Personal Thoughts
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Visible lines
My favorite art movement is impressionism and Paul Cezanne is often associated with it. While I did enjoy the exhibits, my take away from it was more personal then I expected. Cezannes work is full of inconsistencies, illogical constructions, and things that generally “don’t make sense” to us now and to his contemporaries then. Examples include differing visual perspectives, object lines that don’t meet, and incomplete sections. And yet, he was a master — a master because of these not despite them. What I choose to take from this is that, while I may never claim to be a master, I can reject the “rules” that culture, art, society, and…
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Oasis
Today my oasis was Lake Michigan. For thirty minutes, all I did was absorb the colors of the water and sky. Cerulean, charcoal, slate, gunmetal. In the midst of conference, politial, work, and family chaos, I had a small amount of uninterrupted peace. I didn’t think. I just watched the water touch the sky. For thirty minutes I had perfect neutrality. No conversation. Neither hot or cold. No pressure to complete any task. I couldn’t even tell you if I was breathing. I paid no attention to time. I felt as if I was in stasis. I didn’t fidget. I wasn’t bored, nor was I interested. Within this tiny oasis,…
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Values
It is an interesting coincidence that in therapy we are just started to work on values. Without going into the necessity of therapy, the values study is a piece of acceptance and committment therapy. The idea of this therapy is to base our actions on our values in order to live fully. What I am discovering is that values are more simple and more complicated than I expect. The simple view is that values are what we desire and want most in our life. The complicated view is how do we distinguish a “want” as a somthing fundamental and important versus a “want” that is superficial and unimportant. And by…
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Badass life
I realized on my first train home today, that it’s time to acknowledge that I have a pretty badass life. A few examples: I regularly get on a train home and have stimulating conversations about feminism, sci-fi/fantasy book discussions, current events, and a myriad of other topics I get to spend my day doing what I like: educating people about resources and teaching them about data management I get to spend other parts of my day trying to answer questions that are interesting to me and that I think are valuable to the science and library science community I get to come home to family and three (!) dogs. I…
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It’s not as simple as “Stop Whining”
I think I have gotten away from writing lately because all I seem to be doing is either whining, or listing out my day. Even as I write this, I feel the urge to start the litany. To list all the injustices in the system I am working in and the volume of what needs to get done. Instead I’m tring to force my thought processes into a new direction and see if I can examine the source of this behavior. With some introspection behind it (no real epiphany though), I can sum these processes up with “garbage in, garbage out.” My of the whining comes from listening to coworkers…
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Death part 2
We are in the intermission. The death has happened. It was not drawn out or painful. I watched and comforted as the waves of emotion passed through us, first in tidal waves, eventually down to crests, and now to undulating swells. We hold here. We wait in the swells. Tomorrow is the formal closing of life. The expected schedule of events are planned: service, grave, luncheon. Beyond that there is nothing. This is the eve and we sit here as if we are holding out breath. We know what is coming. We know what we are supposed to do. It’s simply not time to do them yet. We began this intermission…
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Death part 1
I don’t write about death often enough. There is an eminent death coming in the family, which is why I think of it today. The event that started it was inoccuous enough, a blow to the head. I’m not sure if it was a stumble or the push from an over enthusiastic dog. But the end result is intracranial bleeding, the ICU, rapid decline, and a DNR order. I am removed from this person but my husband is not. This circumstance makes my job easier–I become the facilitator. I can get things done to allow him to have space. I spent the day clearing our schedule for the weekend, and…
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Big Magic
I received Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic when it came out last Tuesday. I had read it through by Thursday. The book was an easy read, similar in style to Eat, Pray, Love in that is was constructed by a series of connected essays. Content wise, there was much in there that I had heard in other forms, bits from her TED talks (thankfully that was not all the material she used), chunks of her personal experience, and comcepts covered by Julia Cameron. However, this is wholly in her own voice and comes together as a cohesive work that lends new insight to the creative life. I found it compelling in a way…
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Beautiful words
I have a secret wish to write beautiful words. I felt it rise up in my consciousness on my walk with the puppy last night. The walk was an impusive flight to get out of the house and capture the early fall before it becomes late fall, and then winter. The day gave way to night in the graceful way it does every day. I typically don’t notice. Yesterday, I heard the cricket chirp and the traffic people faded away. The dark deepened and left me with no distractions to focus on. I could smell dinner from the condos we passed. And I wished I could capture all that I…
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Day in review July 29, 2015
We are finally into the heat of summer. I am sitting on my final train grateful that it is air conditioned. Biking to work has been easy simply because I get a breeze. Workouts have been erratic. I had headaches that kept me home from work and doctors appointments that have kept me home other days. I’m just getting back into it. I bought a knee brace with the intention to try running again. And I have an ankle cuff that will allow me to use the weight tower instead of the machines for my inner/outer legs. This mornings workout, the first with the ankle cuff, is probably the reason…