Tag Archives: walking

Savoring Summer: August’s Photo-A-Day Challenge

It’s so easy to barrel through life, focused on all the tasks there are to do, checking things off on the mental to-do list, looking ahead and planning ahead…and missing what is right in front of you. My camera helps a bit, when I am taking pictures I tend to slow down, look closely, consider angles and light…and I also seem to notice sounds and textures, smells and even tastes because I am paying attention.

I recently read something about a savoring walk…it was part of a post about ways to practice gratitude, but I was immediately drawn to it as a way to pay attention and really experience the moments in front of me. In their explanation, you should take a walk for 20 minutes each day and notice as many positive things as you can using any and all of your senses. They encourage you to acknowledge each of these in your mind–truly savor them–don’t just let them slip away.

This struck me as an interesting way to consider taking photos. How could a photo account for an experience I noticed with my sense of smell? I could document that sweet candy smell that permeated the area when I walked into Dylan’s Candy Bar in Chicago by sharing my picture of the giant lollypops that hung overhead, and looking back at it would bring me back and help me remember and savor that experience.

Walking through Millennium Park I noticed the flowers blooming, and when I moved closer I could hear the soft buzz of bees at work. My husband is always reminding me to be careful, there’s bees there. But I love to lean close and watch these fascinating creatures hum…they never seem to be still. The macro lens is my friend when it comes to bees, helping me savor these buzzy moments!

As I motored up the river on an architectural tour, the buildings were the main focus of attention. And they deserve attention! They come in all shapes and sizes–tall boxes, some with exoskeletons, some made up of triangles. These corn cob shaped ones are quite distinctive, with their layered rounded edges creating interesting and unique textures you can almost feel with your eyes.

And as I attended to the buildings, I noticed all the window washers hanging off the sides of these metal and glass giants! Even after my fear-conquering trip up Sears Tower, I’m sure I wouldn’t like hanging off the sides of tall buildings as my work! I wonder how many window washers are employed in Chicago?

And sometimes savoring is all about standing back and taking the broad view. I savored this moment looking across the Chicago Institute of Art and noticing my husband taking a photo of the Chicago skyline through the long lines of the Art Institute windows.

A ferris wheel? Yep, an iconic landmark…and a fun way to enjoy the view of the lake and the city. And as we stood in line to buy a ticket, I noticed that I could see the cityscape framed in silhouette through the wheel…another moment worth savoring!

Shoulder to shoulder with thousands and thousands of locals and tourists, I enjoyed an evening at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion watching the taping of the NPR show, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me with some NWP friends. There was a sense of community and warm summer night relaxation in spite of the large crowd. People were friendly, laughter flowed, and fun was had by all!

And the festivities continued into the evening as the smell of wet concrete mixed with the glow of the blue moon and the lights of the city to create the perfect nightscape for summer play. It was fun to watch these young people invent games to entertain themselves as they cooled off and enjoyed a warm July evening.

So take some time to savor summer throughout the month of August, slow down and go beyond your eyes to use all your senses as you notice and appreciate your world. Here’s some prompts to get your started.

1. Sweet

2. Whisper

3. Smooth

4. Salty

5. Textured

6. Up

7. Complex

8. Layers

9. Loud

10. Crinkly

11. Below

12. Constant

13. Sweaty

14. Rhythm

15. Slick

16. Rough

17. Fresh

18. Down

19. Squished

20. Sharp

21. Melodic

22. Savory

23. Wet

24. Blue

25. Distant

26. Crisscrossed

27. Soft

28. Rolling

29. Transparent

30. Spin

31. Refreshing

Our challenge will allow us to learn from each other as we shoot our own photos and study the photos others shoot. Every day of the month includes a word prompt to inspire and challenge you as you savor your experiences . You are welcome to follow them in order, mix them up, or throw in a new word prompt for the rest of us to try. You can post every day, once a week, or even sporadically throughout the month…whatever works in your life.

