Etchings {A Bigger Picture Moment}

Children's Barracks, Auschwitz-Birkenau

Sunday, May 13.
Oświęcim, Poland.

Excerpt from my journal:

I pulled my cold fingers out of my coat pocket to touch the outlines of children’s names and the etchings of their imaginations that lined the stone walls and wooden bedboards. I traced my fingertips and felt the jolt of their cries, their fright, their hope and despair. I touched it again and again, and it was as if I touched their fingertips to mine.

My fingers, still useless to help them, these children who could not be saved.

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,
but by the moments that take our breath away.”
- Author Unknown

What moments stole your breath away this week?

Each Thursday, we come together to celebrate living life with intention by capturing a glimmer of the bigger picture through a simple moment. Have you found yourself in such a moment lately? Share it with us!

Live. Capture. Share. Encourage.

This week we’re linking up at Alita’s!

A New Way of Seeing

Around the dinner table, during coffee breaks, on long garden walks, and over hot kitchen stoves, we’ve been talking. Here we meet in Berlin, Toby and I and his parents, all transplants from sunny southern California, now living in Asia and Europe. And repeatedly the conversation turns back to comparisons: how convenient life was in the States while here it takes hours to get any errand accomplished; the greater access to culture and history and ease of travel in Europe; the unparalleled food and low cost of living in Thailand; transparency on one side, polarized politics on the other; to-die-for fashions and dreamy weather juxtaposed against injustices and stilted freedoms.

We see America differently from having lived abroad, now appreciating some things we used to take for granted, yet also taking taking advantage of other things we previously could not access.

This trip to Germany is not my first, but I’m getting the sense it will be a first. It’s my first time coming here after living in Asia. Where once, from the perspective of a flight from LAX to Tegelhof, stepping on German soil felt exotic and foreign, now it feels comfortingly familiar – so much so I’m often caught by surprise by the fact that I don’t speak the language and that I have to re-learn basic things like how much to tip and to stop smiling so much at strangers.

And this trip to Europe will actually be my longest stay in Europe yet. Instead of just popping by, I’m getting an opportunity to truly immerse. You orient yourself differently when you know you will be in a place for just a few days versus several weeks. It’s a different way of traveling; a different way to be.

Henry Miller once said, “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”

I wonder whether and how a month in Eastern Europe will change my way of seeing. Already I begin to sense the addition of more cultural milieus into my thoughts, awareness, and orientation. I begin to sense that the more you’ve been everywhere, the less you begin to fit in anywhere.

But that’s okay. If the world is a book, I’d prefer to read the whole story, not just one page.

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,
but by the moments that take our breath away.”
- Author Unknown

What moments stole your breath away this week?

Live. Capture. Share. Encourage.

This week we’re linking up at Sarah’s!

Tropical Rain

If all goes to plan, by the time you read this, I’ll be safely enveloped in the arms of family – in Berlin!

By all that was well-advised, I shouldn’t have gone there. I should have just walked across the street to our friendly neighborhood restaurant for lunch, so I could be in and out and back home tackling my to-do list in less than 45 minutes.

But instead, I followed craving and curiosity, and drove twenty minutes towards the busy end of town, through lunch traffic, hunted for parking, and walked the extra blocks to get to the ramen restaurant I’ve been meaning to try.

And by the time I parked, a hot day and turned into a rainy day, and just as I pulled my key from the ignition and opened my door, torrential rain began to pour.

{Lucky for me, I keep no less than 4 umbrellas in my car.}

{That’s a sign of experience.}

It was a good lunch, even if my sandle-clad feet were a bit dirty and wet. But, if I hadn’t have gone all the way there, to that restaurant, and sat in that table, and got the bright idea to try to catch the above photo out the window behind me…

…I also wouldn’t have caught this photo, one of my favorite reminders that I live in Thailand.

Yes, that is a truck bed full of passengers bearing umbrellas in an optimistic, if futile attempt to stay dry. Second only to the passengers bearing umbrellas on motorcycles in the rain.

Such a simple thing really. A tiny, insignificant moment. But it makes me smile.

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,
but by the moments that take our breath away.”
- Author Unknown

What moments stole your breath away this week?

Live. Capture. Share. Encourage.

This week we’re linking up at Melissa’s!

Age {A Bigger Picture Moment}

This week, we’re joining the party at Momalom, where they are hosting a 5 for 5 party. Five topics, for five days. The prompt for today is AGE. So please feel free to set your ruminations this week on “age,” link up here, and then link up at 5 for 5!

