Driving Wisdom: Subtle Movements

i don’t know if anyone else had ideas and beliefs about driving before they were too young to understand what was really happening, but i definitely had a few that stand out.  when i was really young i thought that the road was a magic track of sorts and that the person driving was only really there to stop and start the car, not steer it, or anything else for that matter.  (obviously i was too young to know about all of the times that cars go off of the magic track!)

the one i found myself thinking about today came when i was getting to the age where i realized i myself would be driving soon and ought to be paying some sort of attention!  i would watch my mother’s hands, and the subtlety of their movements on the wheel, and waver back and forth wondering if such subtle movements could possibly be deliberate.  no.....i thought......she’s just twitching a little bit or something!

now that i’m a driver i know that indeed, for the most part, even the tiniest movement of hands on the wheel is due to a tremendously sensitive inner calibration, a sense of balance, of center, of the space you fill when you are inside of your vehicle, of boundaries.  i watch my own hands and am truly amazed at the sensitivity of that sense of self.  pretty incredible the power we have behind the wheel, and with such a system of machinery in place we are able to fine tune our pathway and make tremendous moves with the slightest effort.  

all we have to do is to know is where that center is, and, really, if you’re just beginning to drive (or remember that awkward bull-in-a-china-shop phase...) it’s a learn as you go process!  not something you can learn from a book.  get out there and practice! ;)  

(photo sale info in the Photography section of this page :)

A New Perspective

i recently got a new camera, after having a great one for a while and then trying to replace the great one (since three years made it SO obsolete they stopped making it) with a super duper piece of crap camera that i had dreams of throwing from tall buildings or smashing to bits with heavy blunt objects.  christmas was good to me, and i am now properly equipped with a fast-action-make-everything-look-like-a-million-bucks lens through which to see the world.  

i once wrote an email to my good friend, danny schmidt, declaring excitedly that i had finally discovered my life’s purpose.  it was around the time that i decided right before going on stage that i really didn’t enjoy performing....like, at all.  i didn’t like the jitters before playing, i usually felt nervous and clumsy when i was up there, and i didn’t like the part afterwards when i couldn’t talk to anyone without feeling like i was putting them on the spot to tell me it was a great show, and then questioning the truth of the statement and trying like to hell to learn how to take a compliment.

i wrote danny to tell him that i wanted to be a photographer, or more so, that i finally realized that’s what i was.  photography is so innocent and so pure.  photography has naught to do with ego; how could it?  it’s being a witness to life’s miracles, big and small.  nothing more and nothing less, except knowing when you see one and when to click a button.  you’re not creating anything, only sharing.  that was a tremendous relief to me at the time.  it still is.

as dramatic a moment as that was, really i was just feeling shy and scared and uncertain and noticed a whole new bright light that captivated me.  and now instead of leaving the old light behind i’ve learned to see music in much the same way.  we’re really a witness to everything, even ourselves.

a new camera feels like a new skin.  my eyes and my heart are more open.  they see things in a different light.  and they’re seeing that everything is a miracle, really.  everything is amazing.