common threads

NOTE: i began this post a little over a year ago. it's been languishing in my drafts for that long, but i opened it again today and found it spoke to my late night mood...not least because i wonder what the me of a year ago would have written? and at this moment, as i type, i wonder what the me of today will write. let's find out...

think of three people you admire and determine the common thread. a friend did this exercise today (read: last year) (it's apparently from brené brown's book, which i haven't read, because i'm not that fond of her, tho' i may have to reconsider) and it made me curious to try it out for myself.

i think the reason this long languishing post speaks to me today is that i am feeling an acute need to look for the good in people. i've been spending far too much time feeling critical, paranoid and sarcastic of late. it's time to flip myself out of that rut by taking a look on the positive side of things.

first step - sorting through the different people i admire: husband (he continues to surprise and engage me in the best of ways, after all these years), our child (she is so much her own - smart, thoughtful, funny, sarcastic, dedicated), my dad (he may be gone, but he is not forgotten and he was his own to the very end), michael barbaro (what an amazing interviewer!), glynn washington (gives so much of himself when he tells stories), trevor noah (another amazing interviewer - so smart and funny and it's perfectly ok that he's not john stewart, he is trevor noah), karl ove knausgaard (luminous writing to savor), david letterman (his netflix series - such amazing conversations). my old friend joyce who seems to have found her way back from a dark time to be living her best life. my dear friend cyndy, who told us all yesterday in a stark facebook post that she's been diagnosed with lung cancer, but communicated it in an amazing way in which the foundation of strength that her family gives her came shining through, even tho' there is so much uncertainty on her (and their) horizon. another bloggy friend from the old days, mari, who is also moving into an amazing place artistically after the death of her husband from cancer a few years ago. her renewed strength and energy shine through in her pictures these days and she seems to have found a group of supportive, artistic women who give her a power that you can practically feel warming your skin as you scroll through her instagram. it gives me energy just to see her photos.

that's many more than three. and not even the tip of the iceberg.

what do they share, these people? curious, sharp, inquiring minds jump out at me first. a sense of humor is a close second. and lastly (but definitely not least), an independence of spirit that makes them unique.

what is the lesson in this? i need even more people in my life who make me think or laugh or wish i was them - or all three.

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speaking of people i admire, someone wrote a wonderful tribute to my cousin jerry, who lost his battle with cancer last year. you never know whose life you touch.

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look, new podcasts! 

grief does strange things - a fragment

you feel so many things when someone close to you dies. and one of the most unexpected things you feel is anger and impatience.

while i sat on the plane, wondering what i was heading towards, i felt so angry that others felt ownership of what was MY father dying. and it only increased, completely inappropriately, at moments when i least expected it. STOP saying you're sorry. STOP saying you'll miss him. it wasn't your FUCKING father who died. leave me alone with this, it's MINE. GET AWAY FROM ME!! and stop thinking it's about you.

but that faded.

but now a favorite aunt has also died. and i just read her obituary and it MADE ME SO ANGRY and i can't really explain why. but it's at least partially because a few paragraphs cannot encompass a life of 89 years. she was SO MUCH MORE than the vapid, emptiness listed in her obituary. GIVE HER CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE! she was this amazing, centering presence at the heart of our big family and the sentimental way in which that was expressed does not even remotely do justice to her.

WHO WRITES THESE THINGS?

at least with my dad's obituary, i knew who wrote it because it was me.


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i'm clearing out my drafts folder...i wrote this 6/3.2015 and never published it. i'm not sure why, perhaps i felt too angry at the time. but today, 24/3.2016 it seems like time to publish this, even if it is but a fragment...

fragments from my draft folder

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drunk j. crew is my new favorite tumblr.

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guess what i'll be doing doing this summer...filming this.

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whatever you think of him, this speech is filled with logic. and yes, i teared up watching it. whatever you believe. get out there and vote. and please think of all of our children when you do so.

