memories

When I think of my grandfather, random images surface. The smooth, storm-grey arrowhead he tucked in palm one rainy afternoon. The day he taught my brother and I all the words to the song Bicycle Built for Two. I can almost still hear his deep voice intertwine with our tinny childish ones: Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I’m half crazy all for the love of you...

I can almost feel our frantic glee as he bounced us on his knee and sang an old, Swedish rhyme that ended in a rollicking “hupsy, hupsy”. I will never smash ping-pong balls in their basement or teeter on the wooden edgings around the gardens. No more croquet in the backyard, or messy crab dinners on the patio. My grandparents' house closed a few weeks ago. My dad and uncle grew up there and that house was the setting for my first memory of snow. I still remember sledding down the steep front yard on my dad’s old sled, rescued from the attic by my fearless grandfather.

An engineer as profession and an artist at heart, my grandfather had an eye for beauty and captured life in scores of paintings. He grew in the midwest, just outside Chicago and lived in Baltimore, MD most of his adult life. Seems his paintings capture both of these worlds - the aching, barren midwest and the sparkling Chesapeake Bay area. After his death three years ago, some of the paintings made their way to my parent’s house. One particular canvas caught my eye as I rifled through their garage earlier this summer. Now this painting, a scene of the park across the street from my grandpa’s childhood home, hangs in my bedroom and invites me to remember and enjoy these fractured moments.

all about ambience

I love farmer’s market fare but must admit half the appeal is the experience. Kids bound helter skelter among tents and tables, a lone guitarist jams and sweats bullets under the eaves of the nearby warehouse, a taste of honey here, a bite of cheese there, colors leap from baskets and bins to meet aromas of coffee and basil and dirt. I would bust out my happy dance moves but it’s way too hot. Somehow I imagined Alabama summers would be cooler than Orlando. We’re further north, right? Alas, I was sorely mistaken.

I need (or want, really) a sun hat. You know, one of those wide-brimmed, Scarlett-O’Hara-or-classy-Kentucky-Derby-spectator hats. Of course, once again, I must admit half the appeal of the hat is the ambience. I just want to waltz around the farmer’s market with my straw hat and basket full of local goodness:

Tomatoes. Straight from downtown B'ham's Jones Urban Valley Farm


Zinnias. Cheap and hardy but oh-so-cheery.


Peach cake. My own variation on a plum cake recipe from a friend. Yum.

Who said art isn't dangerous?

My new header photograph is a glimpse of a small, forgotten pond in the back of the Birmingham Botanicle Garden. Though I snapped the photo, my brother gets credit for artistic vision. Back in March, he and his fiance visited me and one afternoon we wandered around the massive garden, explored some of the less-traveled trails, and snapped lots of pictures (well, Beth and I chatted while Ben patiently played with light and angles). Seemed he met his match at the mini, oval pond filled with floating flowers. He wanted to capture the black water dotted with weary petals but unable to get a good birds-eye view, he was ready to give up. Until I hatched a plan to climb on his shoulders at the edge of the pond and take the picture. Probably not my smartest idea ever. There I was tottering over a pond holding a camera. I am still amazed that (a) I didn't drop the camera in the water, (b) I didn't fall backwards and land on the unforgiving brick patio, (c) my brother stretched out his sore back and suffered no lasting damage, (d) the lighting and ripples came out so well in the photo (of course, there were dozens of other photos that did not turn out so well). So, there you have it. A new spin on artistic collaboration with the flare of circus-act bravado.

Speaking of photography and my brother, may I take a moment to brag on his mad photography skills? A few months ago he entered photoUF, a contest sponsored by the University of Florida. The challenge: photograph artistic glimpses of life on campus. The prize: Fifty winning photos would be displayed in the student union art gallery in July and August. Now the exciting news: Two of my brothers photos were selected! I am thrilled, to say the least. Even more thrilled that on my way down to his wedding, I can swing by Gainesville and see these photos full size. In a gallery. My brother's name in a neat little plaque on the wall.

