Tag: photography

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finding my happy place

It’s been a hell of a year. I’ve struggled, I’ve persevered, I’ve almost given up. I’ve had my feet knocked out from under me, I’ve accomplished some amazing things, I’ve lost people I loved.

While I have worked at keeping my head up and my eyes on the horizon, it hasn’t been easy, and that’s saying something coming off of two years of lockdown. One of the great joys of my life has been denied to me through the pandemic, the joy of live music and photography.

I’ve been to a few gigs, but not nearly as many as I usually attend in a year, even if you add up all of 2020, 2021, and 2022!

So, it gives me great pleasure (and great anxiety) to be heading off to Nashville today to see the band Radio Company perform in their first public gig.

The show is tomorrow night, and I’m boarding a plane tonight at around 11:15pm, hopefully, to sleep my way across the country. With a brief layover in DC, I’ll arrive in Nashville somewhere around 10am, get an Uber to the hotel, and see if I can manage an early check-in.

I’m mostly solo this trip, though I know a few of the folks who will be at the gig. This is something that’s added to my anxiety. I don’t have my usual friend bubble to protect me when things get…tight. I do, however, have Xanax, so I should be okay.

I’m mostly packed, other than clothes, because I’m still deciding on clothes. I’m leaning toward a dress, boots, and stylish hat. Since I’m turning around and flying home on Tuesday afternoon, so I don’t need to bring much more, as I can wear the same clothes I travel to Nashville home from Nashville.

I have a little time to do some wandering around and souvenir/Christmas shop, but not a lot.

I’m just hoping to disconnect myself from the stress and emotional turmoil of the year and immerse myself in music and doing what I love.

I hope y’all have some fun planned for yourself during this season of much ado. And I hope your holidays are marvelous, dearest Readers.

Photo by Magnus Lunay on Unsplash

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walking because it’s good for me

I used to walk a lot, largely because my day included a half-mile walk from my house to the train, and from the train to the office, plus I’d aim for a mile or two at lunch. Most days I averaged a sum total of around five miles in a day.

Then, along came the pandemic.

Like so many others, exercise became problematic for me. Sure, I could still go out for walks, but in the early days, when we weren’t sure exactly how this thing was transmitted, I had no desire to accidentally have to be near people who could have this thing and not know it.

After a while, it just became easier to just stay home. I got lazy.

I’ll admit that when contemplating the move out here to Stockton, I worried that the trend would continue, because I had no idea what the neighborhoods around me were like, so I didn’t know how safe I’d be walking.

I have walked every day for the last 9 days, starting off at just over a mile and working up to the last three days which have averaged 3 miles. Somedays I take a planned out route. Somedays I play a game of “where does this road go” which, I will admit, has gotten me into trouble in the past as I’ve either gotten a bit lost, or ended up on a road that didn’t connect back to where I started without turning around.

Yesterday I played the game and was rewarded with a very lovely walk in the not-quite-daylight and this beautiful sunrise.

For me, walking is a time when I can be in my body, in my own head, without the interference of the day’s agenda and all of the things I need to do. Sometimes I’m composing poetry. Sometimes world building. Sometimes I’m just remembering things and people and places.

And yes, sometimes I’m just thinking about putting one foot in front of the other to get back home.

The day is always waiting for me when I get back, with work to be done and such. Today’s walk needs to start a bit earlier than it has been, as I have meetings starting at 7:30 am. I am currently drinking coffee and thinking about today’s walk. Where will the adventure lead? I may take the reverse course I did yesterday, or I may divert around a park I spotted yesterday. I won’t know until my feet hit the road.

I hope your day includes many wonderful adventures, Readers. May the Friday be with you.

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be the good

As I’ve been job hunting these last few weeks, I’ve made a point to look into companies that are doing the kind of work that benefits humanity. Being a tech writer with the ability to explore many different kinds of tech is a wonderful way to learn about new and innovative ways that people are trying to help, from climate change to using drones to deliver life saving medical supplies in times of need.