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and speaking of the ignorance rampant in the world, the bbc is discussing it here. and i have to admit it makes me fearful of the world we're leaving to sabin. (3/3.2016)

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we are in the age of the fetish of everything. (26/4.2015)

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a friend recently shared a link to  this blog piece, written by a dane on how weird he realized danes were once he had spent some time out there in the world. she thanked me for hanging in there anyway, which was pretty sweet. (28/9.2014)

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my bloggy friend jessica of scrumdillydilly, who i've been reading since, well, forever, recently wrote a great post about the insecurities brought on by the internet. (17/7.2014)

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an interesting piece in information on the constitution of the modern family in denmark, where 45% live in a non-traditional family - with traditional being original mother and father and children living together under one roof.(23/3.2014)

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mel's beautiful words on instagram....This is the book that started the flood. In 2010, my teacher asked me to write in a journal - I only know the year because of the dates in these pages. The wife of a writer, we had lots of blank books lying around - gifts from friends and family - and after many failed attempts of my own over the years, I was skeptical. She urged me to try - pen and paper, by hand. The first weeks worth of pages are here, on 20 lb printer paper - temporary, disposable. Another teacher said - it doesn't matter what you write - it's space just for you. That unlocked something and after five days I pulled this empty book off the shelf and the words started leaking out of my pen. This is the book that showed me that the stories I told myself weren't always true, that the wild thoughts up in my head are not representative of reality. That the approval I'd been seeking was really my own (those words exactly came out on the page). That no feelings are unacceptable and allowing them space to say their piece helps them move on through. That the most important relationship of my life is the one I have with my own self, and that that relationship reflects on every other. This is the book that cracked the dam.

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i'm doing a bit of spring cleaning in my blog drafts folder. nearly 20 items had accumulated there. mostly fragments. some links. passing thoughts, awaiting deeper analysis. they had begun to weigh me down, and yet i didn't want to lose them either, so i decided to go through them, combine them and get them out of the way. hopefully to make room for new, fresh, livelier thoughts and words. 

fragment from 2013

janteloven (the law of jante) is what you might call the general danish philosophy to live by. and apparently it turns 80 years old this year. it comes from a book written by danish-norwegian author aksel sandemose, who, despite being born and dying in denmark, moved to norway for long enough to be deemed norwegian instead of danish. apparently after a stay in denmark he noticed that the following ten "laws" appear to be the general philosophy.

1. you shouldn't think you are anything (du skal ikke tro, du er noget.)
2. you shouldn't think that you're as much as we are. (du skal ikke tro, at du er lige så meget som os.)
3. you shouldn't believe that you're smarter than we are. (du skal ikke tro, at du er klogere end os.)
4. you shouldn't kid yourself that you're better than us. (du skal ikke bilde dig ind, at du er bedre end os.)
5. you shouldn't believe you know more than us. (du skal ikke tro, at du ved mere end os.)
6. you shouldn't believe that you are more than us. (du skal ikke tro, at du er mere end os.)
7. you shouldn't believe you're good for anything. (du skal ikke tro, at du dur til noget.)
8. you shouldn't laugh at us. (du skal ikke le ad os.)
9. you shouldn't believe that anyone likes you. (du skal ikke tro, at nogen bryder sig om dig.)
10. you shouldn't think you can teach us anything. (du skal ikke tro, at du kan lære os noget.)

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a fragment begun 11/5.2013 and never published. unfinished thoughts. growing dusty among my drafts.

fragments from august 2014

like much of the world, i've been watching with fascinated horror the news of the malaysia airlines plane shot down over the ukraine. the tragedy of the loss of so many people from the AIDS community on their way to a conference in australia is stunning in and of itself. i read this piece in the nytimes,


but speaking of social media, there was this article about a woman who had made her living on facebook, but now had decided to break up with it.

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fragments written 20/7.2014, found among my drafts. unfinished thoughts.

photo pessimism

my friend shelly recently wrote a piece on "the one" - one of her photographs that represented a breakthrough or a turning point in her photography. bill asked me, a few months ago, whether i thought my photos had a look to them that defined them as mine. i've actually been pondering that question ever since and i'm not sure i have an answer for it. i'm inspired by other people's photography and so i'm not sure that my own photos have a look that's uniquely mine. and i don't really think there's one that's The One. maybe all of these years of taking a daily photo have actually had no effect on me whatsoever. perhaps in this digital age, where we can take a dozen or 100 shots to get one we like, the endless duplication dilutes and leaves us with no photos that really matter. or perhaps i'm just pessimistic because the weather has turned cold, blustery and rainy once again and i have about a zillion strawberries to pick and the weather is too crap to do it.

adding to the gin collection

kerosene: which one(s) to buy?

the house of kerosene is a niche perfumery based in detroit. i got a box of samples to try in order to figure out which one(s) to buy.

a rather long time ago, inspired by the wonderful and still much-missed char, i did a post on life lessons. i even updated it about a year ago. but today feels like a day for a list, and since we never stop learning, here are the life lessons that come to mind here and now:

~ a g&t (or 3) does not make a good dinner.

