While on the trail I feel reverent especially on my Sunday Runs. Today, due to a headache I did not do my usual long run. I ran only 2 miles before returning to car for my camera and then I walked/hiked for over an hour. This is a photo is part of a memorial on the cliffs of Presque Isle. We gather around the cross for support, for healing, for a place to lean when we feel weak. Today, I was thankful for my abilities and observant of my limitations.

Faith in Ontonogan, Thru SUV Window at Holiday Gas Station (late dusk)
Location: Ontonogan, Michigan
Camera: Canon S5 IS
Post Procees–LR, PSE and VP Dreamy

1. I am scared of lemons today. I am scared that all I have to sell are .05 cent paper Dixie cups of pucker. I am afraid that the cups will be squished and thrown into the street. I am afraid I will be left in the spray from a mud puddle on the side of the rode and no one will see my sadness. Why won’t they see my sadness?

2. I want to be a person who can sing a full song. Not some random phrase, worded wrong to a tune once sung by my mother. Like, “Oh yes! We have no bananas we have no bananas today.” ( Louis Prima)

3. Garlic it’s what for dinner. I love the tight little bulbs from Seeds and Spores that had pink and purple tinges to the papery wrappers. I love garlic minced, chopped, sliced and roasted. I love the power of garlic and the smell lingering on my hands the next day. I love a remedy of garlic soaked in honey.

Garlic makes a bad pan not so bad. Garlic seasons the bad pan. Garlic loves the bad pan. But it likes it’s friend olive oil to come along for the cooking.

4. Yesterday I ran past grey squirrels on the trail. They are super-fat with big proud bushy tails. They are so quick they will scare you.

I run with headphones on—not up too loud but just enough where I can get startled from time to time. Like when I see trolls.

They look like trolls—tree stumps—sometimes. Does this troll-man with the wizened bark and rotting face come to me as friend or foe. I laugh at myself and run on.

Be careful who you share your troll stories with as people will think you are pushing too hard. They will think you’ve lost it. Or at the very least that you are not taking in enough food to sustain your sanity.

But I believe I did see a troll even if at second glance the troll becomes a stump or rotting log with moss and ferns. I am positive that I am running past all kinds of magical happenings when I trail run.

No one showed up for my presentation so I took photos. Thus the title of this post. The chandeliers were dazzling in the light. But I was not dazzled by the promotions and turn-out of a conference that I paid 55.00 to attend as vendor. Maybe one day this photo will gain back the outlay of money for the health fair.

Today was the Holistic Health Fair and I was promoting workshops I’ll be offer this winter. It was also celebrating “I Lost 45 @ 45!” The journey of my weight loss and physical improvements over the past year. The attendance seemed light at today’s 10am to 4pm fair but the Upper Peninsula was blessed with blue skies and temps over 60 degrees–and that is rare for November. No one showed for my presentation, but I happily occupied the space. I stood outside the door of the conference room. Then I did Tai Chi in the center of the space and honored my journey. When back at my booth space, I talked with many young photographers, met some wonderful people and shared stories with people on their own journeys. I came away with valuable lessons and awareness to make the next fair or show more successful.

I can feel the cold, coming in off the walls, as I watch the last yellow leaves cling to the tree two yards over and one yard back. Ain’t it odd how we can measure distance by fence lines. I hear the lilacs with their dried seedpods chatter, and the old rose I did not trim back scratches the side of my blue-gray home.

I browsed photos today, looking for an image that fits the word “soft.” I almost settled on some images of fog in the Lower Harbor. But I was distracted by the “sharp” photos. Ice photos. Hard lines. I thought how winter, even at its coldest and longest, does not afford me the time to sleep-in. I thought how I really wanted to linger in bed today. Stay close-up against Mike. Keep in the warmth.

But even on a sick day, there are animals to let outside feed and water. The boss to call. So on and so forth. I slipped back into bed with the intention of staying put. But the animals needed in and a co-worker called so, I settled on the loveseat, heating pad and afghan as Mike headed off to work.

The shed door flaps loose in the wind and the crab apple beckons with its red orange leaves and red, red waxy fruit—it’s the brightest spot of color I can see from the kitchen window. I step over the old dog that moves for no one, anymore. She is so still that I watch for her chest to rise. She’s breathing so I return to the keyboard, thinking I’ll load the dishwasher when bending does not mean dizzy gray dots in front of my eyes.

