My next drawing for a postcard to my parents was from a picture I took while we were walking around in Joshua Tree last Christmas. I thought my parents might never go see the nearby National Park, so I would give them a glimpse of it.
I really tried to capture the glow of the sun setting and hitting the rock formations.
My second postcard was based on the designs of the leaded glass windows at the house I grew up in in Oak Park. I thought they would appreciate a bit of the house they made a home from 1973-2021. So I went back on my phone and found a picture I took of a window during my last visit to the house in January 2021.
There were so many moments of my life and childhood looking through these windows. They truly were the frame around my view of the world growing up. Maybe it is the most formative image layered on my childhood. Does it tie into why I want to have art and creativity in my life? Does growing up in that house shape how I look at what makes a home or what is good architecture? It wasn’t a plain old pane of glass, but faceted and composed. It was a layer of home that was visible between me and the world.
It was pretty special to have that be a part of my growing up. And I realize that more now.
For Christmas of 2023 I bought my dad a watercolor set and some blank postcards. My intention was to send my parents an original image on a postcard each week. And I gave my dad supplies to do the same.
I have not kept up with my weekly deadline very consistently, and I have realized a gift that includes homework is not always successful. So I have not gotten any postcards from my father, but I am going to be posting the images I sent my parents.
Here is the first one I sent:
For Thanksgiving in 2023, we went to New York City to have it in McKelvey’s apartment for her senior year. While we were there, we went to the Macys Thanksgiving Day parade. This postcard is based off of an image I took from the sidewalk during the parade.
I actually finished it in Palm Springs December 2023, in the hotel we were staying at. I went to the front desk to find out where a Mail box was, and they offered to drop it in the mail for me. But it never arrived at my parents house. So this is its introduction to the world.
We often think of communication as a simple transfer of information from one person to another. In a world where technology makes it easier than ever to connect with others, it can be tempting to believe that communication is simple and straightforward. We think that if we just say the right words, in the right way, to the right person, we will be understood. But the truth is, all communication is miscommunication.
No matter how hard we try, there is always room for misunderstanding, misinterpretation, and miscommunication. Words can be misinterpreted, tone can be misconstrued, and even body language can be misread. Miscommunication happens when we assume that the person we’re communicating with sees the world in the same way we do. It happens when we assume that they understand the meaning behind our words, the context of our message, and the intent behind our actions.
But the truth is, we all come from different backgrounds, have different experiences, and interpret things in different ways. What might be clear and straightforward to us, might be confusing, or ambiguous, or even imply a completely different meaning to someone else.
So, how do we navigate this constant state of miscommunication? By being mindful of the fact that it will happen and seeing it as an opportunity to practice empathy and active listening. When we approach miscommunication with openness to others and a willingness to learn, we can turn potential miscommunication into real communication. When we listen to others with an open mind and a willingness to understand, we can learn, and hopefully gain a deeper appreciation for, their perspectives and experiences.
So, embrace the miscommunication. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, to clarify, and to admit when you don’t understand. We need to be open to different perspectives and to the possibility that we might be wrong. And we need to be willing to admit when we’ve made a mistake and to apologize when necessary.
All communication is miscommunication, but that doesn’t mean it’s a lost cause. It just means that we need to work a little harder, be a little more patient, and be a little more compassionate. And in doing so, we can build deeper connections and understanding with the people around us.
I recently deleted my social media applications from my phone. I had already become disheartened by the amount of time I had found myself scrolling mindlessly. And too much time each day had slipped by. Even put a timer on the app to restrict my usage, but all that did was to point out my 15 minute increments that I was scrolling thru suggested images. So the deleting of the apps was the next step. Then I read a great article: Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid. It equated social media to the Tower of Babel.
Babel is not a story about tribalism. It’s a story about the fragmentation of everything.
And the fragmentation of everything is driving the partisanship of contemporary life. So I am resolving to spend less time consuming and more time creating. I mean, I have all these things that I think it would be great to do. So why not do them? Or spend time with family. And not be on the screens together while watching tv, but just watch TV together. Although I find myself falling asleep a lot while watching TV. But maybe that is a post for another day…
What would it be like to live in Babel in the days after its destruction? We know. It is a time of confusion and loss. But it is also a time to reflect, listen, and build.
Time to start more building.
My mother in law, Mary Courtney, passed away Saturday, the 16th. Surrounded by her children. I have always been so thankful to have been welcomed into the Courtney family, and by her.
Walking into the Courtney home you could see it filled with a reflection of Mary’s passions and loves. The numerous houseplants showed her love of nature, evidence of her deep seated love of animals was dog hair that inevitably got on your clothes.
Her home was filled with artwork as well, pastels and drawings of nature and animals, but the most striking of course was her stained glass. Leaded glass lamps, stained glass windows, art glass panels framing a doorway, and of course her recent work of colored glass mosaics.