~ especially if you also skipped lunch.

~ getting older is inevitable. and not really so bad.

~ apple will always come out with something new that you must have.


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cleaning up in my draft posts - this was written 15/9.2014, but not really published until 24/3.2016.

letter from a school in crisis

Kære elever og forældre i 7c.

Maj-Britt måtte i dag forlade 7c, da hun ikke kunne få ro til at gennemføre den planlagte undervisning.
Jeg har været i klassen og talt med eleverne, som alle havde forstået, at de var gået over grænsen.

I enhver klasse er der forskellige roller - som på et fodboldhold, hvor der både er angribere, midtbanespillere og forsvarer. Jeg har opfordret eleverne til at spille med.
Altså hjæpe hinanden med at få ro, sige fra overfor hinanden, hvis der er nogle, der har svært ved at finde grænsen for hvilket sprog, der bliver brugt til såvel de voksne, som til andre elever.
Sige fra overfor hinanden, hvis det er for svært for nogle at sidde stille og derved forstyrrer andre. Det er lærernes ansvar, men det er nødvendligt, at alle spiller med for at det lykkes, og vi får skabe de bedste læringsrum.

Hvad skete der i dag?
Jeg gav eleverne følgende billede:
En stor beholder, hvor mange vandhaner drypper ned i beholderen. Nogle drypper voldsomt, andre knap så voldsomt, mens endnu andre er helt tætte.
På et tidspunkt løber beholderen over.
De haner, hvorfra det løber stærkest bliver lukket straks. Andre får så lige drejet en halv omgang om sig selv, så de lukker.

Jeg har talt og indgået aftaler med to stærkt dryppende haner.  
Jeg har som sagt talt med hele klassen, så alle er bekendte med hvor vigtigt, det er at tjekke egen hane.
Beholdere løber nogen gange lettere over end andre gange. Det har jeg også talt med eleverne om, og de har vist god forståelse for hele situationen og mange har været en del berørte.

Denne episoide er enkeltstående og ikke acceptabel, men nogen gange skal der episoder som disse til, for at alle kan få forståelsn af, hvd vi hver især selv kan bidrage med. 
Jeg tror, den kan være med til at styrke sammenholdet i klassen og skabe et endnu bedre læringsrum.

not my cart

not my cart

we trudged through some heavy readings on the subject of industrialized food for our virtual food & culture course a month ago recently. amy wrote about it very thoughtfully and it's been tumbling around in my head for far too long, so i thought it was time i wrote about it as well.

....clearing out draft posts, i'm leaving this one from December 5, 2013 as it was...incomplete.

closing in on 2000

this is teddy. he's frankie's little brother - isn't he adorable?

before the year is out, i will write my 2000th post here on mpc. i'm not sure precisely when it will happen, but it seems like something worthy of celebrating. what do you think, how should we celebrate? a giveaway? a virtual party? a contest as to when it will be? i welcome any ideas!

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it's hard to believe that i'm closing in on another year completed of my 365 photo project - i started formally in 2010, but looking back over my various iPhoto libraries, i actually began taking photos every day when i got my nikon d60 back in may 2008, i just didn't realize at that point that it was a project. that's a lot of photos. and i intend to keep going - it's a great way of remembering what was happening when. and it also means i've always got photos for my blog posts.  but best of all, it makes me take at least a few minutes every single day where i am totally aware of my surroundings and in the moment - the moment of the click of the shutter.

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remember that post i did with a bunch of close-ups of my friend's beautiful embroidery piece? well, i was there again on sunday and managed to get a shot of the whole thing!

