Category Archives: the view from here (Pictures!)

The Friday List, 3/25/11

Posted on March 24, 2011 | 22 Comments

My favorite quote this week…

“She was not just a great actress or important celebrity, she was a real personality of a kind that’s very rare and very precious.”

~ A. O. Scott, Looking Back at Elizabeth Taylor

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I love Smith Magazine. If you don’t love Smith Magazine, I can only assume you’ve never been there, and you should rectify that situation immediately. (Or wait, no, rectify it after you read me.) The magazine’s founder, Larry Smith, just had his first child. His post about becoming a father and his readers’ surprising gift to him is so touching. He’s also been writing Six-Word Memoirs about his boy, as “an easily updated journal and a form of public therapy.” I love that idea.

I’m not exactly sure why I find this blog so fascinating, but I do. It’s called “From the desk of,” and each post is someone’s workspace, photographed and (lovingly) described. I found it originally because Susan Orlean tweeted about her own desk, but I’ve been kind of hooked, looking at other people’s desks ever since.

I am absolutely in love with Bentlily, where Samantha is writing one poem every day in 2011, not to amass a great poetic oeuvre, but to “see the world constantly with the eyes of a poet, which means to slow down, savour, take delight in, and note the very essence of the world around me.” Bonus, her poems are stunningly beautiful and precise, as only someone fully present could write.

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It’s been a while since I did a music video, so why not do three?

This gorgeous, haunting version of “Wild Horses” blows me away…

And I can’t hear Dispatch’s “Out Loud” enough…

And how can I possibly resist Ingrid Michaelson singing about how EVERYBODY wants to love.

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Oh, Mr. Rogers, how wise you were.

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Girls Wearing Converse. Say no more.

I missed the super moon! It was raining here, but I did see these breathtaking pictures.

Kinda diggin’ the scrap metal art.

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My final interview for the IBC’s Shy Explorer series is up. For my grand finale, I went big. Six amazing authors, seven questions. Allison Winn Scotch, Joseph Wallace, Julie Klam, Karen Palmer, Laura Zigman and Susan Orlean answered my questions about self-promotion with equal parts humor and insight. I was dazzled. You will be too. Check it out.

Doodle update: I’ve got some funny, beautiful, amazing doodles from you guys. I’m committing to another awesome doodle post April 27th. Remember how awesome the last doodle post was? If you haven’t already sent me something (or even if you have), you should. Doodling is good for you.

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Go play Famous Objects From Classic Movies. It will make you feel smart.

This 1906 film was shot four days before the great earthquake on April 18th. It was taken by a camera mounted on the front of a cable car traveling down Market Street in San Francisco. I think it would be cool to shoot the same scene now. (And so, of course, I will.)

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j wearing Converse, because I believe Converse go with everything.

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(picturing) j’s December

Posted on December 31, 2010 | 40 Comments

On November 30th, I pledged to take a picture every day of December and post them on December 31st.

So here it is. My December. (If you click them, 3-d  holographs will leap from the screen and dance across your keyboard like drunken ballerinas. Either that, or you’ll see bigger versions.)

Dec 1: I love a dog that smiles.

 

Dec 2: Remembering I hadn't taken a picture, I took this.

Dec 3: Dillon borrowed the camera. This, he told me, is the Evil Elf's den.

Dec 4: I love this shot. I was lost when I saw it. I'd have driven right by if I wasn't in "capture December" mode.

Dec 5: We've got cowboys out here. And horses. Dressed as Santa.

Dec 6: This is the typewriter on which I typed my entire 400-page manuscript. (If that were true, the 4-ish years might be easier to explain.)

Dec 7: A very cold morning, I loved the frost clinging to the leaves.

Dec 8: Just before bed on a day I forgot to take a picture, I spotted this one.

Dec 9: Ash!

Dec 10: This is where I live.

Dec 11: I thought this was a really cute cafe, until (only after I'd paid for my latte and sat down) they mentioned they were closing in five minutes.

Dec 12: We painted the kitchen "red wine."

Dec 13: Lexi and Ash have two modes. Spaz-tastic and this.

