Category: photo

  • a soft landing

    I feel like the universe has offered me a soft landing space from the trauma of the past 2 weeks, in the home of a new friend in a new city for me to explore.  Here are a few images from my current life…

    Sunlight and spectacular gardens all around the space where I’m working:
    IMG_0873

    An enclosed garden porch, perfect for relaxing/reading/contemplating:
    IMG_0865

    Oh, and just-so-coincidentally, one wall of that porch is outfitted with climbing holds:
    IMG_0864

    And the bedroom where I’m sleeping more soundly than I have in a very long time (note: there’s a gorgeous print to the right of the bed called “Persephone” that I find particularly charming):
    IMG_0863

    Other little serendipities include a persimmon tree, two cozy kitties who are keeping me company, nearby train tracks, morning light through tall windows, a new evening hangout cafe, and the comfort of knowing that I’m getting my work done despite the emotional drain of the divorce.

  • A photo essay for Catgirl

    Today is Catgirl’s birthday, so she’s really been on my mind for the past few days. At times like these I want to yell from the rooftops just how wonderful my kids are, but words can’t really even contain the awesomeness of these kidlings. So how about a few pictures?

    When she was about a year old, the kids went with John to Hogle Zoo and had some photobooth fun (she had such big brown eyes and was curious about everything!):
    the kids with Dad, Hogle Zoo, 1997

    Even as a toddler, she loved to play dress-up. Back then that usually meant dresses (and usually they were purple–this is an exception to that rule):
    Like a Bag Lady

    Here’s Catgirl on a fancy dress-up day in kindergarten. With her very best friend (they still keep in touch online even though they’ve been at different schools since first grade)
    catgirl with best friend

    Catgirl has quite a sweet tooth, and her favorites have always been berries:
    Strawberries!

    She loves the ocean and the beach. When she was small we would spend hours just digging around in the sand. Here she is on Christmas Day at Crystal Cove state beach a few years ago:
    catgirl

    This, taken just as she entered her teenage years, with her post-braces smile:
    Striking a pose

    And most recently, Catgirl’s award-winning self-portrait:
    self-portrait

  • Wordless Wednesday: Quince Bough


    quince bough, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

  • a few of my favorite things…


    tea rainbow, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

    I keep a flickr photo set I call “pretty,” that’s filled with some of my pictures that I’ve chosen simply because they make me happy when I look at them. Most have vibrant colors or they commemorate a special moment. If I’m having a hard day I’ll click over to that file and browse for a few minutes. It rarely fails to cheer me.

    Do you have any similar photo folders or things you do to cheer yourself?

  • pilgrim classic: What love?

    Originally published on 11/24/08:


    cluster of heliotrope, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

    Where there is greed,
    What love can there be?
    ~Sikh wisdom

  • flash poetry: flower haiku


    farmers market flower seller, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

    It’s been awhile since I attempted some flash poetry. Because I need to get my creative juices flowing today, I decided to try my hand at a 10 minute haiku. (For those new to flash poetry, the point isn’t to be good, it’s just to have some fun by setting a timer for 5 or 10minutes and seeing what flows…):

    Indecisive, I
    take pictures, without buying
    from the flower stand.

  • Mary Monday: on beauty and god


    this crab has leopard spots, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

    On Friday I shared a favorite poem, “Pied Beauty”, with friends. It was the first time I’d read it aloud since college and I’d forgotten the spell of Hopkins’ words:

    Pied Beauty

    GLORY be to God for dappled things—
    For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
    For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
    Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
    Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
    And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

    All things counter, original, spare, strange;
    Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
    With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
    He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
    Praise him.

    As I traveled this weekend to speak at a conference and spend time with friends (such beautiful souls), I stayed up far too late and awoke early each morning. Despite that, I was rarely exhausted–as I was absorbing the energy of everyone around me, infected with the excitement of hearing their stories. I suspect that my travel-mania and joy in having new adventures is as potent as any drug…

    Revisiting my Mary Oliver this morning, the prose poem “West Wind” resonated with me. This weekend I listened to tales of many spiritual journeys. Tales of joy, abandonment, fear, ambivalence, faith and struggle. Some were hard for me to hear as they hit so close to home. Others reminded me that my journey is unique among many paths. And thus, Mary’s words about the pull of an embodied god feel so true this morning…

    And the speck of my heart, in my shed of flesh
    and bone, began to sing out, the way the sun
    would sing if the sun could sing, if light had a
    mouth and a tongue, if the sky had a throat, if
    god wasn’t just an idea but shoulders and a spine,
    gathered from everywhere, even the most distant
    planets, blazing up. Where am I? Even the rough
    words come to me now, quick as thistles. Who
    made your tyrant’s body, your thirst, your delving,
    your gladness? Oh tiger, bone-breaker
    oh tree on fire! Get away from me. Come closer.

    Picture above is the shell of a crab from a ramble on the beach in Cape Cod. I loved how every detail of this shell was so artful–how the closer I got, the more there was to see. And now that I’m home, the pull of the ocean is so strong I can hardly sit in my chair to write…

  • backrubs!!!!


    when I weighed 85lbs, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

    This was just one page of the 1200 or so medical records that I viewed over the last few days while in the archives at the Denver Children’s Hospital, where my osteosarcoma was treated 25 years ago.