In a little over a month, I turn 32. What does this mean? Scientifically speaking, I suppose it means I’ve hit my sexual peak and am moving towards an age marked by reduced fertility. Gray hairs have started to weave their way through my tresses, which are not as thick as they once were. My skin is not as vibrant or taut, my ability to shed weight even less remarkable. Where I might have once enjoyed a few nights on the town, drinking with large groups of friends in loud bars, I now drink in the joy of a smooth cocktail sipped in a quiet lounge, or even a night in.

I remember when life in high school was my frame of reference for most any topic of conversation. Then it became college. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen myself in the faces of college undergrads. They all seem so young to me now.

I recently read David Sedaris’s memoir, Me Talk Pretty One Day, and spent most of it wondering how the hell he remembers all that crap from childhood. Most of my memories have long since faded. Years gained, people and moments lost.

BUT.

At 32, I’ve grown comfortable in my own skin. I know what’s important to me (family, words, travel, creativity, food, new and enriching experiences), and I know what is not (convention, status symbols, money for its own sake). I revel in simple joys more, and more often. I know I have a lot of opinions and ideas and I don’t hesitate to voice them. I know I have the right to be heard and, after many silent years, I’ve now found my voice and I intend to use it. I encourage others to shed their own barriers preventing them from the full realization of self. I know, too, that my opinions are nothing more than that. In fact the older I get, the more I know I don’t know. But I’m okay with ambiguity.

I have a loving husband, a sweet dog, and a large, caring family that extends in many directions. I have a life in which I’ve insisted on pursuing my dreams – even as they and I have changed.

I have many miles left to walk yet and many more destinations to reach, but I’ve never been more comfortable, ready, happy, fulfilled, and proud to be me.

Don’t forget to link up at Momalom’s Five for Five too!

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,
but by the moments that take our breath away.”
- Author Unknown

What moments stole your breath away this week?

Live. Capture. Share. Encourage.

This week we’re linking up HERE!

Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…

That Thing I’m Not Sure I Want to Talk About

Or more aptly put: a post about the fact that nothing is happening. But one, some dear friends encouraged me to share this; two, bigger picture moments aren’t always a celebration, but are rather a marking or noticing of time; and three, sometimes the things that make you want to hide under your writer’s desk are precisely the things you need to write about. So here it goes.

Warning: if you don’t like reading about “women stuff” you might want to go ahead and skip this post.

The calendar pages flip ever inexorably towards May, an innocuous month as far as months go, except for the niggling little reminder in the back of my head that in May of last year, my husband and I decided we were ready to officially go “TTC.” I was gung-ho about it at first, marking and timing, tracking and predicting every possible sign of fertility with scientific precision – I got that doctorate for something right? – until it began to dawn on me that a decade of artificial hormones would not leave my body without a trace, as I suffered the worst cramps of my life and bleeding sufficient enough to send me to the doctor convinced I was having an early miscarriage. (I’d read all about them on WebMD.) A consultation, ultrasound, and internal examination later, the doctor calmly explained to my very red face that what I was experiencing was called my period, otherwise known as menstruation.

I gave up tracking and just submitted myself to the wait for my body to regain some sense of decorum. But the months were ticking by. The more time passed, the more normal my body became, but closer we were getting to Things We’d Like to Do If I Don’t Get Pregnant. Like travel to Hong Kong in January. That trip came and went. Now it’s flying to Berlin to visit Toby’s family. This fall, it will be a trip back home to the States to visit family, go to a writer’s conference, and take part in our friends’ wedding. It’s a tricky time where, if I don’t get pregnant, we get to do awesome and important (to us) things. But that means I will still be walking around sans bebe. It leads to an awkward stage where we’re trying, but kind of not.

This trying-but-not-very-hard means I don’t know if I actually have a fertility issue, or if we’ve just managed to avoid getting me pregnant. It also means I’m left wondering if, despite all doctors’ claims that it is a nonissue, the pill was a bad choice after all and maybe I should have stuck with options that didn’t involve messing with hormonal imbalances. {Insert guilt.} I also wonder if, irony of ironies, waiting those years to get educated, financially secure, settled in marriage, and emotionally ready to be great parents meant I missed the fertility window for motherhood. {Did I mention guilt?} And I wonder if the fact that we want to take these trips to visit family we haven’t seen in nearly two years means I’m still putting selfish desires in front of a (hypothetical) baby and therefore still unready to be a mother. {Oh hai, Mme. Guilt! Come sit by me.}

Most days, I try not to think about it and what with moving to a foreign country, a healthy supply of visitors, working on my book, and doing work with SOLD, I’ve had enough on my plate to keep me distracted. But then I’ll be in the grocery store and spy a colorful little worktable and imagine myself sitting down with a large-eyed, towheaded son or daughter and a palette of paints or scrap wood dino construction kit and I feel a twinge. Or I’ll see a sakura bloom sling and imagine our little one in a sling of our own, and there that twinge is again. Or I’ll look at my husband and wonder what blend of his features and mine we would produce, and the twinge becomes more like an ache.

