The Wonder of Music

Ever wonder why there are so many musicians in the world? Because making music is one of life's greatest gifts and treasures. My sister and I have been singing and songwriting under the moniker, The Hello Strangers, for several months now. Today we recorded our first CD of songs, thanks to our friend Conrad's roommate, Bruce, who agreed to record our latest tunes pro bono. It was a fantastic, musical day, the kind I would like to have more often, with good people and a warm, live recording space. It rained hard for most of the day, so Conrad made us tea for our recording session and we nestled down for several hours of good, hard work. Brechyn and I left the experience feeling filled to the brim with the kindness of people and the wonder of music.


I have attached some photos from our great day for your viewing pleasure:

The Road of Life

"On the road of life, it's not where you go, but who's by your side that makes the difference."

This was the quotation on the inside of the card I gave my husband for our anniversary last weekend. In our years together, we have traveled (and lived) all over the country by car and, thus, this quote seemed fitting as an expression of my feelings about him and our relationship. Well, we have come to yet another interesting turn in the road of life. We have decided to pick up our Austin roots and move back to the Appalachian mountains from whence we came. Yes, we are moving to Pennsylvania!

This has long been a goal of ours, as we have been living away from home for a decade. But, like the twists and turns of the road, one can never quite predict how or when one's goals may come to fruition. We made our decision rather abruptly, two days ago, about a month before our apartment lease will expire. Yet, it seems this is how things must happen sometimes: in the blink of an eye, as if life is suddenly going 90 miles and hour. Despite the speed at which we feel these things often come to pass, it is with peace of mind and joyful hearts that we make our decision. This is, after all, how the tires feel as they hug the curves in the road, you gripping the steering wheel: unfathomably fast, but true in purpose.

We have driven the route from Austin, Texas to Mercersburg, Pennsylvania and back 19 times (one way). The twists and turns of the route have become ever-familiar over the past four years of driving home twice a year. We have our favorite pit stops and landmarks, stopping always at the same Cracker Barrels for breakfast (with winter stops being particularly fun since they often have a fire in the fireplace), always ordering the same thing off the menu (the Old Timer's Breakfast with hot coffee and tea), and remarking on how the black to white employee ratios change as we move from South to North and vice versa. Our 20th trip North in July will be our last on this route, at least in this era of our lives. Surely we will return to Austin in some fashion, but the chances of us making the trip under these circumstances are slim. And so we end another chapter of our lives and start a new one. The feeling is much akin to passing over state lines on a long road trip home; leaving the past behind and driving headlong into the future.

We will greatly miss, but always appreciate, our friends here in Austin, all the wonderful people we've met, and the fun things that we have done. Living for three years in the same city as my younger sister, for example, has been a dream come true for me, one that I have tried not to take for granted. I know I can leave this place knowing that I've made the best of the city and the people we know here. I have made many an effort to "keep Austin weird", swam in Barton Springs Pool, hiked on the Barton Creek Greenbelt more times than I can count, frequented the Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas, eaten a plethora of breakfast tacos, and two-stepped many a night at the Broken Spoke (Chaparral rocks!).

I have spent most of my time here loving this city. I remember our first night in Austin, falling asleep with a big ol' grin on my face! But my heart always seemed to be calling me home. Having a husband who grew up in my hometown has made it even harder to be away, since we both know many of the same people and pine for the same place on this earth. Perhaps moving home will be just another pit stop in the long journey of life, or maybe we will find it to be a perfect home base from which to go out and have many new adventures. Regardless, our heart strings have been pulled for many years by hundreds of goodbyes to family and friends, watching the mountains of our home fade in the distance as we drive away yet again. We will drive the road to Mercersburg this time knowing that a few goodbyes in Austin will yield a hundred hellos at home. I'm ready for this, as bittersweet as it will be.

Photo by Ryan Smith

Puttin' On the Ritz

Ryan and I celebrated our 1st wedding Anniversary yesterday. We were so excited to celebrate, both of us daunted by the rapid passing of time and rejoicing in all that we have done in our first year of marriage, such as starting a business. We also thought about our family and friends who gathered with us a year ago to witness our marriage in Pennsylvania. What a wonderful, albeit blustery, day it was. I have posted below a handful of photos from our anniversary celebrations, followed by a few reminiscent shots of our wedding day a year ago. We enjoyed our anniversary immensely, first getting muddy while hiking, swimming, and picnicking with friends, then getting gussied up and dining at the Mansion on Judge's Hill Restaurant here in Austin. Drinks and dinner were divine and we enjoyed the juxtaposition of the activities we partake in and enjoy together (getting very muddy, then allowing ourselves to be pampered). We hope you enjoy these photos as much as we have relished in the experience.