Dec 14: The Boy bought a gas mask with his birthday money. A picture is worth 10 words.

Dec 15: My birthday gathering: took us six shots to get this one. Lexi was NOT helpful.

Dec 16: I asked Dillon to decorate the Christmas tree.

Dec 17: I should have asked Ash.

Dec 18: Right about now, you're wishing you lived with me, aren't you?

Dec 19: The Boy doing business at an antique book store at the Dickens Faire.

Dec 20: I walk the dogs by this ravine which snakes for about a mile through residential neighborhoods.

Dec 21: These birthday presents, right down to the gift bag they came in, could only be assembled by someone who knows me really, really well. (And loves me anyway. Thank you, jb.)

Dec 22: Lunar eclipse (captured by Chad because I was shivering) = awesomesauce.

Dec 23: I love, love, love this card from Amy Augustine... inspired by my "Ordinary Magic" post.

Dec 24(1): Lexi, Ash and I at the Muttville Christmas Eve walk at Fort Funston in SF.

Dec 24(2): On the shore at Fort Funston, loved these human and dog footprints in the sand.

Dec 25: Pecan pie is one of 3 things I make really well.

Dec 26: This tree is along one of my dog-walk paths. This is just before it lost all its leaves.

Dec 27: Saw this bit of cuteness while walking the dogs too.

Dec 28: We loaned a picture to the Animal Planet movie set Dillon worked on. They gave it back like this.

Dec 29: Proof that it's true: they do grow up fast.

Dec 30: Clearly I spend a great deal of my life walking dogs.

Dec 31 (well, almost): After we packed up the tree and all the decorations, I found this. It's pretty. I think we should just leave it up.

I had so much fun doing this. There’s nothing like a camera to make you stop and take notice of your world. Thank you for sharing mine… all year long.

Wishing you all a happy new year and a truly spectacular 2011, full of magic, light and love.

j

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Doodling might be the sound a zebra makes

Posted on December 27, 2010 | 34 Comments

In November, I stumbled upon Paper Darts’ doodle therapy post and fell in love. I was sad at the time. I’d been writing about what was making me sad in my morning pages, and though it helped to get it all down, it was also tough going. I sometimes felt wiped out at the end of three pages (or four, or five, or six). All those words forming all those questions and so few answers.

And then, doodle therapy. I loved the two words together. Doodle. Therapy. They made me smile.

I doodled my first picture. I wasn’t “getting at” anything. It was, instead, about the spaces, the dark and the light of things, the way that shapes fit together and fall apart. It was about lines and shadows, and the non-linear movement of my pencil on the page.

It was freeing. I did it a lot. In meetings. On the phone. Instead of my beloved morning pages. I doodled. I didn’t understand the pictures at all, but they felt like answers in the way that dreams sometimes do. Not because they make sense (my dreams rarely make sense), but because they come from a part of myself I have no control over. They spill out of me while I sleep – part memory, part worry, part wild imagination. The doodles were like that. Wonderful, wordless, often inexplicable, pieces of me.

I asked you all to share your doodles, to play. I was worried no one would want to, but you (like always) delighted me. I got more than I thought I would and they’re wonderful.

So, here it is. Zebra Sounds’ first ever Doodle Extravaganza!

Hippiechick, supercharged a to-do list while on the phone

Pam, doodled in response to my doodle post

Dillon, stolen from notebook
jb, doodled over coffee
The Boy, doodled in his classes over the course of a day
Amy, the doodle that melted my heart
Dillon, another stolen from the notebook of awesome

Simon, haiku doodle

Simon, It’s hard to see but the background is made of song titles
me, doodle therapy
Hippiechick, doodled during a meeting
Karen (from Mentor), what doodle collection would be complete without a happy monkey?
Milli, doodling cartoons
Pam, doodled in response to my incessant begging for a new doodle
Dillon, doodled in a meeting (inspired by a This American Life tale)

Needless to say, I loved doing this. It’s one of my all-time favorite posts. If you liked it too and would like to do it again (especially if you’d participate), let me know. Nothing would make me happier than recurring doodle posts. (Well, a few things would, but they’re not so easily achieved.)

