Kathleen Gill

WEEK TWENTY-SIX: WEARIN’ OF THE GREEN

When you have tritanomaly, blue often looks green. You observe enough raised eyebrows and you lose confidence in your ability to tell the difference. You begin consulting a non-afflicted expert when the difference matters, like picking out shoes to match your shirt. But if you see blue and I see green, who is correct? Well, since only one in 10,000 of us is a tritanope, correctness always resides with the majority – the non-afflicted.

Does it matter what we label colors? I don’t think so, generally. But on this one day of the year, if you are of Irish descent, getting it right matters.

WEEK TWENTY-FIVE: FOG AND PALMS

If I ever leave Florida again, I think what I would miss most is the Sabal Palm, known to some as the Cabbage Palm. Admittedly, there are more elegant palms here, but for me the Sabal is the most expressive. It looks a bit like a cross between a giraffe and Red Fraggle, but in a good way. In spite of its seeming fragility, it has evolved to deal with the periodic pounding of tropical storms. It is exuberant, dancing to the beat of its own drummer – standing tall or twisting and bending in response to some unseen influence, occasionally hugging tightly to a nearby oak.

I can see a line of arching Sabal Palms from my pillow. The palms come close to our screened porch, not quite touching it but leaning in gracefully and in unison. At first light, I can hear squirrels scampering across their crowns, so close together are they. On these spring nights when the doors to the screened porch are flung wide, the palms transport me far south to some balmy and untouched tropical island and I fall asleep to the sound of softly rustling fronds.

WEEK TWENTY-FOUR: THE FLEA MARKET

I stopped in front of a nondescript booth, my attention drawn by an old clarinet resting in its frayed case. A long-put-aside memory from grade school flickered bravely in my head. “Do you play?” I turned toward a grey-haired woman with a pleasant smile, aging but (as I remind myself often these days) probably no older than I. “No, not really. Just in the 4th grade”. We traded grade school clarinet memories, hers much better-formed than mine. Feeling comfortable now, I asked her what I’d been wanting to ask vendors all day – why was she here? She said that she was downsizing and keen on simplifying her life, and that she needed to get rid of things she had accumulated over the years.

Oh, the irony. Here was a flea market extravaganza, with over 800 vendors displaying wares for thousands of shoppers over three days, all there to buy this same “stuff” and take it home, adding it to their lives – bottles and buckets, knick-knacks, yard art, old croquet sets and family photos of someone else’s family. Acres and acres of stuff. I watched a woman buy a 60’s-vintage plastic alarm clock, saying to her husband, “My mom and dad had this exact alarm clock next to their bed!” What was she going to do with that clock?

Of course, I’m supposed to be culling this year. After 6 hours shopping and observing, I bought nothing except for lunch. All I brought home were photos. Like a moth drawn to a flame, though, I’m sure I’ll return next year.

WEEK TWENTY-THREE: REDFISH HOLE

Redfish Hole is not exactly what it seems. Yes, it is a popular fishing spots for locals, but it is really about so much more than fish. Due to a natural ridge that extends far out into the marshes, the Hole offers one the rare opportunity to wander through everything from scrubby flatwoods to tidal salt marshes, and to experience close up and in all seasons the remarkable details of those communities. On a recent visit, I was taken by the pluck of the little mangrove seedling on the right, valiantly trying to reestablish a forest along this coast.

WEEK TWENTY-TWO: LOW TIDE

When I was a small child, my parents rented a summer cottage on Cape Cod Bay. I awoke the first morning at dawn, excited about a day at the beach. As I peered out the window that faced the bay, I was astonished and crushed to find that the glittering sea from the evening before was now all sand, as far as my eye could see. Based on my limited experience with contained water, all I could think was that a very powerful someone had pulled the plug and let it all drain away. It was a tragic thought back then, but sometimes I wish I could recapture that simple naive way of experiencing life.

Last week, I was drawn to our local fishing pier by the knowledge that the moon would be setting toward the pier, shortly after sunrise and at low tide. So there I was, in the half-dark on a finger-numbing February morning, no sound save the soft Gulf breeze, gingerly stepping through the wet marsh to find a pleasing composition. For just a moment, I was visited with child-like simplicity and wondered. Is the tide following the moon over the western horizon or is it the other way around, the moon being dragged by the receding tide? Or are they locked in a celestial dance with neither leading, both just drifting away to the west?

WEEK TWENTY-ONE: ROADS LESS TRAVELED

My parents moved our family to Florida back in the mid-60s. The space program was just taking off at Cape Canaveral, Orlando was a sleepy town in the heart of a thriving agricultural belt and, each spring, the sweet smell of orange blossoms filled the air across central Florida. Much has changed in this state, but off the beaten path on meandering two-lane roads, Florida’s farm and ranch land remains pretty much the way it was back then and for hundreds of years before.