Wedding: June 10, 2006

Me and my "girls" at the rehearsal

Sadie, the flower girl

The handsome groom

Photographic Memory

Think back on all the magnificent places you have seen in your lifetime, or the moments of pure jubilation you have experienced. Do you ever wish you could put them all in a bottle to save for less splendid times, to open and allow wafts of memory to soothe your tired soul? Do you ever look at a photo and find a pure moment of stillness captured in its frame? I discovered this photo recently by chance and find it to have a similar affect on me as a meditation session might. How nice that by spending a little time with this picture I can access a part of myself that is soothed by memory and a continued affection for my dog, Sadie.

Thus is the power of the image, and my experience in the photography industry so far has shown me many examples of how emotions and memories are tapped and channeled through an image. This is the foundation of advertising, of course, but photographs also play an enormous role in our personal lives. How many times have our moods been changed simply by passing a treasured photo in the hall, or by watching a family movie containing moments we had all but forgotten? Photographs are our visual history, and may someday be a major part of our ancestors’ memories of us, even if they never got to meet us. Likewise, this picture of Sadie will help us to remember her graceful ability to climb rocky trails, her love of the snow and the woods, and her many endearing idiosyncrasies, when she one days passes on.

For now, I look at this picture and remember how beautiful snow in Idaho can be (I live in Texas now), and how fortunate I was to have this as my backyard for a year with my old roommate, Katie. I also view the present in this image, enjoying its peaceful quality and the wonderful thought that Sadie is still with us: healthy, silly, and loving. Like a bottle, this photo captures in its frame memories that soothe, without words, my spirit today.

Other People's Lives

Neighborhood. Just the word stirs up an array of iconic and nostalgic images of living side by side: porch swings, stray cats, driveways, shrubberies, abandoned cars, gables and eaves, metal trash cans… Our neighborhood of Bouldin Creek in South Austin has a particularly unique array of homes and yards, all nestled together, each an expression of personal style working in harmony and juxtaposition with the other. Ryan, Sadie (our dog), and I walked for an hour just the other evening through our ‘hood, dreaming of lives other than our own. We cherish our life together, of course, but a peek into other people’s lives offers new ideas and fresh perspectives about where we’re going and where we’ve come.

These walks offer an experience of simultaneous nostalgia and future dreams, like a film reel floating through my psyche as I walk past yards and houses. A butterfly lands on a flowery vine, a cat basks on a front stoop with her three kittens blinking at us as we pass, and a young couple gathers with friends on their cozy front porch for Friday evening drinks as the hazy sun comes to rest on the tree line. I am reminded of visits with family friends, enjoying the chance to be at their home and eat their food. Or of the potlucks my roommate and I used to host in our ranch-house apartment in Moscow, Idaho – hours of communal eating and drinking as the sun sank behind the trees and the moon joined our revelry. I yearn to be likewise sitting with friends again, like many times before.

I also look to the future as Ryan and I talk of our plans to one day own a home. We discuss certain things we like about some houses and other things we aren’t so fond of. For instance, we love front porches and green building, but are miffed by the modern homes that spring up between the little cottages, towering overhead like a behemoth: too pretentious! Sometimes, we love things about a yard or house we can’t quite explain; it is simply its ambiance that draws us to appreciate it. The owners may share similar ideologies about life, or they express something we admire in a creative way. We love to talk about what we will do when we own a house one day: entertain, garden, decorate, and tinker in the shed. These moments of looking ahead and dreaming of what we want provide nourishment for our spirits and our relationship. We have enjoyed thinking and talking about the future since we started dating 7 years ago.

Mostly, though, our walk is the convergence of the past and future in the present. My experience is the result of who I am and what I choose to notice and think about. Our experience together is the result of our personalities feeding off of and inspiring the other. Simply enjoying a quiet stroll through our neighborhood, one step at a time, purposefully taking our time to zigzag through the streets – we love our lives knowing others love theirs. Then we may return to our delightful little apartment and charmed lives, rejoicing in the fact that we don’t need anything but what we already have.

Pressing Your Restart Button

Last night, Ryan and I went camping with friends on Lake Travis, near Austin. It was Ryan’s birthday and we planned on celebrating with swimming, beer, and grilled food. I was looking forward to getting out of the city, but found once I got there that it was hard to relax, especially around a group of people. It took several hours, and a few beers, before my mind-frame began to shift and I settled into my surroundings and our activities. I felt restless, like I wanted to be by myself and reconnect somehow; press my "restart button", so to speak. But this trip was something we had all been planning and I knew these opportunities didn’t come along too often, so I wanted to make sure to enjoy my time with friends, and be present and enthusiastic about celebrating my husband’s birthday.

