Bright Star of the Morning
Happy New Year: The Photo Year
Hello, readers of my blog! It has been 1 month and 3 days* since I've last posted on my blog. This is me embarking on a brand new, exciting journey in 2014.
My life is full of many tiny blessings that add up to much joy. My resolution is to share my gratitude for the goodness bit by bit. One bit per day, to be exact. No more, no less.
This is a photo of my niece at the Columbus Zoo Wild Lights. They were almost as beautiful as Felicity!
*This is an estimation (aka a "lie") ... As a true procrastinator, the effort to go back and actually count how many days it's been since I last posted would not only take too long, but would be altogether discouraging. And that's not what this day is about!
Happy New Year!
++
Rachel
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words and letters
A HUMMING PRAYER
by Sarah Reis
is it buzzing or ticking,
dripping or coughing,
no, the faintest of humming, deities tuned in to the station
we share a breath from feet away.
the things untouched are often the sweetest,
the grandest paintings, the feeblest of china,
we protect what can break,
an honor of fragility and everlasting beauty.
we've no organ or choirs in starched cotton,
we do not join in with the harp and the lyre.
but we share a blossoming and fledgling love.
this we fly unto you, our mother.
My dear friends, I have a most delightful surprise for you: a poem, written by a poet named Sarah Reis, a very talented, dear friend of mine. A one-of-a-kind type. And today is her birthday. Say hello to her here.
Today is a study on words and letters, on how to combine them, mold them and let ideas flow through them. Disfrútense.
All I wanted for Christmas...
...was a portrait lens.
What I didn't realize until I used it, is that portrait lenses have magical powers (now grouped with #Gandalf #Hermione and #CreditCards). They do, really.
It was an adventure to find that the the secretly wielded power of the portrait lens (SWPPL) is that it introduces you to someone in a whole new way, just like one of those unforgettable cup-of-coffee conversations with an old friend. You know what I mean.
This time, my lens introduced me to people I've know since they were brand new (one of them, still brand new). To capture their wonderfully exhilarated, rosie-cheeked personalities was a feat. I had to pin each of them down from various activities, including the massive 10-foot snowman building (encouraged by my brothers, their dads), the pulling one another behind the tractor on multiple strung-together plastic sleds (encouraged by my brothers, their dads) and the trying to throw snow balls at my new magical portrait lens (encouraged by no-one, promptly ended by the dreaded Mean Aunt Face).
So, enjoy meeting these beautiful joy-filled people. I hope you'll find yourself joyful afterwards; I always find that I am.
the answer is...
It was snowing.
As we headed out of town we were all brimming with the over-excitement of weekend Christmas celebration when I realized there was a tiny maintenance light illuminated on my dashboard. I, knowing next to nothing about cars except how to drive them, fumbled for my phone in a panic.
"The ESC light! It's on! Something is definitely wrong!" I was frantic. I was sure we'd break down in the middle of the snow-covered isolated Ohio country, be late for our Christmas bash, be forced to tow my car to a repair shop where I would have to spend all of my Christmas gift money on mechanic-lingo I couldn't decipher. Panic and confusion dominated and surely Christmas would be ruined too.
"Turn it off, Rache," is what my savior cousin car-guru dictated to me over the phone. "If the ESC light is on, just turn it off." I was dumbfounded. That was the answer to my current state of demise? Pushing a button? Sure enough, my leg had slipped and pushed something called an "ESC button," which consequently turned on the ESC light on the dashboard.
I pushed it. The light went off. Problem solved. Panic disolved. Peace restored.
I often wish something like this existed for real-life struggles. I am slowly learning to believe it does...
p.s. This post's photos were born of one of my incessant topics of thought, which I believe has been summed up by another designer in the phrase "The Lost Art of Hand Lettering". This is the skeletal structure. Final version yet to come...
