Picture (Im)Perfect

Social media offers many examples of "picture-perfect" moments, carefully chosen to be shared with hundreds of "friends."  Certainly there's a mix of spontaneous moments thrown in with the curated ones, and everything in between.  Of course, none of us have to post or look at other people's posts or even join social media platforms at all.  My own feelings vacillate between "It can be good" and "It's a complete waste of time."  Despite the voluntary nature of participation, I am glad that my own children's infancy and much of their childhood occurred prior to the age of social media.

We were using a 35mm film camera when our children were born.  We purchased our first digital camera in 2003, when our youngest was a baby.  Digital photography offers a lot of advantages, including higher quality images and the option to take countless photos at no cost.  Instead of just two shots of the kids at the pumpkin farm, why not twenty?  With so many images, we're likely to capture the "perfect" shot.  The downside is also the endless images.  I rarely go back and delete the blurry photos or the accidental picture of someone's foot.  The photos continue to accumulate on the camera roll or in the cloud or on the zip drive.

I could create photo books online.  There are so many websites and options for formats and sizes and themes.  I attempted to do it just once.  After keeping a detailed written journal of our first family trip to Poland, I thought it would be easy to go back and arrange and label the photos in a digital book.  I couldn't do it.  The options overwhelmed me.  The inability to physically touch and arrange the photos flummoxed me.  I decided that the journal and a sampling of trip photos - printed at Walgreens and arranged in a simple photo album - beautifully captured our memories.

Prior to the popularity of digital photography, scrapbooking was all the rage.  Scrapbooking seemed like something I might like to do.  I enjoy making cards or little booklets with personalized poems and doodles and photos.  But I found scrapbooking to be overwhelming in the same way I later found digital photo books to be.  There were stores and classes, special books and inserts, huge varieties of scissors and punches and other tools.  The stickers were too cute or too much faux Victorian sentiment.  I abandoned scrapbooking and arranged the photos chronologically in shoe boxes.

So we have shoe boxes of photos in a closet and folders of digital photos on the hard drive.  I can find them when I need them for an event or a project.  There are images of birthdays and graduations and other milestones, of trips and vacations and reunions.  There are photos of ordinary moments too -  a boy snuggled on the couch with his favorite book, a girl holding her wiggly kittens, siblings ready for battle with plastic light sabers or running through the sprinkler in the front yard.  I adore the snapshots of these everyday occasions.  They were not carefully planned and posed or artfully arranged, and yet these photos are appreciated as much as any other.  Then I think of the photos from my own childhood.  They are of dubious quality, compared to what's produced by modern technology.  They are grainy or terribly lit.  They are faded Polaroids. There are very few of these photographs at all, in comparison to the endless digital images of today.  And how I treasure these photographs, limited both in number and quality.  They don't tell the whole story, and they don't tell a "picture-perfect" story, but they tell enough.

I think of the photo of my family gathered near the pool at my aunt's house during summer vacation.  My parents and my two oldest brothers are lined up in the back with the five younger children sitting on the diving board.  We're in our swimsuits.  My parents are wearing sunglasses.  We kids are squinty-eyed looking into the sun.  Some smiling, others not.  In our matching swimsuits, my younger sister and I are gazing at something off to the side.  What are we looking at, I wonder?

Today this photo might be passed over in favor of one in which everyone is looking the same way and smiling.  That's too bad.  Because I love the story this picture tells of my family assembled around the diving board and the memories it evokes.  I cherish this imperfectly-composed yet perfectly-captured moment.

Where I'm from

that's me on the left

I'm from a red brick cape cod on the south side of Milwaukee.  I'm from a family of nine people who inhabited that five bedroom house.  Birth order and gender dictated the occupancy of the bedrooms.  Upstairs, the oldest two boys shared the large bedroom, the oldest girl had the medium-sized room, and the next two offspring - both boys - shared the teeny-tiny room, which is now my mother's "Christmas closet."  On the first floor, one bedroom was my parents' and the other belonged to my younger sister and me.  We two were the babies of the family, and my mom dressed us alike when we were little.  At some point, our brothers coined the term "Puds" to refer to us collectively.  The etymology of this word is a mystery to me.

We Puds spent a lot of time in our first floor bedroom.  It had white wallpaper festooned with stout geometrically-shaped flowers in vibrant colors.  My dad engineered a built-in closet and drawers and painted them in bright colors to match the wallpaper flowers.  We slept in bunk beds with Kermit the Frog bed sheets.  The décor didn't change as we got older, but we covered the walls with posters of Duran Duran and Rick Springfield and Michael Jackson.  Cousins slept over in that room, two or three at a time.

