Modern Fairytale

When’s the last time you opened a book that started out “Once upon a time…”? There was a magic in the words we first learned as children. For many of us, they were repeated so often that they feel oddly like memories of events which actually happened. You do recall standing in the rooms as The Three Bears discovered evidence of Goldilocks’ break-in, don’t you? I was there. I can remember it. I can picture it, and relive it in my mind. You were there, too? I didn’t see you. It was just me and the Bear family. (right?)

So if your story today started off “Once upon a time…” what would it be? Does the glass slipper end up fitting on your foot? Did you build your house with bricks? Or are you stuck in eternal sleep, never to wake, and never to dream. Will we ever proclaim anything to be “Just right”? (Is that possible?) Perhaps the goal for today should be to find the “just right” in at least one thing. Let’s relish that, no matter how insignificant the instance may seem. ‘Just Right’ is actually never insignificant. And I believe it exists somewhere in each day. Concentrating on that, and not the mass of irritating, trivial, yet vast amounts of sludge which can fill our idle crevices with such ease, (because we allow it to) is going to be my goal today.

[This photo is for sale in the smacshop]

Synesthesia :: Self Portrait of the Day

Darn. Somewhere along the line I see that part of my last post didn’t make it to this blog. I typed it, (I know, because while doing so I became distinctly aware that I was rambling, not sticking to the point or title of the post in my most good-intentioned round-about way of getting there eventually) and somehow, I don’t know how, I goofed on the “Post” part. I guess. Because I had much more than is there. And it’s only now I realize it’s missing. Jeesh. Yes, I will follow a tangent far longer than anyone should. I will follow it loyally along it’s unbeaten, (or overbeaten, perhaps) path even as I am thinking ‘go back, go back, you’re wasting time; you’re boring people; you’re sounding scattered!’ Yep. Hi there.

I have synesthesia. I won’t get into details, but suffice it to say that perhaps it is this which distracts my train of thought while speaking, or reading, or doing just about anything. Millions of details bombard us every day. Sights, sounds, smells, textures. You can feel a texture, you can hear a song. But in addition to such things, I can see the shape of a smell, or describe a word by the color of it’s spoken sound vs. the color of its written image which also may not correspond to the ‘actual’ (in my synesthetic brain) color of its individual letters, (for I see letters with color.) Creative inspiration showers over me like intricate doilies crocheted by my synesthesia on a daily basis. There are not enough hours in the day to respond. And just as I go off on a tangent while speaking, or writing, I do so while creating.

This self portrait illustrates that- - the irritatingly excessive amount of creative ways to describe my experience in one given moment, including the colors for the letters "i, e, and c" (when they are not capitalized), my Blog name and the date in two-arm semaphore, thought bubbles, pointing in all directions, random doodlings, and me, in color and black and white. It's all there the way I feel it most days. I tune much of it out, though. I think most synesthete's do.

Oh, and speaking of showers: snow…. it’s snowing in NYC. I love snow. I always feel as though I am being blessed when I walk in snow. Something about the delicate touch of each flake as it lands, the silence, the strong sense of water in the air. It’s like a first bath. A renewal. A new beginning. A mini fresh start. Then how dirty it gets so quickly; the initial beauty doesn’t last very long, and sets about its task, serving as receptor for all the ugly and bad. And eventually all that washes away. How very nice.

Click the photo to see better.

Pre-Spring Cleaning

NOTE: I am such a blogger newbie that I clearly lost a portion of this post, however, senility, perhaps? has set in, and I can't for the life of me recall what the point of this title was. I do remember I had a point. Just not what it is, else I would just finish the post after the fact. Sheesh.

I love winter. I was born in New England during this season, so perhaps it's in my blood. There is no such thing, to me, as weather which prevents me from going out and walking around my city for hours. If it's a day off, this is what I do. I don't care if it's rainy, icy, a blizzard, dark, or hazardous. I go out, I walk around, I run errands, I take pictures, I think, I wander, I wonder, I observe. I don't own (nor miss having) a car. I actually forget how to drive. (Sheesh, I never knew that could happen!) This is how long I've lived in Manhattan.

So I've set up an Etsy shop. This is new to me. Etsy is a site which allows people who make things to sell them. I'm new there, and just learning my way around. There is a huge pool of talent there, and I think I might be shopping there regularly for friends and family. Prices are really great, and items wonderfully unique. Please check out my Favorite Etsy items from the link over on the right, and here are a few items from my own shop:

The First sMacThought

I thought I'd never blog. Never. It was up there with never joining or looking at this, what's it called - - MySpace, yes that's it, and with never owning a cell phone. But here I am. Setting up a Blog. With my own two hands. No gun to my head. Totally alone, and safe, and of sound mind. I have no excuse, nor any real reason but curiosity. I might never use this thing. I might never show anyone. Or it might turn into a really nice place for me to work out my thoughts and ideas for my photography or other artistic creations (I can be found on Flickr as sMacshot, or on Etsy as sMacshop. Are you seeing a trend here?)

Many years ago after receiving the gift of my first computer and discovering the world of digital art, I had a sort of epiphany. I imagined so many different directions for all the possibilities that this type of new creative media (mixed with the standard types of media) might allow. It was a concept which branched out again and again and again like an old large tree of enormous girth stretched out to the merest of tendril-like wisps. I haven't followed every branch. I've started down a few, but am miles from the end of even just one of them. Maybe I can keep track of some of these branches, and what they say to me here, in this blog. One thing I did know, way back then, and it's not changed since is that the tree is called sMacVision, and it is my vision and my translation of that vision through artistic or creative means.