Sarah*n*dipitous

Kindness

Kindness speaks to our humanity and answers the most basic need we have, that being the ability to connect with meaning and purpose with our fellow man. It is unselfishness, a moment where our wants are set aside in an act of service that elevates the needs of another selflessly and without motive; a sense of altruistic purity occurs, in showing kindness, we are selves are made whole. 

I met a friend about a year ago on Twitter. Her name is Phyllis Mufson (@phyllismufson) and, I have never spoken to her or had the opportunity to meet her in real life yet, she is a part of my day and a person who extends a smile and make my days just better by being who she is. It was an act of kindness in the form of a random DM (direct Message for you non-Twitter folks) that was the beginning of a wonderful friendship. She emailed be a bit ago and asked if I would participate in a #kindness party on Twitter. Normally, my Twitter feed is filled with the meanderings from my journal, things I've pondered while creating in my studio or out in my normal course of business. It is an online Moleskin journal with instant feedback on a global scale really. The point is, I said yes. Yes to filling my Tweet stream for 2 hours of #kindness, kindness by way of a thank you, a haiku, a funny story, a shortened anecdote, a tear wiped, a prayer asked for, a simple winter wish for healing. For me, working and living in the creative community, RAK (Random Acts of Kindness) are not foreign, they show up in random letters and artwork in your mailbox, art supplies to those in need, help in getting the materials needed together for a last minute class, volunteering on grand scales and sharing one's talents and passion with strangers. A RAK can be paying for a stranger's coffee behind you in the drive-thru, but it also could be a 10,000 dollar check in the mail to pay for a semester or two of college for a young single Mom.

Kindness isn't always easy. It isn't something that comes naturally, if it were our bellies would be grumbling and it'd be easy to trade our spots with the guy in the cardboard box who hasn't eaten in a day or two. We wouldn't speed up to give the "eye" (you know that sideways glance) that says, "You jerk, I can't believe you cut me off..." or even tougher, showing kindness to an enemy who wounded you deeply. Kindness, the act of putting another's needs in front of your own, without the desire to be recognized or acknowledged, and takes the kind courage that sets folks apart which really does change the world. 

If this post meant something to you, Pay It Forward by doing something random, something bold, something out of your comfort zone, something life-changing, something brave... Be Kind.

 

Birdhouses

I am fascinated by birdcages and have been since I can remember. I have collected many over the years. For those who have ever noticed them here and there in my house or studio, they are always left with the door open. 

To Kill A Mockingbird is a story that holds deep personal meaning to me for many reasons. The thought of killing a songbird as being a sin is akin to willfully trapping another human and clipping their wings. Every time a word is spoken in anger that tells a child they are "too stupid, too dumb, too incapable..." their ability to fly becomes handicapped. What folks do not think of is how we ourselves do the very same things to ourselves as adults. We believe the naysayers, the most vocal being the peanut gallery in our own heads that conjure up "what-if's", and "can't do's" constantly. We come to a point where we trap ourselves in our own gilded cages, architect-ed from our own blueprints and fashioned by our own hands, and for good measure, the key to the front door we pounded and crafted, we force ourselves to choke on as we swallow it just to make sure we can never leave. 

What does your birdhouse look like? When was the last time you escaped it's bars and truly flew?

 

Tick Tock

I am not friends with the clock, we shake hands as a matter of civility, and many times I refer to that act as the logistics customary before a dual. It's not because I am closer to middle age that makes me uncomfortable like that expanding waistline and age spots lovingly referred to as "beauty marks" inasmuch, as it is in a healthy dose of reality. The bold fact is that, a clock only moves forward, the moment a second is acknowledged it has already passed and can no longer be chased like a firefly on a careless Summer's evening. My moments, as yours, are carefully accounted for, the purpose in which we were made cast and hidden in the crazy amazing uniqueness and gifts we have been given that indeed, set us each apart from every other person on the planet. We are creatures designed to leave a mark. A friend once said, you cannot be someone's friend and dependent at the same time, that there is a defined conflict of interest that makes the relationship unable to be truly unbiased and pure. I cannot depend on the clock and be friends with it. The tick tock is the very thing that spurs me on and keeps me aware that the seconds slip by oftentimes unannounced. A friendly complacency would mean the dual is lost and my time is up.

 
 

Wishes

"A dream is a wish your heart makes when you're fast asleep..." How can you not like that lyric from Disney? It is amazing to think throughout our lives, people are constantly telling us, make a wish... here on this birthday candle, on this shooting star, this dandelion puff, or this lucky penny cast into a well. It's so hard when we desperately want something so badly we can taste it and Providence simply says, "No." We feel let down, crushed, deflated, angry, sad, you can really fill in the blank here but, what if instead, we felt gratitude in having the thought, the possibility, the very audacity to lay it out there and say it out loud? We make wishes all the time, we wish for wealth, love, fame, good things, they are like fleeting whispers sometimes but, it is the ones we proclaim loudly that grab our hearts and have us begging to let us get our way this time, just this once, let me have a win. The courage of a wish is the moment you release it and no longer hold it in your hand, you relinquish control and just let it go... it's then, when your wish becomes an act of faith. Acts of faith are never answered in the ways we can expect and in that, there is the gratitude.

