December Views

I am being very inspired by several blogs these days. My current favorite inspiration is Darlene over at Hippy Urban Girl. Every year she takes the month of December to blog her voice in photos instead of words. She calls it December Views, and she invites other people to join her. I've decided to play along. I have been wanting to do some more experimenting with processing my photos. Therefore, I have decided that all my December View photos will be processed in some unique way. I can't promise that I will post a photo every day, but hopefully they will be interesting...

Winter Shine

Reverb 10: Day 4

Day #4: Wonder. How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year? (Author: Jeffrey Davis)

Creativity.
While I think that I was creative less often this year than in previous years, I feel like the times I did pull out my creativity that it was bigger, bolder, and longer lasting. All this creativity is how I feel the wonder in the world. When I am creative I feel like it opens my eyes to the possibilities and magic in the world. Or in other words, the wonder. My definition of creativity is pretty broad. Anything that makes me smile out loud while I am doing/making it or when I am done. Usually this involves making something physical and tangible (like, you know, "arts and crafts"), but it can also involve music, dance, or joy.

A brief list of bold acts of creativity I jumped into this year...

• I started writing songs this year. Even gained some fans. This is the one that feels the deepest. It connects me to my mom and there really is nothing like the feeling I get when dancing with my guitar.
  
• I threw myself some fabulous parties; a full-on Mad Hatter birthday tea party and my annual 1581 post-Halloween party (these parties involve lots creative acts to put on)
  
• I took part in Vivienne McMaster's fabulous You Are Your Own Muse photography e-course and took a ton of self portraits and learned a lot; about myself and photography.
• I started sewing again. Right now it is little plush felt gimpy animals.
  
• I started dancing wildly in public this year. I highly recommend this. I can guarantee that it will make you and at least one other person smile :)
• I knit (and finished) my very first whole honest-to-god sweater.
• I have recently taken to secreting little notes into strangers bags/coats/etc~my favorite and most used is "you are beautiful"
  

Reverb 10: Day 3

Day #3: Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors). (Author: Ali Edwards)

Cresting the ridge above Emma Lake.
After a hour long bumpy ride and a 4 hour crazy hike up a trail justly called "the stairmaster" I reached the top of the ridge above Emma Lake with my friend Jeremy. Only moments before we had reached the snow (still there in August) and covered ourselves in the fantastic cooling white ambrosia (it was hot that day). I remember sitting up on the ridge and looking out over the mountains. I don't think I have ever been so high up on my own steam (legs and feet I mean). I had been worried about the hike and the first 45 minutes were rough. My body doing it's typical "STOP MOVING" routine. Yet after a while (and some wild blueberries along the trail) my body quieted down. The rest of the way was fine. When I got to the top I felt so fantastic. The view was stunning, I could see for miles and miles (for the last time too, as it clouded over the rest of the trip and we lived in a cloud while we were up there).
That whole trip was a highlight of this last year, and cresting that ridge was the most alive I have felt in awhile.

Reverb10: Day 2

Day #2: Writing. What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it? (Author: Leo Babauta)

(I am not particularly a writer, unless it be my blog, and even then, it is half pictures anyway. So, I am going to replace this with "creative", be it writing, photography, knitting, or making fabric gimpy bunnies)

Television. Watch less of it.
I don't consider myself to watch a lot of TV. Maybe 2-3 hours before bed of our current "show". This may seem like a lot to some people, and very little to others. In some ways TV contributes to my creativity because it gives me time to knit. I can knot away a nice portion of some knitted garment in 3 hours. However, I need to change this from a nightly routine, to a couple of nights a week.

REverb 10

I am a little late for the tea party, but I've decided to join the Reverb 10 for December. I am going to post a couple a day until I catch up with everyone else...so here goes.

Day #1: One Word

One Word. Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you? (Author: Gwen Bell)

2010; Exhausting

Everything this year has made me tired.
I think it started with my inner struggle around my future. I feel as though I inhabit two different worlds sometimes (let's just be really simple and call them The Scientist & The Hippy). On some level I am ok with this, because I really enjoy both of them. My biggest fear is having to give one of them up, or to be sucked so deeply into one of them that I forget the other one exists. I fear not living my dreams. Giving up their dreams is what killed my grandmother and mother. I fear the same thing...
This mental struggle about my future has taken a lot out of me this year. It has made existence in both my worlds harder, from fear of losing them to fear of them becoming everything that I am.
This summer I sorta gave up. I realized that I could do bare minimum and still get by. I am not sure this option of living had ever occurred to me before. Problem is, when I do nothing I get depressed. This seems so strange to me because I love anything under the heading "relaxing". Yet, if I do too much of it, I slide into a strange messed up world inside my head. This summer I wandered straight into that head space not even noticing the "wrong way" traffic signs along the way.
Then in the fall I had some serious stress fall into my lap. Normally I would be able to handle it, but with my mental self already semi-ignoring the world I ran for the hills. Enter anxiety, my old friend. Sometimes the only way to calm myself down these days is to ask myself "are you ok RIGHT NOW? not five minutes from now, not tomorrow, but right now? are you going to die? Right now?" The answer to this question is always no. Which calms me down...most of the time.

2011; Adventure

I realize that to move beyond this mental place I find myself in (and to manifest the life that I want) I need to view my life and future with a sense of adventure. When you are full of adventure you can't be scared of the future, you can only be really excited by it. I want next year to be full of adventure. The simple kind. The complex kind. The spontaneous kind. The every day kind. Adventure of all kinds...

Levitation

Sometimes...you've just got to fly to make it there...

mischievous

When I took this photo, I was not feeling all that mischievous. It was windy out and very cold. I was waiting for a friend who was late and a girl in the parking lot behind me would not stop staring at me while I took pictures of myself jumping and twirling around.

There is something about this photo though...
Yes, I have that smile. Yes, I am peeking around a rusted old pole. Yet, it is the eyes that get me. As though I have just come from some devious magic or crafty prank. There is a sense of waiting to this photo that I love...I am just waiting for the next outrageous opportunity to come around the corner...