Thank you to all the doodle heroes who played with me. You definitely rocked j-world. xo

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The Friday List 12/24/10

Posted on December 23, 2010 | 19 Comments

My favorite quote this week was sent to me by a friend after I told him I was excited for the new year. I said, “I feel I’m on the edge of… new.”

“His life was the yoga of a man driven to the cliff-edge by the grassfire of an entire nation’s burning material madness. Rather than be consumed by this he jumped, choosing to sort things out in the fast-flying but smog-free moments of a life with no retreat.” ~Ken Kesey in his eulogy for Neal Cassady

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I love this text from my son, Dillon, who was, right then, working on the set of an Animal Planet holiday movie.

Film set quote of the day: “Dillon, put the deer head down and go out to get us 12 feet of the thickest chain you can find so we can hold this dog captive.”

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Nothing says Christmas quite like Hyperbole and a Half’s The Year Kenny Loggins ruined Christmas…

And Simon’s cat…

And this house in Tampa.

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In Finding Your Own North Star, Martha Beck tells this story to illustrate her theory that “nature bestows superior work and problem-solving skills on creatures that love to play.”

I once saw a series of National Geographic photos that showed a raven trying to crack open a walnut. The stakes were high because it was winter and food was scarce. The raven stood at the top of a small snowy hill, holding the walnut with one claw and prying at it with his beak. He worked so hard that he finally fell right over on his back and skidded, headfirst, all the way down the hill. At this point, the raven forgot all about the nut. He spent the rest of the afternoon walking up the hill, rolling over on his back and sliding down again. This, my dears, is nature’s way.

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The laziest cat in the world made me laugh.

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This, from The Bloggess, is amazing and wonderful and will, if you’re in need, restore your faith in humanity.

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No matter what you’re celebrating (and I do sincerely hope you are celebrating something), may your weekend be full of big, breathtaking, messy, soulful love.

Me? I’m anticipating coal.

xoxo

j

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The Best, Easiest, Hardest, Craziest Thing in the World

Posted on October 24, 2010 | 37 Comments

Dear girls playing in the Carmel surf, April, 2007,

You are extraordinarily beautiful. I noticed that right away. That’s why I took your picture.

But I was sad the day I watched you playing. I kept loosing track of your beauty. My heart was aching and so I worried about yours. I thought this: the odds are against you. By the time you’re my age, statistically speaking, one of you will have an unintended pregnancy, one will be sexually assaulted, two will be divorced. I’ve never seen statistics on the probability of a broken heart, but as I don’t know any women (or men for that matter) who have made it to adulthood with their hearts intact, I’m assuming that, by the time you’re my age, you’ll know that pain too.

I watched you playing on the water’s edge and I ached for you. I wanted to protect you from a society who will tell you you’re not thin enough, or pretty enough, or successful enough. I wanted to save you from the times you’ll love someone too much, or the times when you’ll look at the hurt in another person’s eyes and know that you didn’t love them enough. I wished there was a way to steer you clear of all the tiny endings in life that aren’t really tiny at all; they just look that way because we grownups have all mastered the art of the brave smile and the flippant, reveal-nothing response.

I wished you would never become good at pretending to be okay.

It was my anniversary the day I watched you. It was my anniversary and watching you made me cry. I wanted to warn you about love, how brutal it is, how confusing, and indiscriminate, and unfair. I wanted to tell you that love is the best, easiest, hardest, craziest thing in the world. That there is nothing more worth having and nothing more devastating to lose, and that’s true no matter how strong you are, no matter how gifted and stable and sensible; love is bigger and tougher than you.

That’s what I was thinking, watching you play – how love can be such a bully – and then my husband held my hand. It was his anniversary too. He held my hand and we didn’t say anything, even though there were a lot of things that still needed to be said. We were all talked out by then. Love is like that too. It can break you open and empty you out in the blink of an eye. We were pretty empty, but we still had that, his impulse to reach out, mine to reach back. That was something.