But what she gave the most space to in her house was her most favorite creation, her family. Pictures of her children and grandchildren at every moment of their lives. School photos, baby pictures, diving and gymnastics meets. Pictures from vacations and trips, weddings and births. You can see she was a person who cherished her family and these various moments in time captured along the way.
Lately I have been sorting thru lots of things from my parents house. You can accumulate a lot over almost 50 years. And what they had was ‘inherited’ from their parents’ or aunts’ homes. One item that I had growing up, that entered our sphere from my mom’s side of the family, was an old Firemans Call Box. Before telephones and 911, these were placed around neighborhoods so residents can pull the lever and let the firemen know that there was a fire. He had a key to ours, and I used it as a safe of sorts to keep stuff in. Although sometime after my freshman year of high school I lost the key. But it kicked around in the attic, after I moved up there sophomore year, until this past November when I brought it back with to Virginia. 
I had always been curious what I had in there, I remembered some notes that were passed in class being saved in there, and I thought my signed Sidd Finch baseball card was in there too. So I pulled out the lock picks we had given to Liam one Christmas and tried to open it.
Raise your hand if you have ever successfully picked a lock. Spoiler, I am not raising my hand. Enter the electric drill…
After drilling out the lock, I was able to open up the box and unload the contents. What you can see are all the elements that are important to a nerdy middleschool/beginning high schooler. And definitely not things you would think about saving for the future.
Some comic books, first issues of a variety of random things, that are invariably not worth much. A bunch of miscellaneous coinage, mostly half-dollars, 1976 quarters, and British coinage. (anyone know the current value of a Shilling?) Some locker combinations, one for my locker by the scene shop at ORPF, and another lock combination. Neither of which happen to be for my blue Gym combination lock.
It did have my High school yearbook from 1987-88. Which is something I was never missing or looking for. But there you have it. As it happens I now am in possession of all my high school yearbooks, which is not a testament to how I hold onto my high school years, but how much my parents kept track of my childhood.
Which I can kind of get. In phone conversations over the years, when I am now a parent talking to my dad, he mentioned that raising his kids was some of the best years of his life. And I can agree with him on that. While I don’t want to return to the past, or do X, Y, or Z over again, I am thankful that how the past has gotten me to where I am now. Mistakes and all. And seeing the kids as they grow older has made me think about life in a totally different way.
Speaking of mistakes:
Did I not know I had curly hair? I definitely did not know how to take care of it. Dude.
I spent a week at my parents house helping them get things ready to sell it. This involved a bunch of cleaning and fixing little things around the house.A thought that keeps popping up( when you are an adult) is that you only finish the things on your house list when you are getting ready to sell the house. All those things that you put up with and put off are only addressed when you have that deadline. Or is it that you take care of the things when you know those outside critics are coming to look at your home? It may be a bit of both, that you are happy accommodating the nicks, scrapes and blemishes when it is your home, but need to clean them up, make it more presentable (to stage the rooms) to appeal to the person off the street. One of the things was a knob on the built in linen cabinet was missing. All the knob were glass, with a single one replaced with a ceramic knob from the old kitchen cabinets (the originals that were replaced in the 1980’s). When sorting thru the boxes in the attic, there was the glass knob, waiting 40 years to be put back in its place. Just waiting for the person with the will to finish this task off the list.
How much of our own personal, internal todo lists do we put off for other concerns? I kick a lot of things farther down on the list, in order to take care of other things. Is that similar to this? When are those looming deadlines for internal todo lists? And do we ever see them coming?
Now all the knobs match for the next owners of the house. Maybe it’s time for me to check my own list for something to finish…
So I finally got back the pictures from walk the other day. In the age of instant gratification, it took lots of patience to wait to see how everything turned out. it takes a certain amount of letting go, to have to wait to see the fruits of your labor a week later. Knowing that you cannot control the outcome of the choices you have already made. How much of everything that we do is like that but we just don’t recognize it right away? When we are able to do some thing and see turns out right away. And then be able to change and try again seconds later. Of course some of the pictures turned out fine, but trying to do double exposure didn’t work out the way I pictured in my head. But gave me motivation to learn more about how to do that and look it up. Looking forward to trying to do some double exposure photography in the future and see how that turns out. And now I might be better and waiting for the results.
All images below were taken on a Brownie Hawkeye camera, 100 ISO Kodak T-Max BW film
For the first time in a long while I went for a walk. Just to go out and get some exercise. With a chill in the air, I was cozy in my cap and fingerless gloves, and it was nice to walk with my thoughts. I took with me an old Brownie Hawkeye camera with a load of film. It is a fun puzzle to try to look at your familiar surroundings in a new way. What is different and what would you want to capture and share? What do you want to get people to look at? Walking around with clouds in the sky giving shadows at intermittent times forced me to think and look at the world differently. With the low speed of the film I had to not only pay attention to my orientation to the sun but also whether the sun was peeking out of the clouds or not, all factors that would affect the outcome of the photo. It gets you in tune with the world around you in a different way, and maybe we need to take time to do that. To look at the world with a fresh take and at a different pace.
Update:Got the pictures back.