Write well. Nap. Carry water.

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Over the last four months Ted and I, either separately or together, have been to Texas, Williamsburg, New York, Tampa, Venezuela, St. Thomas, Roanoke, Raleigh, DC and Portland.  It’s been an adventurous several months, logging a few air miles, a few days by sea for Ted, and several hours in the car. Somewhere in the middle of all our coming-and-going, we’ve been working, writing, reading, and doing a few projects around the house. Finally, we are staying put for several weeks. It’s time to hunker down and write more.

During all our travel, I tried to apply a list I made just after returning from Paris last year. I thought I would include that list from my book, Bonjour 40, here. It’s a good guide-to-life even as I settle back into writing more at home.

• Naps on the grass are essential to well-being.
• Walk more. Bike more.
• Learn new languages.
• Dress up a bit, even when alone. Why look shabby?
• Buy fresh flowers now and then.
• A scarf can really change an outfit—for men and women.
• Fresh food is better than packaged food. Always.
• Be more polite.
• Laugh like the English.
• Kiss like the French.
• Always carry wet-wipes.
• Sharing a scene is better than stealing it.
• I can write anywhere.

On his trip to Venezuela (which I will detail in another blog), Ted also learned that carrying fresh water is a good idea. Especially when you’ll be at sea for more than four days. Below are a few pictures from Ted’s trip, including a sunset from the middle of the Caribbean Sea.

What have you learned most from your travels?

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Writing for Change

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What do Gap, Netflix, Verizon, Congress and Komen all have in common? The written word changed the way they do business.

In 2010, Gap launched a new logo design. It was slammed in social media circles for being worse than the original, and Gap dropped it. Last year Netflix and Verizon wanted to change they way they charge customers. Customers revolted and the charges were dropped. Last month, Congress was trying to pass the SOPA legislation, and after what amounted to a 24-hour internet sit-in and letter-writing extravaganza, the bill was withdrawn.

Last week Susan G. Komen for the cure made a decision based on politics instead of women’s health, pulling funding from Planned Parenthood, and enraging women everywhere. So big, so loud, so immediate was the noise and the hit (negative PR to Komen, positively to Planned Parenthood who raised over $650,000 in 48 hours), even Komen executive Karen Handel heard it in the end.

What I loved most about watching all these scenarios wasn’t seeing big organizations and muckety mucks cower under the power of the little people (okay,  I did enjoy that a smidge). What I loved most was it showed how much influence the written word still has, and the potential for positive change it could have. All the above instances show how we made a difference reactively. Now, pick any topic, cause or need, and imagine what we could do if we collectively used our words proactively instead.

What will you write for change?

This post is dedicated to a dear friend, Sharon Rapoport–a Komen volunteer, a Planned Parenthood supporter, copywriter, and a breast cancer survivor. Last week's issue made her sad, angry, conflicted, and overwhelmed with messages from friends and family. It also gave me one more reason to say, Sharon, you inspire me. You handled last week flawlessly, communicating with everyone as only a copywriter can. You wrote honestly. (Photo from July 2010 issue of Valley Business FRONT.)

First Fridays: io studio

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My First Fridays feature is not about a typical artist. She’s not a designer,  yet she creates. She’s not an author,  yet she writes. What she produces, people generally never see, but without it the art wouldn’t be functional. She is Christina Reeser, web developer extraordinaire and owner of io studio.

When Christina speaks about programming and development she sounds like an artist. She’s modest, curious and insightful. She explains widgets, CMS, style sheets and scripting with the enthusiasm of a painter describing the sunset. If she has to modify a dimension, move an element or create a chart it always makes the website look and perform better.

She once told me that programmers are like chefs who “each cook a little differently in their own kitchen.” But when I’ve worked with other developers (some of whom Christina has gladly helped out) and they see her code, they often say, “Wow. I want to swipe this!”

Over 350 websites contain her “DNA,” as she calls it. As a designer craving sites that look like print, Christina is the perfect programmer to help prepare my pages. For just as her tagline says, Christina is where functionality meets form. {Beautifully}

When you visit Christina’s io studio website, I urge you to disregard the design. Instead, go under your browser’s pull-down menu “tools” and look for the site source. There, you’ll find <title>Io Studio, Inc</title> and a full site built in just 29 lines of {beautiful} jquery.

Artists see the world differently. So does Christina. I think it takes a special kind of mind to work in a world like this every day.
The code isn't the only lovely thing about Christina.

