Why is it ...

that teenage crises always seem to arise in the middle of the night? Parenting is both rewarding and challenging, joyful and heartbreaking and this morning I find myself limping through a heartbreaking challenge. I need to blog about this but right now I'm too tired and I need to save all my energy for graduate student crises. Later.

Zen Kitty II

As if he belongs there.

Happiness is ...

My niece, Becca, after savoring a slice of her grandfather's birthday cake last Sunday.

Blue-eyed Cat

Makana, looking none too happy that I snapped her pic.

Art as Financing

Good Medicine © 2006

Just sold this piece through the Sweet Pea Art Show. It has always been my most popular piece of photographic art and now the proceeds will finance my October show. I love it when this stuff happens and I accept with gratitude all of the abundance that the Universe bestows upon me. Aho!

Directions

Wherever you go, there you are!

(And a great view of the magnificent Bridgers always makes life more bearable.)

Living the Dream

For the past few days I’ve been working on creating an invitation postcard, an invitation to my first photographic art show. It feels somewhat weird to be making such a statement, as though it should be about someone else. But it isn’t and I’m wondering why I’m finding it to be a bit of a challenge to don the mantle of artist when it has been a lifelong dream of mine.

I suppose it’s about stepping up to meet the goal, to make the final push to the summit. What will change afterwards in the way others see me, in the way I see myself? It seems best not to even think about it, not to step outside of the experience and look at it like a movie, but rather to simply go on experiencing my life from within the dream. Aside from having a desire to create, to live in those moments of spontaneous artistry, I haven’t really had a clear objective, much less a plan for how to get there. I am merely responding to my long ignored prime directive to be an artist. It is no more than a matter of being who I am.

So, yes, I am having my first show in October and I’m no longer qualifying it by adding that it is only in a coffee shop; it is still my first show. And at the urging of my good friend and sister in spirit, a very well known Cherokee fine artist, I will be issuing a press release and having an artist’s reception. It’s good to have friends who will hold the mirror for me, who encourage me to see myself in their looking glass eyes.

August Augie

Augie, lying on top of the computer armoire, from where he surveys his vast domain.

Lovely Lauren

Copyright 2007 Trish McCormick Photography

Photo Art

Sunflower, v. 2.2
Copyright 2006 Trish McCormick Photography

Yellow-headed Blackbird

Can I Get a Witness?

Often, when I am lost in my thoughts, I wonder what it is that I most long for in a relationship -- a one-on-one, forever and a day partnership. It wouldn't be enough for us to have similar interests and enjoy the same lifestyle. It wouldn't be enough to share thoughts and beliefs, values and principles. It wouldn't even be enough for our love-making to be passionately intense and uplifting. No, what I want and need can be had in an instant, in the flicker of a candle or the creak of a worn oak stair. It is a moment shared, a holographic breath of time which is at once both a sojourn and an eternity.

In the movie Shall We Dance Susan Sarandon's character speaks of love and marriage, speaks of needing a witness to one's life. "Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness," she says. That line caught my breath. Witnessing is so much more than mere observation, more than seeing and acknowledging what most everyone else sees. It is perceiving the Truth a woman is afraid to believe, the Truth a man has been taught to hide. And in such moments we know that we have been seen, free of judgments and projections, free of adulterations, free of ego.

We all know, I believe, what is at our core; we all know about our strengths, our talents, our kindnesses and gifts, even when we pretend not to, but sometimes it isn’t until these parts of ourselves are witnessed by another that we are able to lift the shroud of fear and step into our fullness. Simply put, witnessing is seeing the truth of the observed rather than the observer. It is beholding the beloved through the eyes of the beloved.

It is this I long for ... even for just a breath of time.

My Spider/My Self

I have a tattoo on my left hand, a tattoo of a black widow spider - you can see it in my profile photo. I occasionally get odd looks from people because of it. I was even reproached by my family doctor the first time he saw it. I told him that it held significant meaning for me but he persisted in believing that he had a right to criticize my choice.

I had a dream about a year ago ... I was bitten on my left hand by the Black Widow and while a nameless, faceless man panicked and ran off to get help, I lay quietly allowing her venom, her power, to flow into my body. I smiled and was at peace. So, why did I feel the need to get a tattoo because of this dream? I haven't really answered that question for myself yet, so let's see what I can come up with here.