And we had you, filling up the moment in a way we couldn’t, extraordinarily beautiful, goose bump happy, daring the ocean to touch you, knowing it would, your nervousness building inside you as you waited between waves, building and then rising up, spilling out each time the water splashed against your legs (somehow, magically, a surprise every time), your peels of laughter filling the air like notes from the wildest song.

j

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Beautiful Strangers

Posted on October 10, 2010 | 24 Comments

Dear women talking on a park bench in Muir Woods on Saturday, Oct 10, 2010,

Thank you for being there. Thank you for looking just like this, for making me stop to wonder what you were talking about, for making me want to share your moment from so many feet away you didn’t know I was there. Thank you for being beautiful, as beautiful to me as your surroundings, which were, let’s face it, breathtaking.

Looking at your picture, I’m wondering again. What was the topic of conversation? Politics? Love? God? Did you look around and say, as I did, “Wow, if ever I were going to believe in God, it would be here, in a place more sacred and miraculous than any church.”

Soon after I took this picture, I passed a little girl walking with her parents. Actually not walking; she was skipping. Ahead of them. Singing a song I think she made up. It went like this: “I’m just a little girl who knows how to do things.” That’s it. She sang that over and over, and I listened to her until her voice faded away in the distance… and I loved her parents for raising a little girl who would sing that song while skipping through Muir Woods.

Not long after the little girl, I passed two women trying to take their picture using the timer on their camera. We paused near them so Chad could read a sign about the fallen trees, but I was distracted by the women. They were both beautiful, laughing. They would balance the camera on a fence post, race across the path, pose. After each shot, one would go back, look at the picture and burst out laughing. “It’s just our knees!” she’d say, or “We’re not even in it.” Finally I asked if they wanted me to take their picture. They were giggling when they said, “No. We like the challenge.”

I didn’t take their picture, or the little girl’s. But every time I see your picture, I think of them, too. And the trees, and the sun-dappled paths, and the map I never quite mastered, and the staircases built into the hillsides, and the ferns and the creeks and the petrified stumps, and the fog that rolled in like the finger of a ghost in the late afternoon.

Thank you for being part of all that, for being much more to me than you’ll ever know.
j

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The Friday List 10/8/2010

Posted on October 7, 2010 | 32 Comments

Every Friday, a list of things I’m dying to tell you about…

  1. This picture, taken by the outrageously talented journalist/photo journalist/writer/artist/warrior  Carmen Sisson, makes me inexplicably happy. I want one! You can lose yourself looking at the world through Carmen’s eyes… and you should.
  2. Today, I got this text from my son: “Just called one of those ‘how is my driving’ numbers. I gave them the license number of the truck in front of me and told them he was doing a great job and that he was a pleasure to drive behind. She started cracking up and said she’d make sure to mention it.”
  3. I love, love, love Post-It Love.
  4. This is decidedly less sweet, but I could not stop laughing at this from the always hilarious Oatmeal.
  5. And back to love again. Someone posted Josh Zuckerman’s Got Love video last week, and I’ve been playing it daily since. It works like an antidote to the news. I want to live in this world.
  6. Or, maybe this one. I escaped last Saturday to Muir Woods. It really did feel like an escape… to the real world… where I found myself.

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Glimpses

Posted on September 3, 2010 | 34 Comments

From my week…

A beat…
Someone tweeted this short film, The Beat Of New York. It’s mesmerizing. I fell in love with it – just like I did with the city.

A story…
My son told me this. He watched a man pull up to the indie coffee shop downtown. The man got out of his car, slowly. He was old, bent. He shuffled around to the back of his car and pulled a box from the trunk. The box had words written on it, but the words had been scratched off, except for one. And it wasn’t a word. It said “NF.”

Carrying the box, taking “the tiny steps that old men take,” he walked into the coffee shop. In the back there is a book shelf. On a sign above a collection box, it says, “Take a book, leave a dollar.” The coffee shop donates all the money to the local library. The old man set his box on a nearby table, opened it, and began putting books on the shelf. Fifteen, twenty, maybe more. When he was through he stood for a moment and looked at them, then reached into his pocket, pulled out a handful of change and dropped it into the collection box. Finished, he got back in his car and drove away.

