July 2013 – Petitefreespirit

Seen on the Bayou

Most of my travel photos are based on international travel. However, the opportunity to see the everyday with new eyes always exists. Different walks and bike rides have offered photo opportunities to see things that could be overlooked if I were zipping past in a car. In addition, not everyone has been to a bayou. I had to look up the definition for bayou myself because I didn’t know exactly what it was. My easy thought is a place with many ditches that have water flowing through them and animals that live in or near them because that is what I see as I head to and fro. However, the true definition encompasses more than ditches because beyond the areas I can walk or pedal are boatable (I don’t have one of those) waterways that seem to meander through landed areas.

I don’t go everywhere but this is some of what it looks like with more to follow…

By the way, I still don’t know what those jumping fish are that I caught on the one video. They are quite interesting though.

Sometimes You Just Gotta Go With It

I enjoy singing but have not had the opportunity lately because I usually am not somewhere where I can listen to music privately (and sing along). One day last week I made my usual before-work stop at Starbucks and one of my favorite arresting songs came on – LIke a Star. This song, like Rain by Jesse Cook and Straight Into the Sunrise by Gato Barbieri, stopped me cold when I first heard it. I was totally fascinated by the sound and ran out to purchase the entire CD based on the one song. This was pre-iPod ownership. However, I’m glad that I did purchase the entire CD because I love every song on it.

Because Starbucks was pretty empty, I just went with it and began to sing the song – aloud. Softly but still aloud. It felt good to sing along to the song because it was something I had not done in quite a while. When the song ended, the process of singing felt cathartic. A few moments later, I realized it was time for me to pack up and go. As I was leaving, I turned around to unplug my phone or something along those lines and realized there was someone sitting behind me that I didn’t factor into my decision to sing the song aloud. As soft as I was singing, he was close enough to have heard every nuanced note. Oops, free concert…

Sometimes you just gotta go with it.

From Point of Contention to Point of Contrition

Words hold the power to change situations. One of the most powerful phrases is “I’m sorry.” Recently, I had a conversation with someone from a previous relationship. I had telephoned his mother months earlier because I didn’t have his telephone number. However, I never heard from him. During our conversation, I jokingly mentioned that he didn’t call me back and he stopped the conversation and apologized. Not only did he say he was sorry for having not called, he also took ownership of the way his not calling potentially made me feel. This level of apology was totally unexpected but truly appreciated.

During my twenties, I was involved with someone who, when he did something that hurt me, never apologized. His behavior would change in ways that pointed to contrition but were never followed by the actual words of apology. As this pattern continued, I started to feel as if I were suffocating from the weight of the unapologized hurts. Because I was in my twenties, I had no tools to communicate my own hurt nor did I have the tools to communicate the need for an apology to address the hurt. As a result of this protracted period of unacknowledged hurts, I became the apologizer he never was. Some time after our divorce, I apologized to my ex-husband for my contribution to the dysfunction in our marriage. My apology was not a blanket apology, it just covered my contribution to the dysfunction. He still has his contributions for which he is responsible. I had a memorable meltdown with an ex-boyfriend once and later apologized to him for the awful behavior that even I could not overlook.

His sincere apology has inspired me. There are a multitude of actions for which I probably should have apologized in the past. The sooner an apology is offered after the offending event, the better. However, I hope that a late apology can still be an accepted apology for those whom I will attempt to proffer apologies for past grievances. Words (and the intent behind them) truly do hold the power to change situations. I plan to use my words wisely in order to offer redress to situations in which I was the offending party.

Updates later on the path of apology…

Food

Food has had its way with me lately. Each day it seems as if I have a taste for something that sometimes I can’t put my finger on and other times I can’t put enough of my fingers on. Last week I had dairy-riddled cake that was a brief moment in heaven as I ate it. I ogled a bottle of cream-based Amarula liqueur in the grocery store a day or two later. I followed this by throwing EVERY restriction to the wind by having a large café mocha with whole milk and whipped cream yesterday. Dairy is my biggest avoidance but yesterday I took shelter in fatty dairy as if a storm were raging and it was my salvation.

This has even extended to cooking. Sunday, I went in the kitchen and experimented/cooked. The result: chicken baked with sweet potatoes and onions with a side of cabbage sautéed with apples and ginger. Yesterday I made tuna with olives, artichoke hearts, scallions and basil. What makes it worse is that I’m a picky eater. So I’m not craving generic things, I’m craving specific flavors and textures (thus the tuna with all the added flavors). Yesterday, I wanted a fresh slice of cake. Not pie. Not a cookie. Just a slice of cake that was baked within the past two days.

Even at this hour, I am thinking of food. I don’t go through periods like this often but I will definitely be happy when this period is over.

Telma and Luisa

I just spoke with a friend in Europe (time difference advantage when sleeplessness occurs) and we agreed that we have a road trip in our future. I jokingly mentioned that it would be like Thelma and Louise but later realized the ending of the movie wasn’t the best possible outcome. Instead, the European version of the road trip will be Telma and Luisa. No violence. No Brad Pitt. However, there will be plenty of sights to see out of the window when I’m not driving (or even when I am).

This future trip will coincide with larger objectives that I have so I’m looking forward to conquering the larger objective so that the fun part, this road trip, will have the opportunity to come to pass. At this point, the idea is somewhat hazy so intention setting has not happened. This period of time feels like the period leading up to my going to Switzerland two years ago. That accomplishment was based on many years of intention setting that finally manifested in my being in Geneva studying abroad spring of 2011. For months leading up to that time, I dropped out of the social circles in which I participated and focused on school and being in Geneva. Not only did I manage to snag a scholarship that helped offset the expense of going to one of the top ten most expensive cities in the world, but I also had an opportunity to work at a former job almost until the moment I got on the plane. While posting the old MySpace entries, I noticed somewhere around 2008 I first mentioned studying in Geneva. It took three years from that mention (or five years if you begin the count with my enrollment date) to make that objective come to pass. I’m hoping this objective doesn’t take that long. Maybe that should be a part of the intention as well – short turnaround.

Last month brought two incidents that made me remember what it was like to be “in the flow” of where my interests lie. The first was a short conversation in French with a customer at Starbucks who was from Switzerland. The second was a conversation with a French family vacationing in New Orleans while I was on my way to an international trade class. Neither encounter lasted very long but they did serve as reminders of the general direction in which I would like my life to flow. Life, flow on in THAT direction.