D Stewart PDX's photostream  

Chewbacca cam, Fuji BW instant film

This is what else I've been doing. I started dating Geahk (pronounced "Jack") last spring. I enjoy his company immensely. Here we are around the corner from my house. Geahk is allergic to sunshine, and must be careful to shield his skin from the sun, which is why he is wearing the cloth draped over his head. He is a master craftsman and marionettist. He gets around the neighborhood on a skateboard, is tormented by bad design (which is everywhere), and likes my cooking. We have a great time together.

How it warms my heart that so many of my wonderful Flickr friends called or wrote asking about me. I really do love you guys. I'll be back around. :)

Chewbacca cam, Fuji BW instant film, 7 seconds

I love you guys. I've been taking a break from Flickr, and so many of my Flickr friends noticed my absence and inquired as to my well-being. I thought I would share with you what I've been up to.

Y'all know I took a wonderful trip to Europe this last autumn, where I was able to spend time with my mother in our ancestral homeland of Slovakia, and also meet up with dear Flickr friends in the United Kingdom. The trip was amazing, and I came back with 25 rolls of 120 film to scan and process. I kept at it day after day, as one of my favorite parts of travel is to make a Flickr scrapbook of sorts to share with y'all. Afterward, though, I was kind of spent, and my cameras and I decided we should spend some time apart.

I am very much a hobby photographer. Most of y'all, my wonderful Flickr friends, are "photographers". You pursue the craft with much more care and determination than I do. I mostly like to have fun making pictures. Sometimes I get obsessive about a particular shot or process, but mostly my good ones are dumb luck, and not a result of my technical prowess having increased measurably through care and attention. I just like to have fun with pinhole cameras.

I also have lots and lots of other things that I interested in. I've been involved in acupuncture for nearly ten years, and recently am experiencing a renaissance. I was hired to teach at the acupuncture college, and that has put me back in touch with the Chinese medicine community. My work world has exploded with new and exciting things to learn. I am taking a wonderful class on Japanese style acupuncture at the college, in addition to teaching a class. I am also expanding into the treatment of infertility, which involves a lot of study and management of a new set of herbs to be added to inventory. All in all, an exciting time for me, professionally.

In addition, there's the garden. I have always enjoyed plants, and feel a wonderful kinship with them. From the giant coniferous forests of Western Oregon, where I live, to the plush tropics of Ross's Hawai'i, where everywhere you turn there is something to eat, to the Zen-like dignity of Kristy's Arizona desert, to the rolling greens of Howard and Mark's isles, to the robust mud-dwelling trees and shrubs of the African Sahel, plants for me are a crucial part of the sense of place. Recently, I have undertaken to convert my lawns into an edible/ medicinal landscape. I hired a garden designer, and am slowly tearing out the turf grass and planting foods, medicines, and other useful plants. It is a huge project, and sometimes it is hard. But I pace myself, and pick away at it slowly. But seeing new, wonderful plants take root and grow in my yard, giving so freely of the things with which they are blessed, is incredibly joyful and comforting. This time of year, when the weather is just hinting at spring, and the plants know the days are lengthening, and hens have bestowed the first egg of the new year, gets me itching to dig, and weed, and plan, and just go outside and visit.

So if you wonder where I am, picture me here.

Terminator 3, Kodak Ektar

Our last stop was an orchard in the Mosier area.

Chewbacca cam, Polaroid film, so expired as to be nearly mummified

Terminator 3, Kodak Ektar

Viva flare!