I tend to be a fairly out-going and friendly person, so when I am in a quiet, pensive mood, people notice and often ask if I am OK. This question can often make me feel defensive, as if I need to explain why I am in an “alternative” mood from the norm. It takes a lot of inner patience in these situations not to draw even more attention to my mood and answer, “Yes, I’m fine, OK?!?!” This response isn’t going to make me feel better (or the person who asked the question), so I find it more worthwhile to focus on my breath and ease through these inquiries with a smile. I know I’ll get out of my funk sooner or later and finding ways to make a smooth transition out of a bad mood can often prevent regret for my snappy comments or reactions later. I fared pretty well yesterday, and eventually was greatly enjoying being away from the city and with friends by the lake (see photo below).

This morning, when I awoke from my hazy sleeping bag fluff, I felt even more present as we spent the morning drinking coffee and chatting peacefully. I greatly enjoy mornings in general, but at this point, after a full day of camping, I felt that my restart button had been sufficiently pressed. I think of my days as a middle-schooler, playing Nintendo and enjoying the satisfaction of pressing the restart button and watching a fudged-up game disappear and a new chance presented as the game begins again. I find many simple ways each day to press my own restart button, but sometimes an overnight trip to the woods is a reminder of how long it can take to feel “restarted”. It can take several weeks of vacation in many cases to feel sufficiently refreshed. But no matter how long it takes, it is important to pay attention to the various moods we go through during these periods of rejuvenation, good or bad. Not every moment of a vacation or playtime is going to be perfect. The bad moods or moments are just as important as the good and can make the experience even more real and special once you resurface into a good-feeling phase. The goal is to be patient with oneself through the good and the bad, for this is the balance of life (the yin and yang). In what ways do you press your restart button?

The birthday boy gets ready for some fun (and beer) in the sun

You can probably tell that my mood had lifted by this point!

Time On My Side

My dog, Sadie, walks up to the screen door and looks back at me. “Will you let me out, please?” her eyes ask. I open the door and she walks out with clear intent: to flop down in the big patch of late-afternoon sun pooling on our balcony floor. She does so with no other purpose in mind but to lie down in it and soak it up, save for the occasional fly buzzing by that catches her attention. I watch as her ribs start to expand and contract at a slightly faster clip. Eventually, she sits up and is in full pant, but still seems to be drinking up the sun like a pint of Guinness, eyes fluttering in canine ecstasy. Time progresses for her in a different way than it does for me. She is an inspiration, not just because of the simplicity of her nature, but because she only does one thing at a time. And because she does not have to go to work, “accomplish” things on her to-do list, or think ahead to what she is going to eat for dinner, time is never of-the-essence for her.

My relationship with time, on the other hand, is much akin to the relationship I once had with my 6th Grade Reading teacher, a nun and former catholic schoolteacher who always seemed to take everything a little too seriously. This was public school after all, not purgatory. I always had one eye on her, thinking that at any moment she would sneak up behind me and catch me doing something I wasn’t supposed to (like slipping my shoes on and off distractedly under my desk, god forbid!). I was rather petrified of her, actually, and would get so nervous some mornings before catching the bus to school that I would get sick to my stomach and ask to stay home. Yet, for some reason, I always wanted to get on her good side, get to know her a little better, and try to understand why she was so…well, mean! The fear of her, after all, came from the complete lack of control I felt I had when I was in her classroom. Even asking to go to the bathroom felt like original sin. Funny how being nervous all the time does little to bolster one’s reading skills. I don’t remember a single book I read that year. But I made it through, relatively unscathed, with one lesson to hold on to: there are some things in life you cannot control, you just handle them as best you can, try not to vomit, and move on. Time is something I will never be able to control either. But time and I need some relationship counseling. I want to have time on my side again.

In high school, I used to sway my hips back and forth and sing, “Tiiiiiiiime is on my side, yes it is!” a line from the Rolling Stones song. Time felt friendly and constant back then, so it seems from my current perspective. More and more, when I take a moment to check the clock I experience a second of utter shock and horror (flash back to reading class), wondering what happened to the last hour of my life and thinking how much I still want to do. Admittedly, I put a lot on my plate each day and expect to get most of it done. I never do, and never will, and I have yet to accept this. I still haven’t learned my lesson.

There is hope, however, in that we DO have agency over our relationship with time. Meditation is one of the ways in which I can purposefully slow my breath, my mind, and thus, my perception of time. Because time is relative and elusive, what matters is our perception of it and the steps we take each day to foster a loving, not fearful, relationship with time. I continue to work hard at this because I feel it is essential to living a good, happy life. Like my panting dog on the balcony, I will strive to go through each day with clear intent and focus, and just try to allow life to happen as it is meant to, not how I plan for it to be.