Looking at this hand with the spider perched between thumb and forefinger, I think that it must belong to a woman who is strong and fearless. I think that she must be someone who knows who she is, someone who has the power to allow criticism and scorn to wash over her, who has compassion for those who fear and judge. It must not be easy to walk through life comfortably wearing such an audacious sign of her disregard for feminine gentility and social mores. This is a woman with her own ideas about what is important and what is not, a woman with her backbone in place and her heart leading the way. This is a woman whom I can admire.

I don't know that I would have the same reaction to this tattoo were it on another woman's hand but that is irrelevant to the question. Why do I have it? Because it reminds me of whom I am ... every day.

Zen Kitty

Makana in peaceful repose

But For Trust

For romance, I would dance across the broken shards of my richest dreams,
Twirl bleeding toed, the grace of an angel, smiling, smiling, blissfully smiling.
Wrap my eyes in silly sweet visions, your dark mission masked with
Flying-into-your-arms fantasies of letting go, drowning down into love.

Wipe away my tears of joy, choke me with your tangled, haunted fears of oneness,
Gulping, gurgling, gasping for air, my cry but chance to strangle my impulsive voice.
Forced into my soul, your raw reality incinerates my virtue, once and for all.
The raping of my mind with this consuming lust begets my transformation.

But for hope, I would run away, crumple-faced, eyes hidden, tearing at my napalmed chest,
Turning here and once again there, shrieking at the injustice of my confused torment.
If not for strength, a jaded student I would be, victim of my lover's carnal frailties;
No learning, learning, learning of my chosen path, from top to bottom, bottom to top.

'Tis peace and wisdom whispering, whispering, softly whispering, calmly accepting,
There is no choice of which reality to know, but only to embrace it with the same passion
As the one foretold in American dreams of picket-fenced family and happily ever-afters.
The verity of pain is no less vital, no less the handsome bridegroom for my virgin heart.

If not for you, I would harden, frozen-stoned, crystalline queen of must be's and oughta have's.
What is mine I've kept within, have enfolded, turning back on my tail-swallowing self.
But for trust, I would paddle glidingly across the still, gelatinous waters of half-truths,
Never knowing the power of flesh-ripping rocks, nor the mind-numbing force of winter winds.

Nor my own lustful retort ... Encore, encore, toujours encore.

~ December 2001

Foreign Film (Video) - Red

Red (1994) is the final film of the "three colors" trilogy from Krzysztof Kieslowski and brings together a retired judge and a young model after she accidentally runs over his dog. The young woman discovers that he has been listening in on his neighbors' phone calls and is repulsed by his behavior. What follows is a dance of human connections and seemingly fateful synchronicities played out against the backdrop of the evolving relationship between the judge and the girl's moralistic discernment. Two thumbs up! (English subtitles)

Spider Experiment

Insecurity

"Is it possible to live surrendering to the reality of insecurity, embracing it, allowing it to open us and transform us and be our teacher?" ~ Eve Ensler, Insecure at Last: Losing It in Our Security Obsessed World

This quote/question points out the fallacy of security, despite all our efforts in building a career, a marriage, a life that is "secure." Companies are bought out or downsized; jobs are lost; heads roll, even at the top; wives cheat; husbands die of sudden heart attacks; our children get leukemia or become drug addicts; adolescent girls get pregnant; our country is attacked; the economy spirals downward. The frequently crippling need to create security is born of the very basic fact, which we are taught to deny, that there is, in truth, no such way of being. The acceptance of this truth and the fact that we don't know and can't control what happens next can transform our lives and not just because we are facing our fears and demons, but because we are living in the Now with awareness rather than raging against it with all of our might. We can let go of our security blanket and venture away from mommy, not knowing if we're going to fall down but accepting that falling would be every bit as meaningful, and every bit as necessary, as sitting comfortably in her lap. It could be argued that surrendering to the reality of insecurity can make one feel, paradoxically, less insecure.

Stardust

This is most definitely a happily ever after movie, complete with wicked witches, murderous princes, an enchanted princess and swashbuckling pirates. And let's not forget the romance and love. But even if you don't go for that sort of movie you've got to go see it just for Robert DeNiro's performance. That alone was well worth the price of admission.

PaintJam w/Dan Dunn

I actually clapped at my monitor. And the music is awesome, too.

Sudden realization

I've begun reading Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen based on a fellow blogger's review and this morning I was stopped cold by this line on page 66: I look for an elephant with equal parts dread and disappointment.

