Day 245 Nonagenarian Attitude

August 11, 2015

(If we live with an open and grateful attitude, every day will bring a gift. This is one of 365 gifts during the year I turned 70.)

Determination at 95.

Today was too hot and humid to walk in the park and do battle with aggressive deer flies so I wound up on the treadmill at Big Vanilla gym for my daily exercise. With ear buds plugged, I trudged along and noticed an elderly black man walk by once, twice, three times and then four. Each time I waved and smiled at him and he nodded and smiled back.

As I was leaving, I saw him sitting and taking a break. I asked him how many times he usually walks around the gym and he said he always does six, so he had two more rounds to go. “You know, I’m 95,” he said to me, with some pride. I learned that this nonagenarian is Logan and I told him that I admired his attitude.

“You got to keep doing it because nobody’s going to do it for you. It’s all up to you. Once you’re down, there’s no getting up.” He went on, “Independence is important. I do everything for myself. I pick up my own medicine from the drugstore. I don’t want to go into a nursing home. When the time comes that I can’t walk, I’ll crawl.” I’m sure he will. “I don’t eat meals with my kids because I don’t want them telling me when and what I’m going to eat.” He told me that he’s an avid golfer and even plays in Myrtle Beach. I told him that he’s an inspiration.

I gave him a hidden hug, a positivity/mental health project that my friend Andi has started. I gave him a small cutout circle with a hand-written quotation and a ribbon. It said You are responsible for your own happiness. Logan smiled again.

My gift today is a conversation with Logan.

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Read more about the Hidden Hugs project:
http://hiddenhugs.weebly.com/about.html
https://www.facebook.com/HiddenHugs

Day 246: I'd Rather Be a Horse

You can find links to my other posts on this project here:

http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html

Day 113 Kinky Bird

April 1, 2015

(This is part of a 365 project during my 70th year where I write and illustrate a blog on each day's gift.)

Just over three miles from my home, Downs Park on the Chesapeake Bay is a treasure of gifts. 

On a walk today, I noticed a tall tree that had offered a cradle gift to an osprey. Four branches at the top were the perfect crotch for the bird to assemble its large nest of sticks. As I crossed the bridge connecting two parts of the park, I looked at the nest and noticed a bird moving in it. Large birds, these fish-eating raptors can grow to 24 inches in length with a 71-inch wingspan. I suspect the one I saw was a female sitting on her eggs because every minute or so, she changed position as if she were sitting on lumpy seat cushions. 

The Chesapeake Bay, another treasure in our area, is home to many ospreys that usually build their nests near the water. This one located its resting place a little further away than some. Many people may not know that these are kinky raptors. When they fly, their wings are always bowed downward to form an M shape.

Of course, I stopped to snap some photos. Although a longer lens would have been better suited to shoot my avian subject, I had my longest lens with me, a 300 mm.  While I stood there for about ten minutes, a woman walked past me, talking on her cell phone and unaware of the awesome bird above. She missed an opportunity, connecting with business rather than nature. I would not have seen the osprey myself if I had been walking in the other direction, perhaps a good reason for varying one’s journeys and changing direction from time to time. 

My gift today is an osprey in her nest.

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> Day 114 Venus Envy

Watch an osprey cam in Woods hole, Massachusetts:
http://www.whoi.edu/ospreycam/page.do?pid=41055

You can read my other posts on this project here:
http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html

Day 94 – Fun-A-Day

March 13, 2015

(This is part of a 365 project during my 70th year where I write and illustrate a blog on each day's gift.)

 

Photos by Leslie Miller,  Baltimore Fun-A-Day artist at Gallery 788.

Art’s purpose is to stretch the way we perceive, the way we feel—the way we experience. It helps us in the art of living and, indeed, is a necessary nourishment for us to become fully human.  “Art is an indecent exposure of the consciousness.” (British writer Sir Herbert Read)

An annual art event, Fun-A-Day, was started in 2004 by a group of Philadelphia artists. Baltimore Fun-A-Day, started in 2011, calls area artists to create something new each day in January. These creations are then exhibited in February or March in a group show. Gallery 788, where the 2015 exhibit is now showing, has been the venue for this free and inclusive event for the past two years. 

