Each Wednesday I’m recording a Curiosity Journal to recap the past week. Tag words are: reading, playing, learning, reacting and writing.
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Some of you have mentioned that you’re keeping a Curiosity Journal, as well. Leave your link in the comments so that we can visit and enjoy your weekly review.
Reading
I’ve argued with friends that some people are mountain people, others are water people, and few are in-between; that is, in my observation, people are inexplicably drawn to rugged, majestic mountainous terrain, or to that sloshing, mesmerizing flow of the sea, rivers, lakes or streams. I’ve met exceptions—those who claim to be equally drawn to either landscape—but I’m not sure I believe them. I would guess that they lean one direction or the other.Scott Russell Sanders leans toward the water, as do I. He hankers for it, even, as he writes in Staying Put:
We all ride the river, we are all born from a sack of water, and some of us never quit hankering for that original wetness. From birth onward, we are drawn to the wash of lakes, the heave of oceans, the hustle or streams, the needling drum of rain. I hike miles to see a creek slide over ledges, I gaze like a soothsayer into ponds, I slip into a daze from the sound of drizzle on the roof. When it storms and the street is running like a sluice, I go out barefoot or booted and slosh about while neighbors stare at me from the shelter of porches. (Sanders 59-60)
I thought, as I read that passage, of the Thanksgiving Day a few years ago, when the weather was unseasonably warm and rain came down steadily. The drains were blocked by layers of fall leaves, and so our street was “running like a sluice,” and the kids went out booted and sloshed about, just like Sanders. My mom and I stood in the doorway watching my little children in their bright raincoats and umbrellas jump and splash and laugh for half an hour or more.Also, I enjoyed reading Jennifer Dukes Lee‘s article at The High Calling today about breaking up with a friend.
Playing
The High Calling and High Calling Focus are hosting November’s PhotoPlay, “From My Back.”Directions for November’s PhotoPlay:
- Lie down on the ground (not on your couch!)
- Take a few moments to take in the scene around you.
- Snap away!
- Share your favorite images by uploading them to the High Calling Focus Flick Group by Wednesday, November 16th, for a spot in the gallery and a possible feature at The High Calling.
- Tag your images with “Photoplay 20” and “THC.”
Note: Only images submitted to the High Calling Focus group are eligible for inclusion in the gallery.Today’s the deadline. Unless I’m inspired today to snap a few more today, here are mine:
Learning
Back in October, during the Laity Lodge writers’ retreat, a group of us sat around a table on a porch overlooking the Frio, talking, laughing and snacking for hours. During that time, I observed L.L. Barkat applying a Burt’s Bees lip product. All that grinning, talking and sipping of iced tea was drying out our lips, but she had the presence of mind to reapply and protect hers. I had some basic Burt’s Bees lip balm, but it was sheer. L.L.’s added a shimmery hint of color, and I took mental note to look into it.But I forgot about it.I just don’t think about makeup all that often.Then, this week, I heard someone cite that disgusting statistic that the typical lipstick-wearing woman will ingest six or seven (or four, depending on who is calculating) pounds of lipstick in her lifetime. Snopes.com offered a detailed analysis of why that fact is impossible, easing my mind; but this article from The New York Times in which young girls learn the chemistry behind lip products left me wanting to transition to products made from simple, wholesome ingredients.So I bought a few alternatives from Target:
And I love that Burt’s Bees tinted lip balm so much I almost cried the first time I slid it across my lips.It offers the comforting, nourishing feeling of Chapstick (actually, it is far more soothing than Chapstick-brand lip balm) along with a hint of color.The Yes to Carrots product is nice. Given the cap color, though, I thought it would be tinted. It is not. Though I was looking forward to some color variety, the lip butter will serve as a healthy alternative to Chapstick this winter. I can keep an eye open for their lip tint.Finally, the slender lip shimmer product pictured above, also from Burt’s Bees, offers a deeper pigment for times when I want to look more made-up.
Reacting
Our family room carpet had to be ripped up, so for the past few weeks we’ve been living with the paint-splattered sub-floor, advising everyone to wear shoes at all times, to avoid splinters.In just a matter of days, our first out-of-town guests will arrive for Thanksgiving week. A few days after that, another guest joins us and stays over the long weekend. Thanksgiving Day itself, our house will be filled with nine people in addition to our family of six.We’ve debated for years about what kind of floor we might one day have in our home. Given my daughter’s and my allergy and asthma issues, we’ve been advised to install wood floors. They’re expensive, so we only bought enough for that one room with the bare floor. The materials are sitting in unopened boxes in that room, acclimating to our humidity levels.Will we have a usable floor in time?Thankfully, our guests are relaxed and accept our idiosyncrasies.We don’t even have a television on the main floor, and our friends and family have grown to adjust to that unconventional arrangement (though I suspect that at least one of our friends wouldn’t mind peeking at football games a couple of times in the afternoon). Given their willingness to accept, even embrace, us in our unfinished state, I think that a raw sub-floor would be just one more oddity in the Kroeker household.