Censorship and the Librarian

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I flew to Tampa, Florida yesterday. It seems on most airplane trips, you can generally chat about the weather with your seatmate, or ignore them entirely. Rebecca Neas and I did neither. A school librarian for years, she now helps acquire non-fiction youth books for county libraries near my home. Very early in our conversation, she spoke about the challenge of finding books to educate children without offending those who might believe a book contains inappropriate content. Then she said librarians tend to agree, “Censorship begins and ends at home.” Brilliant. From that point on, I knew we could discuss any book, and so we did for the remaining two hours of the flight.

Her comment and our conversation, made me realize the two reasons why it is that I love reading and books so very much. First, I have to thank people like Rebecca. I remember our librarians throughout my school years excitedly showcasing new finds and classics. They picked books relevant to our lives, to expand what we were reading, or to inspire us. Sometimes it was all three. The second reason is the simple fact that censorship ended in our home. There was no book, genre or subject out of bounds. Books were considered educational, and my parents encouraged us to read anything.  Whether it was Brave New World, The Joy of Sex, The Diary of Anne Frank, or Choose Your Own Adventure tales, we were free to choose. And so it is that reading has always been an adventure.

Is there a book from this banned list you love?

One of my favorites, The Abbey Bookshop, in Paris. It carries English language books focusing on Canadian authors and, well... darn near everything else.

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The Eyes of Texas Are Within Me

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I have eleven colors of paint throughout our three-bedroom house. I’ve thrown the Pantone book at the walls, like painting the living room a dark, glossy chocolate verging on black, and a fireplace in the dining room robin egg blue. Why do I do it? Is it an intense loathing for a beige life? Yes. Is it because I believe I should embrace living my own home, rather than keeping white walls for the next person to buy my house? Yes. But where does my love, and fearlessness, of color come from? It turns out it came from Texas.

I left my Canadian home for San Antonio to study advertising (and escape the great white north) in the 1990s. I lived south for ten years, and this Christmas Ted and I headed there for the holidays. Right away he said, “I guess this is where you discovered color.” The clash of cowboys, deserts, missions, gringos, salsa and Mexico have combined to capture every possible swatch in one place. Indeed, my camera easily captured it, too.

A buttery yellow bursts from cactus, or tints ostrich leather on a mint green cowboy boot. Hand-woven blazing red blankets lay under rich blacks in the same stores that carry stunning hand-dyed Latino dresses. White stone or feathers contrast with some of the bluest skies I’ve ever seen. I guess it was more than just the yellow rose of Texas that opened my eyes to a brilliantly colorful world. Yeehaw!

Tell me, are your walls white, or has color come into your life?  Click here for more pictures, and to see Ted (my Italian from Jersey) in a cowboy hat!

Hand-dyed Latino dresses adorned with embroidery.
Even the whites and blacks help the color of that blue, blue sky stand out.

 

Deep black leather and shiny silver contrast on this brilliant southwest blanket.

Virginia Writer Helps Australians Find Bandit in Paris Crab Shack

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Truly, one of the most remarkable things about writing, and putting it out there for the whole world to read, is when you find out that your words have reached someone around the world. A couple months ago, my book Bonjour 40, about my Paris adventures, went on a blog tour. Over thirty blog writers reviewed the book or interviewed me about it. One of them, called The Eclectic Reader is written by Sheree (Teddyree) of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. What happened from that review is remarkable.

Not long after she featured Bonjour 40 on her blog, Sheree’s sister and her family headed to Paris. Loading her sister up with notes and where-to information gleaned from Bonjour 40, Sheree also got in touch with me to let me know they were going. I got in touch with Dorothée (and her dog, Bandit), who ran the crab shack near the apartment where I stayed in Paris, so they could watch out for Sheree’s family. What happened? Yes, they all met.

Dorothée wrote to say, “They came by and had a drink this afternoon. I knew as soon as they stepped in asked about the crab shack they knew you!” Sheree sent photos of their visit, which allowed me to relive my time with Dorothée and Bandit, too.

More importantly, I realized my book helped make a 10,200 mile trek from Brisbane to Paris more personal for someone who lives about 9,500 miles away from me. And the world turns smaller because of words.

Bandit gives Dorothée a hug at the bar at Le Panier de Crabes during the visit with Sheree's sister. If you'd like to connect with Bandit, he has his own Facebook page. Search for "Le Nain."
Another photo taken during the Australian tour by Sheree's sister. The infamous, writer-haven Shakespeare and Company bookstore. An entire chapter is dedicated to it in Bonjour 40.

 

First Fridays: The Snowflake Man

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For 2012, I made a wish and some resolutions. I wished for a little snow, and I resolved to focus on fewer things and  learn more about my camera and photography. All of those were made because I heard about my First Fridays artist of the month, Wilson Bentley.