Most days, I manage not to be too worried, thinking we still have time, and we’ll get really serious about trying after our trip in the fall. I know there are fertility clinics too, and options. This isn’t the 1800’s where a woman having difficulty getting pregnant is labeled “barren.”

But some days that word, barren, is exactly how I feel.

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,
but by the moments that take our breath away.”
- Author Unknown

What moments stole your breath away this week?

Live. Capture. Share. Encourage.

This week we’re linking up at Hyacynth’s!

Growing A New Kind of Life

I’m not sure if this post falls specifically within the purview of Bigger Picture Moments, but it is something I would love to share. One of the surprises of my life here working with an NGO is that I find myself meeting some fantastically inspiring people from all kinds of walks of life: from grassroots community leaders, to governmental and inter-governmental officials, on down to brave children…and even to farmers.

This week my friends and I had the opportunity to go visit a farm about an hour’s drive away from Chiang Mai, where local farmers have created a cooperative to offer an organic and sustainable alternative to the industrial model of agriculture, much like American farmers who are trying to get away from corporations like Monsanto and their business practices. Ugh, that is so technical and dry-sounding, isn’t it? Here, let me show you what I saw:

We met a young Thai farmer, Ahn, who had grown up on a farm, working with his parents. He had left farm life to go to the city and get a university degree, but after completing his education, instead of staying in the city where he could get a high-paying job, he decided to go back to help his parents work the farm.
His father had worked in agriculture his entire life as well, as had his forefathers before him, but he started to get sick. The doctor said he was getting sick because of the chemicals he was working with. The family decided then to switch to more organic processes, using things like fermented bananas and sugar mixtures instead of pesticides.

And instead of devoting fields to just one cash-crop like corn (and thus damaging the soil and environment in the name of profit), they engage in biodiversity practices, growing pineapples next to the santol fruits, herbs and veggies together next to rice paddies. It helps them out too, because if a year is bad for one particular crop, there is usually something else to harvest and sell. (By the way, did you know that pineapples grow on a small plant that takes up to two years to develop and it only produces one pineapple at a time? Crazy.)

Ahn’s family is just one of a cooperative of 500 families (over 1,500 people) who decided to eschew the industrial model and go back to tradition. At first, they were unorganized and had no idea about how to work within the laws and faced a multitude of complexities. But they decided to join forces, share their wealth of knowledge and experience to learn from each other, and they have regular meetings where they invite other experts to discuss issues they run into. When we had arrived, for example, they were holding a meeting to discuss carbon emissions and how to reduce them.

The other fascinating part of their project is, not only do they sell at local markets, they’ve started a program of selling weekly crates to individuals. For a 10-week subscription of 2000 baht ($67), you can get a 2′x3′x1′ (think big Rubbermaid container) crate of fresh fruits and vegetables delivered once a week. The produce changes depending on what’s seasonal, but the market value remains constant.

I just love hearing about and seeing this kind of thing. I find it so inspiring to see individuals stand up against corporate (or other) practices that they find harmful or unethical and forge a path that is more in line with their own sense of ethics and well-being. I love seeing people stand up and say, “This is my life and I will live it the best way I can.” I love seeing people empower themselves, and it’s so amazing to see this kind of courage, maturity, and leadership from someone so young.

This Thai farmer we met, who was so eloquent, hard-working, and determined? He is just 27 years old.

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,
but by the moments that take our breath away.”
- Author Unknown

What moments stole your breath away this week?

Live. Capture. Share. Encourage.

This week we’re linking up at Alita’s!

If you’d like to learn more about the cooperative, there is an article here.

An Intentional Life: Written {A Bigger Picture Moment}

Living life with intention isn’t always easy. Sure, with a little practice and desire, you can be intentional about the big things. Big plans, big actions. It’s the little moments that get hard – because you’re distracted, and they’re small, so do they really matter? But eventually all the little moments begin to tot up and you have to wonder if too many little pieces, fine enough by themselves, are together creating a picture you wouldn’t necessarily choose. I always appreciate these weekly Bigger Picture Moments, for they are a call and a reminder to take a step back and ask myself whether the momentary is really in line with what I want for the momentous.

