Reflections

Ever wake up with a word on your mind? Just one solitary word? Oh, yeah, there's a whole thought process behind that word, but you just have that one word on the tip of your (tongue?). When I began caching and was contemplating creating my first cache I had an idea of where I want to place it. It would be near that old, abandoned, boarded up (now refreshed and refurbished) fire station at the end of Kaweah Street. I woke up one morning with the word PLUNGE on my mind and immediately knew.... well... the rest is history. (Also, unfortunately, is the cache as it has been muggled or moved but that a whole other story).

This morning I woke up with the word REFLECTIONS on my mind. Hmmm, what was I thinking last night? Did I dream of some mirror-like image? Was I reminiscing, looking back at times past? Well, not wanting to just jump up out of bed and get the day going, I lay there patiently waiting for the word to form in a sentence, provide some sort of hint as to where I should go with it (or, rather, where it was about to take me!). For some reason the word led me to the doorway of the Flikr group "Waymarking" and as I crossed the threshold a new monthly contest unfolded. "Reflections".

I remember when I began on Flikrs Waymarking group there was a picture submitted by Hikenutty - the object of the picture eludes me now but I remember her surprise at having captured her own imaging, taking the picture, in the glass door she was photographing. Aha, a 'reflection'. As my mind began to wander, onto another tangent, as usual, the words in my own Flikr profile haunted me - "...Your reflection has lots of trees or maybe a bright blue sky peeking out behind you...". Hmm, so that's the tie-in. REFLECTION.

Still unmoved in my feeble attempt to make 'have to get out of bed' something that might go away, my mind drifted down yet one more rushing stream into a reservoir of thought. I began to actually visualize more than a word. I saw myself 25 years ago after I had spent six months carefully tending to my body - loosing weight and maintaining a daily exercise program. I liked what I saw and it gave me the strength to continue - at least for this day - on the same path towards creating a new, more palatable reflection of my own self.

The inner self will have to wait. I jumped up out of bed and persued with vigor the things I had to do this morning - take a long walk (towards the 15,000 daily steps my doctor prescribed), eat a healthy breakfast and fight the demons that might try to suck me into a reflection of what I looked like last week.

Purple Fountain Grass

I love this stuff. It grows to enormous proportions each summer - and then dies back and begs to be cut off at the earth when winter comes. The grass is green and purple and shades in between (are there really shades in between green and purple?). The plumes are white and light and dark purple. The stalks wave gracefully in the wind, bent over by the weight of the plumes that decorate the ends. It is just one of the many grasses that I planted at the Eton Street house when I landscaped, and I planted a bush in the flowerbeds along my patio on Kaweah Street. I wonder if it will grow in Central Oregon?

Joe Silva's Baby Birds

Joe Silva has lived in Tulare all his life. At 89 years old, he's alone now... that is except for his annual 'visitors'... the swallows that have built a nest in two corners of the porch outside his front door. Joe's sister Mary told me that sometime last year when she was at his house helping him get things cleaned up, she swept the droppings from the front porch and proceeded to try to get those messy nests down. Joe had a fit! He didn't want anyone disturbing 'his' swallow nests. She knows for a fact they have been there, and the birds have been returning, for at least eight years.

Last week Mary and I went to visit Joe. We knew the nests would be full of birds when we spotted Mama bird swooping in and out of the front porch, back and forth most likely bringing food to her young. We were right, there were four good-sized babies peeking out from the nest. Soon they, too, will be gone and Joe will be alone again - until next year.

RANT: Quality (or not) Waymarking

Each of us has the power to contribute quality (or not) waymarks to a category. The naysayers that predicted Bicycle Tenders would be filled with mundane, run-of-the-mill waymarks have been some of the very people that fulfilled that prophecy by contributing those run-of-the-mill, mundane waymarks. Hey, folks, I understand you want your smiley (or medal or whatever it is) and want to be able to fill that grid, but Waymarking isn't going to end soon. There's plenty of time. Plenty of places to go. Plenty of waymarking opportunities. Why not wait and keep a lookout for that special, non-traditional, artistic bicycle 'tender' and then waymark IT in that category. (The same can be said for the Barns category.)

All the obtuse comments that were left in Peer Review were from anonymous sources. In fact, I don't think even one person was proud enough of their comment to attach their name to it. So it would be difficult to attribute the 'naysayer' label to anyone in particular but you know who you are. Are you the very people that are 'littering' the category with the very types of waymarks that you predicted and, because of, voted against the category? Are you doing this intentionally to prove your point? (that self-fulfilling prophecy). Or are you angry because the category passed Peer Review in spite of your negativity? Do you honestly feel there are no quality Bicycle Tenders within your 'sphere' and so you are compelled to grab the first bicycle tender, be it quality or not, and waymark it?

Ok, come and grab your smileys. Line up and post your mundane waymarks and be done with you. Hopefully these waymarks will be buried beneath the many quality waymarks that are yet to come. Hopefully someday you will find that 'quality' bicycle tender and surprise yourself, realizing it was a pretty cool category, regardless of the fact that the real quality tenders that we are seeking might be few and far between. Maybe you will be shrouded in embarassment for your original traditional, mundane, run-of-the-mill waymark, even archiving it in exchange for the new, artistic, quality tender that you discover? Maybe you will reconsider the upcoming category proposals that you once would have shook a finger or two at saying: too many, too mundane, no wow factor. When, in reality, a quality waymark might just be too few, too out-of-the-ordinary and - when you find it - WOW!

Name calling. Idea bashing. Naysaying. It's ugly, folks. Cut it out.

I will continue to Waymark. I do it for my own pleasure. It doesn't make me feel superior to judge and criticize others. I don't feel inferior because I have fewer waymarks or less grids filled than another Waymarker. I love to travel, see new places and things. Everything interests me - I'm not obsessed with anything in particular. I have always photo-journaled my adventures, places I've been, people I've met, ever since I bought my first SLR back in 1981. I love to look back at these photographs and smell the ocean in Hawaii, see the fall colors in New England, and - of course - remember all those sweet memories of my friends and family camping, fishing, traveling, you name it! Now I have my waymarks to look back at and reminisce, each one being a special place I've been, intentionally looking for or unintentionally stumbling upon - some thing or place that fits in a particular 'category' where I can share it with others and keep it for posterity. I'm not in this for any particular challenge (although I must say at one point I looked high and low to find a 'gargoyle' to log) and by creating a category I was merely trying to find a place to put something that interested me and I thought might interest others.

What is this?

Talking on the phone and watering the flowerbeds I saw this creature swimming in a pool of water. Looked like a worm but at closer inspection it has two legs and feet. Unlike a worm. So, what is it? Do I need to send out a search and kill party for this little guy? Yuk.

Where is this going?

Like so many of our conversations it was pretty disjointed. We started talking about her car and ended up with my remembering that I had wanted to tell her my discovery - Trader Joe's cereals inside packaging doesn't tear when you open it. We figure that is the trade off for their placing fresh artichokes and other fresh vegetables on styrofoam trays.

Foggy Morning in LaPine, Oregon

Still a bit of fog as the sun was coming up one morning in September, 2007