JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

My simple pleasures:

I like flowers whether

feminine

fiery or

first

I like hands in the dirt
knees on the ground
planting and digging in the soil inside me

I like hot baths and vanilla bubbles
pillows and thick blankets
a night of sleep and a morning of sunshine

I like bird songs and frog songs
the taste of raspberries and the smell of low tide
the gifts I get from my smiling daughters

I like sharing a secret with my husband
feeling his arms around me in the midnight moonlight
glimpsing pieces of love reflected in our lives

___________________________

Notes on pleasures elsewhere:

Fred First wondered aloud why his Fragments from Floyd fail to fit into any one category.

It’s a floor wax. No, it’s a dessert topping. I realized long ago that Fragments was destined to be a gray goo sort of blog. Why should a blog be anything but a reflection of its owner? Mine doesn’t know what it wants to do when it grows up. Just like me! And here, almost at its third anniversary. Tsk tsk. We got to find this boy a niche. Or do we?

Gray goo is the last word I would use to describe Fragments. Beautiful. Insightful. Reflective. Funny. Informative. But not gray goo, floor wax or dessert topping.

It is true though that I don’t know what I’ll find when I click to read Fred’s feed. Maybe an excellent photo. No, always an excellent photo. That’s one component I can expect.

But I don’t know if I’ll find pieces of Appalachia. Fragments of Floyd (ha!). Glimpses of rural Virginia. Or just cute dog photos and stories of Tsuga. Perhaps I’ll enjoy an essay that motivates me in my spirit and in my mind. Maybe Fred will post a piece that teaches me more of the way the world works, new discoveries in genetics or chemistry or mechanics. He might share from his marriage, from his delight in his children and grandchildren, from his perspective as a human inhabiting a corner of the planet for a finite time. He’ll talk about being a teacher or a physical therapist. I’ll read his writing and consider choices I make, both personal and political. Maybe I’ll find a new blog or link I like. I’ll find a photo I’ll remember. I’ll think. I’ll think twice. And yes, I’ll laugh. So which category is that?

This post is an excuse to praise bloggers who defy categorization and a way to share pieces of writing I’ve admired. In recent weeks I’ve noticed and enjoyed blogs with diverse posts covering ranges of topics, blogs that couldn’t be defined with one word or fit into a narrow box. Like a child finding a hidden piece of candy I’ve delighted in these rich discoveries. Here are a few I’ll share in this post…

I started reading Tim Bray’s ongoing blog earlier this year as I prepared for Northern Voice and subscribed to the feeds of those speaking and organizing the conference. Tim writes on a number of technical topics, and I must confess that I can’t (yet?) comprehend or critique many of his posts. But I will continue to read his blog, not only because I have now had personal connection with him through Northern Voice, but also because I find ongoing treasures in his feed.

Has ongoing has ever been categorized as a gardening blog? I don’t know. I might be surprised if it had been. Then again, no, I wouldn’t.

Tim Bray’s photography is the kind I’d like to hang on the walls of my home or at least hang on the walls of my mind to refresh me for a while. His flowers are vibrant mysteries in motion, opening, closing, inviting, intriguing. His words are equally elegant. Gardeners to Tim, are optimists, perhaps even prophets:

The crocuses are just past their peak, the daffodils just starting. The ground behind the flowers is still rough and unhusbanded-looking, naked in spots and frankly not that pleasing to most eyes. Gardeners’ eyes, though, see not what’s there but what’s coming.

Gardeners are hedonists, anticipating pleasure. And they have a sense of humor too. I might never know the pretty serious magic of SubEthaEdit, but I can experience the magic of Tim Bray’s gardening posts all the time.

Dave Winer, like Tim Bray and Fred First, also defies categorization. Dave could be called a technology blogger or given any number of titles. Yet Dave uses his blog to share sides of himself and insights into humanity that touch me more than any technology could. He weaves essays on journalism or Google juice with links on what it means to be alive.

For example Saturday’s posts included this story:

On Thursday I was walking down the beach, a small plane approaches, doing the beach route, it seemed so close I could practically touch it, so I waved and smiled. And the plane dipped its wings! I laughed out loud. Maybe it’s just the point-touching thing. Inside each of us we’re a point, that’s where our soul lives, and when you wave-and-smile you touch the other person’s point, and when they wave-and-smile back your point is touched, and that feels good, and, at its most basic level, is what being human is all about.

He also linked to a DaveNet piece from 1997 titled Proof that you Exist with rich snippets from tickling a baby’s tummy, to musings on previous generations, to letting life make you lighter. Dave’s a kid on the roller coaster ride, having fun, laughing, playing, splashing, delighting in what a day brings.

The way Dave goes from describing developers in the Mac community to divorce, as in one DaveNet, amazes me and keeps me reading. He tells me what my life is like. He also tells me what life is like from places I haven’t been, or gives me insight I hadn’t seen, such as his smoking anniversary post last week (also noted by Richard).

What I miss is the high, and the pain. It’s when I feel a rush of self-loathing that I wish I could light up. I think we all have moments when we don’t like ourselves very much. A smoke is the perfect companion for that feeling.

I never know when he’s going to post something that will resound within me. I’m addicted to the point-touching thing, to use his words. That’s also why I write and read blogs.