Sure, it is more likely I’ll end up at a more mundane sort of company that deals with data of some kind or advertising/product tech or the like because that is where my experience is, but exploring other options has been interesting.

Particularly in the world we occupy today. The news is filled with sad and angry situations, fueling the feelings of hopelessness and loneliness in many people. It can be hard to see that there are people out there working for the greater good of all.

I’ve always believed that to change the world we must change ourselves and how we interact with the world, and I still do, however sometimes we need something bigger than what we can do on our own. We need innovations that help us become better, not on an individual level, but as a society.

There is a lot of scary stuff happening in the world, but don’t let it bog you down in despair. Find the good and support it if you can. Be the good if you can’t find it.

The picture is from my recent trip to Austin. It reminds me of the beauty that exists, even in the heart of a bustling city, in a place bogged down by disease. Find that beauty today and hold on to it.

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the bored and the restless

It’s been a tough week, Readers.  I’ve had some really down days and I am struggling my way out.  I am currently fighting off a serious restlessness.  This is the time of year when I most crave travel.

I want to throw some clothes and road food into the car, pack up my camera and go find some off the road hidden hideaway, picnic beside the ocean or a waterfall, fill up a memory card with pictures of moving water and sand and rocks and green, green grass.

Alas, it isn’t happening any time soon.

Instead, I’m tripping my way through various “virtual tours” of places I long to go, and I’m puttering around in my “garden” on my patio.  I have containers filled with succulents that have been loving the rain and not-too-cold temps, plus one salvia that got a little battered in the winds this past month and a lily of the valley that is finally blooming.  Oh, and a couple of containers with gladiolas that my mother gave me last year.  No blooms on them yet, but I’m hopeful.

I think I’ve probably watched every documentary on history or crime or nature or any mix thereof available on Netflix or Amazon.  I think today I will turn to Disney+ for my entertainment.

How are you coping, Readers?  Is there a great book you’d recommend?  Or maybe some documentary or “based on a true story” movie I might have missed?  Do you want me to do another poetry reading?  Maybe some Edgar Allan Poe?

I have to admit I have a deep and abiding love for the way Mr. Poe put words together.  I often read him aloud just for myself.  There is a story of his that I rediscovered recently that I am consider reading on a Facebook live called “Some Words With a Mummy” and I would love to share it with all of you.

For now though, I will return you to whatever you were doing, and I’ll head out to try to find something I haven’t watched yet…or fall back on rewatching old favorites.

Please be safe, stay home, wash your hands and do something kind for yourself today.  I love you all.

Cover Photo by Océane George on Unsplash

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new year, same old me…

I’m not big on New Years as a holiday, or a time for big changes.   As a Pagan I celebrate the turning of the wheel toward beginnings at Samhain (Halloween), so it seems a bit redundant to do so again on the first of January.

I do get something of a new beginning this year, as the job I’m working moved into a new office during the holidays…and I just upgraded my home theater system with a new TV and surround sound system.

I took a few days off after Christmas to go visit my father, step-mother and one of my dearest friends in Tucson, Arizona and it was a chance to take my camera out into the desert where the sky put on quite the show for us.  It had been raining and stormy through the night, but the sun came out and the clouds were just gorgeous.

Speaking of gorgeous, check out these beautiful birds!

I should get back to drinking my coffee before it goes cold.  However you view the new year, Readers, I wish you joy, kindness and success (by whatever definition you define success) in 2020.  May the Force be With You and Live Long and Prosper!

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a little peace and quiet

There is something special about losing yourself in the wilds, even if you’re still within the city limits.  Walnut Creek has a number of designated “open spaces” where the grasses and flowers are allowed to grow wild, where wildlife is protected, and trails crisscross throughout them, making them a great place to forget the modern world for a little while.

