I am happy. Right now. This minute while I’m typing these words.
It’s a little odd, I think, how seldom I recognize my own joy in the moment. I remember having been happy, but I seldom stop and think: “Wow. I’m really happy right now.” For me, the camera plays into the equation. I can really get lost in a moment with my camera, light, shadow, colors, movement, texture, and a certain twinkle in the eye. I can get lost in my happy little image world and have a perfectly lovely time. Hours, days, or even weeks later, as I’m editing the photos, I discover just how awesome the event really was.
Embracing Right Now
Life is full of beautiful moments, moments where the beauty is not in the image, but in the experience. Sometimes I let myself think that a moment must be documented to be real or precious. Not true. Building memories is important, but the initial experience is more important than each time it’s remembered.
Sometimes, I have to just put the camera down, and join the party myself. Even better – hand the camera over to someone else and let them capture me in the moment.
I still enjoy photography, but I have to remember not to let it replace interacting with my friends and family.
What about you? What can you do to embrace right now?
I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective, and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.
Tom Douglas, the guy who arguably put Seattle’s culinary scene on the map, took his place behind the stove of the demonstration kitchen at Macy’s, and started off by saying: “Today I want to talk to you about effort. If there is one thing I want you to take away today, it’s that it’s worth the effort.”
He was talking about cooking at home for your friends and family. He was talking about sharing not just the family recipes, but the stories that went along with them, such as the way the house smelled when his Grandma came to visit and made her famous schnecken, and the benefits of being the biggest kid in a very large family, when they all reached in to grab their favorite bits of the gooey treat.
“Create memories with your family around food, memories that involve all the senses. Those are what you will remember years from now.”
Tom Douglas
Take 3 recipes, he said, say for instance one pie, one cake, and one cookie recipe, even if you’re afraid of baking – especially if you’re afraid of baking. Make each one three times, following the directions exactly. The trick to baking well is following the directions. By the third try, you will OWN that recipe.
Pick recipes you want to be known for, and be the person who’s known for bringing it. You don’t have to be a great cook, just well practiced at a few recipes. You can grow your repertoire later, just start with three.
Tom prepared three recipes for us: Grilled Cheese with Caramelized Broccoli Rabe and Fontina, Coffee-Bean Turkey with Sweet Onion Gravy, and Pear Tarts with Dreamy Caramel Sauce.
Now, I don’t have room enough to share all three recipes in one post, so I’ve picked one to share today, perhaps more on another day. You’ll just have to come back and visit my blog again some day. Two of the recipes are from Tom’s new cookbook that he is promoting, The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook. Of course, the recipe I chose to share has something to do with coffee, Coffee Bean Turkey with Sweet Onion Gravy. This recipe is from the Macy’s Culinary Council Thanksgiving & Holiday Cookbook.
“Seattle is famous for its coffee. And that inspired me to stuff the turkey cavity with whole roasted coffee beans. Turns out they add a nice toasty-smoky aroma that seasons the bird from within. I leave them in even after the turkey’s done. If a few slip out at the table while I’m carving, it’s a good conversation starter.”
Tom Douglas
Get this one ready for Thanksgiving:
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Tom Douglas and Judy Schwartz Haley
FTC Disclosure: This is a sponsored post. I was paid to attend this event, but as always, my opinions remain my own.
My gratitude journal started out as a quick list every night. I just got in the habit of listing 5 things for which I was thankful each night before bed; often it was the same, or a similar list, each time. Husband, daughter, a roof over our heads, and the last two varied, but it was a less than fascinating list.
Then I started putting some effort into mixing things up. I didn’t just say I was thankful for my husband, I got specific and mentioned a quality or something he did or said. Same with my daughter – and many other frequent flyers on my gratitude list. Soon, my nightly entries morphed from a quick five-word-list to an accounting of my day that was framed around an expression of gratitude.
I’ve kept a journal for most of my life, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, but once I added the gratitude element, the journal took on a different, more energetic and pro-active tone – it’s my autobiography written through the lens of gratitude.
I found myself looking for things throughout the day, taking note of things – ooh, that’s going on my list tonight!
Still, there are days when I have to look really, really hard
There have been times when the world just falls apart around me, and yet still I can always find at least five things.
I resisted this idea for a while – it’s essentially dishonest, I thought, to disregard everything that’s going wrong. But that’s where I was wrong. It is not a matter of disregard.
A few months ago, my husband had a medical crisis while he was in Istanbul. It was a stressful and terrifying experience, but the relief I felt once we got him from the airport to safely admitted to the hospital was palpable. To acknowledge that relief underscores, rather than dismisses, the significance of that crisis.
This process doesn’t disregard the darkness, it looks for the light. My gratitude practice exercises the sames skills I use to find solutions to problems. I imagine there are worse mental pathways to make habitual.
And it is becoming a habitual practice.
Not to long ago, I took to my journal ready to whine and complain about everything that was going wrong, but out of habit, I had written the word “Gratitude” at the top of the page.
I couldn’t fill a page with whining when it had the word gratitude at the top. So I decided to go ahead and do my gratitude list first, and whine later on another page.
I never got around to whining. That’s when I knew my gratitude practice was really working.
