The Face of a Woman

Great #art project addressing #sexism and cat calls. Written comments are even more telling. pic.twitter.com/ofC6bcAwV1
— YK Hong (@ykhong) March 9, 2013

In June, I discovered this tweet.  I haven't stopped thinking about it.  Yesterday was Women's Equality Day.

Since spotting this tweet, I can't tell you the number of times I have been going about my business, carrying the loss of my mother and other enormously back-breaking life events with me, and I've been told to smile or somehow alter the somber expression on my face.  

Then, it occurred to me, this has often happened to me throughout my life on the rare occasion I wasn't smiling.  I never really thought about it.

On a daily basis, I am the first person to smile.  I'll greet you, smile and say "how are you?"  I am delighted to listen and hear more.  I am joyful and inquisitive.  My greatest joy is to brighten a person's day.  I approach everyone first with, of course, a smile.  

I like to carry a smile with me and "share the bug".  

But, there is more to a smile that is undeniable.  There is a history to smiling that is often not acknowledged.  There was a time when "football players never smile" was freely spoken, understood, and admired.  Honest and humorous.  I think we were safer then. 

There is no one who believes more in joy, love, peace, and compassion than I do.  However, this beautiful piece of art, remembered again on Women's Equality Day, reminds us that, sadly enough...smiles are not equal.  

In some cases, with heads and hearts that hold dark thoughts, a smile, on The Face of a Woman, can be an invitation, seen as a flirtation, to disaster.

Smile...and be mindful.  Remember those who can smile freely when they are happy and remember those who may be told to smile.  And never forget those who when they did smile, as they were told, may later face an accusation that since they did smile, they "asked for it".

We still have not reached equality when a woman's, or girl's, smile of innocence may not be treated for what it is.  In 2013, it would be politically incorrect to say so.  

Attitudes can be held in darkness...or behind a smile.

A Castle Made of Sand?

Just a couple steps to the end of the earth...

It was Sunday.  The Sunday following Thanksgiving.  I make a point of reminding myself what the holiday is all about no matter how much I have to do that weekend.  The food, family, friends and gratitude make this holiday special, and I never let a Thanksgiving pass without pausing to focus on its true, celebrated meaning.

It was a gorgeous day.  Clear.  Bright.  Just beautiful.  I heard the call to "come out and play" despite piles of dishes sitting in the kitchen and this week's "to do" list growing louder in my head.

Fighting the urge to be swallowed up by my responsibilities, I threw on my sweats and grabbed my beach bag in a fit of "I won't give in" and burn this day.  A gift.  "I'm coming!"  I fumbled for the car keys.

As soon as I arrived in my favorite parking spot by the sea, I knew that I was in the right place.  My breathing slowed.  I inhaled deeply.  The pounding in my chest subsided and I felt the relief of a good decision.   Satisfied in my choice.  Knowing I was meant to be "here".  This moment. 

I'd walked this path a million times before.  I'd ridden my bike here through every possible condition.  Days like this...and days of torrential downpours.  Days with warm breezes from the south...and days that winds howled from the north and clouds unloaded icy buckets of driving, brutal lashes.  Liquid sting.

There were times warmth enveloped the coast and embraced the steep cliffs, and there were times the monstrous cliffs were invisible in a shroud of clouds and a curtain of water.

I treasured days I eased along the path nudged by a zephyr from the south as much as I cherished my memories of days when arctic rain poured down from my forehead, blinded me, and I licked the salty precipitation from my lips.  I would be the only one out in the storm.  Alone.  Safe to talk to her.  I'd smile and say, "Yes.  I'm here to see your other side.  Show me what you're made of.  Give me all you've got.  I'm here to experience your beauty...and your power."

A perfect storm.

Today was not that day.  She was showing me her glowing, brilliant beauty.

I walked along the path to find my opening to the sea.  I crunched my way to the top of the cliff and found my footing over the rocky slope.  I slipped and skid down the stony decline a bit and smiled at Mother Nature's work.  Her weather patterns may change in an instant but her stone artistry shows a patient, persistent, gentle hand sculpting intricate scenes as well:  massive cliffs giving way to pebbles and the final tapestry of all her work.  Rocks, shells, and fossils her media.  Sand her masterpiece.

My last few steps were at a run.  She forced me to keep pace.  The drop to sea level was steep.

The stretch of sand was surprisingly desolate.  Black Friday leading to Cyber Monday?  Was I the only one not heeding that call?

The sand at the water's edge was smooth.  The tide was out, and if humanity was too, they weren't here.  I walked about a mile along the soft, pristine surface.  There were a few broken clam and crab shells, but not many.  Frankly, it was strange.  Often, the waves brought lots of clues to the mysteries under the sea.  Sand dollars, shells, crab, kelp, jellyfish, and cypress driftwood are often scattered along the frothy border of her ever-changing hemline.  Sometimes, she seemed to cough, choke and spew the debris of careless people.  Today, she was privately shielding her innermost mystery.  It was as if she held a secret?

I smiled and lifted my chin to feel the warmth of this November sun.  No headphones.  The waves were rhythmic and I wanted to appreciate the regularity with which they rolled to shore today.  Some days the ocean roared like an unruly, angry crowd and her tides seemed to have no rhyme or reason and ripped from any and every direction.  (A lot like all of us). Today, the sea seemed satisfied with a fulfilling holiday, too. But, I sensed she held a surprise. In any case, I continued along the edge...where ocean and land hold their daily dance.