There were oodles of cousins.  Both my parents came from large families and many of their siblings had large families too.  Some cousins were much older than us Puds and did inexplicable things - like get married - when we were only just making our First Communions.  Older cousins and older siblings might convince us to hold séances in the attic or play with a Ouija board.  But plenty of cousins were close in age.  Together we put on plays in the basement.  I remember taking part in a theatrical version of "Rumpelstiltskin."  We organized fashion shows in the living room.  Our parents sat patiently through these amateur performances.  We played "The Gong Show" and other t.v. show-inspired games.  With our closest cousins, we had our own secret language.  We made up elaborate codes and wrote them in notebooks.

I'm from secret languages and shared memories.  I'm from big families.  I'm from home.  I can't imagine being from any other place.

One more mile, one more word - motivation from running, show tunes & more

This morning I ran three miles.  As a sporadic and fairly novice runner, this is a challenge for me.  I'm always ready to give up at the two mile mark.  Today's excuses included - "I only slept six hours" and "It's pretty hot out here" and "After a busy weekend, I deserve a break."  Those things might be true, but none of them can prevent me from running another mile if I push myself to do it.  Which I did.  Music usually motivates me to keep running.  I like to include show tunes on my running playlists.  I've been a fan of the "Big Fish" soundtrack ever since my daughter performed in the musical at her school.  It's a story full of good life lessons.  I appreciate the lyrics from the song "What's next" -

"What's next?" is all anyone needs to begin.
"What's next?" has been a friend to you.
What's next to do?
One word and then suddenly one more again,
Just like a pen writing a perfect tale.

"One word and then suddenly one more again," reminds me of an anecdote from Anne Lamott's book Bird by Bird.  She relates the story of her father encouraging her overwhelmed brother to complete a daunting school assignment - a report about birds - by saying, "Bird by bird, buddy.  Just take it bird by bird."  If we think too much about the whole distance we want to run, the entire story we want to write, or the big project we need to do - we'll likely be overwhelmed.  We're better off bird by bird, word by word, page by page, step by step, mile by mile.  I remind myself at the beginning of any big task that "what's next" - the single next step - is all I need to get started.

The opposite of one step at a time is taking on too much at a time or multitasking.  Both of which are incompatible with the sort of focus that helps us reach our goals.  Blogger and author Cal Newport writes about these ideas.  I mentioned his book Deep Work in my reading notes from a year ago.  I've been reading his blog and skimming his book So Good They Can't Ignore You which details the idea of the "craftsman mindset" versus the "passion mindset."   One becomes a craftsman, Newport suggests, through deliberate practice.  Deliberate practice means not just working hard but also pushing and stretching yourself beyond what's comfortable.  Running one more mile, for example. Or writing a piece that is challenging due to the technique or topic.

This leads me to another source of inspiration - getting things done.  I often think I'm "too busy" to write or exercise or do other things that are important to me.  In April and May, I participated in an online writing course.  I wondered if I would have time to write the twice weekly assignments, read the other writers' pieces, and contribute to the discussions on top of work, volunteer commitments, end-of-school-year events and my son's graduation.  I did.  Because I was busy and didn't have time to overthink and keep revising, I believe I participated in a more focused (and less perfectionist) way.  I benefited greatly from the experience: I learned new ideas and techniques; I wrote at least twice a week, producing new drafts or revising existing pieces; I received support and feedback from a talented group of writers; and I realized that, in fact, I am not "too busy" to write. 

My last bit of inspiration comes from a book.  In my most recent reading notes, I refer to Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser.  Fraser writes:

"Wilder was not always in full command of her material, but in turning out a column every two weeks she was learning how to tell stories, introduce characters, and craft dialogue.  She was becoming comfortable in the public realm, serving up advice to a cohort of women who craved connection, encouragement, and sensible counsel.  She was beginning to taste the gratification that came from seizing control of a narrative, summoning beloved figures, settling scores, and addressing grievances."

I'm not comparing myself to Laura Ingalls Wilder in any way, but I can relate to being "not always in full command" of my material.  Fraser observed that Wilder's regular column gave her the writing practice she needed.  There it is: "deliberate practice."  I experienced deliberate practice in the online writing course.  And it's something I can continue with committing to a regular writing routine and posting regularly on this blog.  "One word and then suddenly one word again.."

*****

Whatever your plans or goals, I hope you've found some inspiration here.