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the g boards on pinterest: gaga for garlands. garden bounty. gardens. gone fishin' (another favorite visually). great graphics.

danish words for things

these amanitas are a favorite of the danes - they feature heavily in danish christmas decor - on packages, in flower arrangements, on christmas paper, on christmas trees in lovely hand-blown glass versions. leave it to the danes to love a poisonous mushroom. oddly, this predilection got me thinking about danish ways of expressing certain concepts.

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the danish word for superstition is overtro literally "overbelief."  i was once part of a cross-cultural training that got me thinking (here she goes again) about the the way in which culture pervades language. one of the participants asked about chinese superstitions and emphasized the word with a bit of an eye roll, indicating disdain. i haven't run across many superstitions in denmark - in all, it's a pragmatic people with a pragmatic language.

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danish has a marvelous way of expressing whether people have extra energy or not - overskudsmennesker and underskudsmennesker - "surplus people" or "deficit people" if i translate literally. we all know people that fit both descriptions, so it's very apt to have a word to describe it. my partner and i did a book translation and we found english very poor indeed to describe this phenomenon.

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the danish word for immigrant - indvandrer - has become a bit of a swear word in the decade plus i've been here (all over europe and the world nationalistic, quasi-tribal attitudes have arisen and denmark is no exception with the popularity of a right wing "keep denmark for the danes" sort of party). but i actually rather like the word in and of itself. if i literally translate it, "one who wanders in." now that's a concept to which i can relate. if you are an indvandrer, you are also, by definition an udlænding - "one who is from the land out there." i think the way these words are constructed says a lot about the danish attitude towards foreigners. and when it comes down to it, the danes would actually prefer that you wander on back to the land out there. lucky for me, i don't scare easily.

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i'm sure english has weird words for stuff, but none come to mind as i write this. i think it's first outside your own language that you really begin to notice things.

shoplift lit list

in one of those long, convoluted series of clicks, i stumbled upon a rather old (1999! - so last century) article from the new york observer by ron rosenbaum. it's about which books reside in the shoplifting section of a barnes & noble in NYC - they're on a special shelf where you have to ask the cashiers for them, because they are stolen so often that it's a problem for the store. the article is clever and witty and you should go read it, especially since i'm not going to go into the whole thing here.

what i am going to go into is my own personal list of books that i consider so essential that i would risk the incredible stupidity that is shoplifting to own them. but only if, for some bizarre reason, i had no other choice. i should note that i am actually really opposed to shoplifting and think it's a lame and not very nice thing to do, so i am in no way advocating the shoplifting of these or any other book (or makeup or trinkets or hair thingies or socks or razor blades (which are apparently the most shop-lifted item) or anything else). and really, what with libraries, we should, in theory, never have to shoplift any books at all. however, i will still make the list. because i love lists. and since now i've been going on and on about it for this long...

~ charlotte's web by e.b. white.  this classic has made countless children cry themselves to sleep.

~ little women by louisa may alcott. if i were one of the little women, i'd be jo (wouldn't we all?).

~ brothers karamazov by fyodor dostoevsky. i would not only shoplift this book, but if i was allowed only one book in the universe, ever again, 'til the end of my life, this would be the one. it has it all...god, the devil, patricide, crazy brothers, saintly brothers, intellectuals, philosophy, religion and the grand inquisitor.

~ the bean trees by barbara kingsolver. i read this for the first time when i was in macedonia and it transports me there in a good way. tho' the book has nothing whatsoever to do with macedonia.

~ murakami - pretty much anything he's written, tho' especially wind-up bird chronicle and hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world. 

it occurs to me that in a way, this is just a list of favorite books, but somehow, the shoplifting twist changes it a bit for me. it's not only favorites, but books you'd be willing to sacrifice yourself for, or encounter danger (sort of) for. books for which you'd take a risk. and that somehow seems different than mere favorites. tho' they are that as well.

what book(s) would make you turn to a life of crime?

tranströmer poems

it's nearly time again for the nobel prize for literature. here are some gems from last year's winner, tomas tranströmer (best brush up on your swedish), while we wait:

Hör suset av regn.
Jag viskar en hemlighet
för att nå in dit.

Scen på perrongen.

Vilken egendomlig ro -

den inre rösten.