The one closest to me is the Acalanes Ridge open space, thus named because a ridge of hills cuts through the middle of it.  The toughest path is the Ridge Top trail, thus named because it runs along the top of the ridge, taking you up and down some pretty steep hills. There are gentler paths, ones that skirt around the hills, or take you into the valley.  Some trails are long enough to take you into a completely different park, if you so desire.

I have always found that I deal better with my stress when I can do something physical, and hiking steep hills certainly applies.  So yesterday I strapped on my hiking boots, grabbed my hiking stick and some water, and I hit the hills.

For the first time, I hiked from one entrance of the open space to another entrance, across the ridge top trail.  I overdid it a little bit, a little too much enthusiasm, I guess, because coming back, even taking one of the gentler trails back, I wasn’t sure my legs were going to hold out, and by the time I got back to my car, my legs were like rubber.

At one point, my headphones gave out on me (my fault for taking the bluetooth headphones), so the end of my hike was without music.  Even though I was in the middle of an urban area, you’d never know it.  I saw a few scattered people out with their dogs or a friend, but for the most part I was alone.

butterfly treeThere were birds and any number of small animals I never saw, but could hear in the grasses.  There were big fat bumble bees flitting from flower to flower and butterflies galore, and amazing blue dragonflies that danced in the shadier part of the trail.

I didn’t have my camera, but that didn’t stop me from grabbing a few shots of the flora along the way.

There is nothing better for beating back the stress than some serious physical activity, and nothing better for resetting my brain than a little peace and quiet.

I hope you find some of your own today, Readers!

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spring is springing…I think

We have had one of the wettest winters I can remember since I moved to California in 2001.  I love the rain, and I often miss the big booming thunderstorms of my childhood.  Along with the rain, we’ve had a colder winter than I remember having in all that time…and for longer than I can remember.

Here we are, 3 days into April and it is finally, finally starting to warm up.  The wind is still cold in the mornings waiting for the train, but soon I should be able to shed my jacket and I really long for that.

Flowers are starting to bloom all around me, and my succulents are going bonkers.  I really need some new containers so that I can spread them out a bit.  The only thing I dislike about spring is the allergies.  I anticipate a miserable allergy season because of how wet our winter was.

I’m itching (no pun intended) to get out there with a camera, but I have a number of deadlines looming over my head preventing me from a long drive in the country to photograph flowers, so I’ll have to make do with the pictures taken by others.

Those first blooms of spring; the daffodils and tulips and such, have always given me hope.  Back when I was a kid, those first flowers would come up when there was still snow on the ground.  It was like nature letting us know that spring was on it’s way, the winter wouldn’t last forever.

I guess I still feel that when I see them.  It almost makes me wish I had a garden….almost.

Well, the coffee is done and the day job is calling.  I should get to that.  Happy Wednesday, Readers.

Remember, I’m running a special for new patrons over on Patreon.  Come join me!

PS:  Today through April 7th, my book Forever is available for Kindle for FREE!  Grab your copy!

Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

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where birds fly free

It’s an early Saturday morning, early enough that it’s still dark outside.  I can hear the gutters still draining off the steady rain of the last few days and every now and then, a gust of wind. It’s a nice sound, especially because we have needed the rain so badly.

I’m waiting on cover options from our designer for Where Shadows Fall and working on the next project, but for today, I am taking a break to go watch some birds with my mother and a friend (who incidentally is the woman I modeled the character Victoria around in the Shades and Shadows books).

We have a number of ecological preserves and wildlife sanctuaries or refuges around us, and while I may not know the names of every bird we will see, I’ll enjoy watching them and spending time with two women I adore.  It is a chance for my camera to venture out and take some shots, like the one above, which I took at the Woodbridge Ecological Reserve a couple of weeks ago.

It’s nice to take a break from one creative endeavor for a different creative endeavor.

Right now though, I’m sipping my morning coffee and contemplating breakfast. I hope your Saturday is everything you need it to be, Readers.

And, if you’re shopping for the reader in your life this small business Saturday, consider any one (or more) of my books, found here.