And this week, I realize I haven’t been approaching my writing with much intention lately. Since I finished writing the draft of my novel, it’s been harder to get immersed in my writing. (Editing is a very different kind of beast.) I write almost every day: blog posts, more blog posts, timed writings, presentations, emails, and comments, and notes in the margins. Almost every day I’m creating something. But I find I’ve had too many days…too many weeks!…where I’ve just shoved my writing into the crooks and crevices between point A and point B.

That’s good – to an extent. I’m writing, even when it’s hard and I have to eke the words onto the page, like tears when you’re too defeated to cry. But it has been too long since I really engaged with my own words or since I tried to see if I have something to say other than just something.

So this Saturday, I’m taking a writer’s retreat. I’m shutting off the computer, logging off from the internet, and unplugging to go play with words. I’ll bounce around from cafe to park to home, wherever I need to be to say welcome to Miss Muse. I’m officially inviting her on a date.

Do I have chores to do? Yes. Things on the to-do list? Of course. Deadlines approaching? Yeah…don’t remind me. Because this is at least as important as that, and I know I’ll regret it if I relegate myself to writing only in the cracks.

Right then. Tally ho!

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,
but by the moments that take our breath away.”
- Author Unknown

What moments stole your breath away this week?

Live. Capture. Share. Encourage.

This week we’re linking up at Sarah’s!

The Hummingbird

We took a trek out to a hidden temple far outside the city, where a large white Buddha sat atop a hill

and looked down upon the valley below.

We had to climb a long, long staircase up the side of steep terrain. I might have grumbled about the fact that one must always work for one’s enlightenment.

But there was peace up there. And tranquility. A stilling of the soul as the air around us quieted. Monks shuffled past in saffron robes, watering plants and feet in the cool evening light.

And there were flowers, blooming in abundance.

A pretty sight in any case, but there amongst the bougainvilleas we saw him. The hummingbird in his nest who stood watch over his home.

Photo by Toby Keller

I expected him to leave, to take flight in fright from these intruders occupying his space. But he didn’t. He watched us as we crept closer to observe him and marvel in the wonder of standing so close to something so fleeting. We could only imagine that he stayed because, there, the monks had never bothered him. Experience won out over natural instinct.

It occurred to me then that one can see such magical things, when one comes from a place of trust.

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,
but by the moments that take our breath away.”
- Author Unknown

What moments stole your breath away this week?

Live. Capture. Share. Encourage.

This week we’re linking up at Melissa’s!

{A Bigger Picture Moment} I Am…

happy.

Sure, I have those things that worry, things that annoy, and things that anger. But me? I’m happy. Because, besides all those things, I also have:

a journal to write in
books to read
photos to take
good coffee to sip
a husband who makes said coffee
a dog with sweet eyes and a wagging tail
bubble tea
the energy of a good run
happy results after eating well and going on that good run
smiles from the kids I work with
smiles from the adults I work with
the pleasure of a joy ride on a scooter
a rice field and mountain view
dinners out with friends
loved ones coming to visit
loved ones I’m going to visit
easy camaraderie with people I meet
skype conversations with friends and family back home
pretty new platters I found on sale
a comfortable home
a duvet I like to sink under in bed at night
blue eyes I love to wake up to seeing in the morning
music in my head
a book emerging
friends getting married
friends having babies
lime drinks and mango smoothies
letters in the mail and emails in the inbox
peanut butter and honey
…and fresh baked chocolate chip cookies.

Yup. I’m happy. And I know it. This is me clapping my hands.

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,
but by the moments that take our breath away.”
- Author Unknown

What moments stole your breath away this week?

Live.
Reflect on the moments that shimmered in your heart.

Capture.
Harvest them!

Share.
Link up your gleaned moment this week HERE! Please be sure to link to your post, not your blog, and include our button or a link back to the host page.

Encourage.
Visit some of the other participants and encourage each other in this journey we call life.

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Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…

Hunger Games {A Bigger Picture Moment}

Image Source: http://www.thehungergamesunitplan.com/

The benefits of reading were never something I’ve questioned. From a young age, I always loved how books could suck me in to a totally different time and place, expose me to new thoughts and ideas, and encapsulate feelings I had in more poignant and erudite ways than I could ever coin.

I love books that emphasize honor and hope, I love when characters become real to me, and I love when books make me see the world or even just a facet of it in a new light. I love when books expose a truth.