I flashed back to 1992 or so, when my son was a toddler and his father and I took him to the circus at the Providence Civic Center. I was having a great time watching my son's delight, hearing his laughter ... and then they brought out the elephants. I didn't know what was happening to me at first but I became completely engulfed by a deep and overpowering sorrow. I physically receded into my seat as far as I could and found that I was unable to speak even to tell my husband what was happening. And then I realized - it was the elephants. I was feeling the sadness of these incredibly beautiful and emotional animals, feeling their overwhelming despair and I had all I could do not to cry in front of my son. I have empathic tendencies and in those days they were unchecked - it took me a few days to shake off the depression.

Now I know why I have picked up this book on several occasions only to replace it on the shelf un-purchased. I have had only bad feelings about the circus ever since that experience but not having any cause to be reminded of them, I had pushed them into the deeper recesses of my memory, until now. Fortunately, the writing is good and the story engaging so I'm hoping that the happy ending I read about can overcome this dark memory looming in the background.

I have a feeling there is something more for me here than just a good summer read. Life has a way of delivering exactly what I need, exactly when I am ready for it.

Just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon ...

Finally saw the latest installment of Harry Potter this afternoon. This time around Gary Oldman was as hot playing Sirius Black as he was when playing Vlad the Impaler in Bram Stoker's Dracula (especially in that red armor) and that role/movie definitely made me squirm in my seat.

Overall, I thought Order of the Phoenix was pretty good but my son says that's because I haven't read the books. I don't mind ... I enjoyed the movie more than he did.

Streaming Photography

I’ve been working with a coach because I want channel my passion for photography into a profession that will nurture and sustain me financially as well as emotionally and creatively. Toward that end, one of the first tasks she assigned me was to write, in streaming thought mode, about what photography means to me. I didn’t reread any of what I had written until just prior to my next appointment two weeks later and I have to say that I was floored by what I read. The following triptych is the as-written, unedited assignment.

Photography

Photography is me touching the world, holding the bits and pieces in my heart and finding myself in every capture. I shoot, I collect, I create; alchemy of light and spirit revealing what may be hidden to the naked eye, what fades from view in a world teeming with must-do’s and gotta-go’s.

I see myself camera to cheek, voyeur to pain and suffering, love and fear, reckless laughter and convulsive sobs. The eye tells all. The subject is freed from normal constraints, from the strictures of propriety and, in a slicing glance, tells me what words can never convey.

I shoot, I move, I speak gently, connecting not just with my lens but with my own pain and vulnerability, with my memories, with my experience, with that part of my being that can only be seen in moments like these when the camera becomes a portal allowing you to come to me.

At The Opening

The gallery is made alive with the life force held not nearly frozen in the interaction of chemical and paper, ghosts but seconds away from stepping out from within the frame to mingle with the wine-sipping guests. The viewers look and discuss, interpreting, deciding, blaspheming, spilling opinion all over my offerings. But I am there amongst my offspring, rubbing shoulders and hearts with the residual energy of one explosive moment in time when spirit and pixels collide, forever fused one to the other. I vacantly smile and give thanks, feeling the power of the images working on me, on the others, on the walls and lights and ruby red carpet. Only I can see who is real and who is not and grin widely at my peopled creations.

End of the day

Alone in my room I undress, taking off my clothes as well as my defenses, placing them at the foot of my bed. They look odd, strangely like slithered-out-of snake skin. There is my pride, my ego, my holier-than-thou, draped over my tripod; there is the part of me that says ‘I am a photographer. I am and you are not.” The boorish editor who normally occupies my left brain finds herself snagged on the quick release. These are not the essence of my self, the true artist, the one whose heart connects across the Nikon bridge. They intrude, they taint, they sabotage. Only when I have managed to bind and gag them does the beauty of the model, of the moment, of the creation reveal itself. And with each new digital gift my power swells from within the secret place inside of me. Photography reveals me to myself.

Blonde Moment

So, I was sitting in Wild Joe’s reading the newspaper and waiting on a friend. With my eyes cast downward, I noticed that the button placket on my pullover wasn’t lying flat – it curled toward the inside. I pulled at it and tried to curl it in the opposite direction. Then I tried to smooth it out but to no avail; it still curled inward. As I tugged on it one more time I happened to notice buttons on the inside of the placket. Bemused, I thought to myself, “Now that’s different, they put the buttons on the inside.”

