Month: March 2017

First Day of Spring Break

Well, probably officially the second day of Spring Break!  I spent Friday doing all the things I usually do on Friday mornings – cleaning, organizing, grocery shopping, and so on.

Today, I got up early, determined to finish up a couple of rolls of film.  When I ran out of film, I was sort of cursing the fact I hadn’t another roll with me, or a decent digital camera.  All I had was my phone, but it did an okay job.  In general, I don’t really like the pictures from cell phones – mine is a Galaxy S5 – but you can get a decent shot or two.  I think they tend to overdo the sharpening or whatever they do.

I headed out around 7:00 to a local open space, Wildwood.  I took the Moonrise Trail, but veered to the right rather than the left as the path was crazy muddy.  It was definitely a delight!  Sunflowers, lupine, morning glory, mustard, allium, and others I recognize but don’t know the names.  In particular, the image “Tiny Pink Flowers” was a bit of a favorite – these flowers are about 1/4 inch across – less than .5 cm, I am sure.

More Daffodils

I felt like a tourist when I headed out to the botanical garden a few weeks ago.  I had my Olympus XA4, my Kodak Retina IIIc for its maiden voyage, and the Perkeo II loaded with Fuji Neopan 400.  I am so impressed with this film – the blacks are black, and the whites are white.  I didn’t have an orange or red filter with me, so some pictures were not what I would have liked to see; still, the detail and beauty of the film is seen here (and the Perkeo is no slouch, either).  Sadly, Neopan in this form is no longer made – the C-41 form – although Acros is available.

Penstalgia

So many people these days cannot write cursive, much less read it, thanks to the insistence on “new technology” in classrooms.  Keyboarding takes place of learning how to write using a pencil or pen.  Printing seems to be the only thing taught, and mastering it is not even encouraged.  It’s funny to think that the hours I spent in the classroom learning to print, to write cursive, and to touch type are now returning to being recognized as skills more valuable than just being able to communicate.  Eye-hand coordination, fine motor control, neurological benefits.  I probably could do some research and list a thousand things.  All this automation and such makes life easier – no doubt!  I love my dishwasher! – but the satisfaction of working with your hands is completely lacking.

Cursive has become a foreign language to students born in the last 30 years.  They cannot read it.  It’s not just U.S. students who should learn cursive, but students coming in from other countries could also benefit from it.  Other languages have other alphabets, and their beauty is certainly something to be appreciated.  Good handwriting is really an unfancy form of calligraphy.  The practicality of good cursive is just as it was advertised years ago – it is clear and readable.

I’m revisiting what I learned ages ago, and it is a lot of fun.  I’m using a fountain pen, and I am using a dip pen.  A dip pen is not so hard to master, once you learn how to hold it and adapt to holding it at the right angle and tilt.  Once there, it is smooth sailing.  Repeating letters and practicing strokes, curves, and circles is very soothing.  Like coloring, there is something that simply refreshes, like a deep meditation.

Anyway, because I was blundering around on YouTube, I came upon the above video, which I totally enjoyed.  It’s informative, classic, and if you like fountain pens, wait until the end – you will learn a few things you may not have known!

Pondering . . .

When I wrote that last entry, in January 2017, I was still on vacation and filled with the idea that, yes, I could do it all.  But I couldn’t.  And I can’t.  Work sucks it out of me, and what little time there is requires things which require little time – snatches of time – to do anything.

Doing nothing is worse than doing a little.  Little things add up.

And it is darn hard to realize this.

I’ve been reading a book called Essentialism by Greg McKeown.  While a lot of it is oriented toward business, it also talks about one’s personal life.  Up front, I don’t care about my job.  I do it because I need to, but it doesn’t thrill me.  It doesn’t leave me cold, either; I really enjoy a lot of it, but my personal, creative life suffers because of my work hours.

And so, part way through the book (I still am reading it), McKeown asks the question:  What is the one thing you are really passionate about?  Yes, the overwhelming question.

For days, I pondered this.  What do I really feel passionate about?  What is at the core of my being?  And what emerged is simply writing.  Writing about everything, physically writing with a pen on paper, at the computer, expressing my thoughts.  And with paper comes paint and ink and colors and words.  And history and stories and ideas and the world pre-PC.

Paper.

Little did I realize when I started this blog that Journey by Paper would be such an appropriate title.