Cee’s Black & White challenge this week has the topic “just one of anything.”







The week is half over and I am catching up with Share Your World!
QUESTIONS
When it’s all said and done, will you have said more than you’ve done?
Yes, I’ve already said more than enough.
What does the world need less of?
ignorance
Do you feel older or younger than your age?
Younger in my mind, about my age physically
What is a cause you’ll always passionately support?
There are several but the most important is Sustainability (Environmental responsibility) & Climate Change and everything connected with that: reducing waste, cleaning up the oceans, pollution, renewable energy, recycling, conservation of public lands, saving species from extinction, etc.
Others include economic and racial justice, women’s reproductive health, gun control, voting rights, improving education. I am passionate about a lot of things!!
GRATITUDE SECTION (as always, optional)
What is your personal affirmation if you have one? (for this instance “affirmation means emotional support or encouragement.” )
Fandango’s provocative question #88 is this:
To what degree have you been able to control the course that your life has taken? Or is being in control of your life just an illusion?
I watched a science program the other day that discussed unanswered questions posed by quantum physics, such as the possibility that everything that happens in the universe was predestined at the time of the Big Bang. Other people see it in religious terms, that God has control over us and sees our past, present and future, that God can decide whether to make something happen or not. I don’t believe God controls my life and quantum physics is too confusing for me.
We as human beings don’t have total control over our lives. We might be born in a wealthy, powerful country or in a poor, underprivileged country. Within that country, we are born into a particular race and class, both of which have repercussions in a society – culturally, politically, socially, economically. Within that race and class, we are born into a family that is loving and supportive, one in which there is abuse and violence, one which values education, or one that does not. Then there are individual limitations: inherited or nurtured. We have talent for something but our limitations hold us back. Within all these parameters, we have choice, or a modicum of control. Will we choose to develop our natural talent or pursue a more difficult course? Will we let our physical or mental limitations hold us back or will we overcome them or at least find coping mechanisms?
So yes, I do believe I have had SOME control over my life but a lot has been given to me by being born white, upper middle class, in the United States of America, which in spite of its faults, has provided me with privileges unavailable elsewhere. My parents had the money for me and my siblings to go to college and in our family we never fought over money because we had enough (not an excessive amount, but enough). I have been able to travel due to this. My parents encouraged all of us to pursue careers: whether we were girls or boys, they had the same expectations for us. They did what they could in terms of love and support to make us happy. I was also given intelligence, which is probably largely inherited, although it took motivation to develop and use it to my advantage, something I have not always done. I am lucky to be reasonably healthy, and I can control whether I stay that way – by eating healthy and staying fit – but I can’t control the fact that I have a heart problem inherited from my father. However, having the knowledge of this problem gives me control over how I deal with it. The more education we have, the more knowledge we acquire, the more we can control our lives. I was able to get a master’s degree in teaching and also have acquired knowledge in the ways of the world.
BUT, I did have limitations and caused disappointment for my parents because some of the choices I made were because I was afraid to challenge those limitations. I have often been afraid of decision-making because I have trouble making decisions, so sometimes I made NO decision (which was a decision in itself). I didn’t have to marry my first husband, for example, I shouldn’t have – that was a disappointment; but the second time around I chose a much better match. I chose to have a child with that first husband, who inherited mental illness as well as abuse from his father, which has greatly impeded his life. I chose to change careers in my late 40s, and decided to go into teaching, which in the end was probably not the wisest choice but I did the best I could. Many of the hurdles were beyond my control – discovering I have ADHD, trying to complete as a 50-year-old woman with a master’s degree with 25-year-olds with a undergraduate degree, the emphasis on high stakes testing, bad administrators who weren’t held accountable, the low esteem that our society seems to hold in general for teachers, the negative view of bilingual education (which was my field), etc.
Besides choices, there is attitude. I have always been a more or less optimistic person, believing in positive outcomes, but I am also skeptical by nature because I analyze everything. I try to figure out the “why” of mistakes I’ve made. Not everyone can or will do this. I want to fix problems but within the limitations of my own life, I do control what I choose to do about problems that plague a wider world. I try to get people in my community here to recycle, for example. I can’t control if they actually do it, but I can make myself heard to encourage it. I write letters to people to encourage them to vote. I may be demonstrating in the streets if Trump tries to undermine the results of the election. But I could choose to do none of those things and just live my life doing the things I prefer doing – reading, writing, drawing, etc. Within my own patch of the world, I do have some control.
