Sentimenal Essentialism

We are creatures that are tethered to each other. There is something illogical that makes us sentimental. Why do we love that ratty toy from our childhood, or have a certain affinity for places or scents or even people?

Loving that toy or scent or person doesn't make you a bad person. It's a natural for humans to assign meaning to inanimate objects, like our childhood security toys. This is called essentialism. This is why a replica of your family heirlooms wouldn't hold the same meaning to you. Possessions hold experiences. Scent holds memories, and memories hold meaning. We are the confusing complicated bundle of human that ultimately holds the most sentimental qualities. Although I am stretching this concept, I whole-heartedly believe that living things carry these sentimental ties.

When you are the person who is the receiver of those sentimental feelings it is strange and confusing. Imagine the feeling of your childhood toy, assuming you hold it to essentialism standards, when you take it out of it's hiding spot to dust it off. It must feel loved again, needed. It was there to comfort you, and it 'knows' you in the most basic way but loves you unconditionally regardless. This thing is something special to you; it taught so much.

You knocked it around, took it everywhere with you, and no matter what you do, it can never be un-tattered. Now, you take care of the things you have. You carefully keep this new thing in a safe place because you realize that things that become broken can never really be put back together in the same way. You may love this new thing, but it is a different kind of love. Reckless love, unconditional messy, I-never-thought-I-could-really-ruin-this kind of love only happens once. Then you put that love in a box in the back of your closet, and only take it out when you're alone and that wave of sentimentalism captures you in her riptide.

Mom & Dad's Music Collection (Part 2- Dad)

Two weeks ago I wrote about the All Things Considered episode about your parents' music. I focused on the music my mom would play.

This post is for Dad. My dad is quite a character, and self-described as a "lost boy" (ala Peter Pan). The way he listened to music was like a teenager. He would go into his den, the place that housed his stereo, and would put on record after record at volumes that piratically shook our house. Dad would lay out the album covers and CD jackets to study the pictures, lyrics, and credits. There were only two ways to listen to music in the car loud and louder! He'd conduct songs queuing players exactly when they were to come in, and play air instruments.

 His taste in music is all over the map, but deep down he's a rock-n-roller.

His favorite: The Rolling Stones. Dad has seen The Stones in concert more time than he can count on his fingers and toes. This is one of my favorites.




 

He loves the blues. So much, he even was a DJ on a College station while we were growing up.



He'd describe this as "greazzzy".



Then there were the "classics". What the "ol' Zips" would listen to.







Dad is a bit of a hippie too, let us not forget! And the number one song to float in and out of my childhood memories:

Fill in the Blank Friday

 Photo and theme via

Summer is magical. I love everything about it from lightning bugs, and sparkling sand to sticky bodies from sweat, watermelon, and ice cream. I have had so many different types of summers.

Growing up my sister and I would go to Florida for 6 weeks. We'd enroll in day camps, and met local kids. My grandparents once rented a house on an island. Grandma would keep the fridge stocked with treats that were forbidden at home. Spending those summers with my sister really made us close.

The rest of my childhood summers were spent at  the community pool. Those days smelled of chlorine, warm pine needles, and lake water. Mom would pack a snack bag and we'd spend the day down there. Most of the time we'd walk back home picking wild blackberries along the way.

In college I was a camp counselor at a sleep away camp near my house. It was close to home but I decided to live at camp to have the full experience. When you are at camp it is like living on another planet. Everyone is happy (except the rare homesick camper). It is a consuming experience. You eat, sleep, and breath camp. There is singing ALL.THE.TIME, and there is a song for everything- it goes beyond taps and a blessing before meals. Happy campers (and counselors) are rewarded with food. My first year as a counselor was a healing time for me as I lost a good friend that year. I was able to get away from "real live" to grieve.

My summers as a teacher have been marvelous. I love the time to myself to do exactly what I want. I have little projects going on, and do them at my leisure. I think of lessons for the school year. I travel to destinations I'd day dream about while school is in session.

Check out my flickr for snap shots of my adventures!

..And You Loved Things Just Because

I haven't hear this song in a long, long time. For a while it was an anthem to my close knit group of friends. We were a tight group but after a friend was killed in a car crash we became that much closer. We listened to this as we sat in Dave's baby boy wallpapered room on that cold January day. We all whole heartily believed that was the last song he played on his WinAmp since it was still highlighted. This song has a place in my history, but still relates to my life at the moment.


Are there songs you hold dear to your heart that take you back to a place in your history, but still ring true now?

The Stars

I was looking through old photographs mostly because I miss the little family I had.

So "You"

Sometimes, there are things that just scream your name.
via

365

I was thinking all day yesterday about the passage of time, and how long and short a year can be. I don't have anything sentimental to say- just the acknowledgment of yesterday.

