The Dancing Queens

You know how one thing leads to another, or in this case, one thought within six degrees from enough others till they all somehow connect.  Someone else watching the process might wonder, "Say what!"  But it all ends up making sense.

Start with this image of sheep from the Dutch countryside on Christmas Day.  The One Who Would be Dog is so sheepish.  Actually, so nonchalant.  She surely thinks no one knows what she's been up to.  HAHAHA.  Every time I look at her I laugh.  She seems the epitome of tomfoolery, monkey businees, mischieviousness, fun and daring-do all wrapped up in one.  I'm guessing she's the one who gets everyone else in trouble.  The ring-leader.

Then...on January 2 this new year, we just happened to turn on the TV in time to catch a delightful program about ABBA, the Swedish singing group from the 70s.  As the songs played, Astrid and I both relived Mamma Mia, the first movie we saw together and one of my absolute favorites of all time.  How can you not watch Meryl Streep, Julie Walters and Christine Baranski and just be intoxicated over being "a woman of a certain age" with them! When they sing The Dancing Queen (from ABBA), who cares they're not seventeen anymore!

When I connected the myriad thoughts, I said, "That's who we are here at Vision and Verb.  We're the dancing queens!"

Remember, you're talking to a preacher's kid from a conservative background that didn't allow dancing or going to movies.  A preacher's kid who now watches 3-5 movies a week and dances every night after supper with her spouse.  Making up for lost time, I guess?  I love the irony.

You know me enough by now to know I'm not being careless or insensitive to the difficult situations many of us may still experience.  In fact, I've been writing this post simultaneously while feeling estranged from my family on the other side of the Pond.  I've needed connection to them and have reached out, especially during the holidays, but have felt it to be a one-way street.  In the gay community we often say "Silence = Death."  So I've been dying many deaths of late, even if I can come up with valid reasons for the void.

But here's where choice comes in and with this post I'm saying this is what I choose for 2011:  to be a dancing queen who's having the time of my life.  And why not!  As with photography, it's a POV... a point of view, a perspective, a way of looking at life.  Why not believe we all deserve the time of our lives.  Why not believe a good laugh will break the ice with enough silliness to bring the house down.  That house of brick and stone and in spite of our circumstances.  In spite of what the other sheep in the flock may think?!  Do I dare wish it for us all?  Why not!

You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life
See that girl, watch that scene, diggin' the dancing queen.

The Dash Between the Bling-Bling

Okay, since we've been talking about textures lately, how's this for going over the top!  BUT I do have a point, so get over it for a minute and think about what happens between Christmas and New Years....

It's just one week!  One week between two of our biggest Bling-Bling holidays of the entire year, perhaps winding us down and then up again more than any other week of the year.  Maybe?

I'm guessing all of us who have or have had kids off from school remember this week as vacation time.  It was a no-brainer, if we worked, to make sure we, too, were on vacation, if allowed.  Most of the time we'd take the kids back to Michigan to be with my family at the cottage.  It was family time and full of wonderful memories.  If we were lucky, we got snow, something we didn't get in California or Georgia.  And at one point during the week, usually on the New Year's end, we'd share a family Christmas of sorts with a big feast.  Then we'd fly back home, usually just before the ball dropped on the new year.

I didn't grow up going to New Year's Eve parties.  In fact, more often than not I was sound asleep in bed before the clock struck midnight on the last day of the year.  I had already said nighty-night to one year and fully expected the new year to be there when I awoke.  No fanfare.  No hoopla.  No bling.

However, I know I'm the exception to the rule...until this past New Years when the seniors here in our retirement community helped me make up for lost time.  And it'll happen again this year when we'll all bring in the New Year together long past midnight.   I look at some of these 70 and 80-year-olds and can just imagine what kind of life they once lived.  They know how to live and are teaching me.

But I digress.  This week in-between!  It usually means a week of rest and sleep, right?  A time to just relax and let things go.  No need to clean things up after the Christmas festivities.   The mess is okay, for once, especially if the kids are home.  We're willing to let things go for a change, to wind down and not be so Type A.  Maybe we even get to play with our special Christmas present we hoped Santa would bring...and did.

Now, back to the image and textures.  I know it looks totally depressing, which is not how I envision the dash between the bling-bling.  Rather, I was thinking instead of the gray days of winter, when the snow is no longer there/fresh/white and things seem kinda, well, blah.  Not blah in a negative, depths-of-despair way, but just blah.  The kind of blah that happens when after all the hubbub you don't know what else to do but take a nap.  A nap sounds good, right?

So in case you need permission to just be blah and veg out a bit, live in the dash between the bling-bling and let yourself go.  We probably should do it more often but my personal feeling is this is the one week of the year gifted to us to simply wind down, expect nothing, and coast into the New Year.  After all we did last week/year, don't you think we deserve it...we women of a certain age?! 

My Heart, My Castle, My Home

A month ago Astrid and I had the good fortune to drive across Holland's eastern border into Germany's Münsterland, region of over 100 castles.  This one happens to be Burg Hülshoff, one of the finest and where we spent most of our time.

