Rose Garden

I wanted to share this conversation my friend and I had somewhere, so I thought I would do it here, because, why not?

So, she is working on a major in art, and I sent her one of my photographs because I thought she would like it.  After she messed with it a little bit and sent it back to me, we got started talking about what "art" is.  I said that I didn't really think what I was doing was "art" as I feel I'm not creating much, just noticing beautiful things and sharing them with the world.  She disagreed, and explained how that pretty much was what art is.  How each person sees the world in a different way, notices different things, and sharing what we see is art.  I thought this was really cool, and it reminded me of a visit to the rose gardens near my house.  The gardens were filled with people, many of which had come with cameras to photograph the flowers, just like I had.  What I thought was really interesting was that each of these people was taking pictures of different things.  She liked this story, and together we kind of came up with this metaphor.  That rose garden is like the world.  It is beautiful, but each person will have their own way of viewing and sharing that beauty, so each photographer focused on different things.

I decided to take this one step further, saying that in a way, everything then becomes art.  As each person works, no matter what they are doing, they are adding their own beauty to the world, and they are sharing that beauty with others.  I kind of focused on science being art, as I am working to be and astronomer so that was were my mind went.  But it just fits so well, as scientist look at the world, they see a beauty different to that artists may see, but in so many ways, with my friend's definition, it is still art.

I guess the point of this post is just to tell people to keep seeing beauty in the world, no matter what that means to you.  And share it, because no one sees things the same way you do, and it is always incredible to learn what others view as beauty.

The Girl who Danced

Alright, slightly strange story that I wrote.  I kind of wanted to put it somewhere, so it went here.  It is really for my friends, but not sure exactly how to give it to them.  Hope it isn't too depressing.

This is the story of a little girl.

She wasn’t anything special.  She liked the things most other little girls liked.  She liked stories of princess and magic, wearing dresses and drawing, but most of all she liked to dance. 

And so, she danced.  Everywhere she went.  In churches and schools, sidewalks and parks.  Alone, or surrounded by people.  And she was young, so the world danced with her.  She skipped and leapt, and spun and jumped, and twirled and twirled and twirled to the music that surrounded her.  She danced to the bells in the steeple, to the wind through the trees, to the sounds of cars and people talking.  And she was happy.

But then, as all little girls do, she grew up.  And the innocence that had protected her from the stares of people vanished.  When she danced she felt the way others watched her, and not with the joy she felt but with mean laughs and harsh glares.  She was no longer allowed to dance in the churches and the schools.  She was told to sit still, and to ignore the music all around her. 

She did as she was told.  She stopped dancing.  Now she would only dance when she was certain she was alone, but soon she stopped even then.  She couldn’t fight the fear of people seeing her.  Of knowing that she was the strange little girl who danced when she was meant to stay still.  As she stopped dancing, she slowly sank into sadness.  She felt cut off from the world around her.  She was assaulted by emotions she didn’t understand, and she had no way to free herself.  She was alone, even though she was surrounded by people, and that is truly the worst way to be alone. 

One day she found a pair of scissors in her room.  She didn’t know exactly why she did it, but she pressed the blade of the tool against her wrist.  A red line formed across her arm, and suddenly she felt something she understood.  She felt a pain she knew how to deal with.  She found a way to control her life without anyone else knowing.  So, instead of dancing, she cut and cut until her arms were covered in marks she had given herself.

But the cuts did not fix things like the dancing had.  They gave her a moment of solace before leaving her more empty and lost than she had been before.  So she gave up.  She taught herself to smile while sitting still.  She focused on studying and finding other ways to distract herself.  And if sometimes she would tap out a rhythm to the sound of car horns, or if her gestures grew a little more wild and strange no one questioned her.  And eventually, she even taught herself to be happy, by forgetting the joy dancing had brought her.

Then things changed again.  She moved away from the safety of home.  From the pressures and structures of parents, and in to a new city, a new place to be.  She was surrounded by strangers, people who wouldn’t expect her to act any certain way.  And she heard the music again.  She felt the beat.  And she danced. 

It started slow.  Just running and jumping when others walked.  But then she realized something.  Not only did people not stare and laugh when she did, but there were others who joined in with her.  Who seemed to be able to hear what she heard.  Who longed for the dance just as she did.  So, she danced.  And suddenly the world danced with her again.

Random Pictures

So, it has been quite a while since I have put anything here, which means lots of pictures!  Some from Mount Hood, some from the coast, some from the Venus Transit party at OMSI and some from the Rose Festival.  I had a lot of fun taking these, even if I felt like a creeper some times!  Enjoy!