Here’s another gem from my aggregator: who can categorize Doc Searls? In his feed I might find an aerial photo of mysterious but gorgeous geography or anything from politics to podcasting to this recent note on nonpropriety:

The older I get, the more I realize that Being Right is way overrated. I’d much rather be understood. Or better yet, to have what I’m saying understood. Especially if what I’m saying isn’t just mine. In fact, I’ve noticed that the less an understanding is mine (or anybody’s alone to be Right with), the more likely it is to be understood.
“I told you so” may be the most useless thing anybody can say.

Well, if someone can’t find a category for Doc, I won’t say I told you so ;-). Being understood, as he points out, is more difficult than being right. It’s gray not black or white. It’s listening not labelling. Many blogs won’t fit into categories. I don’t like labels myself: I don’t think they contribute to understanding someone or a situation. People don’t belong in boxes so why should blogs?

I like the way Real Live Preacher ended a recent post titled Telling the Truth

Some people say that I’m a liberal Christian, but I don’t think of myself that way. I don’t want to be a liberal or a conservative.

I want to be a surprise.

This post is my thank you note to all the surprises.

I’ve seen the flickr tags whats in your bag and whats in my bag circulating recently. These pictures of bags beside their contents serve as excellent examples of people choosing to make the private public. Discovering the numerous intimate items people carry inside their luggage feels at once amusing, assuring and voyeuristic to me, in a different way from secrets shared with words. Funny, since I do spill my emotions and pour pieces of my relationships from time to time out onto my blog for anyone to see, yet it is somehow this literal physical spilling of inside to outside, documented, noted and posted in orderly rows of photographs, that seems both endearing and awkward in the exposure, painting a powerful picture of the kind of community we are creating.

What makes life worth living? Stories.

But a story has to be told. It almost demands to be told.
– Andi at Ditch the Raft [found via Annie at Ambivablog]

…what motivates people are stories…Narratives speak to the inner spirit…in short, they help us to become the people we want to be.
– Harvey Cox in When Jesus Came to Harvard

Read the raw notes from Shel Israel’s interview with Lenn Pryor on The Red Couch blog. What stands out? What do I remember days later? The stories. The night Robert Scoble thought the fire alarm was the Pryors’ door bell. Lenn’s Nyquil haze that led to an epiphany in the shower. Lenn and Robert ignoring most of Michael Jordan’s last appearance with the Sonics so they could brainstorm together during the game.

Stories explain our past. They explain our present. Stories link our lives.

Mike Casdra quoted the remarks of Nintendo President Satoru Iwata, speaking at a recent convention.

But after class, when my friends went back to their rooms to study, I took off on my motorcycle for one retail store in Tokyo. This was the first store to have a department entirely dedicated to personal computers. That was my hangout—and I was not alone. There were others there who also looked at those early computers, and thought the same thing I did—how could we play games on them? We became friends … formed a club …and soon rented an apartment in the Ahkihabara district of Tokyo, where we began designing our own games.

Stories let me step into someone else’s shoes and get a hug.

Janelle shared what happened when her husband came home from his five-month deployment on the USS Lincoln.

Every time the ship comes back I get a picture in my mind of what it will be like when I see him for the first time in months. I don’t know if everyone does this, but I get a little picture in my head (no, I don’t picture the lame sappy thing where we run towards each other with outstretched arms…). I can see the people around us but once I see him it’s like things move in slow motion and we just grin and put an extra speed in our step and once we meet it’s like a movie where there’s music playing and we kiss for a long time…blah blah blah. Of course it never happens that way. He inevitably has duty on the day they pull-in where he has to stay on the ship or he’ll have the last watch where he has to shut everything down (that’s what happened this time). Because of this he’s gotten out of wearing his dress uniform just about every time. He gets off the ship, there are so many people that I don’t see him until he’s practically right in front of me, we can’t stop in the middle of the rush of people so I get a big hug for a few seconds and then we have to keep moving.
We did hold hands though…

Stories intrigue us.

Betsy Devine’s post celebrating the billion-second-iversary of her marriage to Frank Wilczek hinted at a number of intriguing episodes. For example, why did they get married in traffic court?! And what were the two white mice doing in their apartment four months later? Were they pests? Experiments? Relatives of Stuart Little? As Betsy listed the significant seconds of their wedded life in powers-of-ten-iversaries, I confess I became curious. I want to hear more stories…

Speaking of married couples, mysteries and histories, here’s Ali Hewson explaining ‘Why my marriage to Bono works’. According to my calculations and information in the article, the Hewsons have been married approximately 725 million seconds, but have known each other for almost a billion. Perhaps Betsy and Frank should show Bono and Ali how to celebrate with rave rings and chocolates! 😉 Now that would be a story…

One of the perks of pediatric opthamology must be the toys. I know I’ve enjoyed the cute creatures that dance around whenever Michaela has visited her doctor for an examination. Despite our daughter’s enthusiasm for her beloved Dr. Epley, our days of visiting him may be ending. We have had two follow-up appointments since her surgery in January, with another scheduled for late summer. After that, I don’t know how often we will need to see him.

I thought I’d use this photo as an excuse to post an update and let everyone know Michaela is recovering well. Her surgery was a good experience for our family. We’re grateful for the prayers and encouragement. Thanks for being with us.