Walker Evans exhibit

Bob and I went into San Francisco today to visit SFMOMA, the Modern Art Museum.  I'm a member, so we try to go in often to take advantage of the membership.  Today, Bob wanted to see the Walker Evans photography exhibit.  It was a huge, extensive exhibit of over 300 of his photographs.  Walker Evans is one of the most  influential photographers of the 20th century, but I found the photographs were mostly unimpressive, tiny, little photographs (inches wide and high) of very ordinary subjects like store fronts and road signs.  He is famous for vernacular photography - that is for photographing the most ordinary unexceptional subjects, American Main Street, poor sharecroppers in the Depression.  I asked Bob when we had a coffee break why his photographs were even considered art.  They looked like photos I could have taken with my Brownie camera.  At the end of the second part of the exhibit there was a movie where Evans was explaining his photographs and where his photos were put together into a movie and I was very impressed.  Overall it was an interesting exhibit that has got me thinking about what we notice and pay attention to and what we consider art. Our lives are constructed out of simple and ordinary things and maybe Walker Evans was really on to something, maybe our ordinary lives contain art.

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Morning thoughts

Early in my life, I learned to serve others.  First in the family, where I was often called to watch my little sister and where I was mother's little helper.  I remember loving being a Candy-Striper, (a volunteer helper at the hospital) while in high school.  It was many years before I volunteered again. Throughout the busy years of my life, I was primarily serving others teaching and ministering as I also cared for my growing family and husband.  Now, long retired, I take care for Bob and me, cooking three meals a day, shopping, keeping house and garden in order.  I volunteer again, now at the Botanical Garden, propagating and being a docent.  I find joy in giving back and sharing my passion for the natural world.  In my search for meaning, besides serving others, I've identified being kind as an important spiritual task.  Now I have come up with a third task:  holding the memories of those who have come before me.  As I remember my grandparents and aunts, born in the 1880's, that's two centuries I'm holding.  As I remember my brother and dear friends who have died, it keeps them alive in my heart.  Or maybe my mother had it right, meaning shmeaning, it's all about enjoying life while I can.

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Three Girls in Paradise

I'm just back from a 9 day adventure in Paradise.  My daughter in law Paula invited me to accompany her and her older daughter on a trip to Hawaii where she had a conference.   We had 5 days together before the conference and a couple of days after.  So it was three generations, "the three girls," together.  I was thrilled and soaked in all the time with these precious ones in all the incredibly beautiful places we visited.  I pondered our different places in our life journeys:  Erika (11 1/2) just becoming who she will be, no longer a child but still loving many joys of childhood;  Paula, at the height of her powers, mother, wife and professor; and me in the sunset of life wondering what it all means and what my place is now.  I noticed our different energy levels, our common interests, what delighted each of us.  I got great pleasure buying Erika shaved ices on the beach and by the swimming pool, getting at least as much pleasure as she got eating them.  We snorkeled, me once, them many times and we marveled at the many fish and sea turtles.  We tidepooled and it gave me great pleasure to follow Erika around as she discovered crabs, sea urchins and other sea life.  We hiked by the rim of the volcano crater in Volcano National Park, where Paula and I cringed each time Erika would go too near the edge and we marveled at the power of the earth's fire in creating the islands.   Erika and I rented a kayak and paddled up and down Waikiki Beach.  We delighted in making three sea turtle sightings while others nearby saw nothing.  The turtles were so close we could hear them breathe.  We observed nature all around us.  We watched a heron catch a fish in the hotel pond while people streamed by noticing nothing.  We spent the day at the Pearl Harbor Museum, toured the USS Arizona Memorial and I know I was overwhelmed with the stories of destruction and of courage.  Best of all, we came upon a lovely Japanese American lady with 4 school girls who had big buckets of origami cranes folded by Japanese school children.  Handing Erika and me a plastic sandwich bag, she told us we could take as many as we liked.  The cranes each had a message written on them from the school children to Americans visiting Pearl Harbor.  Some of the messages on the cranes I took are: "for world peace, I must be kind to other people," "peace is happy", "to make a peaceful world, I think it is important for people around the world to be kind", and "peace and love."  We learned later that this woman comes only 2 or 3 times a year.  We felt very blessed by the cranes and the woman's mission to spread understanding and kindness and that we encountered her on our visit.  She helped me realize that my power as a grandmother is to become filled with love and kindness and to bring that into the world.  As my ego power and my strength decline, my wisdom can increase and remind those concerned with the matters of the world of the importance of kindness.  I thank the Japanese schoolchildren for reminding me of what I am becoming.  I thank my wonderful daughter in law for bringing me along with her and her daughter, my granddaughter, to make so many precious memories, memories that will last a life time for each of us.

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