A Rumination On the Value of Mentors
The first day of this new year finds me in a thoughtful place and I know I’m hardly alone here. I think the end of 2020 and the new year 2021 has found a lot of us in in a thoughtful place and full of rumination.
It would be easy to look on 2020 as a mulligan. A do-over. A throw-that-in-the-bin and never think about it again kind of thing. Take it out with the trash.
But to do so would be a mistake. 2020 was a lesson. A mentor. A cruel but perhaps necessary education.
The past several days has me thinking about teachers and mentors who impacted me and more specifically, impacted my art. About how many of them are not in my life anymore, for various reasons. And how much I yearn to find replacements, how hard I seek the wise advice of those who know so much more than I do. …
And I’ve never felt more like George Washington
After working four years and six months at my Angel Investor-backed, cash-infused, market-disrupting employer, I finally qualified for benefits. Whew! I know, I know. As far as unpaid internships go, that was on the short side.
After unironically eating too many Flintstone gummy vitamins from the company breakroom, my back tooth started to ache, so I found a company plan-approved dentist in the rapidly gentrifying part of town.
Okay, it was the only approved dentist, but no matter. I have insurance!
Well, color me delighted when I arrived at Dr. Ethan’s one-room office in the backroom of a nail salon and was greeted by the sight of so many archaic dental implements scattered about. …
Pondering What it Means to be Ladylike in the Modern Era
Several years ago, my husband and I had some friends who were members of one of the Yacht Clubs in San Francisco. We would occasionally join the couple for dinner after a day of sailing.
The views were fantastic, the bartenders gave a deep pour, and the food was good (but not great).
San Francisco is well known for its more liberal political leanings, but the yacht clubs are where the more conservative (i.e. wealthy) can be found in the notorious hippie city. …
Lessons from Shelter-In-Place
One of the benefits of my job is that I work from home one day a week, and have been doing so for just over seven years. It’s a wonderful perk. If I ever chose to move to a different job, I’d want to be sure I retained this same benefit as it goes a long way toward my mental health.
As a confirmed introvert, working from home on Friday allows me to get my job done while having a little break from my very extroverted team of peers (all of whom I adore, in measured doses).
So when word came down from my leadership that we are to work from home for the foreseeable future, I though “pfft, no problem, I’m already a pro at this.” …
It’s not all toilet paper and hand sanitizer, you know
Today I reluctantly rose from bed, put some mismatched clothes on my body and headed out. The roads were unusually empty. Stopping at my neighborhood grocery store, I parked and hopped out of the driver’s seat.
Behind me I heard, “Hey! Is anyone coming?”
Assuming this was not directed at me, I leaned into my car to grab my wallet and heard again, more insistently this time, “HEY! Is anyone coming?”
Realizing this was in fact directed at me, I whipped around to see a man in a very new and very shiny cherry red Mustang. He pointed as if to show me that he couldn’t see around the large Amazon delivery van that was parked next to him, and was wary of backing out in the tightly packed parking lot. …
And My Own Fallacy of Un-motivation
The last time I wrote a story here on Medium was February 1, and that was something I had written before, reworked, and published. I’m very proud of it.
My last brand new work here on Medium was January 28.
I have lost followers, views, and dolla dolla bills, ya’ll. I used to be a top writer in Photography. No longer.
I feel guilty. I chastise myself for my lack of focus. I complain that I have no motivation. I say that I’m waiting for The Muse, but she’s reluctant.
I have a familiar Greek chorus singing songs of “you suck” rolling loud, bumping the bass, in my brain. …
And Learning to Keep my Ay-yi-yi’s to Myself
Growing up, I knew my dad was a geek. A nerd. A dork. A dweeb. All of those names that were used unkindly in the 1984 movie Revenge of the Nerds could easily apply, and often did in my mind.
To start with, my dad was an engineer. Snore. Boring. He worked for one of the Department of Energy National Laboratories there in New Mexico, one of those research and science places that did development on nuclear weapons during the Cold War.
Yeeks, try bringing that one up casually in the school cafeteria. “Oh, your dad is a doctor? Mine figures out how to make nuclear weapon work better.” …
The Story is in the Eye of the Beholder
My photography teacher and mentor holds regular photo review sessions where we, her students, come together to show our photos and receive feedback from the group.
The rules are that we show our photo but stay silent. The photographer says nothing while the audience to reviews it, forms their opinions, and then provides feedback. Once feedback begins we are allowed to answer questions but the preference is to stick to the aspects of the photo and not stray too far into the backstory of why, what, or how.
Our teacher learned this from her own mentor, the legendary Al Weber. …
A Modern Fable
That moment when you are sitting at stoplight as a pedestrian crosses with the light in front of your headlights and you notice that the early morning sun is giving this gentleman a solid backlighting. As he strolls directly in front of your view, you notice that the hairs that extend well past his nostrils are beautifully set to glowing by the golden California sun rising in the east.
And you think to yourself, “Oh wow. That’s…well that’s something.” And you laugh alone in your car because why not. …
About
