Beauty Refreshers: Photographer and Noticer Mary Jo Hoffman

Mary Jo Hoffman inspires me. Her book STILL: The Art of Noticing is now out. Look at some of the images here.

It's been more than 12 years since Mary Jo committed to a daily art project where she finds something in nature that inspires her. She photographs it (often in a collage) and posts it on her blog and Instagram. That is more than 4,500 days. She says "the art of dailiness" has changed her so she is often in a state of creative noticing or deep play. She made it simple enough to fit around family life. She found through this practice that the process is sacred, not the results.

Image by Monicelli / Phaidon

She graciously answered my question, What do you want to give the world?

"I would say the most important things I want to give the world are the following:

1) I believe that art is an energy transference from the artist to the viewer. When I share my art, I hope to pass on my wonder and awe at our natural world;

2) I created STILL with an implicit promise that it would be a quiet corner of the internet that my viewers could visit when they felt a need for simplicity and beauty.

3) Finally, I hope to inspire my viewers to see their own environments with new eyes. Nothing makes me happier than finding a new way to present the most ordinary of subjects, so that it catches people by surprise and reminds them how much beauty they are surrounded by every day, wherever they happen to be."

Image by Monicelli / Phaidon

She shares her idea of radical incrementalism and how we can tap into our creativity by doing a little bit every day in a podcast with Julie Berman of Woman with Cool Jobs. Watch a short video from six years ago (when she was only at 3,000 photos) to catch a vision of her vision (and how she shared it with her family).  

Image by Monicelli / Phaidon

Put Yourself in the Path

Bill reserved a hotel room for April 7 in Fort Smith, Arkansas almost a year ago. Eight hours away. Because it was on the edge of The Path of Totality.

I wondered if that was a famous rock band.

No. It’s the last full solar eclipse in the United States until 2045. Hotels closer to us in “The Path” had already sold out. As a photographer, Bill started buying special filters, borrowing cameras and tripods, and researching f-stops and time lapses.

I wondered what there was to do and eat in Fort Smith.

We don’t usually plan anything that far in advance. But when you reach our age, if you’re going to do something, you can’t wait until the “next time,” especially if it’s 21 years away. I was glad Bill researched so I could just go along for the ride wearing an awkward shoulder wedge sling after shattering my shoulder.

Would 16 hours on the road, wounded and weary, be worth it?

People tried to describe the difference between being in a partial and total eclipse. Annie Dillard wrote, “Seeing a partial eclipse bears about the same relation to seeing a total eclipse as kissing a man does to marrying him, or as flying in an airplane does to falling out of an airplane.”

I tried to stay open-minded.

On our way, we found a room in Little Rock. It cut off two hours of our drive. Other people on the hotel elevator whispered to us, “Are you here for the eclipse, too?”

So, maybe it really was a thing.

Bill figured out the best places in the area to see the eclipse. Two key factors: a wide view of the sky and access to bathrooms. The next morning, in a quiet park on the Arkansas River, Bill set up three cameras on tripods. At 9:30 a.m. there was one other car. The eclipse would begin about 12:30 p.m. and hit totality at 1:52 p.m.

By 1:30 p.m. it looked like a low-key SEC tailgate party.

Almost every parking space was filled. People set out camp chairs, cranked up music, and passed around snacks. Kids played tag. Parents scrolled on their phones. 

Bill handed me mylar eclipse sunglasses (much better than the flimsy paper ones below). I put them on. The world went dark. I could see nothing except the sun. At 12:30 p.m. I noticed the slightest dent on the lower right side of the full circle of the sun. By 1 p.m. it looked like a pitted olive. At 1:30 p.m., a crescent moon. By 1:40, the sun looked like a thin toenail clipping.

But as I took off my glasses and looked around the park, everything appeared the same. The sun was that strong. If I didn’t know what was happening, I’d wonder why people were looking up at the sky in those weird glasses.

But then, at about 1:50, with more than 97 percent of the sun blocked, the light changed. It was like looking into a fish tank with an eerie green-gray thick algae glow. The street lamps popped on. The air cooled. The birds settled. The crickets chirped. The sky turned deep indigo blue. Cheers, gasps, and claps erupted in ripples up and down the riverbank. I took off my glasses, looked up, and nearly dropped to my knees.

