Endlessly Repeating...

This image is of a Josiah McElheny sculpture at the MFA, Boston. This is just one small part of a larger whole.  It is clear to see why it is so dynamic...he uses reflective surfaces and two way mirrors so the reflections are splayed out in every direction.  It is awesome to stand in front of it and see such depth, the infinite confined in a finite space.

I am a bit of a thinker...actually to be more accurate I am a reflector.  I reflect on what has happened, how I could have done it differently; what didn't happen and why I didn't make it; what is going to happen and how I can either stop it or propel it forward...anyway you get the idea.  Yes, it is exhausting.  Through many conversations with friends that are similar to me, and different, we have yet to come to conclusion on whether this is a blessing or a curse.  It is most likely both.  I hope you see the totally obvious connection of why I would be drawn to this image.  However, I think what I love most about this piece is not what is seen, but what is clearly absent.  This sculture now sits in the new contemporary art wing of the MFA.  There are often people surrounding it on a busy day.  There are four sides, each with different shaped vessels reflecting parts of the whole.  So what is missing?...any reflection of the viewer.  Any sense that this visually exploding sculpture, made purely of surfaces that are meant to echo its surroundings, is being observed.  It is self containing.  The action of the piece is expanding only inward.  The first time I saw this work I identified with this initial sensation: taking everything around me and pulling it inward, mulling it over, trying to see it from all sides... I felt drawn to it and yet claustrophobic because of it.  But the other day I was back in front of "Endlessly Repeating Twentieth Century Modernism" and I saw something different, or that is I didn't see something.  I was intensely aware of the lack of myself in this mess of internal and external reflections, and I breathed.  For that moment I was able to be outside of myself as I stared into it.  I felt light.  This has come up a couple of times recently, and as I have come to learn, if a theme is reoccurring in life it is a little piece of grace (ie. meant to be listened to!).  I reveled in this feeling of lightness, let go of whatever was jumbling around in my head and just let the moment rush over me, oh to be present.  So in those moments of feeling overwhelmed by trying to figure it all out, past, present and future, I will remember to take myself out of it, realizing that 1) I have NO control over it 2) THANK God for that and 3) isn't it more beautiful when we let go of ourselves, surrendering to the crazy chaos that we find ourselves in?!  At least at the MFA it is...

Advent 2012, part 1

I realized there was something else I wanted to say tonight.  I just got finished reading over all of my posts from the last couple of years...which was not THAT many since my last one before tonight was January of 2011 and I only started this blog in the summer of 2010!! Anyway, that is neither here nor there.  What I did want to mention (and what I was reminded from a former post) is that we are in advent.  Why is that important?  I am not actually sure yet, but there is something brewing this advent that I want to be aware of and ready for, which is somewhat ironic considering that advent is the time of waiting in the Christian tradition.  (For amazing posts about advent see here, and be sure to click through all the embedded links.)

Ok, totally off track again...back to the importance of advent...I do believe that God, whatever version of Her you put your faith in, honors our desires to seek and to find.  So before I lay down for the night I want to put out into the ether of faith that I am entering boldly into this advent season, preparing myself for whatever crosses the path of this seeker, this adventurer, this active wait-er. I wonder who else out there is searching, I suspect so many of you.  What if we all looked out for one another as we continued our own journeys? Maybe it is not just about what we seek but how that relates to what those we love are seeking.  I wonder if the shepherds and wise men were not as open to their own journeys being disrupted, if they would have found what they were looking for...a small baby, pure love, entering an imperfect world to shake things up in a radical way.  We do not always find what we initially set out to...THANK GOD for that, otherwise why search at all?!

Back to Basics

 So, it has been a wicked long time since I was in this space.  Well, not quite as long as the distance between these two pictures, but I thought having these two Emilys meet would bring me back to basics.  Mainly, thinking again about this blogging space, what it can be for me and the very small amount of people who find their way here.  A lot has happened since the last post in 2011.  To much really to go back and recap, plus part of what has been learned from this past year is living in the present time and space.  When I was thinking about how to restart this electronic journal I, of course, went to find images.  I found this old button of me as a child...why I had a button made of me in a puffy purple jacket I do not know, and then why I STILL have the button many moons later is even more beyond me.  However, that is not the point.  The point is, well, what is the point?!  I guess in finding this old picture and then putting it next to this one of me a few weeks ago getting ready for my cousins wedding (thanks to Kalee Hankle for the straightening of my hair!!) made me realize a couple of things:1. Little girls never really grow up, we just finally claim the fact that being a woman enables us to act like a little girl on our own terms2. My smile, that seems to be a main feature in people remembering me, started as a small smirk and has grown into something I no longer hide but display with abandonment3. Being a child of the 80s was totally stylish! 

So I guess the point is...I'm back.  Not sure for how long or where this new track will take me, but looking forward to sharing...

Home Again

"They" say you can never go home again, which isn't really true. I go home every Christmas, and sometimes for Thanksgiving, and occasionally during the summer...but I get the idea. It is true, I can't go back to the way it was, the way I felt in high school, the girl I was, the boys I liked, the friends and jokes we thought were hilarious...and that is a very good thing. We move on, grow to become more of the women we are, fall deeply in love with men, make new friends and often laugh about the same jokes with the old ones. However, I can go home again. And the glory is in the fact that we both change, home and me. I saw my town with new eyes, for the beauty that had become common when I was growing up there. Spending time with a good friend in a place I love, experiencing each other, our friendship, our town in new ways with the comfort of the past holding us close...no it is not going home again, it is better. I found a new home, a deeper home, in the safety of the familiar and the excitement in the changes of life.

4/642

Straight Dos

I got my hair cut today. I realized that it had been 5 months since my last hair cut (see August 5th). I remember after my last cut I felt so excited that my curls had new life breathed into them. This time after my trim, my stylist (that's right, a stylist) asked if I wanted my hair straightened. I almost always say no, but she convinced me...and I was enjoying the conversation as one art history major to another. I am not one for stylists, make-up...even lotion gives me the creeps, needless to say I am what you would call a "low maintenance" gal (at least in this department), but as I left the salon with a new "do", my christmas coat and places to be, I was reminded that pleasures often come, for me, from the simple parts of life. Completing a task, having goal, meeting a friend unexpectedly for a brisk walk...but today I would have to say my greatest pleasure, albiet a bit sinister, was having numerous friends not recognize me at first. Who knew losing the curls would be such a good disguise. I wonder what contacts, or lipstick would do?!...ohhh of the posibilites for deceit.

642 tries for Discipline

Discipline and routine, neither one of which are my favorite things to do. Call it my impatience, laziness...or how about we say it is that I am excitingly impulsive/to creative to stay on one thing for too long...either way I suck at follow through. Something that has gotten me in trouble one to many times, in one to many ways. So in spite of my distain for resolutions I found a creative outlet for my need for self discipline. I found this book while browsing one of my favorite stores in Harvard Square, Black Ink, where I always seem to leave with something tucked in the bag for myself no matter who I go to shop for. I am hoping with this small act of ritual once a day, drawing 1 out of the 642 prompts, I will begin to learn and like the importance of routine. And if it doesn't work...i get 642 creative experiences trapped in one book. Now don't worry, I am not going to share every pencil lined masterpiece, but I wanted to warn...well I am not sure who reads this, but anyway who stumbles upon this one day and catches a childlike (I never admitted to being being Artsy...just -ish) drawing of New Jersey, a lollipop, shadow, or a whisper. So stay tuned...