As one of the participating artists, I did my gallery sitting this afternoon in an atmosphere quieter than opening night March 6th. I had time to look at the exhibit and bathe in the talent surrounding me. Art often changes the way we see through the use of juxtaposition or suggestion of metaphor. Anyone who has seen Edward Weston’s green pepper that looks like a nude will understand this.  Leslie Miller, one of this year’s artists, created a series of photographs taken each day of January, all using fruit as a subject. It’s a series I wish I had conceived. One of her photos, Fruit Fly, uses an orange as part of a badminton shuttlecock. Another depicts a date as a deflated football, entitled Deflate Date. One shows a red pepper as a camera. Title? Pepperazzie, of course! She makes use of surrealism and, at the same time, makes the viewer smile.

My gift today was a mind stretch.
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> DAY 95 Equal Opportunity

Gallery 788
Fun-A-Day
Baltimore Fun-A-Day

You can read my other posts on this project here:
http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html

Day 90 Fish for Dinner

March 9, 2015

(This is part of a 365 project during my 70th year where I write and illustrate a blog on each day's gift.)

The Chesapeake Bay seen from the shore of Downs Park today.

After such gloomy weather of late, it felt good to be in the sun and observe nature from the outside rather than from the warm side of a glass door. 

It has been about ten years since Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay has frozen over as it has this year. A trip to Downs Park on a nearly 60-degree day with blue skies brought visual delights. Ice floes floated about on the Bay that reflected a deep blue from the sky. Families were strolling about and one group asked me to take a photo of them with their phone. They wanted me to be sure to include the icy water in the background. I wasn’t the only one who enjoyed the ice on water that today was bluer than any time in my memory.

I sat for a while and watched a seagull pecking at something on one of the ice floes. With my telephoto lens, I could see it was the bird’s meal—a single hapless fish with a gaping mouth and intestinal problems. The gull stood watch over its food between bites. Its vigilance managed to chase away two of its brothers who were waiting for a chance to steal his meal. 

Bad luck for the fish but good luck for the gull; unpleasant bitter cold created small beautiful glaciers in the Bay. Nature seems to balance the bad with the good. This is a good thing to remember on bad days.

My gift today was watching white ice on a blue day.

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You can read my other posts on this project here:

http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html

Day 30 - Weather

January 8, 2015

(This is part of a 365 project during my 70th year where I write and illustrate a blog on each day's gift.)

Every year, as soon as we have our first snowfall in the Baltimore region, I hear over and over again the slogan, “Think spring.” Maybe that’s part of human nature. We always yearn for what is around the next bend.

One thing that I love about this area is its contrasts. Maryland has mountains, seashore and cities; it is both hilly and flat, high and low, populated and unpopulated, urban and rural. And its citizens are diverse—people from many countries, with different skin colors and religions.

I don’t think spring so much as I appreciate the weather contrast that Maryland has. I love every season for what it offers…winter for its unique sounds and bleak contrasts, spring for its new full green, summer for its carefreeness and laughter, and fall for its color beauty and crisp air. Each season also offers a contrasting side …back aches from shoveling show in the winter, hay fever in the spring, uncomfortable humidity in the summer and shorter days in the fall.

Changing seasons give Maryland a fully-developed personality, a diverse one. Diversity is part of the richness of life, both socially and environmentally. Envionmentalists know that biodiversity is important to our planet but contrasts in life experiences also contribute to life’s fulness.

I seek people and information sources that do not affirm what I believe. I go to art shows (Anything Goes exhibit opening at Gallery 788 tonight) that stretch how I see art and its influence. I am intrigued by the multifariousness and contrasts in life.

Today’s gift is contrast.

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> DAY 31 Tarnished Necklace

You can read my other posts on this project here:

http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html