It wasn’t until much later that I realized I had worn it inside out all day.

Confessions

I talk to cats. Not just my own two, but the neighbors’ cats and any cat I encounter wherever I go. As I walk by, I nod and say, “Hey, how ya doin’,” as though I were speaking to a person. I usually get a meow back in response.

My book buying has outpaced my book reading. But, just knowing that there are new treats on my bookshelves is comforting to me.

I’m bored silly at work.

I love banana sandwiches – they’re best on lightly toasted 7 grain bread.

I don’t miss most of my siblings, who live on the east coast. I was born into one of those Irish working class, drinking, brawling dynasties (I like that word) and the others just never evolved. I’d wonder if I was adopted but I’m the spitting image of my father and I have my mother’s cornflower blue eyes.

I dance in my living room.

I laugh at dead baby jokes. I know, I know … I feel just awful about it.

Mirror for My Soul

I just got up off the floor in the hallway after an impromptu discussion about Love and Fear with my slightly inebriated son. He had teetered in an hour earlier and as he came through the door, I sensed that something was wrong and not simply because he was coming home at 5 o'clock in the morning.

He at first protested that he didn't want to talk but the tears that flowed loosened the grip that sorrow held on his tongue and he sobbed into my open arms. As we talked, as I listened and learned, I was grieved by his pain and heartache, by his heartbreaking confession that he couldn't take it anymore. But, I also witnessed his compassion and wisdom, his sophisticated understanding of what it means to love another human being.

I don't know that our conversation helped him any, it's hard to get through a cloud of alcohol. But maybe it was more for me than him, for me to hold my child in my arms, to soothe his pain and mother him once more. Or perhaps it was for me to see a thousand long-forgotten lessons come to life in him, to see myself reflected in his looking glass eyes.

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

The thin-slice: fascinating book, 4.5 Stars on 5-Star scale. You won't be disappointed.

But, if I also had to provide an explanation of my rating, it would fall to 2.5 Stars.

Read the book to find out why (the reason is astonishing).

Oh, and make yourself smile when you're feeling low; you'll begin to feel better. Honest. Yes, that's in the book, too.

Vesuvius

What now in this night presses hotly against me?
Quiver to awakening, this lust brought to life,
erupting through my red silk drapes.

Hold back, don't flow, stay the burning breath;
Let it not escape me. For a moment yet, might I
Suspend these sweet seconds of submission.

Release! Discharge! Out the screaming juices!
Let go this liquid fire. Once pink pastel, my
Surrendered flesh blisters with the molten rush.

Vesuvius between my thighs.

World Market

Holy sensory overload, Batman!

Bought some gummy raspberry candies and a new pepper mill ...

Going back Thursday for the Grand Opening ...

Have 10% off coupon ...

Asian influences, dishes, glassware, pillows, furniture, tote bags, decor, food, food, food!

You lookin' at me?!?!?

Augie is the kind of cat that makes you wonder where he hid the bong. But, he is very cuddlesome so we put up with his dazed and confused countenance.

Sunday Morning Blogging

I love Sunday mornings, especially alone. I can do, or not do, whatever I want - walk around in my underwear, toss the newspaper on the floor, eat last night's leftover Chinese food for breakfast. But today, I'm having an onion bagel smeared (or maybe enshrouded) with garden vegetable cream cheese and I'm poking around on the net ... in my underwear. I just took a really quick enneagram test that I found on an acquaintance's blog and I find the results to be interesting. I am mostly a type 5 , Investigator, followed closely by a type 2, Helper. For just a sample test, this seems to be fairly accurate, or at least I want to think so.


free enneagram test

I'm also reading a new book: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell. It's the investigator in me. (I bought it yesterday afternoon after the ice cream binge with my son. I also bought another book, Flow:The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and a CD, Desire by Pharoahe Monch (I have eclectic tastes in music)). So far this is a fascinating book and very well written, not at all pedantic. I'm sure that once I've finished it I'll be able to recommend it to anyone interested in learning to make better decisions, including judgments about people.

OK, back to my bagel and book.