Be sure to share and tag your photos with #sdawpphotovoices so we can find them! You can share on Twitter (follow me @kd0602), on Instagram (@kd0602), in the CLMOOC community on G+, on Flickr, or even link back to my blog here.

I’m looking forward to seeing how you savor your summer experiences…through your lens!

Urban Mountains

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I’ve spent some time over the last year exploring mountains…and testing my body and my endurance. I’ve walked for miles, enjoyed wildflowers, listened to birds, noticed clouds, smelled pine trees and the musky aroma of sage. I experienced California’s drought, seeing hundreds of dead trees and dangerously low water levels and reveled in the beauty that nature has to offer.

As I walked through downtown Chicago over the weekend, I found myself thinking about how the skyscrapers are like urban mountains standing tall and proud, shading one side while the sun shines on the other, reflecting the sky and creating canyons and valleys between them.

I’ve logged lots of miles in the last few days and I love the way that walking brings me up close with the city. Old sits next to new, the homeless rubbing shoulders with the wealthy, sweet smells of Garrett’s carmel popcorn on one block, sour smells of trash and filth on the next.

And I was seduced into joining the throngs of other tourists (from all over the world) to experience the view of Chicago from 103 stories above. What was formerly Sears Tower is now known as Willis Tower, the tallest building in the US (and there are some who insist in the world). 110 stories tall with radio towers making it taller, this building is a feat of engineering that was built in the 1970’s. And in spite of having been in Chicago a number of times before this, I had never gone up…or even walked by this building before!

I was determined to not only brave the long lines and go up…but while up there I decided to battle my intense fear of heights and walk out on the plexiglass sky bridge, looking straight down at the ground so far below my feet!

Yeah, it was scary…hand sweating, vertigo-inducing, catch your breath scary. I’ve been up high before…the Space Needle in Seattle, the Empire State Building in NYC, but the sky deck took away the comfort of window ledges and railings, leaving me with clear plexiglass as safety from falling. But I went out there not once, but three times. Each easier than the one before, although I can still feel my hands dampen as I write this.

I was even able to snap a few playful selfies with my husband, who enjoyed every minute of this sky high experience.

Once down, we circled the building to find those plexiglass outcroppings from the outside. The height is even more impressive looking up–the sky deck is barely visible from the ground! (Look closely–maybe even click on the photo to bring up a larger version to see them!)

You don’t have to be in the wilderness to enjoy the outdoors. There is lots to see and experience right outside the door. And I fell in love with the interactive art in the park spaces in downtown Chicago. The bean in Millennium Park encouraged people to come close, stand back, group up…and of course, take plenty of photos, while also reflecting the beauty of the urban mountains.

And on a hot summer day it was fun to watch people interacting with these tall brick fountain structures that also include projections of faces, facing each other.

I’m glad we spent time exploring the urban mountains of Chicago, walking miles and seeing the city up close. It might not be a National Park, but it was fun exploring the great urban outdoors!

The Vibrance of Walking

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There is something about putting one foot in front of the other, moving forward, heading somewhere–even if the destination isn’t clear. I’ve really only learned to appreciate walking in the last few years…before that it was simply a way to get from one place to another rather than an activity in itself.

As I read Brainpickings today, this piece about walking and wanderlust caught my attention. Rebecca Solnit wrote a book called Wanderlust: A History of Walking…and though I haven’t read the book, this quote caught my attention:

Thinking is generally thought of as doing nothing in a production-oriented culture, and doing nothing is hard to do. It’s best done by disguising it as doing something, and the something closest to doing nothing is walking. Walking itself is the intentional act closest to the unwilled rhythms of the body, to breathing and the beating of the heart. It strikes a delicate balance between working and idling, being and doing. It is a bodily labor that produces nothing but thoughts, experiences, arrivals.

