Acceptance

"I live in a place that's only good for leaving."

~Courtney Summers

Sadie

In case you haven't noticed, I have posted more this month, the first month of 2019, than I did last year at this time. In fact, this is the most posts in January, since 2015! What changed? Well, I am finally comfortable in my life. The most comfortable as I have been since moving. I am not 100% happy, that probably won't change until Trump is out of office, but I am comfortable in the house, and in Stockton. I have learned to venture out of the house, and find my way around, and I have some confidence in my photography as it applies to my semi-rural existence. I have gotten used to San Francisco not being a heartbeat away. I have stopped fighting my grief. I guess I have finally reached the acceptance of my situation, that will finally help me heal.

Acceptance... the 5th and final stage of grief, is the most important step to regaining your life, is perhaps the most difficult of the 5 to achieve, at least it was for me. It is, however a necessary evil, and by having let go, I have completed the necessary steps to feel free from the overwhelming hatred I felt for 2015. I think I feel better, but at the same time, I feel an familiar feeling of sadness for what's been left behind. San Francisco is my love, but at least my new town, of Stockton, and I can be friends! Finally! So, here is a new gallery of photographs from the Central Valley, taken last Sunday, during that fascinating storm that came through he Big Valley. So much light. So many clouds. And the beautiful rural towns, a little bit east of my new home!

Sights From The Central Valley Towns

Ione, California

Herald, California

I am already looking forward to the next winter storm!

~Mood: Happy

~Me 

 

Opportunity Storms

"Birds were created to record everything. 

They were not designed just to be beautiful jewels of the sky,

 but to serve as the eyes of heaven."

~Suzy Kassem

Rise Up And Salute The Sun: The Writings Of Suzy Kassem 

Last weekend, as I was chasing the storm around the Central Valley, I had lots of opportunities to photograph different subjects. Clouds. Cows. Light and dark shadows, and, of course, birds. I found two different species that stood out, the Savannah Sparrow, and a Red Tailed Hawk. Of the two, I think I enjoyed this bird the most. There were about 40 of them, all eating in, and around, some small bushes on the road to the Rancho Seca Recreational area, near the town of Herald, California. This little bird was in some bushes, facing the now closed, twin towers, of the Rancho Seco nuclear power plant. That particular site is one of my favorite destinations in the Central Valley, to do sunset photos, as well as, doing a little bird watching. Over time, for some reason, I have found the towers themselves, to be quite photogenic, and I have developed a fondness for them. Weird. I know! I am snot sure why I enjoy them so much, but they make me feel comfortable, and safe. Shrug. I have no idea why, but I thank God for it! I will take the inspiration and be grateful!

Rancho Seco Nuclear Power Plant

Rancho Seco Recreational Area

Herald, California

January 20th 2019

~Mood: Happy

~Me  :)

 

After The Storm Comes The Sunset

"Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky."

~Rabindranath Tagore

Stray Birds

Okay, so as I mentioned in my last post, my chance at photographing the blood moon was completely washed out, by a fairly active storm cell. It contained a tornado cell, or two, so as you might imagine, it had all the elements necessary to produce a really stunning winter sunset... and that's just what happened. A really gorgeous sunset! So, the day ended up being a bit of a trade off, sunset beauty, rather than lunar beauty. As disappointed as I was in not getting to photograph an eclipse, I was thrilled with the late afternoon sky. It all worked out, and besides, I will get another chance to photograph a blood moon, in May of 2021. That's not so long away! Who knows, perhaps by then, I will have an awesome telescope, and will be able to photograph more than just an blood moon eclipse!

Stormy Sunset Gallery 

January, 2019

I am beginning to really enjoy winter's light!

~Mood: Happy

~Me  :)

 

Three Moons But Not The Right Moon

"The moon is a loyal companion.

It never leaves. It's always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Ever day it's a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands what it means to be human. 

 Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections."

~Tahereh Mafi

Shatter Me

 There was a very special eclipse this past weekend. It was the Full Wolf Moon, and a total lunar eclipse, making it a blood moon! I mentioned it earlier in the week, but alas, true to form, if I mention a special event, it will become inevitable that I will not be able to photograph it. And I wasn't. In fairness, I knew the weather was going to be stormy, but I also thought that there just might be enough of a window between weather cells to allow for at least a few photos, but it just didn't work out. Shrug. On the bright side of things, I was able to do some photos of the amazing storm that rolled through. It produced a tornado warning for about two hours.