That got me thinking about castles and how we say "my home is my castle."  What exactly does that mean?  Typically a castle is a fortified residence for a powerful or affluent person.  It's usually private, not public, and is used to protect the owner. In some cases the castle is fortified, designed to defend a city or town, often in the middle of it.

Hold that thought.

A few days later, with visions of castles still in my head, I came to the day before the American Thanksgiving holiday and suddenly felt woefully depressed.  It was like a bombshell.  No other day in my first year in Holland had hit me that hard.  I wanted to be home with my family.  It was going to be my first Thanksgiving ever, in 65 years, away from family.  And especially because Holland doesn't celebrate the holiday, I felt so lost.

Then I remembered the psychiatric hospital where I worked in 1969 the year Bill and I got married.  I was the desk clerk on the ward for short-termers, average stay of 26 days.  I soon discovered that the highest influx of new patients was always at this time of the year midst the hectic holiday season. When one lady in particular arrived, crazier than a loon, skipping through the halls in her stocking feet, giggling and having a good ol' time, the nurses laughed and said, "Oh, that's Professor So-and-So's wife.  She comes here every year at this time until the holidays are over."

And that was 40 years ago!

Truth be told, I'm guessing many of us have or remember such frantic, depressive moments when the pressures of the season become more than we can handle.  Most people see me as a very strong, stable, immovable, stalwart queen in my castle, my home.  But in fact, that day I was nothing of the sort.  Astrid was the only one who saw my depression before Thanksgiving and who, in the listening, eased my private pain.  Within minutes, I was as good as new...and when Thanksgiving arrived the next day, I was as happy a camper as ever, not for one minute second-guessing where I was for the holidays.

Maybe that's the point of a castle.  It's meant to shield us from the outside AND inside stresses of raging, emotional wars.  It's meant to be the private place where we can unearth the weaknesses of our unarmored souls.  It's meant to be a safe haven for everything we hold dear and important.  It's meant to be our home where we can open our hearts wide and not fear the consequence.

Regrettably, not all homes are castles.  That's the truth of it.  But my wish for all of us this season is that we can find or start to build the castles around our homes to protect, fortify and defend all we hold sacrosanct.  Maybe we can even help someone else build theirs?  Our homes are worth it.  So are our hearts.

Blowing In the Wind

So, let's talk about the weather!

I have always liked gadgets like barometers, even if I never knew how to read them.  They're just cool and make nice wall decorations...even if dating themselves.  But suddenly, now that I'm in Holland, this particular gadget in our front entryway means everything.  You don't even need to know Dutch.  Storm is storm.  That's what it was, stormy, but look how much better it is now.  After I took the picture, I moved the gold arrow to on top of the black...to see what the difference would be the next day, if any.

The thing about us Gemini (you Librans and Aquarians, too) is that because we're Air signs, we need the wind.  Air circulating.  My sister Susan is also a Gemini and makes it very clear if/whenever she needs more circulation in the car or house.  It doesn't have to be cool/cold air...just circulating.  I agree.

Lucky for me, I've landed in a country that lives and moves by the direction of the wind.  Astrid checks the weather on the TV channel every night and often tells me the wind is coming from the east/Russia.  In the summer, that means hot; in the winter it means cold.  Or the wind is coming from the SW off the Atlantic Ocean, meaning a storm/rain is coming.  Have you seen rain that pours horizontally instead of vertically?  It gives a whole new meaning to umbrellas...specifically inverted ones!

When I was 8, I spent an overnight with a girlfriend in her family's farmhouse out in the Michigan countryside.   I don't remember much except that before bedtime a huge midwestern, bombastic thunderstorm unleashed itself.  I was beside myself with fear.  My friend's older sister observed what was happening to me (away from my parents) and motioned me over to the tall farmhouse window where she stood.  She turned me in front of her to look out the window at the storm, with her hands placed firmly on my shoulders.  Not a word.  Just her hands on my shoulders.  I still remember the calmness that slowly seeped into me for what seemed like hours, midst the storm.  It is that eternalized moment to which I point for my love of thunderstorms to this very day.

My children and grandson know this.  Whenever we're together and a storm erupts, they all look at me and wait for me to scrunch myself up and say "Cozy, cozy!"  Then we all smile and share a certain camaraderie without words.  Peace hands on the shoulders.

While I totally understand why most photographers prefer sunny days, I happen to be one who never cares if Mr. Sun is in bed for the day.  For one thing, I'm a fair-skinned redhead who comes from a history of skin cancer.  So as long as it's not raining when I'm out-n-about, I thrive on the moody, with-an-attitude skies.  For me, they make some of my best pictures.  If you know anything about the Dutch weather in this regard, you can see why I was made for this country:  more cold than hot, more windy than calm, more rainy than dry.  Don't get me wrong:  I love the sunny days, too.  But I don't have to have them.

So, when was the last time you talked about the weather and you really were talking about the weather?!  Did someone say SNOW? We got our first dusting this past Saturday and even drove in it early before it melted later in the day.  I kept whispering to myself, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!"