Perspective

Perspective is something you get from observing. From looking all around you and reading things and talking to people and hearing what is being said and noting what is being done.

But perspective can change when you go to a different place or look at things through different eyes or hear different views.

That happened more than once on my trip to France, when observing and hearing and noting and talking opened up new ways of doing things and new ways of seeing things or in other words -- a new perspective.

Just one example:

My fellow students taking morning French classes were from Poland, Russia, Switzerland, Austria, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy and Hungary. Thankfully, most already had a second language down and that was English, so we occasionally reverted to conversation in English when we wanted to communicate faster on more complex subjects.

One friend from Austria asked me why we in America make such a big deal out of personal issues. Tiger Woods' infidelities had just surfaced, and private indisgretions of public officials had recently made big news.

We don't discuss our public officials' private lives, she taught me. There is an unwritten rule among the press that you just don't go there, she said.

Her perspective made me wonder about the perspective I had grown up with and seen and heard and read and felt was normal all my life. It made me wonder if perhaps there might be better ways of doing things than the ways we're so accustomed to we don't even question.

It's good to go someplace besides where you've always been. It's good to see things through others' eyes -- even if they're looking back at you.

Clearing out

I hope someone found the perfect shell I walked past on the beach. I didn't pick it up myself. Nor did I pick up the colorful rock or the broken sand dollar (above) (which also has beauty, as you'll know if you read my first book, "In This Together"). (These book references are my weak attempt at marketing. But if you're interested, the books mentioned in the two most recent posts are available at http://www.capestocanyonspress.com/) (see, there is hope)

It's probably the first time I've left those little treasures to others and there's a reason.

It's time to divest. To unload. To clean out. To lighten up.

I've been collecting over the years. Not just shells and rocks, but pottery and paintings and cards and games and books and old receipts and office supplies and magazines and cassettes and souvenirs and napkins from showers and frames and state quarters and vocal and piano and violin music and little lighthouses and shirts and vases and cute jelly jars and such.

Fortunately, each new house has generally increased in size, so things could accumulate without becoming a safety hazard.

But it's time. Because I'm over 50 and all this stuff is making me feel heavy and causing me to wonder what my children would do if they inherited it, which wouldn't be pretty.

I have a hard time clearing things out for a number of reasons.

1. I remember where I got them.

2. I remember when I shared them with my children.

3. They're cute.

4. Someone gave them to me.

5. Someone might want them.

6. I'll need them as soon as I give them away.

The first thing to go were the signatures from my first book -- the proofs before printing began, which had been rolled up for 12 years and 2 moves because someday I might want to look at them again. Or maybe someone else might want to. But 12 years proved me wrong.

So now they're in the recycle bin, where they hopefully will remain until Monday when the recycle truck comes by.

Not everything that heads towards the door actually makes it out.

But my newfound resolve, which will be accomplished in baby steps over years, baby steps like not picking up a new shell and not holding on to something that has not been needed forever, will be possible if I just tell myself:

1. Clearing my house will clear my head.

2. Giving to charity will help someone have something they might not otherwise afford.

3.

4.

5.

6.

It would help if someone out there could think of a few more reasons to balance out the ones for hanging on. I'm still a little weak in the knees about it all...

When the testing stops

A young woman I admire surprised me about a week ago when I asked her about school.

Those of you who've read my memoir about substitute teaching, "Keep the kids away from the power tools," know how often I have been surprised by comments from young men and women.

It keeps happening.

When asked about how the last weeks of school were going, she said something to the effect that there wasn't anything to do now because the testing had been completed the week before. Nothing to fill the last week. Testing was done.

Can I just say here what I didn't say then, that: YOU DON'T HAVE TO HAVE A TEST TO LEARN SOMETHING.

I hope it's the students and not the teachers with the no-test-no-need-to-learn philosophy. I hope the teachers manage to find information so interesting or facts so fascinating that the kids maybe just start learning for the fun of it.

And then keep learning, not only when the tests are done, but when the classes get out. And not only when the classes get out but when the graduation is behind them. And not only when graduation is behind them but always.

You're never too old. You're never too smart. Learning can be done anytime and anywhere. Just for the fun of it.

Signs

There are little signs of oldness I'm seeing in myself.

You don't want to know what they are.

You've heard about them.

Those of us my age are even older than the president of the United States and that hasn't happened to us before.

But when I see people who I'm just sure are older than me, and see that they're still active and still having fun and still in love and still enjoying the moment, I know that you can have signs of oldness -- with style.

That's what I hope to do.

I don't even know these two people, but I like them:

Imagine

Imagine waking up to a sky this colorful. Imagine seeing a wave this big.

Imagine tasting oranges this sweet.

Imagine listening to music in a setting this perfect.

OK -- I didn't taste the oranges. Just couldn't. But everything else was beyond belief.

Little moments. In the sky, on the sea. With people, with the things people create.

Little moments. Big treasures.

Life.

New eyes

I'd already walked from Notre Dame to the Marmotten Museum, which is miles and miles. And when you count the time wandering around gardens and cathedrals and museums along the way, you can add even more miles and miles.

So I took the subway to l'Etoile (Arc de Triomphe) and then headed east on the Champs Elysses.

And for a minute, I wasn't thinking of taking a picture.

For a minute, all I could think about was finding a place to sit down.

So I found one and sat down. And then I thought of taking a picture again.

And that was thanks to one of the museums I went to. It hadn't been on my list, but a tip from my professor in Antibes brought it to my attention. It was past the Louvre and across the way from l'Orangerie, just at the northeast corner of Place de la Concorde.

It was called Jeu de Paume and it had some unusual contemporary art and some old black and white photographs from Paris and the Cote d'Azur and New York and cities west.

It was the old photographs that were most interesting to me. They were taken in the 1930s by Lisette Model, of people in the act of living. And there was a quote on one of the exhibit walls that most struck me. It said something like, "You can see what people are like inside by looking at them outside when they don't know you're looking."

The quote was actually much better stated than that, but that's the gist of it.

I've been an avid candid photographer for as long as I've been a photographer, but mostly in the family setting. I liked thinking of it more broadly and as I sat on a bench across from the Promod store, I found fascinating people to photograph without giving up my seat (but having to move over a couple of times so more weary travelers could share it).

Here they are:

Thank you, Pierre. And thank you, Lisette.

Ups and downs

There I was, giving directions to the Picasso museum to a French woman -- in French.

It was a little victory.

Another one came when the taxi driver in Nice told me my pronunciation was better than most Americans and then asked why I was learning French anyway because most people from the US are too practical and business-oriented. That may not have been a compliment to some, but it was to me.

That might have been it in three weeks.

Two sweet moments mixed in with a bunch of embarrassing ones like the time pretty much a whole busload of people knew I was hopelessly lost after a woman finally understood where I was going because I said it IN ENGLISH because no one could understand my French and she hollered for the bus driver to let me off in between stops because I was very far from my destination and getting farther by the minute.

I won't list the other times. It would take too much space.

But two victories are enough to give hope. And the other moments were enough to provide motivation.

And what could be more fun than learning a new language and traveling in a foreign country and asking directions -- and giving them?