photo – Page 3 – BethSings

For Now

The last week of school. A week teachers look forward to. I suppose I have too: Time off to rest and recuperate before heading back to the ‘dance’ in August. This year has been a full one: professionally and personally. Reconnected. Reconciled. Beginning with myself then moving to others. The dance has been slow, steady but lovely.

Since last May I have been reminded that…..

Even good-intentioned people and situations have ‘danger, danger Will Robinson’ times. In those times, a generous, inquisitive spirit is needed.

Forgiveness does not equal acceptance.

It’s perfectly okay to walk away from a situation. Being around negativity is….well, a downer.

Friends and family…..there’s nothing like them. Remind them how much you love them. Nothing has to be extravagant except love.

Find something you enjoy. A passion. You are NEVER too old to learn something new or to remember something you once knew.

Spending quality time with friends and family is important but spending time with YOURSELF is grounding.

Sleep well. Eat well. Move well. Simplify.

Find ‘a purpose’ each day….something to be grateful for. Some days are more challenging than others. We’re human. We miss people. We get angry, frustrated, tired. The ‘purpose’ may be hidden but it’s there waiting…..sometimes right around the next corner. Like magic, it appears out of nowhere.

Friends, family, sunsets, adventures, the aroma of the magnolias when you walk out the door in the evening. Enjoy. Be grateful. Savor life.

Dance!! “For now!”

Foolish Consistency

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds….

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Rarely at a loss for words, I was stumped for this week’s blog until today. Writer and photographer’s block!

Saturday afternoon I found myself at a women’s gymnastics meet sans camera. I’m not certain I would’ve or COULD’VE taken pictures. Oh, people were certainly snapping away. I even took one from my phone. Having never attended a meet before I didn’t know what to expect. By the end I was frazzled by the hustle-bustle-circus-like atmosphere of the event. I longed for quiet, peace, reflection~spent Sunday recuperating. When I was younger I liked the circus. Most of us grow. Up or otherwise.

When I first rediscovered photography I took lots of photos of clouds storing them in a folder labeled: “Up in the Air”. The click of the shutter quietened my mind, heart and spirit just as surely as any metronome ever did when I practiced the piano, singing or studying a score. The new vision was spontaneous yet consistent and comforting, like an old friend. I couldn’t place why until this week.

“While she danced without a net upon the wire….”

Decades ago, I learned that comforting dance with a camera. Mr. Gallien, my science teacher was inspiring, patient and creative. He built a dark room in the corner of the science lab so we could learn to develop film. He took us on adventures beyond the classroom, exploring the world through the lens. It was mysterious, magical and musical…red light, clicking of the shutter. “Up in the Clouds.” The journey from there to here……from clouds to circus has sometimes been circuitous. I’ve discovered I like spontaneity balanced with consistency.

Quiet. Foolish. Consistency.

The Journey by Mary Oliver

Today in quiet I reflected on journeys….

Casavant Mechanical Action Organ 2 Manuals, 25 Stops, 33 Ranks, 2011, St. Aloysius Church

choices…..

while sparkling through “a foolish consistency”……

Baptism Window~St. Aloysius Church, Baton Rouge, La. Stained Glass Art~Dufour-Corso Studio

Journey Window~St. Aloysius Church, Baton Rouge La. Stained Glass Art by Dufour~Corso

In the quiet, it all seems less foolish and much more consistent…

April Abandon

April.

Spring is dressed up in all her finery. I’ve learned to appreciate Spring without waiting for the other shoe to drop. Discovered order out of chaos. I’m a person who likes traditions and memories as much as I like knowing there is hope in tomorrow, being aware of the possible of each moment. SERENDIPITY!

Once, April began an adventure to a yesterday I chose not to remember. Now the journey is creative, collaborative, filled with a different abandon. Paradigm Shift.

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Recently my daughter Sarah, a graduate film student asked people to submit experiences about “loss” or being “lost”: anything from losing keys to more profound experiences. St. Anthony certainly came to mind since I’ve evoked him plenty during my life: “Tony, Tony please come round…..”. Ultimately, I submitted something a little more reflective.

