Devotion ~ Question #4 Awareness

[SnoopyDances]

"From the sole window a view of the garden below. Displayed in a case are books of Simone Weil's, posthumously published under his direction…On the mantle is the clock that Saint-Exupery had presented to his grandfather. We descend worn marble stairs, pass through the blue salon, and enter the garden where Ukio Mishima was photographed sitting in a white rattan chair. …" (Devotion p. 13)

Patti notices everything around her in great detail describing her surroundings with passion, not only detailing the look but also what each space means to her personally.

How aware are you?
Vividly describe your immediate surroundings and what that space and its objects mean to you.

[stroch]

Too much to describe. I'm home in my library, and every book is one I've read and "need" to keep. There are two walls 15' long by 12' high with books, and another with books and things. The things are all freighted with memories. Just one object: an antique silver filigree fingernail guard. I didn't get it in China--I bought it at a thrift store in Mississippi, and put it on a table next to a vaguely Chinese lamp and some beads in a bowl. Hurricane Katrina blew the house away--literally, and it was one of the few things I found in the debris on the ground. So it stands on the mantle here as a reminder of impermanence.

[SnoopyDances]

Too much to describe. I'm home in my library, and every book is one I've read and "need" to keep. There are two walls 15' long by 12' high with books, and another with books and things. The things are all freighted with memories. Just one object: an antique silver filigree fingernail guard. I didn't get it in China--I bought it at a thrift store in Mississippi, and put it on a table next to a vaguely Chinese lamp and some beads in a bowl. Hurricane Katrina blew the house away--literally, and it was one of the few things I found in the debris on the ground. So it stands on the mantle here as a reminder of impermanence.

So sorry about Hurricane Katrina! I can't begin to imagine the devastation and loss on such a large scale.
How wonderful, though, that something so unique was spared and I love your sentiment toward it!

[SnoopyDances]

I am sitting in my "media" room.

All around me are links to past jobs and interests. There are framed posters of front-page headlines from the local newspaper where I worked, marking special occasions, mostly baseball related. As well as baseball memorabilia given to me through the years.

And there is one front page with a picture of my mother! The paper was doing a feature story on my mother's square dancing group and there she is square dancing with one of her friends, smiling away! I also have a framed copy of the image, itself, for which I need to find some wall space.

There is another poster from when I worked at a television station. The poster highlights the great flood of 1993, showing contrasting satellite images of the water levels before and during the flood.

In one corner are bookcases, loaded with books I've always wanted to read but never have. My plan is to go through as many of these books as I can. The literature is mixed with theater, plays, movies, novels, and a world history series from the 1920s.

On the other side is the electronic entertainment media: TV, VHS tapes, CDs, stereo, cassette tapes, and records...yes, records! I can't bear to part with them. Again, an eclectic mix of genres, styles, and artists from the Andrew Sisters, Big Bands, Broadway, 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s rock, spiritual, and even patriotic. Oh, and I mustn't forget my Christmas CDs!

The videotapes are equally eclectic: comedy, drama, horror, sci-fi, documentary...I love a good movie!

I recently forced myself to get rid of my 8-track tapes! There weren't many and some had torn...not a big loss, but a chuckle remembering how I used to listen to music.

And we can't forget the current media: Mr. Computer! My connection to the outside world.

[fireflydances]

That was perfect Stroch, really captured the place and the importance of each object described. Wow, Katrina! And Snoopy, just as I was posting, I stopped to read yours. Didn't know about all that media work! And your collection of videos reminds my of my daughter who collects as many horror videos as she can find.

Now, here is mine.

I am in my living room. To my right, a breakfast bar, and through the opening, my kitchen with its bright yellow walls and large ceiling fan. All kinds of wall hangings and pot hangings. A closed window looks out at the dark night, and the deer that live in the small copse of trees across the street. Directly ahead of me, the half-dark staircase that leads up to the bedrooms, a shaft of light that pools down the stairs from above. To my left, the deck doors and the blackness beyond. Somewhere out there a path that threads along the backs of the houses to the lake, dense stands of trees, with fox, raccoon, beaver, more deer, geese and who knows what else, and beyond the dark, cars and buses. I am sitting at an oak table that we use for meals and I use to write. It is strewn with notebooks, magazines, books, chocolate wrappers, a half-full glass of lemonade, a plastic jar of pens and pencils. The light above my head is warm and circles down, lighting all my objects. The room is mostly in shadows -- paintings and tapestries on the walls, a fireplace, a wall of bookcases, a small collection of plants dragged in from the freeze (oregano, lavender, rosemary and chives), a dog cage filled with pillows, cozy blanket and chew towels), a beaten-down leather recliner, two wicker chairs, one holding a curled-up snoring dog, a coffee table covered with candles and books, a silent and dark TV, and finally, an oriental rug.

Most everything in this room has a history. A self portrait in reddish pencil that my father did in high school, a Chinese folk painting we bought in Nanjing when we adopted my daughter, a silk tapestry from India that I found all folded up in my father's study after he died, the fading cloth painting of a Bedouin making tea, a stained glass piece pulled out a staircase of turn-of-the century apartment building -- when still they made ordinary places for ordinary people beautiful.

It is a good and peaceful place.

[nebraska]

I am most aware of my surroundings when I have a camera in my hand. Then I become hyper-focused on everything -- colors, shapes, lights, arrangements. I remember going through a canyon in the southwest, hiking along and taking dozens of photos of the geometry of the rock floor. Without my camera, I just kind of bumble along.

I am sitting in my office with a computer tower to my left, my monitor in front, and then a printer/scanner to my right. The printer sits on top of a VHS player that I use when I am converting tape to digital - I still have a few VHS tapes that people have given me of my Indian band that I want to put on disc.

Behind the monitor there is a bulletin board with an assortment of photos and mementos. On top of my computer tower I have some toys -- Tonto and Captain Jack legos, Burger King Rango toys from kid's meals, a little stuffed goat, a tiny cat and a tiny camel and a pink smiley face figure. And a Yellow bendy smiley face guy. Plus more. To my right is a set of bookshelves -- the top shelf has dolls and figurines on it -- many of them are Johnny related. There are many data CDs and DVDs in here. The entire room is stuffed with boxes and drawers and shelves of things I use for paper crafts. Rubber stamps and ink pads and card stock and punches and pencils and adhesives and glitters ... too much to enumerate. And then there are the embellishments and stickers and ribbons and buttons and charms. Some of it is very well organized and cataloged, much of it is not. My desk is piled with notebooks and papers and pieces of "stuff". A stress ball, a calculator, a calendar book for 2019, etc etc. And dust. Lets us not forget the dust. The room used to be a small patio that my husband enclosed for me, so I have the doorjamb/hinges of an exterior door and an exterior window between me and the rest of the house, and two walls are concrete block (formerly exterior walls).