All alternative paths in life I could have chosen maybe play out somewhere in the universe. But here in 3 dimensions on planet Earth, I look back on my life with some disappointment but mostly with gratitude.
Right now we are living in a very scary time – in the middle of a pandemic with a president who is threatening to overthrow democratic norms in order to make himself dictator or king, as well as all the other things happening – strained race relations, climate change as evidenced by out of control wildfires out west and hurricanes down south (I am fortunate, I guess, to live in the Midwest where neither of these things are happening or are likely to happen), the numbers of people dying from Covid-19 increasing at an alarming rate, etc. It’s easy to think we have very little control over our lives right now. Yet I admit I am pretty secure in my life. But I don’t kid myself that I have total control – it’s only a matter of attitude and choice in how I respond to things that are beyond my control that I have control. Self-control, that’s about it.
Fandango’s Provocative Question this week encourages us to look inward, at ourselves. Fandango writes: I saw this question on a site that offers up a bunch of “deep, philosophical” questions and this one intrigued me. It’s about evolution, but not in the context of Darwin’s evolution of the species. It’s more about evolution of the individual and about who you are and how you change over time. Here’s this week’s question, which is essentially about you. I hope you’ll have fun with it.
Is the concept of “you” continuous or does the past “you” continually fade into the present and future “you”? (Yes, it’s both.) Considering that your body, your mind, and your memories are changing over time, what part of “you” sticks around? (My essence, my soul, my identity).
Now that I’ve answered both questions in brief, I will expand, as I am wont to do!
I once had a revelation about myself that I told my daughter: You may have changed a great deal since childhood, but whatever you were good at and interested in when you were 10 will come back around when you are an adult. Cee’s On the Hunt for Joy challenge has a theme related to this: rediscovering your childhood joys.
For me, it was art (I drew and doodled incessantly) , languages (I fell in love with Spanish in 5th grade), cultures (I was fascinated by the pictures in my parents’ National Geographic magazines), cats (I have always had one as a pet, except when my son had allergies growing up), and writing (I wrote many stories and even a short novel when I was a kid).
Another art form I love is photography, as any reader of my blog knows. I first started taking pictures with a Brownie black & white camera when I was about 10.
In high school, I bought an Olympus SLR and got “serious” about photography. It helped that I had a boyfriend who was a photographer, and he taught me how to develop my black and white pictures. Later I installed my own mini darkroom in the second bathroom of an apartment I lived in in college.
In my late teens and early adulthood, for years I tried to become something that I couldn’t become – a musician (I’m not very talented in music, much as I love it), a best-selling author (I don’t have the discipline), a counselor (I have trouble giving advice on the spot) – and then I dreamed of being something that I could become, but didn’t: a linguist, an anthropologist, a translator at the United Nations – and finally became something I’d thought about in childhood but never thought I could become: a teacher. One of my sisters was a great teacher and she was very patient. I have never been patient.
I wasn’t actually a great teacher. I was, in fact, mediocre as a classroom teacher, and kept losing classroom teaching jobs. I was better at being a “pull-out” resource teacher (teaching ESL and bilingual literacy to smaller groups of students who came to me during their classroom’s literacy time). I was better at this because I didn’t have to worry about 10 things at once and didn’t have to keep track of 20+ kids at the same time. I also love languages and was very passionate about language acquisition and a strong advocate for bilingual education. So that job (where I spent more years and was happy) utilized more of my strengths: using Spanish every day, teaching English as a second language, enthusiasm about learning, working with students, doing creative holiday projects and writing projects with them.
On the other hand, classroom teaching emphasized my weaknesses – midway through my teaching career, I found out I have ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder). This is not a good thing to have if you are a teacher but at least I knew it wasn’t because I was a failure – at discipline, executive functioning, at remembering to send in my attendance every morning, at trying but never succeeding at being organized. This diagnosis helped me become more accepting of who I am and not ashamed of what I am not.