That was pretty exciting! And as you might have guessed, I was able to photograph some amazing cloud formations. Now, with those safely in the files, I can assure you I will be posting them over the next few days! I am really enjoying the new subject of clouds, so much so that I think it will keep me busy for most of the year! There, that's the closest as I get to guaranteeing clear weather for the rest of the year, mention within earshot of the photography gods, that I like photographing clouds! LOL. I wonder if the photography gods are named, Murphy?

~Mood: Happy
~Me 

A Silver Cottonwood

"Every Winter, when the great sun has turned his face away,

The earth goes down into a vale of grief,

And fasts, and weeps, and shrouds herself in sables,

Leaving her wedding-garlands to decay... 

Then leaps in spring to his returning kisses."

~Charles Kingsley

Saint's Tragedy

I am becoming a big fan of cottonwood leaves. They have a lovely shape to them, but they don't produce much color. In summer they are a pleasant enough green, rather medium, I think, and then in autumn they turn a light beige color. They become fragile quite early in autumn, and therefore picking them up is something you can't rush. If left alone, they decompose fairly quickly, within a couple days or so, and when they do, they can transform themselves from that beige, to an almost silver color. It's quite striking as a metaphor for the inevitable end of another year. As always, here I sit in January, and instead of celebrating the newness of the year, I am still seeing the death of the previous season and date on the calendar. Another autumn gone.

Winter's Soggy Cereal

January 16th, 2019

Stockton, California

Nikon

~Mood: Quiet

~Me 

 

 

Raindrops On Safflower Clover

"Yellow is the color of the sun.

Blue is the color of the sky.

Green is the color of grass.

Brown is the color of your eyes.

Black is the color of the night.

Orange is the color of truth.

Red is the color of love.

And...

Rainbow is the color of you."

~Anthony T. Hincks 

It's a new year, but you already know that. But I am going to stress it again, because it applies to my struggle to find inspiration, after autumn dies each year. Winter is difficult, especially in that I can't get out to do photos as much as I would like to. My Fibromyalgia, with the seasonal migraines, and the body aches tend to be worse in cold weather. My mind is happy, but my body is weak. Sometimes it's a matter of pushing though, sometimes there is just no way to make it happen.

But all is not lost. I downloaded a few self guided public art tours. And I have some ambitious plans for the coming weeks. There is actually a lot to photograph in my area, like the awesome art scene, and movie locations, it's just a matter of working on the logistics of the day out. It will happen. I am already much more enthusiastic than in recent years, so I am not going to push, I am just going to let the muse take me where she will. 

Like the photo above. There was an amazing winter storm rolling in from out in the Pacific. I feel like my beloved Bay Area was sending me a lifeline. It is also pushing through to the Sierra. It's so strong, that it will be a blizzard by daybreak. That will mean some great opportunities to visit some snow in the Western Slope of the Sierra, or perhaps as far as Lake Tahoe. I will just have to check the road closures, and hope for the best. But for yesterday, I decided to photograph some pretty Clover grass, with raindrops on them.

It's a start.

~Mood: Inspired

~Me

Last Years Day Of Winter

I do an awful lot of thinking and dreaming about things in the past and the future... the timelessness of the rocks and the hills... all the people who have existed there. I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape... the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show."

~Andrew Wyeth

I took this photo last February, on a trip to Camino to see the snow. Camino isn't that far away, maybe 90 minutes or so, but the drive is lovely through the back country of the Central Valley. It's a peaceful drive, although cow repetitive. That's okay, I enjoy cows. They are awkward and fun. A cow has to be a cow, right? Anyway, I could get used to living with some space, the trouble is, the further from the city you get, the bigger the spider. Spiders keep me from living in the country. Spiders and snow. Snow, pretty to look at, but I am not sure I would want to live there. Well, then again, I suppose I could try it. 

~Mood: Quiet
~Me :)

Foggy Impressions

"Sometimes you can't see the road ahead but as you keep going, it gets clearer. Stay the course as the fog of life dissipates."

~Sanjo Jendayi

It was foggy in Stockton yesterday, perfect! I have been wanting to get in more practice with foggy days, and yesterday was perfect because I couldn't sleep, so it was nice to stretch my creativity muscle a bit. I like days like this. I am definitely an autumn/winter person, I like the low light, especially since I have been experiencing the migraines. One of the side effects is floaters, and, at least for me, they are more severe with bright light, so I am welcoming of the dark days. It's so funny, I have never felt sad in winter like other folks do, it seems to have just the opposite effect on me! Indeed, I tend to feel more depressed in summer, when I have trouble concentrating because of high temperatures. I am on my own island I suppose.