    This record cracked me up when I recognized my own handwriting on two of the line items (the rest of the form was penned by my very-favorite nurse Penny). As I was considering why and when I’d written on the intake form, I had a vague flashback memory of sitting on the hospital bed next to Penny, joking together as we filled out the form. I think she had to leave the room for a minute to attend to another patient and I wrote in those answers myself, the “no hospital food” and “LOTS OF BACK RUBS!!!!!!”

    After viewing so many pages of records that were about me but where my presence was only indirect, it was such a pleasure to see my own handwriting. It also made me remember the little ways that I took control of my experience in the hospital.

    Oh, and one more thing about Penny: she’d been a massage therapist before she was a nurse. And she did give the very best backrubs and headrubs (one good thing about being bald was that there was no hair to interfere with a vigorous head massage)…

  • walking, in winter


    a park, in winter, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

    Yesterday was the first day since I’ve been in Denver that it was warm enough for a long stroll outside. So I found a park and went a-wandering with camera in hand. It felt so good to be in connection with the natural world again. After a few days indoors I’m so hungry to walk with plants and rocks and trees.

    Soon, I will be blogging about all I’ve learned and experienced during this trip. But right now I’m still trying to make sense of it, to continue living in the moment of new & unfamiliar spaces. Sometimes it takes so much work to be open that it’s hard to even put chronology and perspective on all the happenings of each day. The intensity eclipses the meaning of each individual moment. For now. Until I have the time to sift through my memories and write.

  • the view


    Picture above is the sun setting over the Rocky Mountains, as seen from the 38th floor of a Denver hotel.

    Part of my “trip reading” during the Western History Association Conference is The Best American Essays 2009. I realized that I just had to buy it when I saw that Mary Oliver was this year’s editor.

    A favorite quote from her Introduction that applies to blogwriting as well as more traditional forms of the essay:

    We speak a good deal these days of the loss of community, and many of us feel that we have lost therefore something very precious. Essays can move us back into this not-quite-lost realm. Tackling a hundred subjects, in a hundred different styles, they are like letters from a stranger that you cannot bear to throw away. They haunt you; they strengthen you.

    Perhaps I’ve been so busy contemplating the world of the ‘not-quite lost’ that I’ve had my head in the clouds for most of this last week. Somewhat literally, of course, as I’ve been staying in high-rise hotels for the duration of the conference, but also in that twice I’ve found myself lost and wandering around Denver city streets. How I can still get lost even with the aid of googlemaps is beyond me. But maybe there are only so many weighty thoughts that can occupy my brain at any given time….

  • I simply go on drifting…


    Cape Cod hydrangea in the morning, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

    An excerpt from Mary Oliver’s “What is There Beyond Knowing”

    What I know
    I could put into a pack

    as if it were bread and cheese, and carry it
    on one shoulder,

    important and honorable, but so small!
    While everything else continues, unexplained

    and unexplainable. How wonderful it is
    to follow a thought quietly

    to its logical end.
    I have done this a few times.

    But mostly I just stand in the dark field,
    in the middle of the world, breathing

    in and out. Life so far doesn’t have any other name
    but breath and light, wind and rain.

    If there’s a temple, I haven’t found it yet.
    I simply go on drifting, in the heaven of the grass and the weeds.

  • a few more steps for this pilgrim soul…


    Cape Cod, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

    Picture above is one of the lonely lanes I wandered while in Cape Cod–it led down to a beach inlet where I enjoyed browsing the flats and snapping pictures.

    I will admit that I wasn’t always entirely comfortable on my rambles. The lanes were often isolated and forested. I didn’t know what was lurking in the shade. I never saw other pedestrians and seldom any vehicles on the road. I was alone.

    Some days I find that solitude brings a sense of confidence–I love doing things by myself and not having dependencies on others. But some days I crave knowing that others are close by. And today is one of those days. I’m feeling insecure and desire validation. Most likely this stems from a realization of how misunderstood my life is to others–especially those who don’t understand an intentional choice of small footprint living, who don’t understand that I am a gypsy at heart and I would far rather have experiences (or kittens) than fancy stuff. “Things” bring me very little joy. I am a person who likes to pack light and keep it simple. In addition, I don’t get much satisfaction from being so focused on the future that I can’t enjoy today. Thoughts of eternal consequences are so remote. Instead, I’m present in this very day and this very moment. I am as easily delighted by a spiderweb as by a sweet strawberry from my garden. And they are both the face of the divine to me.

    So I’m in the process now, of making choices that may alienate me from friends who can’t understand my heart and my soul. Who don’t understand why my authenticity can be more important than my certainty. It’s hard for me to do this–I don’t like black and white choices. I’m more comfortable with zones of gray (and brown and vermilion and azure-blue). I want pictures and poetry and sunshine. I want the waves crashing so loudly around me that I can forget those who just don’t understand me anymore.