Liam: My Son, My Hero

I enjoyed myself today. I started this afternoon at the movies with my 16 year old son (he invited me) and we giggled our way through The Simpson's Movie. From there it was on to Verizon to figure out why my phone had suddenly died and where he spent the waiting period playing with Chocolates and Blackberrys and calling friends from the cell phones hooked up to the wall. He is a delight and draws attention to himself, especially with his odd manner of dress, strip of long bleached hair running down the center of his scalp, multiple facial piercings and yellow highlighters in his gaged earlobes. We then moved a couple doors down to Coldstone for some amazingly decadent ice cream. Me? I love the Black Forest Dream: chocolate ice cream with cherries, brownie bits and chocolate syrup. Liam had cookie dough with a peanut butter cup mix-in served in a waffle bowl.

We bicker, laugh and make fun of one another when we're together; he brings out the playfulness in me. And he loves to get his mother sputtering while trying desperately to reassert her authority. Authority, yeah right. I am so grateful for our relationship; I have been afraid at times of losing him - raising a teenaged boy without the support and input of a father is challenging, to say the least. I fear he has gotten too much female input, feminine energy, wisdom, ideals and objectives. I frequently see his anger at having to grow up these past 7 years without a father, without a male role model, without having any man to turn to, to ask questions, advice, help. But, I believe in the perfection of All, including his father's untimely death.

Liam has taught me a lot. He has stood up to my limiting beliefs, my fears, my ignorance. I have many times allowed my own thinking to turn 180 degrees after listening to his perspective. While I take credit for teaching him to ask questions, to look for what is hidden, to investigate the unpopular course, he has taken my instruction and run right off the playing field with it. He has become my greatest mentor and I relish every opportunity that I am given to take off my "older, wiser" hat and listen with new ears and see with new eyes.

So, despite the parental failings I count when I am in the mood for self-deprecation, I know that I have managed to turn out a very capable, resourceful young man. I know that, although he is rebelling against society with his in-your-face physical appearance (I miss his beautiful natural hair and his handsome face unadorned with ugly pieces of metal), he has taken in much, if not all, of what I have taught him. I have a deep, unshakable belief that he will be successful, whatever that means to him. And it is this belief that allows me to accept him for who he is and look at him with eyes full of love and admiration even when others are shaking their heads at his outward appearance. I know him on the inside.

Just Me

Last week I watched yet another movie about love, romance and the challenges inherent in being vulnerable with another human being. Toward the end of the movie, a band played "Let's Get it On" by Marvin Gaye and I, much to my own surprise, burst into tears. The song speaks to me of surrendering oneself to love and I cried for what is missing in my life, aside from sex I mean, something that has been missing for years. And then I wondered if it is so much missing in my life as it is missing in myself (this distinction being meaningful to me if not to you), missing not just from my heart but from my everyday be-ing. A long time ago, the promise of love was replaced by the threat of wounding and I have to say that I'm really tired of living like this, beneath the sword of Damocles.
I am reminded of that contemporary call to arms "Be the change you want to see in the world," …. or more aptly "be the change you want to see in your life." I want to see hope and trust and love in my life. I want to see those things in me, but more so I want others to see them in me. I want to take the time to allow myself to think and feel and act with integrity and passion, to act with presence and awareness; and I want to allow others to see me this way. No rush, no urgency, no fear. Just me.

My Passion

While you may have heard some parents say that they'd like to shoot their teenagers, I actually get to do it.

(No teens were harmed in the making of these images. All photos Copyright 2007 Trish McCormick Photography.)

Tears I Have Shed

Even though cast away, each tear leaves behind its own healing trail smoothing the way to the next level of self-awareness and wisdom, evidence of its role in spiritual alchemy. I wish it didn't have to be so devastating, wish the smelter's fire did not blind so thoroughly, suffocate so alarmingly, even in its brevity. And yet I know that it is exactly and only the incineration of all that has gone before that makes rebirth possible, the intense heat forcing the slumbering seed to rupture, releasing its long held promise of love in a singular and powerful burst of faith and surrender.

The Gift of the Eye of the Beholder

It happens that, after you've searched every inch of the interior corners and crevices of yourself and are yet left wondering "Who am I?" you suddenly become aware of the people in your life and their ideas of who you are. You bump into the acquaintance who had once marveled at your genius in improv class and you see the spark of admiration still in her eyes. You reread an email from the friend who encouraged you to pursue your dream, the dream you thought would certainly die unrealized because you, in fact, had no real talent. With new eyes you see the glimmer of a reality made manifest in the words written and offered up not only in friendship but in doubtless honor of the truth. And then you begin to see yourself through the eyes of your friends and lovers and with respect and even awe you behold, at last, the answer to your question.