Now I’m happily retired and doing the things I used to spend hours doing when I was a kid: drawing, writing, learning foreign languages, pursuing intellectual interests such as politics, international affairs, and traveling (I didn’t do these last few much as a kid, although I have fond memories of family trips and I never avoided controversial topics with my parents, which didn’t always work out very well). I love other cultures and seeing new things.
These interests have always been a part of me, even though I have evolved a great deal in my journey of self-discovery. I’m not so hard on myself as I used to be. Finding out about having ADHD was a revelation about my entire life – why it was hard for me to make new friends, why I daydreamed so much, why I talked out of turn in school, why I was a “slow reader” (I wasn’t slow – I just got distracted so that by the time I had finished a page, I couldn’t remember what I’d read and had to go back and read it again), and why I was constantly losing things.
Besides the self-discovery that comes with maturity, I look back at my life and sometimes feel I really haven’t changed that much. I’m still me. I sometimes think I’m still that girl I was in high school. I still have the same soul, which I will have until my dying day. I carry buried memories and emotions of the last 68 years in my brain, but I can’t remember what I ate for lunch yesterday, because that doesn’t matter. I have a good life – everything I need and much of what I want. I’ve been lucky, I know that and I am grateful.
I found this challenge on Melanie B. Cee’s (sparksfromacombustiblemind) blog and it struck me as interesting. This challenge comes originally from Xandria, a blogger I didn’t know before. 10 favorite feelings? Could I really find so many favorite feelings? (That is, not feelings I have that I don’t like, but ones I love to have.) When I started writing them down, I found that I could name MORE than 10 and barely had room on the post-it note for them all to fit!
“Feelings” can be interpreted in different ways, as I saw reading some of the participants’ posts for this challenge. I am going to use emotions as my basis for writing this. My blog’s name, Wanderlust and Wonderment, are two of the feelings I love most! But I will name 10 more here.
It’s Wednesday, which means Fandango asks his provocative question of the week!
Are you the same person on your blog as you are in real life? Do you like yourself more in the virtual world than you do in the real world?
I’m not much good at pretending and I am generally quite open about my life, in reality and on my blog. But I do hold back some details online because you never know who’s trolling out there in cyberspace. My blog name is not, of course, my real name, but it is related to it. Some people who follow me more diligently (ahem!) probably know my name, but usually on my blog, people just refer to me as “Amoralegria.” Anyone who speaks Spanish or Portuguese knows what this means, and its English equivalent is my maiden last name.
Swan love
Although I enjoy answering the questions posts online, like this weekly provocative question or Share Your World, I tend to show my best self on my blog and I won’t finish them if I don’t like what I wrote. I have done a lot of writing, but I find that written posts don’t get as many hits, so if I do write a narrative about something, I add photos, either my own or from Google. I learned this in a summer weeklong seminar about writing online. I do in fact love to write, and most people who have read my stuff say it’s good. For most of my life, I wanted to become a writer, but realized it was too much trouble, so I just do it for me, or for this blog, or my writing group.
I tend to put my best foot forward on here – I do a lot of photo challenges, because I get more hits, and I usually search for the most appropriate photos from my vast collection of photos, so I make sure to feature the “best” ones. Anyone who has seen the photos I post would probably say I’m a decent or average photographer, which is how I see myself. I don’t have a fancy camera with lots of zoom lenses nor good photo software, and don’t know if I would take the time to really get good at using it if I did. Still, I love photography and have been doing it since I was a kid.
My first daffodils at our new house
I am a creative person, which other bloggers (hopefully) have noticed by now: my three best talents are writing, drawing and photography. Of the three, I’m probably best at drawing, but I rarely post the drawings I do. If I thought that working to perfect any of these things would earn me lots of followers and “hits,” I probably would work on it. However, because I have ADHD, I get gung-ho on projects but don’t finish the majority of them.
Disorganized hotel room
As a blogger, I thrive on comments and likes, and in general, I get the best response from “photo essays” – writing a narrative with more photos than writing, and the photos support the theme. I think this is true of me in real life, also – I thrive on positive comments from other people. This is primarily because I am insecure and don’t believe in my abilities, so I depend on others to boost my ego.