A day off, sick, is not a day off well. It is not a day to take photos in the wind. No dramatic dark gray snow clouds with yellow morning light. Just Smart Wool socks on ice cold feet with spazzing arches that I try to soothe with peppermint balm to boost circulation. Today is a day for words in my head to release and flow. Leaves chatter across the road to my neighbor’s recently raked yard. And I think how full of apologies I am.

Soft. It is not how I feel. I feel sharp. But I want to be soft. I want to let go of feeling jaded and burnt. I want to bake apple pies and deliver them to people, like Sylvia. Gifts delivered in wicker baskets. A home smelling of cinnamon and nutmeg. A place where people gather around a wide sunny window in cane backed chairs sipping homemade chai, watching birds gather at feeders. But instead, I’ve been the Jay bold splashy color diving in forceful.

The new issue of All Things Girl went live today. The November/December 2009 issue has the theme, Harmony. It is a very special them for me as the photo, Prayer Flags,  that appears in the art’s section, was taken when I was on retreat.

I took part in a writer’s retreat at the Joy Center in Ishpeming to reaffirm my role as a creator. I was finding  myself (again) as artist. I was surprised at the words moving back in time. I was going thru “old stuff.” The sludge we think we took time to process and here it was again. Murky.

You know when on retreat you’d like to have revelations of light, hope, and go forth with joy. Yet I was caught between Joy and Angst. Grasping for H-A-R-M-O-N-Y. (Just where was it?)

The Editor-in-Chief, Deb Smouse, contacted me soon after the retreat asking if I would be interested in coming on board as one of the Zine’s Art Editors. This issue, “Harmony” is the first where I appear on the mast-head. The first issue I will be in charge of as Art Editor will be March/April Issue and the Theme is–On Being a Girl. You can submit artwork on this theme thru the website or join the All Things Girl Flickr group and submit thru the discussions.

One more announcement to make! I will be appearing at the Holistic Health Fair on Saturday November 7th, 2009. The HHF is at Upfront & Company from 10-4pm in their banquet room. If you happen to be in the Marquette area stop-in, admission is only $2.00.

(My creative acts for November 5, 2009 were in creating my dsiplay for the HHF & seeing the fruition of my artistic efforts in my new position at All Things Girl).

Winter preparations continue today in Marquette. No snow remains on the ground and it was a lovely day on Presque Isle. I was procrastinating and getting a clearer mental focus. Fresh air and exercise will do that. I am taken in by tables, park benches, and seating. I know soon enough snow will keep us from the joy of sitting and watching runners, bikers, and rollerbladers. A tinge of melancholy yesterday and today had me in an awful funk. Sometimes change comes at you so fast it is hard to adjust yourself. Last night I ended up under the covers, crying. I managed to slow the world down just enough last night to make myself even more upset. But today’s procrastination was more positive a 55 minute run and a walk-about with camera afterward. Not what I was suppose to be doing–but it was doing!

It’s true I feel like Popeye today. I’m on track for my word count in NaNoWriMo. I went outside in my jammies to take photos of snow. I showered and had eaten all before 8a.m. The Power of Popeye is with me–I’m strong to the finish, ’cause I eat my spinach!

Okay so it was not spinach this morning or last night. I think last night was fresh green beans and this morning was whole gain toast and peanut butter. But you get it right?

Today is Biggest Loser night and I am working 9am-5:30pm so I needed to get my creative tasks out-of-the-way so I can ride the exercise bike for an hour tonight. Plus I have the display and presentation for the Holistic Health Fair to work on.

No spinach tonight either!

But I have the Power of Popeye to remind me come 2:30-3pm this afternoon that I can avoid bucket’s of fun-size Halloween candy. I have grapes, and apple, a pack of gum, and even super-dark fair-trade chocolate, just in case.

My weight has been hovering from 149-151.  For those who have been following.

Enjoy your Tuesday! Make it Creative!

It gets dark very early, now! Darn the time change this weekend. I had mere minutes to snap photos on my way home. Teal Lake was rough and snow clouds were blowing in. The sun was dipping fast behind the Negaunee hills. My hands were chapped and beet red before I returned to my warm car. I had to let them thaw out with heat blasting before I could drive and I was only out in the wind a short while. In my fumbling with numb fingers I changed the settings on my camera to only 640 x 480 drat! Mistakes happen to all photographers.