Saturday’s Kick Arounds

+ “If a thousand old beliefs were ruined in our march to truth, we must still march on.” – Stopford Brooke

I once watched a documentary where an Egyptologist/archaeologist was saying that many things that we hold to be true about ancient cultures have already been proven false because of the technologies of carbon dating and other discoveries from other sources of science. However, much of these new discoveries are still refuted, and left out of the history books, due to the fact that many academics refuse to “lose face.” No one wants to be proven wrong. And yet that is the way of progress – as conditions and perceptions change, so does reality. Finding the truth is often a process of “unknowing” everything that we are convinced that we already know. In an ideal world, wisdom and knowledge and insight, would always, always supercede our egos.

+ I recently read this fascinating story (which lead me to watching a captivating documentary and purchasing a book, of course – story of my curious life) about a strange, eccentric nanny, named Vivian Maier, who took hundreds of thousands of pictures of people, mostly on the streets of New York and Chicago during the 1950s/60s, and never developed the pictures. A man name John Maloof, purchased all of her negatives from a storage center that she had stopped paying for, for the paltry sum of $380, and astonishingly realized what an amazing talent this photographer had, particularly in finding the “soul” in the people of the photographs that she took. Vivian Maier had already died without a husband nor children, so this man made it his mission to make sure that her work was recognized for its greatness. Her photographs are now available in books, offered up in galleries all over the world, and many consider her to be one of the “greats” of street photography. Check out her website here, and enjoy this interesting little rabbit hole: https://www.vivianmaier.com/ If there was ever an artist who did the art, simply for the obsession of doing it for art’s sake, Vivian Maier is it.

+ One of my best friends from college texted us that she had just landed in Dublin, Ireland for her summer vacation. Coincidentally, my daughter, who is studying in London this summer, happens to be visiting Dublin this weekend with her friends. My husband said to me, “Can you imagine if you had been a prophet, and as you and your friend were sitting in a cozy, little dorm room in Virginia, you said, “We will be lifetime friends and more than three decades from now, you and my daughter will be in Dublin on the very same weekend?” I love this thought. It warms my heart. My deepest belief is that coincidence is just God being anonymous. Coincidence is always a delicious, enticing, comforting mystery.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

815. Have you ever been in a newspaper?

Say Cheese

“A second grader drew a picture of me today. I think it was me. It may have been a potato.” – Andi @smiles_and_nods, Twitter

This tweet brought a smile to my face. When our children were little, their preschool did a cruel activity every year where they would tell the children to draw portraits of their parents. We parents would then have to come into the classroom and find our own portraits, which were pasted all over the walls, for all to see. It was an excruciatingly difficult exercise. Most of the pictures appeared to be Picasso style. Our redheaded friend had a leg up. He would always just look for the only orange-haired, Ronald McDonald looking picture of a figure in guy clothes, and I think that he got it right, on the first try, 98 percent of the time.

I honestly hate having any kind of picture taken of me. I avoid pictures as much as I can. I’ve never felt like a natural in front of a camera. I am envious of today’s young ladies’ seemingly innate abilities to strike perfect poses, at the drop of a hat. I think this might be because they are so used to having their pictures taken. Since they were little, their parents have been pointing their phone cameras at them, a million times a day. Having their picture taken is as natural to them as blinking their eyes.

I know that they say that a picture paints a thousand words, but I’ve always been a word girl. If there is a video, I’m always looking for the transcript to the video. I read fast. I like to get to the point of things. I love words. I have always been able to express myself most easily in written form. I wish I felt that way about being photographed and videoed.

I read an article recently that said to get the best pictures of yourself, think of the people you most deeply love while having your picture taken. The article said that grandparents always look best in pictures where they are snuggling their grandchildren. Maybe when you are engulfed in feelings of love, you feel the least critical and judgmental about yourself and others, and that natural state of resting in love, gleams through the camera.

Having Your Picture Taken Quotes & Sayings | Having Your Picture Taken  Picture Quotes

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.