But I begin to wonder: can books actually change your mind? Sure, they may open our minds to something we hadn’t considered before, and thus may shape our opinions or way we think about things. But what about already-established opinions? Or, even more difficult, what about already-established habits and behavior? Leaving aside nonfiction, I want to focus on fiction and the use of story and allegory, metaphor, and trope to make an argument.

I started reading The Hunger Games. (If you haven’t read them and don’t like spoilers, you might want to skip the rest of this discussion because I’m going to talk about the books in a way that assumes you’ve already read them.) Right around the time Katniss’s team starts prepping her for her interview before the games in the first book, I was struck with an overwhelming sense of unease. It struck me as highly ironic, and perhaps even manipulative, that the author was sending us a message about the horrors of violence and our addiction to violence-as-entertainment simultaneously as she draws us into an addictive, violent story.

Not every one reads the books for the violence, obviously. People are drawn into the story by things like the empathetic characters (which, in that same scene before her interview the characters discuss what makes a character empathetic…again, another poke from the author), the love triangle, innocents like Rue, and heartbreaking moments like the finger-to-mouth salutes, and the underdog/David v. Goliath storyline.

Through the book, the author conducts an in-depth exploration of PTSD, how horrific events can change a person, and the power of war to strip a people of who they are. She offers a formidable indictment against society for its appetite for violence and for its capacity to sacrifice innocents for the security of the whole. And she shows how victims themselves can become perpetrators. (All themes, given my work, I’m very aware of and sensitive to, as I see in the real world where hunger is not a game, and where children are forced to do terrible things, in the name of the state, for the sake of entertainment.)

The books, as I see them, are quite bleak. I appreciate them for sucking me in and exposing truth, but the trajectory of the book is not, in the end, a happy one.

And yet, there is such fanfare and great excitement surrounding the books and the movie, it strikes me as a little odd…like having a 1984 celebration or a Clockwork Orange party, featuring the Manchurian Candidate.

Again, not everyone is in it for the violence or to revel in dystopianism. But when people start saying that it makes them want to watch Battle Royale again to see kids duke it out with other kids, and speculate on what person would live or die if it happened to them, and marketing execs know it’s targeted to young adults who also drive the horror film industry…it’s hard to argue that the violence isn’t at least some part of the draw.

I watch movies with violence in them too – generally of the political thriller variety. And yet, as sympathetic as I am to the books’ argument, is this going to make me stop watching violent movies? Doubt it. As much as people might get the central message, will it actually change our minds about how we view violence-as-entertainment? Do we accept we have a natural human proclivity to schadenfreude, or do books like these actually encourage us to change our behavior?

These books are being included in high school classrooms and Christian Bible study groups and book clubs around the country, ostensibly to share some of the books’ lessons with kids in an easily digestible format. And yet, as a teacher who created lesson plans around the books to share with other teachers, has said, “Students will be so hooked on Katniss Everdeen’s struggle to survive in the murderous arena, they won’t even notice that they are learning about dystopian literature and totalitarianism.” She said it as if it’s a good thing.

This raises a question for me about the power of books to really change minds. Books like 1984, due to their literary nature, will only reach a narrow audience. Books like The Hunger Games have a wide, popular appeal…but do the elements that make them popular also distract from the underlying themes? Do we nod our heads blithely at the lessons and societal criticisms, while focusing on the love stories, rebellious spirit, and fantastic costumes and imagery? People who are averse to violence and violent themes don’t need the books. But people who tend to approach violence in ways that are sometimes unthinking…or worse…what effect, if any, do the books have on them?

At the end of the day, the question I’m left with is: do books preach only to the choir?

This week, my Bigger Picture Moment came not in the form of an answer or revelation, but a tricky question to which I have no answer. I’m open and curious to hear what others think. It’s possibly a provocative question, but hopefully not a judgmental one. Sometimes, for me, part of living life with intention is asking myself questions, even if I might not like my own answer.

Live.
Reflect on the moments that shimmered in your heart.

Capture.
Harvest them!

Share.
Link up your gleaned moment this week at Hyacynth’s! Please be sure to link to your post, not your blog, and include our button or a link back to the host page.

Encourage.

Visit some of the other participants and encourage each other in this journey we call life.

Jade Keller

Tag Archives: Bigger Picture Moment

Etchings {A Bigger Picture Moment}

A New Way of Seeing

Tropical Rain

Age {A Bigger Picture Moment}

That Thing I’m Not Sure I Want to Talk About

Growing A New Kind of Life

An Intentional Life: Written {A Bigger Picture Moment}

The Hummingbird

{A Bigger Picture Moment} I Am…

happy.

Hunger Games {A Bigger Picture Moment}