…
As we head into the month of Thanksgiving, and tonight especially, there is so much for which to be thankful, and it does seem to be the topic of the hour. Today, among so many other things that bless my life, I am thankful for my gratitude practice.
I know that the idea of a gratitude practice is starting to gain some popularity. Anyone else out there make a practice of it? Any thoughts?
On the way to the Halloween party, she started to have second thoughts about her costume.
“But, I don’t want to be a dinosaur ballerina.” I assured her that she didn’t have to wear her costume.
“I want to be a camel.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t have a camel costume.”
“Do you have a crocodile costume?”
By the time we got to the party, and she saw that all the other kids were wearing costumes, she was thrilled to be a dinosaur ballerina again.
This was the annual Halloween party for the kids at Gilda’s Club. Gilda’s Club is an amazing supportive resource for people whose lives have been impacted by cancer: the patient, and their family and friends as well. Their kids program is wonderful. Events like this kids party allow kids to make friends with other kids who have cancer in their lives, and build a support network of peers who understand what they are going through. The get a chance to be in a situation where having a mom with cancer is normal, and they’re not the weird one.
Gem is flourishing in this environment.
She loved the craft station, and is so proud of the mask she made.
After a thorough consultation with the make-up artist, she finally decided on whiskers to complement her ensemble.
Sitting still for the face painting was the hardest part. It tickles.
The best sight of the evening was watching her perform an interpretive dance to the Halloween music. Then she upped the bar and performed her dance inside the haunted house.
This is the first time she’s really gotten into Halloween, and she LOVED it.
Women are often well represented in art museums, or at least their bodies are. They are pinned right there to the wall.
Ensemble of posters, Guerrilla Girls American artists, active since 1985 variable Centre Georges Pompidou, Museé national d’art moderne, Paris, T2011.206.101
Women artists are not so well represented
The current show at the Seattle Art Museum takes aim at that issue. Anchored on the groundbreaking Paris exhibition, Elles: Women Artists from the Centre Pompidou, Paris, Elles puts the focus on the vision and craft of female artists. Just as our understanding of history changes, expands, and takes on new depth and texture when the voices of women are added, so to does the addition of female artists change our understanding of art history, as well as informing history itself.
This show does not attempt to represent women from all cultures everywhere throughout history. The scope and breadth of such an ambitious project could no more adequately represent women around the world, than it could men. Just because female artists were largely ignored does not mean they were not prolific. This is a showcase of mostly European female artists in the 20th and 21st Centuries. There is a need to address art created by women of other cultures and times, but that necessitates not just one, but many more shows. I hope someone gets busy curating some of those shows soon.
The Seattle Art Museum is coordinating with a number of organizations and venues throughout the Seattle area to celebrate women artists, ongoing through January 2013, including musical events, films, lectures, and a symposium.
Espagnoles, (1920-1924) Oil on canvas Natalia Gontcharova Russian, 1881-1962 36 1/4 x 28 3/4in. (92 x 73cm) Overall h.: 37 3/8in. (95cm) Overall w.: 29 15/16in. (76cm) Centre Georges Pompidou, Museé national d’art moderne, Paris; AM 3111 P, T2011.206.135
Elles showcases the work of more than 75 women artists. I’m tempted to wax on philosophically about each of these pieces that I’ve selected, but each time I return to these images, I have something additional to say. I’ll never get this post up at this point, so I’ll just leave you with a few of my favorites. If I could take one home and just sit and stare at it all day long, it would Espagnoles (above). It just pulls me in.
La Chambre Bleue (The Blue Room), 1923 Oil on canvas Suzanne Valadon (born Marie-Clémentine Valadon) (born Marie-Clémentine Valadon) French, b. 1865, Bessines-sur-Gartempe, France; d. 1938, Paris, France 35.4 x 45.7 inches (90 x 116 cm) Centre Georges Pompidou, Museé national d’art moderne, Paris State purchase and attribution 1924, T2011.206.1
On the other hand, there is, La Chambre Bleue (The Blue Room), above. I hated this piece at first. It was featured on much of SAM’s promotional material, and I couldn’t figure out why. It really bugged me. But, the more I look at it, the more I see. The picture has grown on me, and now it’s one of my favorites.
The Frame, (1938) Oil on aluminum, reverse painting on glass and painting frame Frida Kahlo Mexican, 1907-1954 11.2 x 8.1 inches (28.5 x 20.7 cm) Centre Georges Pompidou, Museé national d’art moderne, Paris State purchase and attribution, 1939, T2011.206.48
Frida Kahlo lived in my imagination as a larger than life figure. Her self portrait on the wall, at eye level, stopped me short. It was so much smaller than I expected. And tangible. Suddenly, behind the tiny painted glass, she was less mythical, and more a woman, with hopes and dreams and fears and insecurities. She became real. And maybe that’s part of the point of the exhibit, as well. Beyond drawing our attention to these amazing works by female artists, this show reminds us that women in art, whether subject, artist, consumer, or all three, are individual people. Not objects, myths, or concepts; just people, connecting with other people.
FTC disclaimer: I received free admission to the Seattle Art Museum, and permission to take photographs of the exhibits.
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