Askfärgad tystnad.
Den blå jätten går forbi.
Kall bris från havet.

the coolest and fresh insanity

i forgot i had this shirt. i think i bought it ages ago in manila. i may have pretended it was for husband, but really, it was for me. and i by no means mean to make fun of people with a psychiatric diagnosis - but i think that we could all use a bit of insanity in our lives. a bit of the good kind - not the madness that has become politics and the financial sector.

the kind that makes you dare to go for something you really want, but which to others seems impossible. the kind that sends you out on a limb. the kind where you are scared, but you do it anyway. the kind that makes your heart race and makes you a little dizzy to think of your own bravery.

i'm working on that. are you?

great quote

"the world is, after all, an endless battle of contrasting memories."- murakami, 1Q84

horseshit

it's very difficult to run a riding club in an economic downturn. some months ago, i agreed to go onto the board of the riding club where sabin rides. i was assured that it was very pleasant and there were no politics and no bad blood between any of the board members. herein lies my first mistake - i believed that.

the first meeting i attended was presided over by the then-chairman, a man i had never previously met. he didn't greet me or ask me to introduce myself or even explain why i was in the room. he then proceeded to say that everything to do with the budget and various agreements regarding the leasing of the facilities and the contracts with the riding teachers would be taken outside the meeting by him and the people involved and that we on the board didn't really have to concern ourselves with that. whew, what a relief that was. not.  then, he verbally attacked the wonderful and down-to-earth woman who owns the stable itself - yelling at her, condescending to her and generally being a complete ass.  i wrote a little bit about it here, in a rather obscure way. i left the meeting wondering what i had gotten myself into.

not long after that, that chairman "resigned" with some encouragement from some of the other board members. and a lot has since come to light about how much he was hiding about what bad shape the club was in economically. these clubs are independent quasi-public associations and while the club gets funding from the municipality, it also has to fund itself - through lessons, membership fees, distribution of trash bags to households (a "job" it does for the municipality twice yearly), selling scratch lotto tickets, holding horse shows and running a kiosk (that sells a lot of french fries) at the horse shows. but these clubs are often riding the ragged edge and only barely making it.

i agreed to be "horse responsible" - since i grew up with horses and most of the others involved on the board are just supportive parents and not really all that horsey. so, it falls me to make agreements for borrowing horses, selling the ones we have, buying new ones, making agreements for the students who have the right to ride the lesson horses on the weekends (they can pay extra and do that), and the general day-to-day health of the horses. sounds reasonable enough, right? well, that too i was wrong about.

of course everyone and their dog has an opinion. and there is a great deal of pressure to make new horses magically appear with absolutely no financial backing (do you have any idea how hard it is to find a free horse?). and don't even get me started about the sniping, the backstabbing, the rumors and the standing and loudly talking about horse problems in front of parents and students.  and there were supposedly no politics involved in this job.

what i've learned is that people will invent politics where none need exist.

on the ups and downs of flickr

just going through my draft posts...started this one clear back in march, but it actually still seems to ring true now...and i do still love the scarf.

on self-presents and belonging and not cleaning that mirror

i struggle with flickr. i go through periods of adoring it (usually in january, at the beginning of a new 365 project) and then i hit the doldrums and i begin to loathe it. there's so much pretense there. i saw someone one day who had commented on a photo, saying, "heartbreakingly beautiful, sympathetic DOF!" and i was like really? really? it was one of those rather prosaic photos of the aftermath of lunch at an outdoor café that are so in vogue. and how can depth of field possibly be sympathetic? and what purpose did that pretense really serve? but my impatience with it also tells me that i'm in one of those periods where i've gone off flickr.

i find flickr to be way more cliquish than blogging. groups there are much more defined (and by groups, i don't mean the ones you add your photos to) and it's so hard to break into them and i've tried with a couple of different circles that rejected me. i think that basically, i don't really feel that much at home on flickr. i'm just much more at home on blogger. but some part of you wants to break into certain groups and belong a little bit anyway. so i do things like buy myself this lovely scarf from the scarfshop as a little self-prezzie for my birthday, even tho' i'm not even recognized as a peripheral member of that particular flickr crowd (despite my best efforts). 

sometimes, you just want something that lets you feel you belong for a few minutes. even if only in your mind.