My eyes welled with tears.

The moon won, sliding over the sun, and locking a lid on it. Then in a few seconds, I saw the perfect circle halo glow. Almost as quickly, the sun glinted out the other side, like a glittering diamond ring.

I looked around. Sunset glowed along the edges of every horizon. Burnt orange flames along the edges of the world with the rest of the sky a deepening cobalt blue bowl with a pulsating white ring at the top. (Here's a Facebook link to an image from Brandon Bodendorfer who recorded the 360-degree sunset.)

The drama only lasted 2.5 minutes.

Then the lights flipped back on. Street lamps turned off. Birds flew. Some people stood in a daze. Most started packing up. A woman next to us looked at her watch.

“We’d better go. The restaurants will be packed.”

All eclipse photos by Bill Carroll

We kept watching through our eclipse glasses as the moon slid off the sun for the next 45 minutes with the same half-moon shapes in the opposite direction. Then we packed the gear and drove home through hours of eclipse traffic all converging on the bridge over the Mississippi River in Memphis.

Had it been real?
 
We had the photos to prove it. If not, even though I had been there, I may have doubted it. My too-distracted life with its all-important to-do’s may have tried to check it off or box it in. I’m glad we made it an “event,” and we let ourselves pause and experience it.
 
It was worth it.
 
But it made me think. What other holy moments have I missed or dismissed?  How can I let myself be awed by our supernatural universe? There’s not much time left to put myself in the path of wonder. Maybe I need to create an "awe-some" app to schedule and record those moments, especially the simple ones close by. Take wonder walks with my macro-lens camera. Clap at sunsets. Breathe in fresh basil. Relish every bite of warm chocolate chip cookies. Listen to baby giggles. Play with golden retrievers.

Don't wait until the next time. 
 
When have you experienced a moment of awe or wonder that took your breath away or changed you? How will you put yourself in the path?

Ruminating on Ruminating

I learned a new word. 

Perseverate. 
 
To repeat something insistently or redundantly. To get stuck, to ruminate, to loop back over and over. And over.
 
As in, “My 91-year-old mother perseverated.” 
 
My mom passed away a year ago. But I’m still haunted by echoes of her three looping ruminations. And my robotic responses. 
 
“I’m going blind.” 
 
“I’m so sorry you have blurry vision, Mom. But all your eye sub-specialists have told us you have one healthy eye and you’re not going blind. No matter what, we will take care of you.”
 
“I guess I’ll eat that and get fat. I used to watch my weight, but I just don’t care anymore.”
 
“Mom, remember the doctor ordered you to gain weight because you were way too thin and it was bad for your health and brain. You’re still so tiny but I’m glad you’re healthier.”
 
“It is hell getting old. Why doesn’t God just take me now?”
 
“I’m sorry, Mom. I know it’s hard, but we’re glad you’re here with us.”
 
It’s like a broken record in an alternate universe. When you say this, I say this. 
 
Over and over and over again. 

Those perseverations crushed me. There was nothing I could do to help her. 
 
It makes me wonder what I will perseverate about in a few years. 
 
It’s in my DNA. I too deal with doubts, cynicism, negative self-image, and fears for my health, family, and aging. My unfiltered ruminations will be filled with apologies and worries. 
 
“I am so sorry for taking all your time and causing you all this trouble.”
“Are you okay? Have I made you angry?”
“How are my kids? Are they safe?”
 
I had lots of time to observe the different personalities in Mom's retirement village. Everybody has customized ruts. I’m trying to re-groove my brain now so when it inevitably falls into ruts, they will be these: 
 
Gratitude 
To rearrange my DNA of gloom and doom, I keep a daily gratitude journal and snap iPhone photos of small happies. I try to express thanks in concrete ways to people around me. I say “I love you” whenever I can (a tiny bit less enthusiastically than Buddy the Elf). I picture myself in the nursing home with the staff saying, “Watch out, here comes the hugger.”
 
