accidentally on purpose*

here's the thing about photography: it's less about the person than about the willingness to drop everything and pay attention right now, before breakfast, with messy morning hair, before the light goes on about its day.

(use these photographs noncommercially and with attribution only, please)

* reference to the first album by the Carleton College group The Accidentals

references

I'm prone to references. I'm also prone to curiosity, so every so often I'll wander over to sitemeter to see what kinds of things bring people to this site. If they're not people I think I know (based on operating system and location, yes I'm a geek) they are often googling things. Literary things. Referenc-y things. And every time I see that I feel guilty, because I could be more helpful. Today I saw the second search for Mewho and Exactlywhats. So here, for at least the two most recent:

"The Mewho with an Exactlywhat" is a Shel Silverstein poem, from either A Light in the Attic or Where the Sidewalk Ends. It begins, "Knock Knock./ Who's there?/ Me. /Me Who?/ Yes, exactly./ Exactly what?/ Yes. / Yes what? / Yes, I've got an Exactlywhat on a chain." ...at least, that's how I recall it. It's been years since I've seen it in print.

[Update: It's from A Light In The Attic. I checked. And I think the text above is not quite right. I think it goes: Yes. / Yes what?/ No, exactlywhat...]

"I have always depended on the kindness of strangers..." is from Tennessee Williams, in his play A Streetcar Named Desire. For those who saw the Marlon Brando version, you will recognise the play by picturing him in undershirt and jeans, shouting from the street up at the window: "Stella!" The quote is by Blanche, older sister of Stella, who is and has been for quite a while quite mentally unstable. The play is disturbing but well worth watching.

okay, I feel better now.

colour

I live in eastern Canada. Aside from the occasional intrepid pine needle peeking out from under snow, this city has been colourless fully seven months. Finally, we are seeing green. And the thing with green here is that it's not the slow, mist-on-the-bushes green that happens in other, warmer places. Here you wake up one morning and the leaves are a centimetre long. Yesterday they were barely bumps. Tomorrow they will be three times longer. There's no time to dally, we're careening toward the solstice at breakneck speed and every spring we're behind schedule.

The flower shop I walk past has exploded in orange fireworks of birds-of-paradise, Easter lilies a distant memory. Red and orange coats are showing up, and I've even seen a couple in lime green...and tonight I saw the most heartening rainbow umbrella, each wedge a different colour. Its owner was complaining that it was too big and too bright; I wish I had said what I was thinking: I loved her umbrella.

When you live without colour for too long, you can either embrace it or fear it--I think most people here do a little of both. They like the idea of colour, but when confronted with the chance to wear it, they become skittish. I see a lot of black in the centre of this government town.

Time to take a cue from the flowers, I say. We're short on time, we're rushing through life--let's enjoy it. Wear something bright, take a chance. Maybe people will like it. Maybe you'll like it. You never know.

birth order blogthing

After my frog friend found a blogthing about weight that was eerily accurate, I got distracted. This one intrigues me. Birth order intrigues me. I think it shapes us. I do.

You Are Likely an Only Child

At your darkest moments, you feel frustrated. At work and school, you do best when you're organizing. When you love someone, you tend to worry about them. In friendship, you are emotional and sympathetic. Your ideal careers are: radio announcer, finance, teaching, ministry, and management. You will leave your mark on the world with organizational leadership, maybe as the author of self-help books.

The Birth Order Predictor

Thing is, hey're right about who I am, but I'm not an only. Weird.

outside in

 

kindness

I have always depended on the kindness of strangers. That's not my line, of course, but I love it. It's a scary thing, to relate to the key statement of survival made by a half-crazed and lonely older sister of a woman in an abusive marriage, character in a play written early in the last century and still around.

It's still around because it's true. Many of us depend on people we don't know and haven't met. My proof that the world is essentially a good place? It always works out, somehow. Strangers have given me food and shelter, good conversation and a comforting shoulder. Strangers have given me good advice and bad, good company and bad, rides to the airport and shirts off their backs (really!) but most often with a warm and loving and open heart, or at minimum a kind of frank curiosity that can be entertaining if you don't take offense. The world can be a scary place to take chances. Believing in the kindness of strangers makes it easier.

I took a trip this weekend and depended a lot on the kindness of of strangers. Once again, I was lucky; as ever, all of those people came through for whatever reasons they carry. But I also got to depend on the kindness of friends. I also got to revel in their company and laugh and hug and talk and tell stories and know, without even that slight glimmer of doubt that comes from being with strangers, know that the kindness we share is true and real and good...and there. Always there.

And that means I can do something that most of them disagree with, and know they've still got my back, know that they will honour my decision, know that they will still welcome me in their lives.

I am so lucky, and so blessed, and so grateful.