I like that story. I wonder about the man. I love that the coffee shop donates money to the library.

A touch…
In my mailbox this week, besides all the bills and ads and catalogs and magazines, I got a postcard from someone special. I put it on my board, which is full of things that touch me and remind me who I am. I thought you might want to see the board, and the desk it sits above….

A thank you…
I just want to thank everyone who read the pieces I put up this week, especially those of you who took the time to tell me you did. (And the ones who haven’t yet, but swear they’re going to, and I believe them!) I feel very fortunate to have such an amazing, supportive Zebra Sounds community. You all rock!

And now, enjoy your 3-day weekend! (I think the Fridays that come before 3-day weekends are like the superheros of Fridays, don’t you? And because of that, we should all start our weekend shenanigans immediately!)

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This is why

Posted on July 29, 2010 | 29 Comments

I’m a little off schedule with my posts this week. (I like to pretend you all notice.)

I just got back from visiting my friend, Tana Butler, who is deeply involved with the Santa Cruz organic farming community. Though we haven’t known each other for very long, I asked her if she would take me farm-hopping, and she said yes because she is not only delightful and hilarious, but generous as well.

The pictures below, taken at Everett Family Farm, Sierra Azul, the Santa Cruz Farmers Market and many stunning points in between, only scratch the surface of what I experienced on the trip. I basked in the warm welcome of community, was wowed by the spectacular coastal beauty of the Santa Cruz hills, and felt the unmistakable magic of life under the ground beneath my feet. I shared mouth-watering food, amazing wine and fearless conversations about love, politics, family and truth, all with people who fed my soul.

It amazes me when I stop to think that a year ago, I didn’t know Tana. My world was so much smaller then. This is what happens when you leap. (Other stuff happens too – some of it not so sparkly – but THIS is why I keep leaping.)

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And speaking of leaping, remember how I was determined to scratch something off the life list? Scuba lessons start this weekend. By next weekend, Chad, The Boy and I will all be certified. (It is possible that my being largely underwater will affect my post schedule. I like to pretend you all notice.)

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To the man on the unicycle, with love

Posted on July 18, 2010 | 23 Comments

Here is the story my husband told me when he came home from running errands Sunday morning.

I saw a man walking his child in a stroller. Only the man wasn’t walking, he was riding a bike. Only it wasn’t a bike, it was a unicycle.

I loved the image. I wished I had seen it. It captured my imagination and my heart. First chance I got, I came in here to write a post. I wanted to share my delight, paint you a picture. I thought it would be easy, but when I started to type, I found I couldn’t quite articulate what it was about the unicycling dad that I loved. Was it the incongruousness of it? The surprise? The not-so-subtle circus allusion, coupled with my recent recurring thoughts that maybe I should run off and join one?

Yes. It was all of that… and this.

When I ask myself, “What kind of dad walks his child sitting atop a unicycle?” every answer I think of delights me. He is unconventional, playful, rooted in his life and given to flights of fancy. He does not think childhood is something you leave behind in order to become an adult, and he doesn’t buy into the conventional wisdom that we should do only one thing at a time.

And I imagine his child – so young she fits in a jog stroller – believing that this is how all fathers go for walks with their children. By the time she realizes how many adults have forgotten how to play, I hope it will be too late for her. She’ll have an oversized smile, an outdoor laugh, an awesome, untamed imagination. She’ll sing, and question, and color off the page. She’ll wear polka dots and stripes at the same time because she loves them both, and she’ll know, instinctively, that life is too precious not to spend it dancing.

I was trying (not very well) to explain it all to a friend. I was trying to tell him all the wonderful things that the unicycle dad made me think of, hope for. “You got all that from a guy on a unicycle pushing a stroller?” he asked, doubtful.

I hesitated. He was right. I was assuming a lot. For just an instant, my mind began to skip down less grand, less colorful paths. And then I remembered who I am.

…Yeah. I got all that from a guy on a unicycle pushing a stroller.

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