On my blog, I tend to give people what past feedback has told me they want. And that’s photography. Since I always have at least my cellphone with me, I’m happy to oblige. I take a LOT of photos.
I have occasionally written exceptionally good posts – ones that I’m proud of – after I’ve worked hard on putting them together, sometimes over several days, but if they are not in response to a writing or photo challenge, I seem to get few likes. So I’m discouraged from doing it more often. This is the same in real life – appreciation motivates me to continue. I also do it as a legacy for future generations in my family.
I enjoy blogging and that’s why I do it. Many likes or few likes, I keep doing it. Really and virtually.
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge’s topic this week is needs to have the letter K anywhere in the word.
Korazim (also called Chorazin) National Archaeological Site in northern Israel
Katy (yours truly!) at Korazim
Katy’s drawing of a kitty
Kinderdijk – town of windmills in the Netherlands
Naschmarkt food market, Vienna, Austria
Kitten in Israel (we saw many felines in Israel, but this one was so little and so needy for affection!)
Karnak – one of the most important ancient Egyptian temple sites on the Nile
Obelisks at Karnak
Egyptian obelisk in Paris that originally came from Karnak
Kid at orchid show (Chicago Botanic Gardens)
Karibu Sana! (Swahili for “You are very welcome”) – on our last night in Tanzania, the cooks at the safari camp made us a cake and sang.
And here’s a video, just for fun…
Khachaturian, Waltz from Masquerade
Debbie at Travel With Intent has a weekly photo challenge called One Word Sunday. This week the theme is feet.
Kitty feet!
Egyptian geese feet
Camel feet
My feet – on a beach in Rio de Janeiro
I’m sad to say…here’s what one of my feet looks like now! 😮
I’ve actually done several drawings of feet – this is one of them.
“Ballet Feet” (circa 1970) – pencil on drawing paper
Tina Schell from Lens-Artists has posted beautiful pictures of the Southwest (USA) for Photo Challenge #40’s theme Something Different. I looked into my archives for photos I don’t quite what to do with, for my own take on Something Different, and found some weird stuff!
When I was still teaching, I had software installed on my school computer called “Photo Booth.” There were lots of different things you could do with photos on this software, so I was fooling around after school one day and came up with this weird, distorted picture of me. I call it “Fish.”
This may look like poop from many animals, but actually these are roots of a tree that I saw in San Antonio, TX.
Who takes photos of soap chips? Well, I did once.
One of the few times my stepdaughter allowed me into her apartment, I took this photo of all the shoes she possessed lined up behind the sofa.
Here are the questions for Share Your World this week and my answers:
What’s the first thing you notice about a person?
What they are wearing, especially the color, if it’s someone I know – this is subconscious but if I see that color later, I will think it’s that same person. On the conscious level, if it’s a stranger, basically what they look like: their gender, approximate age, and their race. I also notice what they are wearing, especially if it something I especially like or that I think looks awful on them! Race is generally obvious, I’m still pretty good at guessing the age of someone under 15, but gender these days is not always obvious.
What three habits do you feel would improve someone’s life?
“Early to bed and early to rise,” to quote that old adage.
Drink lots of water.
Appreciate the natural world and count your blessings.
Now if you ask do I follow these three good habits, I can only say I strive to do the last two, but the first one is problematic for me. I go to bed later than I could but I’m retired! If I have to get up to go somewhere by 9-10 in the morning, I grumble about having to rush!
What takes up too much of your time? Would you stop that if you could?
Playing word games on my phone. Even as I’m doing it, I’m telling myself to stop but I don’t. It is an addiction! I have a bad habit of wasting my evenings this way instead of blogging or writing, or watching something worthwhile on TV.
Cookies (biscuits to those elsewhere), pastries, pie or cake? If not, what does your sweet tooth crave?
Cookies and brownies, or anything chocolate. Oh, and ice cream! But please, no peanut butter in anything sweet! My favorite brownies are the ones my niece makes for Christmas every year, with peppermint frosting. I also have a weakness for M&Ms.
Gratitude? Are You Happy? If so, why? If not, why not?
I am happy and blessed with what I have. I know I am lucky to have enough money to live comfortably and travel, to have a good and faithful husband, and reasonably good health.