I have decided I need a job that involves encouraging people to develop their passions. Can you see the job description? Wanted: one person who is passionate about people who are passionate about things. Honestly, one of the things I love about being part of college students lives is the diversity of their interests and intensity of their talent. So, really, I already have that job in some ways. Funny how celebrating what makes people feel alive - whether it is painting or lacrosse - will land you in the midst of honest - though sometimes awkward - conversations about life, both the joy and mess. Sometimes I worry about how few people actually have hobbies once they "grow up" and enter the ultra-busy, product-driven workforce. (and actually, that driven, apathetic, boredom seems to be showing up younger and younger). It's a balance, I know, and many days I need to pull my head out of the clouds and be settled in what is sacred about normal, everyday, uncreative (but absolutely necessary) aspects of life.

Priceless

People-watching yesterday at City Stage (the annual weekend music fest in the streets of downtown Birmingham), I observed a chuckle-worthy intereaction between a woman and her daughter who was probably around nine years old. The daughter eyed the vendor's table brimming with brightly-colored city stages t-shirts and asked her mom to buy one. From the woman's weary expression, I gathered her daughter had been asking all day.

Daughter: Please, Mom, please. I want the pink one.

Mom: Not right now, I honey. We have to wait for dad to get back. He's got the keys to the kingdom.

Daughter: (incredulously) Jesus' cross???

Mom: (silence, then she couldn't hold back the laughter)No, honey, the credit card!

Obviously, our little friend got her t-shirt.

a first time for everything

If you find yourself in Atlanta on a weekend anytime in the next couple of months, check out Park Tavern's "Unplugged in the Park" concert series. The tavern spills out onto the rolling hills of Piedmont Park, a perfect backdrop for good music. Each Sunday night until mid-October, different musicians/bands will perform live under the tavern's massive, tented patio. Did I mention these concerts are free?

Last night, Kaite Herzig performed. When I found out a few weeks ago that my weekend visit to a friend in Atlanta would coincide with Katie's concert, I was thrilled. Lucky for me, I managed to convince my three friends who live in Atlanta to come along. (by the second song, they were hooked) Katie's distinct voice is simultaneously soothing and ragged (in a good way) and her writing is solid and creative. Her songs vary both in musical style and subject matter, giving her music a fresh feel - no two songs ever sound the same.

At one point toward the end of the show, Katie asked for requests and several people asked for her new song, Where the Road Meets the Sun, a duet with Matthew Perryman Jones that was featured in the season finale of Grey's Anatomy. (check out the link to her website for a video of the two of them performing it) At first she said she couldn't sing it without Matthew but then said, "well, I could call him." I kid you not. Right there, in the middle of the show, an audience-member lent her an i-phone and she called up Matthew Perryman Jones who was sitting on his porch in Nashville. One of her band members held the phone up to the microphone, she played the intro on the guitar, Matthew started singing and the two of them muddled their way through the whole song with him on the phone. It was pretty nuts... MPJ struggling to hear her guitar with the slight delay (someone should really talk to Apple about that), Katie harmonizing with his voice amplified from the phone through the microphone and out the speakers, laughter from both of them every so often. But, boy, were they having fun. And it really is a great song. Speaking of Matthew Perryman Jones, he will be performing at Unplugged in the Park on October 18th and Katie promised to phone in.

Enjoy!

Walked into the house yesterday to find my sister jamming to Love Story meets Viva La Vida, an amazing piano/cello arrangement by pianist Jon Schmidt of these two popular songs. Check out this youtube video. Apparently, the mp3 will be available on his website once licensing stuff is sorted out.

on weeds

Spent the morning elbows-deep in weeds at my parent's house. Forgot how much I enjoy fighting plant-bed chaos. Most change in life is so slow; yard work somehow curbs my helpless impatience. Just a couple hours, one rake, three trashbags, two grimy hands and - presto - the jungle becomes a bit less terrifying, the flowers actually have room to breathe.

Bent over one particularly over-run section, I concluded that there are weeds with a lowercase "w" and then there are WEEDS. You know, the feisty ones with deep, wide-spread roots and thick stalks. Surprisingly, though, the immature, whispy weeds - not the settled one - frustrated me way more. Though it takes force, I could actually grip the WEEDS and rip the whole root systems out. Not so with the thin buggers that snapped at the first tug, leaving phantom roots still embedded. I looked at the soil, weedless on the surface, and couldn't quite be satisfied.

Like those weeds, seems much easier to name and deal with big questions, blaring rebellion, and heart-wrenching pain in the world. The flimsy, everyday brokenness of life seems so inconsequential and yet has the same power to numb, strip, and erode. Needing a grace today that rips up roots of all flavors, thankful for the One who is at work in the little things