I feel fortunate to know lots of very interesting people, individuals who inspire and energize me to live life fully, and to be -- if I might paraphrase an old TV ad -- more than I might otherwise be.
One friend spent nearly a month this summer backpacking with very minimal, ultralight gear, hiking mostly off-trail in the Olympic National Park. His pack weighed less than 30 pounds, about half what my backpack weighs when I go out for a night or two... and for my friend to go that light for that long meant that he was most certainly existing without the “comforts of home,” perhaps living a little on the edge, arguably experiencing nature more intimately than one might if geared-up for every outdoor uncertainty.
Someone else I know is headed off for a medical mission in Guatemala, while yet another friend who lives in Seattle has rented her house to some folks, rented another place for herself across town, and is making these moves, she says, simply “to shake things up a bit.”
I also know a woman, a creative soul, who fashions art from pop cans, runs a foundation that serves families with sick children, and still finds time to take friends (like me) into the woods and teach us how to identify and gather mushrooms.
This weekend my friends in the Seattle Tibetan community will gather at their Buddhist monastery and offer prayers for their brothers and sisters who remain in Tibet and who live under Chinese occupation.
Finally, I know a young couple who are about to have their first child, and I wonder whether parenthood might not be the most exciting -- but also the scariest -- adventure humans might undertake.
Come to think of it, nearly everyone I know has something to teach me that'll get me to keep my eyes and mind open, to see things in a new or different way.
The images I’m posting today are a little bit of a stylistic departure for me, just a tiny bit out-there. Hanging out recently near the harbor on Bainbridge Island, my eye was taken by the patterns that a pier and sailboat masts created on the water.
I post these pictures to suggest that each day perhaps we can all find ways, large or small, that we can “shake things up a bit.”