And for me, walking is a way of paying attention. Paying attention to my thoughts and feelings and to the world around me. That “nothing” of walking works as production for me. It generates creativity, increases my energy and problem solving, and generally increases the vibrance of my daily life.

Walking some dusty urban trails in our downtown park yesterday, I was struck by these vivid desert flowers. They’ve taken advantage of the rains in May and blooms are in evidence.

Up hills and down, following the twists and turns of the trails I noticed the dryness and imagined what the brush would look like in August. But for now, a carpet of color explodes calling to the bees and other pollinators…and reminding me to notice and appreciate beauty in unlikely spaces, beyond the park’s groomed landscapes and curated exhibits. Geoff and I were noticing the differences in the yellow flowers…and naming the ones we have come to know, natives (like me) to this dry and wondrous place.

And in the formal park, we walked by many beautiful blooms. This hibiscus caught my eye–not only because it is vivid and beautiful, but because of the way the stamen cast a shadow onto the petals. It would have been easy to walk by, but because I was walking with no particular destination, I took the time to lean down and look closely–finding something wondrous!

Walking, ideally, is a state in which the mind, the body, and the world are aligned, as though they were three characters finally in conversation together, three notes suddenly making a chord. Walking allows us to be in our bodies and in the world without being made busy by them. It leaves us free to think without being wholly lost in our thoughts.

[…]

The rhythm of walking generates a kind of rhythm of thinking, and the passage through a landscape echoes or stimulates the passage through a series of thoughts. This creates an odd consonance between internal and external passage, one that suggests that the mind is also a landscape of sorts and that walking is one way to traverse it. A new thought often seems like a feature of the landscape that was there all along, as though thinking were traveling rather than making. And so one aspect of the history of walking is the history of thinking made concrete — for the motions of the mind cannot be traced, but those of the feet can.

Today’s landscape for walking was quite different as I headed out in the early morning light, beckoned by the low tide and time pressures. There was a stillness beneath the rhythmic roar of the waves, quieting the shouts of work that needs doing and responsibilities to deal with, creating space for thought…and no thought.

And while I find my peace though the lens of my camera, Geoff finds his in his call to pick up litter in this beautiful place. There are plenty of plastic straws, baggies, and food wrappers…and the occasional vibrant red ball left behind, bounced onto the shore by the waves. We are both engaged in our art, in the rhythms of our body, and in the vibrance of the walk.

Surfing Madonna 5K

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When I first saw the Daily Post photo prompt for this week–cover art–I felt a bit out of my element. I love taking photos and using them to prompt my thinking and writing, but haven’t really thought about images as covers up to this point. But with cover art in my head, I continued to take photos this weekend.

Saturday was the Surfing Madonna 5K, a local run/walk that would take place on the beach where we walk regularly. With a nice low tide, the 5K would take place right on the sand along the shoreline in the late afternoon. Geoff had signed up to participate in this event some time ago…and although I had to work in the morning, I headed to the beach afterward to connect with Geoff and walk with him.

And of course, I couldn’t just walk. With my phone in hand, I snapped photos as we walked. And when I looked through my images later, this one struck me as a cover photo. I love the way the runner is silhouetted against the surf in full stride, the clouds reflected on the sand, and the light illuminating the waves in the background. This was one of the more serious runners, heading for the finish as we still headed toward the turn-around point.

And we sure weren’t alone on the beach (although this runner looks to be running mostly alone). Here’s a glimpse of the crowd near the start…there are lots of people you can see ahead and even more yet to start behind.

And I’m not sure if the costumes were a nod to Halloween coming up…or just a feature of quirky beach culture. I did snap a photo of these bananas on the beach…

There were also lots of women (and a few men) in tutus…

And many, many more costumes including all forms of super heroes, mermaids, King Tut (in full gold painted face), sharks, squids, crabs…all out running and walking on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. It was a fun way to spend a beautiful Saturday afternoon in October and the proceeds benefit ocean-related education programs in our area. Definitely a win-win!