There was something in the sand ahead.  The mighty ocean rolled in on my right, and one, small shadowy object lay on the sand canvas a few steps away.  To my left.

Castle is enlarged to show texture.  Kidding.
Actually, I was disappointed.  In my disbelief,
I lifted the sculpted rock and removed it from
its natural state -- so this is my feeble, quick attempt
at sharing the castle and the story.
Isn't it incredible!?

Like the day, it was beautiful.  Sculpted.  Perfection.

Tells you something.  I thought it was "man-made".  Assembled by a familiar hand.  A sand castle.  Small.  About 4 inches high.  Maybe 5 wide.  Alone.  Nothing else around it for yards.  It reminded me of something made from "Silly Sand".  Dripping wet, saturated sand from a fist held above -- about a foot from the top of the creation.  A childhood art.  Maybe you remember it?

I touched it with my toe.

I couldn't believe it.  It was a ROCK.  It was a ROCK.  Resting in the only way it COULD have been resting to even "see" the castle it so obviously was.  If that rock had rolled from the sea and come to lay on the sand in ANY other position, it would have been "the castle that never existed".  A rather brown, drab ROCK.

Mother Nature's miniature castle.  There she stood.  From the power and strength of the cliffs and oceans to the delicate, intricate little sweet castle.  She seemed to laugh and say, "Forever, you all try to emulate me.  I've been able to mimic you, too.  And, by the way, thanks for dropping by!"

She called.  I listened.  She had a miracle to reveal.  She worked a long time to make her gift.  For that, I am so very grateful.  Thank you, Glorious Mother Nature. Happy Thanksgiving to YOU, too!

Humanitarians Work in Regions of Conflict

Humanitarians often work in regions
of conflict while risking their own lives

It is not surprising that people react with hatred toward those who humiliate them, control their movement, or deny their rights. There is nothing theoretically interesting in the individual or collective experience of anger and hate as a reaction to power that imposes helplessness on us or denies our very being. This is hatred as a response to power.  (Aljazeera.com)

Human rights, oppression, politics...and psychoanalysis?  In this Season of Giving, Gratitude, and Peace, Niza Yanay discusses the psychology of hatred as being the repression of love, denial of attachment, and fears of dependence that may play a role in political relations. She considers the "enemy" as the "forever lost friend" and peace as possible.  What do you think?  Can such volatile relations lead to positive change if we embrace a new understanding of peace, love, and "the other" as "one of us"?  Do the answers lie with humanitarians who risk their lives each day living with a collective respect for peace and the health of all of humanity -- while celebrating diversity?

Meant to Hear

With the exception of someone explicitly asking or crying out for help, most of us do our best not to overhear conversations.  To not...eavesdrop.  However, after reading a bit about "awareness" and listening to messages around us, messages that are essentially meant for us, I left to take a walk and photograph some scenes at a local pier.  Not even "aware" that what I had read had left that much of an impression on me.

Minding my own business, or so I thought, I was standing and photographing a scene when I heard an unlikely group of friends approaching.  A well-dressed man and woman were casually walking toward me.  They appeared to live a comfortable life.  Well-kept clothing.  They carried the accessories of tourists traveling the coast.  Beside them, a bearded man, draped in a heavy, worn, over-sized coat.  His shoulders round and hunched under the weight of a tremendous knapsack.  Garbage bags filled the tilted, twisted bike basket on the front of his rickety, rusted, squeaking metal machine that had obviously seen better days.  He rolled his old mangled friend alongside his limping left leg with all the respect that a man of his means could give his true love and most-prized possession.

I didn't hear the majority of the discussion.  Thank goodness.  I always feel that I have more than enough of my own business to attend to without even thinking about hearing others' conversations.  But, I did hear one line.  One line rose above the sweet sound of the fog horn and shouts of fisherman advertising their catches.

The homeless stranger, who I now consider a sage, let out a prickly, gruff noise and out came a statement that said so much in so few words.

Out from behind his grizzly beard he snorted, "Why would I give an opinion about something I know nothing about"?

Wow.  The context was irrelevant.  The statement rang true.  A truth that stood alone.  A fact that simply existed.  Outside of space and time.  Untouched by the limits of any one conversation.

How many of us could learn so much from just that?  Just listening, learning, seeking, keeping the peace by not feeling that our opinions were necessary.  Just listening or saying the dreaded, "I don't know".  Not having all the answers for things which we just truly can't answer.  Allowing the words of those with greater personal experience just stand.  Uncontested.  Humbly admit we just know nothing...until we know something -- and being comfortable in acknowledging our uncertainty.

I don't know where you are, Sir.  I don't know if you still carry your cumbersome load and you continue to stroll your seasoned machine down the sidewalk or into the brush by the sea.  I do know that you changed my life, and I will never forget the mark you made on me personally.  The gift you gave to me.  A question that I will remember far longer than my "eavesdropping" reading.

What's strangely sad for me?  I will never be able to tell you, "Thank you".  But, Sir, thank you...wherever the road takes you...thank you.  From me.  A sweet lesson I will never forget.  Words I was meant to hear.