And now, a winter leaf...

 ~Mood: Creative

~Me

Music Played In The Key Of Black And White

"We are the ones who take this thing called music and line it up with this thing called time. We are the ticking, we are the pulsing, we are underneath every part of this moment. And by making the moment our own, we are rendering it timeless. There is no audience. There are no instruments. There are only bodies and thoughts and murmurs and looks. It's the concrete rush to end all concert rushes, because this is what matters. When the heart races, this is what it's racing towards."

~Rachel Cohn

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

Another photo from deep in the archives. I hope to be posting new photographs soon, perhaps later this week. We will see. It's the after holiday doldrums... well actually... it's the after holiday depression. It will pass. It always passes. In the meantime, music always helps. As does movies. Alan and I watched a lot of movies over the weekend, which was nice, but now it's Monday all over again, and here we are, all still being held captive by a deranged toddler. And again, I know, this too shall pass. Until then, I am continuing to work on creating a Google Photos main album that can display a nice wide range examples of what I have photographed over the last 14 years or so. It sounds like a lot, but it's a task I am actually enjoying! Hey look... better already!

~Mood: Quiet

~Me

Reliable Drugs

"True alchemy lies in this formula: 'Your memory and your senses are but the nourishment of your creative impulse"."

~Arther Rimbaud 

Illuminations

I remember this sign from my childhood, and I always like it. I am not sure why it pleased my child's mind so much, it just did! Maybe it was the lettering. Maybe it was all I had heard about drugs. LOL. Maybe it just seemed that anything reliable, must be good! Maybe even as a child, I saw too much change happening around me. Shrug. I have never been a fan of too much change... too fast. But, unfortunately, change is what brings autumn back around, and so I face down yet another year of the very thing I dislike most in the whole world. 

Change. 

That's as a reliable a drug as is readily available.

~Mood: Happy

~Me  :)

 

Looking Out Of The Window

"Enlarge your windows till you get a window where you can see the whole universe with one look!"

~Mehmet Murat ildan

I reached all the way back into the archives for this photo! It's from, 2006. I was at my psychiatrist's office, and we were having a good session. Actually, let me fix that, I was having a good session. We implies she needed to be in therapy with me, but she, of course, didn't need to be in therapy with me, at all. Anyway, it was April, a weird month for me to be doing well, because I can't stand spring, and lets face it, April is dead center in the middle of spring, but for whatever reason, that I can't remember, it was a good day. I was having a good day. How do I know it was? Well, because as I was tip-toeing through the photography archives, I found a different version of this photo, and it was titled...

 "On A Good Day"

I was still pretty inside myself back then. I had the camera, and a blog, but I still didn't feel like engaging with anyone who didn't live in a little box on my desk. But I realized looking at this photo, that as inside myself as I was, I still saw everything in the world in living color. The trees, the house across the street, life on Durant street in Berkeley was in full living color. That was big, in that I had been dealing with Anhedonia in the previous years. Anhedoina is painful, if you live for photography. In my case, I couldn't match colors, everything appeared in black and white. Well, that's not right, see, I saw the colors, they just didn't make any sense to me. 

I couldn't make colors go together properly. Nothing looked right. But by the time I took the photo above, I had been healed. I saw colors again, and understood their meaning. Green trees. Red trees. A blue sky. All things I saw, while I was ill, but couldn't comprehend. It was there, but it wasn't. Anyway, it was a very good day, the day I took that photo. I was happy enough to take a photo of an open window, on a sunny day, in Berkeley, California. And I kept taking photos, but it was all different, because I can pick up the camera on good and bad days now, and the only variable is my energy, and will, to do so and therein lies my continued struggle.

I took these photos, on the same good day, all those years ago, and they still make me smile. Hair is my favorite movie, so it was a lot of fun to spot the soundtrack to it, in a window, in Berkeley. As a matter of fact, it was also out of my therapist's window, on a different side of the office. I thought it was such a strange place to see the soundtrack of Hair! In Berkeley. In a window. In 2006! I wish I could have gotten a clearer picture, but I was dealing with the two windows, a fair distance apart, but it's kinda awesome to me all the same. I snapped the photo, and smiled most of the rest of that day. God, life is mighty strange sometimes. Take my advice, look out of more windows... even if you don't feel like it!

The universe was definitely speaking to me that day.

Side 2. Song 1.

Where Do I Go?

Sung by John Savage

"Hair"

~Mood: Quiet

~Me