Shout for joy, O daughter Zion! Sing joyfully, O Israel! Be glad and exult with all your heart! Zephaniah 3:14

Beauty. Loss. Struggle. Finding a way…

When I was very young I went with my parents and older brother to the Louisiana State Fair in Shreveport. I remember the bright lights and music of the midway, the smell of the carnival food. Somehow I was separated from them. Hazy memory: the loudspeaker blares my name, my mother calls for me, my father picks me up. I am safe. I used to dream that memory.

April 19, 1985. I’m called to the phone during a choir rehearsal. Busy, I say. Take a message, I say. Urgent. Come with abandon. I take the call. My brother with news. The minute I hear his first word….. I know.

The unsettling confusion I remembered encountering on the midway returned. Loss. Lost. Change so visceral you can taste it. Until that day if anyone had ever asked my greatest fear I would’ve said: ‘losing my mother’. I was twenty-five. Naive. Sheltered……Unconditionally loved.

My mother had experienced loss: her only brother in his 30’s, the

month before I was born; her mother, other relatives, friends . I witnessed her strength, her intelligence, her faith in life’s scenarios: joys and struggles. It has been one of her greatest lessons to me. In her short life, 59 years, she showed me how to live with style and grace.

I’ve wondered how I could ever be the person my parents were: honest, involved, fun, loving, warm. They raised me to live an independent life…as me, not them. Exactly want I for my own children. Because of that example there is no loss; I am not lost or abandoned.

My parents words have stuck with me, reminding me to be a person of faith and not fear, guiding me along the right path, to love all people and walk humbly. Even when I have stumbled, their wisdom and spirit have brought truth to a world often absent of it. Not the least of which: I was born in their heart. Because of it I carry a piece of theirs in mine. . . for the journey. . .with sheer abandon…but never abandoned.

Here’s to the beautiful people finding a way….

How Can I Keep From Singing

“There’s only us
There’s only this
Forget regret– or life is yours to miss.
No other road
No other way
No day but today” (from the musical~RENT)

Saturday night I found myself standing at a well.

Staring at the darting fish, I considered the woman at the well. Dry. Searching. Avoiding. “No day but today.” Like her and even the koi, at times I’ve experienced isolation or chosen to hide under a rock. As I stood there staring, pondering….I heard these words: Women by May Swenson

I laughed. At the words. At myself. At my arrival at that profound, perfect moment.

“No day…..but….” So many times we stop short. Second guess. “What if”. Think too hard, too much rather than swimming forward or even resting in the possible….we stop short of ‘today’.

The now. A present. Gift.

“There’s only yes
Only tonight
We must let go
To know what is right
No other course
No other way
No day but today”

Music and especially singing has brought delight to my life, especially nurturing singers. Mythologist Joseph Campbell wrote: “Follow your bliss”. Often, singers take an abstract approach to the art form surrendering to the possible through imagery. We balance both worlds: Art and science; collaborating, joining with others to bring about a cathartic experience. To achieve this, artists become vulnerable and relinquish control. Call it serendipity. Magic. Miracle.

“No day but today.”

Just as the woman at the well, our souls and spirits thirst. We hide in shadows or dart about under rocks searching for who knows what until we find or remember those like-minded others.

“I can’t control
My destiny
I trust my soul
My only hope
is just to be”.

Busy. Excuses. “Let go.” “No day but today.” The path is there just as surely as the notes on a page. Trusting and saying ‘yes’ to the possible then trusting others….

We’re told that ‘hope does not disappoint’. Sometimes we don’t know for what we hope, which makes the quenching more difficult.

Standing now at a different “well”. This one is in the knowing that all will be well, grateful for the path and song that lead me to this day. There really is “no day but today”. Seize it! And SING!

“There’s only now
There’s only here
Give in to love
Or live in fear
No other path
No other way
No day but today”