Writing
I’ve been writing some shopping lists in anticipation of preparing the main elements of the Thanksgiving meal.
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Credits:Photos: All images by Ann Kroeker. All rights reserved.Book: Sanders, Scott Russell. Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World
. Boston: Beacon Press, 1993. Print. (Amazon Associates Link)
That L.L. and her shimmery lip balm–what a trend setter! I’m a beach girl, married to a mountain man. I think I’m destined to spend my golden years far from the ocean. My husband figures I’ll be so out of my mind by then, I’ll just look out the window and ask, “Were those mountains always out there?”
And he’ll say, “no, they just floated in on the morning tide.”
My husband is one of those people I don’t believe; he claims he’s equally drawn to beaches and mountains. Because of his supposed neutrality, he is promising me the sea…someday…
For now, however, I’m in a landlocked Midwestern state.
{insert heavy sigh}
I am loving the subfloor. Because Ann, I am positive that no one blessed enough to spend Thanksgiving with your family is coming to inspect.
Are there desert people?
Oh, you are sweet. We feel blessed by our company and want to bless them with something other than splinters in bare feet! 🙂
As for the desert…wow, I never thought of that. It seems unimaginable to me, so dry and mysterious. I’ve only been in one desert (Joshua Tree Monument).
You are totally confusing my theory, Sheila! I have a friend I can ask on Sunday. She might be a desert person, and I can present my theory without referencing deserts and see what she says. She’s very blunt; she’ll tell me what she thinks.
And then I’ll have to hang it up, my ocean/mountain thing.
Oh my GRACIOUS do I love your comments about the mountain/beach thing. I grew up in CA. Loved the beach. Loved the Sierras. Moved to CO in June of 2000 (thinking I would love the mountains), realized there was, in fact, no ocean there and whined my way through 2001-2010 until I made it back to CA!!!!
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. . .the beach. . . .the mountains don’t compare.
And, yes. I think there are desert people. And I think there are prairie people. The prairie almost evokes an ocean feeling. The vastness. The endlessness. The mystery. The sound of the wind in the fields. Just thought I’d add more to your thought process!!!!
I’m so happy for you, that you have discovered your “leaning” toward the beach. What a treat, though, to be near both.
But the desert and prairie people? You’re just turning my simple two-pronged theory into a mind-map or flowchart or grid. I’ll have to rethink my presentation! 🙂
I’ve never seen prairies (flown over them, but haven’t stood in them). I’ve got to open my mind a little to these other possibilities!
Oh, and thanks a lot for introducing a new author to me (catch the sarcasm). I’d never heard of Scott Russell Sanders, but now he’s on the ol’ Amazon wishlist. . .more books for the pile!
Scott Russell Sanders was an English professor at my alma mater and still lives in that small town. I’ve met him a couple of times, and he’s super nice. Strangely, inexplicably, I never had him as a professor (even though I was an English major).
Living where I do it is possible to be both a mountain and abeach person. Of course, we have neither deserts (too wet) nor prairies (simply not enough room), but, hey, you can’t have everything.
Have I said how I love these curiosity journal entries? I’ve learned so much :). And now I have to get some of that burt bees (mine is the clear kind too). We are heading to the sea for the holiday. The whole family. A bittersweet thing, I think, in reaction to my father-in-law’s recent cancer diagnosis. He will start chemo when we return.
Oh, I just got my sister-in-law a Burt’s Bees gift package for her birthday!
You know I prefer mountains, but what I like are the mountain streams, the mountain lakes. On our first trip to Estes Park, we videoed the rain because we hadn’t had any all summer.
So, maybe we’re just “water” people?
Throughout the great pattern of thngis you get an A for effort and hard work. Where you misplaced me was on all the specifics. As people say, the devil is in the details And that couldn’t be more correct at this point. Having said that, permit me reveal to you just what did work. The article (parts of it) is certainly incredibly engaging which is possibly the reason why I am making the effort in order to comment. I do not make it a regular habit of doing that. Second, even though I can see a jumps in reason you come up with, I am definitely not sure of just how you seem to connect your details that help to make the final result. For the moment I shall yield to your point but trust in the future you connect your facts much better.