 

Valentine

Many suggest and believe that Valentine's is a "Hallmark" holiday set aside to make those in distant places and alone feel even more isolated and alone. I'd like to believe it's like a Wonderland "Un-Birthday" when we choose to celebrate every day that isn't designated and circled in red as an opportunity to show those around us that they matter and that we care. It need not be the showy production, the flowers, chocolates, jewelry and tangible things, it can be a smile, a hand held in a dark time, or the window on the car scraped and the inside heated when you're running late. Let every day be Valentine's Day, a day where love is found in the sanctuary of another.

This is a Beehive or Spider Web Victorian Card. Thank You Tattered Angels, Clearsnap, Marcella, 3M, Fiskars, and Bic :)

 

Lasting

It is interesting to think about things as being temporal, unconnected, fleeting and disappearing as quickly as they seemed to come about; changing jobs, changing addresses, various other circumstances that cast us from our comfort zones and familiar. I think, perhaps, because our world moves so quickly we have acclimated to temporal, information is thrown at us daily like a barrage of baseballs in a batting cage where we manage to connect with a few as they pass by but nothing monumental or epic. The things that matter though, the things that do connect, they manage to leave a mark and people are continually drawn to that mark.

I came across an old dilapidated building, it was boarded up and abandoned. The mailbox out front had the remainder of a rusted heart, a piece that had fallen away perhaps but, still had a mark. The beauty of the moment was the mail still being delivered to this mailbox, poking out and hopeful perhaps, that it would reach the owners of this old abandoned building. I kept thinking about people in general, how places like Facebook and Twitter connect people and give a second chance to delivering a message to places traditional means, like a letter, go unresponded to. I wondered when it was that the intended recipient stopped retrieving the mail, when the bills and bad new over came the well wishes and I wonder how you are doings. I suppose there comes a point when it is just easier to walk away but, that mark, it stays. It isn't a mark on the recipient, it is the mark they left on the ones who still see it and feel it on themselves.

 

 

Frosty

Nature never makes frost look the same just so it calls your attention to gaze upon it. The mechanics of course are the same yet, the crystals themselves, the way they play with the light and catch your eye in the veins that whisper to you that this show is for you alone lure you in to be entertained and engaged at the wonder of it. What fascinates me is that people, in their cold facade and stand-offishness tend to be much like the frost on the windshield. We are conditioned to take the ice scraper, remove it and get on with our day hoping the hot air will melt away the remaining impediment before we hit major traffic and our peephole becomes a driving hazard. I wonder if we saw people as the wondrous unique arrangement of crystals, if we decided to see the light reflect in them, if they would catch our attention and cause us to pause and take note of their strange beauty. What if it was you, the cold and aloof, stuck on the glass begging someone to take notice and see past the cold and distant alien-like appearance and see the masterpiece in you? Perhaps then, you would not see them as cold and distant but reaching and closer than you think wanting to say something before they disappear.

 

Perpetual

I am fascinated by perpetual calendars. The sense that time is circular, no beginning or end, simply the now, this moment, the breath we just inhaled and the one that we exhaled to make room for it. There is a sense of urgency when one looks upon a clock and hears the second hand clicking it's cadence. A calendar however, it's more deceiving in a way, because the time slips by unannounced and the hush of a date falling like a sheet of paper on a bed of grass goes by almost unnoticed until one trips over the ream of paper at their feet. The perpetual calendar leaves no trace of the months and years that slip by with the methodical turning of a knob, it's architectural scrawl of fine penmanship almost leaves us for want to see the artistry of the next day rather than savor the scrawl of the present. It is strange to think that tens of thousands of days can be trapped perpetually and although it's paint shows age, it is nothing in comparison to the strands of vibrant auburn gone silver on the hair tucked behind reading glasses. Time is perpetual, it will not stop yet, we are gifted the opportunity to look upon it in awe.

 

Bowl of Sunshine

Offering guests chocolate is one thing, giving them sunshine is something entirely different. When I was a child, my grandmother would set out a bowl of candy for the people who visited. She never ate from the bowl and it was always filled with her favorite candy. In all my years, I never remembered it ever being empty. I always thought she had filled it just for me and my arrival until one day, I surprised her and came unannounced and saw that it was indeed full. My grandmother was a popular lady, her home was always filled with stray people and strangers who left as family. I asked her about the bowl of candy. She said to,"spread something sweet to every person that should cross your path, spread sunshine and courage and that's what you'll get back."  In my studio is a bowl of M&M's, just the yellow ones. Yellow has a special meaning to me and is a warm sanctuary of sorts, it's the kind of thing I wish each and every person who comes to visit to leave having. The goal I give myself is to make sure the bowl is never empty and that the folks who come in feel as if I filled it just for them.