Wonder 
I fear bitterness more than blindness. Even as my eyesight fails, I want to live in wonder. To pay attention, clap at all the small, beautiful details in creation, and embed the truth of God’s steadfast love deep in my soul. as I face the unavoidable suffering, The nursing home staff will roll their eyes and point at me, “There’s that crazy lady clapping at a caterpillar again.” 
 
Compassionate Curiosity
I want to know people’s stories, not to be intrusive, but to understand and connect. I want to keep asking “after them,” and find ways to affirm them. The folks caring for me will be disappointed if I don’t ask, “How can I pray for you?” 
 
JESUS
I want to end up like the joke about the Sunday School answer. It’s always Jesus. I have been around old saints who weep as they whisper the name of Jesus. O Lord, help me to love you more and more. 
 
Ruminating and perseverating about Jesus? That gives me hope as I age. Because each day it means I'm one day closer to home.
 
And I too will be saying, “O Lord, take me now!”
 
Many of you also care for aging parents or perseverating “loopers.” It’s hard. Maybe like me, it surfaces all sorts of fears of what it will be like when you reach that stage. May God be with you. 
 
If it’s inevitable that we will end up in a rut of rumination, what do you want to ruminate on?

How Will We Emerge? My Turn

How will we emerge? That’s the question I’m asking myself and others in this “unprecedented” year. That’s the question I challenge you to ask yourself. There are lots of presumptions in this question:

• An acknowledgement that we’re in epic times that’s going to change our world and us.

• An optimism that there will be a “coming out on the other side” of all these global health, social justice, and political pandemics. An optimism that it will be in 2021.

• The hope that “we” will come out. Not just “me” against “you.”

• The reality that in the midst of what we have no control of, there are a few things we can control. What are the small (or big) ways you personally want to come out of this? What are you learning? What good or hard things have surfaced? How do you want your life / faith / heart / work / relationships to be different? 

If I tune into the daily news or read the statistics, that question ripples through me with uncertainty and fear. If I lay the uncontrollable “we” down, and focus on me, I can answer. I want to emerge with some “more” in a year filled with “less.”

More kind

I entered this quarantine with the mantra “Be kind to yourself.” I’ve needed to hear that on repeat. During these 10 months, I’ve lost the ability to juggle more than a few things a week. And I don’t need my inner critic berating me for that.

These months exposed that I live in a system which benefits me at the expense of others. It’s revealed that I’m all for you doing well as long as it doesn’t affect my bank account or my children’s future.  I pray I emerge more generous and willing to welcome others to share in my privilege.

As conflicts and divisions increased this year, especially in the church and among family and friends, my mantra shortened to “Be kind.” I want to emerge, by the grace of God, without breaking relationships or avoiding people who believe differently than I do. In a world where so many are loudly “right,” how can I quietly love?

More resilient

My physical and mental fall-apart accelerated in lockdown. I damaged my knee, fractured my tooth, had a scary reaction to wasp stings, gained some of the infamous pandemic pounds, and slid into the gray jello of depression. Courage is choosing to keep coming back even if I’m three steps further behind each time, (hobbling, swollen, with a snaggle-tooth smile). This pandemic has made me accept the fact I’m not going to win any races, but I want to keep stumbling forward, even if I could be hired as an extra in a zombie movie.

More grateful

The small-big things this year fill me with thankful wonder: That in this quarantine our kids are neither toddlers nor teens. (My prayers for all the parents and teachers in the thick of it.) That our son spent time with us as he worked remotely. That my 88-year-old mom has been safe. For a camera and how it slows me down to see the beauty around me. For walks with my husband and our dog, both who still like me after lockdown. For a safe neighborhood to walk in and a home to return to—a home with electricity, air conditioning, indoor plumbing, and two-ply toilet paper. For fresh food in the stores and too many good books to read and listen to. For a future with in-person concerts, spontaneous unmasked get-togethers, and worship services where we can sit side by side and “sing loudly (and in my case, poorly) for all to hear” without fear of spreading disease.

Thank you, Jesus, that nothing this year surprises you and good will come from what you’re doing inside of me—inside of all of us—this unprecedented season. More than anything, I want to emerge more deeply in love with you, Jesus. And to relish the reality that you love me right where I am (even if it’s huddled up with Netflix and my stash of dark chocolate peanut butter cups) in these hard and holy moments.