This photo was made from a dirt road off Rte. 60 in Osceola County. The sign said “private property” but I figured whoever owned this land would not deny me my simple enjoyment of it.

WEEK TWENTY: LIFE’S A PARTY

Being happy just seems like a reasonable goal in life. Yes, it seems a bit egocentric, but if you’re happy, it stands to reason that your happy frame of mind will rub off on others. In recent months, I’ve been consciously trying to identify things that fall into my personal happiness bucket and I’ve observed that adventure is one of those things. Adventure, for me, is pretty broadly defined – a new experience, ideally with loved ones to enrich that experience.

Last weekend, Peter and I met up with my sister’s beautiful family to enjoy two things that met that definition of adventure – a blue grass music festival in Yeehaw Junction, Florida, and an overnight at a dude ranch. In the course of 48 hours, I learned about glamping and railcar cabins, bluegrass groupies, zip-lines and baby goats. I experienced the delicious wet saltiness of boiled peanuts while sidestepping cow patties and attended an honest-to-goodness rodeo (yes, this was my first rodeo), complete with bull-riding and barrel racing. One niece mentored Peter on the art of getting the bartender’s attention in a crowded saloon and the other introduced me to Marcel the Shell (look it up). And, through the magic of text messaging, my daughter taught me how to look fashionable wearing cowboy boots, although that was pretty much a bust. I was exhausted…and genuinely happy.

WEEK NINETEEN: EXCELLENCE VS PERFECTIONISM

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It’s 7:30 in the evening and, from my window on US Air 1883, I’m watching a guy in a deicing cab, perched in a cold wet sky. Behind him red, yellow and white lights feign daylight for an entire airport community bent on launching people into that sky, many of them homeward bound, all escaping Philly’s winter weather.

As I watch, I become obsessed with catching a glimpse of his face. I somehow want to personalize this experience. It’s got to be uncomfortable out there, and my plane is just one of many, now at the front of a long line waiting for a spot on the deicing pad. I want to see in his eyes that this matters to him more than his comfort, that he’s oblivious to the cold, that he knows the stakes, feels responsible, and will stay on that wing until he is absolutely certain that this plane has been successfully prepared for launch. In other words, I need him to be a perfectionist.

Much has been written extolling the pursuit of excellence and warning against perfectionism, which involves a certain intolerance for mistakes. That may apply to artists, athletes, and office workers, but I’m just not sold on it as a general rule.

WEEK EIGHTEEN: SAMENESS AND THE SPIRIT

IMG_0093-2 We live in a small Florida town that was forgotten by growth promoters sometime in 2008, and I’d apparently gone blind to that particular phenomenon. Last week, I found myself in a suburb just north of Atlanta and was overwhelmed by the wall-to-wall and back-to-back river of stores, all of them shiny-new franchised businesses, all overflowing with stock. There were no clues, not one homegrown establishment and nothing unique to the area. You could drop me from the sky into one of the ubiquitous strip mall parking lots, and I could no more figure out where I was then fly to the moon.

The debate about consumerism vs the economy aside, I’m wondering if a steady diet of aesthetic sameness might, over time, damage one’s spirit.

I’ve always been one to seek beauty in nature and in serene pastoral scenes, but nature and farmland do not generally stand a chance when growth is a possibility. So, perhaps it’s time to look elsewhere, to find a substitute. I could train my eye to appreciate (and maybe even my spirit to be recharged by) a shrill suburban homogeneity. After all, it doesn’t seem to be a limited resource.

[iPhone photo made at Party City, Perimeter Village, Atlanta, finished in Snapseed and Photoshop.]

WEEK SEVENTEEN: CULLING

Most of us are immersed in “stuff”, both physically and mentally. Our limited time is spent not on what we’ve chosen but on what we’re confronted with. We dilute our lives with so much of everything that the overall effect is to mire us in indecision and make everything just mediocre.

It occurred to me recently that so many things in life might be made better by the simple act of culling. Of making decisions between and among things, of picking what’s most important and shedding the chaff, even if there’s only a hair’s breadth between the two. Perhaps this often-painful process can make enjoyment of what remains – the carefully chosen – so much sweeter. Perhaps our possessions, how we spend our time, the words we use, the art we make and even our thoughts can all be honed and subjected to the same meticulous process of separating the true gems from the mere minerals.

Culling takes courage, but I believe it refines our ability to be decisive, to take risks, and to discern true beauty or value from a steady menu of mediocrity. The result could be a simpler, more focused and more meaningful experience.

For me, 2015 will be about culling.

[Photo culled from 200+ images taken last Saturday morning at Rainbow Springs State Park, Dunnellon, Florida]