Late fifties living
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| All photos taken at The Hook in Capitola, California by yours truly. |
Not that I need another hobby but.... Yesterday I made cards to share with family and friends. The blanks were initially purchased to use with grandkids, making fabric scrap art, which my granddaughters recently thought was The Bomb! That was very pleasing, so I bought more cards, then recalled prints made LONG AGO when we lived in Silicon Valley and every few months I drove over Highway 17 to visit The Hook, in Capitola.
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| Part of the process; I used a rotary cutter specifically for paper when trimming the photos. |
Boy that feels like Someone Else's Life! Yet over a dozen years ago, every time I completed a new draft, I treated myself with a trip to the Pacific. Usually I brought with me a pretty good camera for the time, a Nikon Coolpix 8700, and took shot after shot after shot of the ocean.
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| September 2010 |
When I say shot after shot after shot, what I mean is HUNDREDS of photographs of one section of the California coast. I maintained the mantra that the ocean never looks the exact same, justifying all those pictures, all those moments celebrating another step in my authorial journey, all those getaways to what felt so wonderful and far away from my upbringing in the middle of the hot and dry Sacramento Valley. Ironic that now I live a relative stone's throw from the Pacific, and when we visit the beach, I don't take too many photos. I also don't consider all those treks over Highway 17, nor do I ponder all those stories written.
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| March 2011 |
Maybe now I will, having made twenty cards yesterday, LOL! Four by six inch prints were trimmed to fit nicely on cards the same size, tacked down with glue stick adhesive, and I enjoyed myself THOROUGHLY in the making, in part that they came out so well, even if I merely eyeballed sticking the photos onto the cards. Mostly I allowed myself to step back into that time, those moments, that ocean, far from where I now live, yet intricately connected by a shared coastline and my memories. I would arrive at The Hook pretty early in the day, mainly to secure a place in the small car park, as well as beat traffic on my way home. I'd spend a few hours roaming the stretch of beach if it was low tide, or walking along the cliff during high tide, picture after picture snapped, moment after moment captured. I can't even recall when I ordered the prints, probably six or eight years ago, nor why I wanted them. That's irrelevant, because they were for yesterday to use in making cards.
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| May 2011; low tide (which looks like a different planet). |
Not that I want to sound ungrateful or dismissive; I am VERY THANKFUL to have those photos, and to have thought about them while my granddaughters went ga-ga over making scrap art cards. What I produced yesterday would have seemed boring to them, but oh my goodness I went to town both in the trimming of the pictures, then the placement on the cards. Two are going out in the post today, to friends in need of scenic distractions as well as words of encouragement. In butting up against another decade on this planet, lately the cons have outweighed the pros when it comes to health and healing.
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| January 2011 |
Late fifties living is starting to feel a little, well, not easy in that people I love, know, or am acquainted with via others are enduring illnesses that sometimes lead to death. That sucks. It's also part of living, and I'm trying not to become overwhelmed by the depressive nature of it, instead marveling at how Past Me made allowances for Future Me, which is currently Present Me, ahem. All I did back then was take A LOT of photographs, tucking them aside for an unknown purpose. I'm not going to ponder if books written back then are to hauled out for introspection; I have more than enough on my plate currently. Yet I am going to allow that all those drives over an at times treacherous California highway, all those mornings and sometimes afternoons spent in Capitola, all those indelible instances of waves curling, crashing, retreating, then doing it all over again have moved forward in time with me, to assuage, distract, and perhaps heal. Or at least take the sting from devastating real-life events that are as permanent as the Pacific. Right now making pretty cards is my shield from what growing older entails. And giving thanks for Past Me making this possible.
