Funny, the things you miss.

Things that don’t even seem to be in one’s recall, but somewhere in the archives of our feelings they sit there—waiting for us to notice.

I was cleaning out a storage space in my studio last week and happened upon a couple of framed prints. They were two of my first fully digital creations, and the first two pieces I had tried my hand at framing. In the years since, different prints of both pieces have been framed more professionally (again by me, after getting some framing education), in a style suitable for gallery showing.

The show pieces were well received and those that didn’t sell came home and adorned my walls. They looked fine and I didn’t think much more about it. In the ensuing years, some more of the pieces were sold, one was loaned and the walls developed bare spaces that I noticed now and again. But I was busy.

So, when I found those aging, less than perfect, dusty examples of my work I was delighted. I sure wasn’t too busy to dust them off and go park them on the naked picture hooks still punctuating my balding walls.

It was nice to see them out in the light again, but that wasn’t what really stuck me. It was the sound that pulled me up short and resonated a warm chord in my heart. I had completely forgotten how they sound.

The ‘gallery’ style framings I had done were glazed with standard window glass. But in my first framings, I had used a type of acrylic glazing.

And acrylic glazing flexes a lot more than glass as the environment around it changes. And when it flexes, it can make a wonderful light percussive sound, a bit similar to the sound a clock pendulum makes.

The sound is not metered of course, but it is not really random either. As the day warms and cools, sunlight filters in and moves on, or the rain falls saturating the air the acrylic glazing responds with a tick here and a tock there.

The sounds of these two images are soothing, reassuring, and delightful to me. The sounds remind me of the earliest days of my career move to full time art & writing, they remind me of furniture and pets that used to be, and they make me smile as I recall trying to figure out where those sounds were coming from when I first hung the pieces.

Mostly though, the sound of each print reminds to pay attention.

Reminds me that surprising things can come from very unexpected sources, and the sounds remind me of my history—which somehow fills me with a sense of wonder and joy about my today. I can’t explain that last bit, but I am endlessly grateful for the gift.

Today is the only today that I get and anything that helps me pay attention to it is nothing short of manna from heaven.

~

May you have a wonderful today - each and every day.

~

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My dad always wanted to work for NASA.

I never really understood why he didn’t. He was beyond smart enough. And driven enough.

And he seemed to want it enough—told me once he would have even mopped the floors just to have been a part of what was going on there in the ’60s.

I don’t know about you, but in my book that is a lot of desire.

Perhaps he never pursued that life because he felt family demands weigh heavily, or had a want to stay in the home town, or grappled with things I can never imagine.

We all make choices. Sometimes they just aren’t very easy to explain.

Regardless, I grew up around all things space. We watched every scrap of televison broadcast on the Apollo missions and Lost in Space and StarTrek were shows we never missed.

As an adult I had the good fortune to visit Cape Kennedy with my dad twice, where he told me more about the different craft and the operation of the place than I could find in any of the written information there.

NASA always and forever reminds me of my dad so it seems perfect to share some NASA images with you on this father’s day weekend.

This is a picture of the Rocky Mesas of Nilosyrtis Mensae on Mars. My dad would have loved this mission. Mars, the planet of endless science fiction and speculation at last being revealed to us in pictures like this.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona iii mars mesas - read more…

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This is a flare from the star EV Lacertae. This star is far smaller (a red dwarf) than our own solar system’s star. And yet this flare is thousands of times more powerful than any thing that our sun has ever emitted. This makes me think of potential and how we never really know what is possible. My dad knew this too. When the docs gave him five or six months, he decided he had other plans and lived another two years.

Image Credit: Casey Reed/NASA iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii EV Lacertae - read more…

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So the post today is really just these pictures.

NASA images that prompt me to reflect on my dad.

They make me remeber how he had to let go of some of his dreams to follow other ones, and how he never discouraged me when I tossed away my “good job with lots of potential” to chase after the uncertainty of art in its many forms.

Perhaps my father hoped I had hitched my wagon to a star, or maybe that I’d found my own floors to mop. I’ll never know for sure.

What I hope is that wherever my dad is at the moment, the stars are more beautiful up close, than he ever imagined them to be.

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I’ve recently returned from visiting a beautiful part of Washington state called the Icicle Valley.

hiking above the village of Leavenworth
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Icicle Creek
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These snapshots don’t do the place any kind of justice, but hopefully they convey a bit of its flavor.

It is truly a special area on our planet and visiting there always makes me reflect on how fortunate I am to live relatively near such a place.

And I always return to the city, quiet and contemplative.

And I return appreciating anew how much we humans need silence. How much the white noise of our cities works to push aside our calm—perhaps even our compassion.

And I come back realizing how easy it is to forget important things. Like how my greatest responsibility in this life is to care about, and care for, my world and my fellow travelers.

Below I’ve included two items that remind me of important things. The interconnectedness of everything, how much we have yet to do, and that it isn’t hopeless—we can make progress when we try.

I recommend checking out both of these with the audio off.

In the second item, the soundtrack contains interesting information, and I enjoyed listening to it once. But I find the visual oddly compelling without the audio and have watched it that way a few times so far.

Here you’ll find a sobering look at one aspect of our planet’s health.

And this video offers a hopeful look at one facet of the solution.
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Wishing you a peaceful day with some quiet in it.
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[video via ecogeek]

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I wish I could say that when I read of Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s death on March 19th my first thoughts were of his tremendous writing, or were ones of compassion for his family and their loss. But my first thoughts were utterly selfish, my response introspective and visceral. Not a profound or even startling response, just a murmur fluttering in the back side of my stomach, like one’s first thought of dinner still two hours off. It was a sense of space, a small fragment missing that had existed a moment before, a something that had been bull worked into the foundation of my youth suddenly dissipated into non-being.

Clarke was a sort of archetypal figure for me for as long as I can remember. Encouraged by my father, whose love of all things written bordered on the obsessive, I began reading science and science fiction when I was 6 or 7 years old. The writings of Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and Ray Bradbury quickly became my favorites.

I remember with great fondness my bicycle rides to the local town library; a prized reward for finishing chores early on sunny summer Saturdays. On those cherished mornings, I would stop by the card catalog, stand on the stool provided, and read through the cards for a while. I wasn’t really looking for anything in the card catalog, but I loved the swish of the worn oak drawers, the feel of the cool brass drawer-pull curving over my crooked index finger, and the flick flick flick of the cards as I flipped through them reading authors and titles. I especially loved finding a drawer where the metal bracket supporting the cards was out of position leaving the cards loose, or even lying down. I always straightened those cards and positioned the bracket just-so, making it possible to flip through the cards while they still remained upright. In my mind, I was the shoe-maker’s elf providing a much needed service to the harried librarians. On my bike rides home I would imagine with relish the librarians’ delight upon discovering—yet again—the mysterious gift of this service.

After spending a few minutes with the card catalog I would head straight to my favorite place, the Sci-Fi section. It was located in a corner of the library with lots of windows and two big easy chairs I could curl up in. From this area of our town’s small library I could see neither the front desk nor the entry door, which made the transportation to faraway stars and planets so much the easier. (more…)

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