A self-educated farmer in Vermont, Bentley was the first person to photograph a single snowflake in 1885 . His obsession with the world of photomicrography and the tiny crystals led him to snap pictures of more than 5000 individual flakes. As you might have guessed, no two were alike. We learned that from Bentley’s work, and so Bentley became known as The Snowflake Man.

At the time that he began his work, he didn’t have all the fancy equipment even little ol’ me has. He rigged up a microscope to a bellows camera, stood out in the cold for hours at a time, sifted through falling flakes and one-by-one captured what fell around him. Bentley said, “It seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others.”

That’s the point of photography, isn’t it? Not just to document the world, but to capture it as you see it so your vision can be shared. Photography expands our world, because like the snowflake, no two viewpoints are alike. What do you hope to see, do or share this year?

You can read more about Wilson Bentley on the museum website  or order a book of his photos while you wish for a few winter flakes.

This undated photo provided by the Carl Hammer Gallery shows one of the snowflakes recorded by Wilson A. Bentley. (AP Photo/Carl Hammer Gallery, Wilson A. Bentley)

 

Wilson Bentley and his bellows camera. Courtesy of Snowflake Bentley Museum.

 

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Merry Christmolidayukkuh

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Do you hear what I hear? The big debate is on. Do you say Merry Christmas? Happy Holiday? Happy Hanukkah? I just want to ask, does it matter? Isn’t the intent is to spread joy and well wishes? I think it’s lovely to wish others happiness. I think it’s nice to say, “Peace on Earth,” and mean it. When winter cold rushes in, I just want to hunker down, have some cocoa, spend time with friends and family, and hug darn near everyone. The sentiment of the season, regardless of beliefs or the words we use to compose our feelings, is love. Let’s all spread a little more of that around throughout the season and the whole year long. With our words. Our photos. Our actions. Our hearts.

Compositions will be off until January 6th. Enjoy the season, however you may celebrate it, with fewer emails from me. See you in the new year. And have a Merry Chrismolidayukkuh everyone!

– Karen

We met this Father Christmas as we toured around Colonial Williamsburg last weekend. At the very least, we should all try be on the nice list.

An Unsubscribed Life

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Around the holidays, there’s always a part of me that wants to make life simpler. This year we decorated a little less. We bought less. We agreed to spend more time together.

In an effort to simplify my online life, I gathered all my websites onto one server. Doing so unleashed a little spam which I finally got under control, but it also made me recognize the amount of email hitting my inbox from retailers, businesses and non-profits–especially during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Had I really signed up for a life where my inbox is filled with more want ads, than notes from friends, family and clients? My days felt more prescribed than subscribed.

Now, instead of clicking through or deleting the emails I don’t have the time to read, I’m taking a few moments to unsubscribe. I don’t need to know that Victoria Secret is selling a bra every week because I have only two boobs, and I will shop when I need to. I don’t need a hotel discount for a place I visited two years ago.

I’m keeping a few newsletters and blogs related to my work or friends, and preferred non-profit updates, so I’m reminded to help others. My hope is this simple life will give me more time with those I love the most. I think that’s the life I’d rather subscribe to. To the rest I say, “And to all a good night.”

How many emails in your inbox each day are “subscriptions?”

How my inbox feels in the morning. A mountain of email, and just hoping to find one from Ted, friends, family or clients.

 

How I want my inbox to feel. A few things to attend to in the distance, clean and clear, with us much more in focus. Both pictures were taken in the Rockies near where I grew up in Canada.

That’s So Peter Mayle

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Part of my research for my trip to France involved reading Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence. It’s delightful and filled with all kinds of hilarious anecdotes about French people, food, weather, and feeling like a foreigner in your chosen home. I love Peter’s writing. He was a copywriter, and so for that reason I also have an affinity for his passionate embrace of life when he moved to France with his wife after fifteen years in the ad business. Now, after reading his book, and being there myself, I can understand the draw.

However, I recently discovered Peter Mayle wrote another widely known book I read in elementary school called Where Did I Come From?  It’s a book written to help explain the “facts of life” to kids whose parents are afraid to even spell s-e-x around them. Millions of copies have been sold, but I am shocked to discover that Peter wrote it. I wonder, did writing that book help Peter to realize that he was from France? If it did, then I really need to go read it again. It would have given me a reason to tell my parents I was suffering through Canadian winters because I was Parisian and we needed to move.

Though the two books could not be more different, I guess it shows me an author can have a wide range. But I don’t know what I’ll think if I find out Agatha Christie helped write Are You There God It’s Me Margaret.

Has a favorite writer of yours ever changed genre, and did you still follow them?

Where Did I Come From? is also available as an African-American edition. Really?! We come from different places? Maan, my parents didn’t tell me anything!

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