Things We Talked About

Melty Day, a photo by jonnyphoto on Flickr.

Do you...

so it's my birthday today ^_^
Originally uploaded by Gaby J Photography

remember my 25th birthday? I got balloons, and you took pictures of me behind those colorful transparent orbs. That was the year when it rained the whole month of June.

The Moon

Old Love Letters

Old love letters
Originally uploaded by Geoarts

I loved being a camp counselor. The excited culture, the traditions, the community, the schedule, the fast-slow pace of everyday. I even liked being "on duty", staying in at night to make sure the girls didn't stay up too late giggling. I especially loved mail time. Getting letters was so old fashioned, and romantic.

Yesterday, I helped my mom clean out her house. In a drawer tucked away I found letters from camp. It took me back in time; to a steamy bunkhouse that smells like shampoo, mold, and the woods.

Francie came away from her first chemistry lecture in a glow. In one hour she had found out that everything was made up of atoms which were in continual motion. She grasped the idea that nothing was ever lost or destroyed. Even if something was burned up or left to rot away, it did not disappear from the face of the earth; it changed into something else—gases, liquids, and powders. Everything, decided Francie after that first lecture, was vibrant with life and there was no death in chemistry. She was puzzled as to why learned people didn’t adopt chemistry as a religion.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith

2009 Resolution Recap

Last year around this time I wrote my resolutions for 2009. Heres how I did:

Resolution #1-Take Action- Grade B-
I've made step towards following through. Since I started teaching I haven't had the opportunity to make as many plans resulting in not breaking them. That is something I didn't foresee.


Resolution #2-Keep In Touch- Grade B+
I have been picking up the phone more. I even write emails to old friends, and comment here and there on Facebook.

Resolution #3-Stretch More- Grade A-
All last winter I would do three rounds of the yoga position Sun Salutation. Since school started I set aside 20-30 minutes to stretch and loosen up in the AM.

Resolution #4-Make More Art- Grade D-
I haven't made much progress on my art in 2009. I was doing more collage, and sticking to the same old. The stuff I made held my interest however, it didn't pull me in like an earth magnet to a refrigerator door.

Resolution #5-Read More- Grade F
Reading in 2009 slowed to a trickle. Fear not, 2010 almost has 2 books under its belt!

NPR Meets Summer Reading

I love NPR. Love, love love. I could listen for hours, and I do. Clicking around from story to story and listening to the news here and there too.

This story talks about the books for children. Two of the three I've read when I was a child; The Boxcar Children Series, and The Witches.

Your Scent Means More in Memory (Part 1)

Tomato plant
Originally uploaded by Funny Bunny - Helena

Smells trigger my memories all the time. Growing up my mom would play in the garden, weeding her plant and harvesting her bounty. When she came she always smelled of warm earth, and tomato plants.

Attic Bedroom

Widow's daydreaming with the daily paper and cat
Originally uploaded by Ladik

Over the past few months I've been having eerily vivid, crushing dreams. Recently, I dreamed about my childhood best friend who is soon to be married. The distance between us grew much to far to mend after I left for college, and bridges haven't been mended since. I dreamed that we were at our current age in an attic bedroom (much like her childhood bedroom). We lay in bed next to one another with scrapbooks of old collected memories- like we did as teenagers with Vogue and W magazines. The light poured through gauze covered windows in my dream, it was the yellow gold light of summertime. We laughed and laughed, but then she looked at me with a stone cold face and told me that she was still not inviting me to her wedding. I woke up feeling awful.
Dreams that are so close to reality, that dip their toes in the pool of your conscious, have the power to stick with you far longer then expected.

First Look

not a self portrait
Originally uploaded by rerz

My first gimps of you was when a part of you was reaching out, and the other was still holding on.

This may be immature, and irrational but exes erk me (my own and those of others). Well, guess I'm immature and irrational, what can I say? I could....stick my tongue out and make a gagging sound.

Sundays of My Youth

boston creme donuts.
Originally uploaded by holdxfast

Growing up was junk food free. No sugary cereals, candy, baked goods, snack food, soda, etc in our house at all- nothing. Of course we had Halloween candy, and treats on birthdays and holidays but never just because...except on Sundays.
Mom would drag my sister and I to church, and for a reward we would each get to choose a treat from the grocery store bakery box. I have always been a creature of habit, so every week it was the same pastry delight- a Boston Creme Donut.

Blue

Matamoras, Pennsylvania
Jeff Court and Mike Scerbo= belly laughs all afternoon.

Yellow

Honesdale, Pennsylvania
This snap shot was taken by my mom in the early 90's. I'm on the far left in the second row.

The Tri-State Area- New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania