an awareness and appreciation for the world around me by demonstrating and explaining the interconnected-ness of all things fed my desire to know why.  for when you are young it is difficult to realize that the why in many things is 'because a person wanted it that way'.  when i examined the systems and workings of nature they all seemed logical to me, even the interplay and stresses upon the systems that humans created made sense.  but the why the humans acted that way never did.  as i grew older i became an advocate for the minimization of these stresses and tried harder to understand why in hopes i could communicate with them to make them understand... today i have many miles and interactions under my belt and i see the wisdom my father tried to share so many years ago- the inevitability that all of that reasoning distills down to "because it is".  that realization has not dulled my sense of curiosity for between here and there is a world of adventure and learning.  i still try to understand why when it comes to humans but now it is with compassion and empathy rather than the anger and outrage of youth.  this is true of my father as well for his is human, not superman.  I now recognize how tired he must have been on friday nights after a long week of travelling, but he still made family chinese food cooking night fun.  every time i use a sharp knife i hear his guidance... i am very thankful that he included me in his weekend warrior adventures even though he probably just wanted some alone/man time. every time i am in the forest i hear his voice in my ear telling me look over there and then he squats behind me and i look down the barrel of his pointing arm to the target and recite to myself my fathers mnemonic.  I am always grateful for these gifts and so very proud to be Bill Turbitt's daughter.  

hug you soon xo