A Sign from the Universe?

Photo by Nancy Wombat.

Alright, so you've seen those little colored flags used by construction companies and road workers? The ones that might indicate the location of a gas or water line to ensure that no one dig there? A friend of mine in Grad school decided it'd be part funny & part performance art to go on a road trip and plant those flags along the side of the road - as markers on his journey. He recruited me, and I did the same whenever I took a road trip. (so now if you see little red or blue flags sticking out of the ground along the highway across the U.S. - you can pretty much bet that either S.J. or I put them there).

I was remembering this rather silly folly yesterday as I was walking my dog down an alleyway and came across one of those flags just sort of sticking out of some brush behind someone's garage. It was a slightly bigger flag than the ones I've seen before, bright pink, with the word "Sketch" on it. Sketch? Really?? I have never seen anything like this. I've seen red flags with some sort of Warning printed on them (my favorite was a guy getting hit by lightning, presumably to warn of buried electric lines). I have never seen one that told me to sketch. So, I took this as a sign from the universe.

I also decided that there should be flags that say "Dance," "Create," "Giggle," etc.

Now, I would've never come across this happy little oddity had I not: A. taken the road less travelled, and B. been fully observing my surroundings (as is my duty as a Thing Finder).

Challenge: Take a different path

I challenge you to pull yourself out of your routine and take a different route to work or the grocery store this week. Experience a different part of your neighborhood, town, or city.

I remember once, when I lived in Kansas City, a friend and I were driving around Union Station (before it was renovated) & discovered that a candlemaker had a studio on the lower level (accessible only from the rear of the building) - we found damaged candles and blocks of wax in boxes near the dumpsters. We, of course, could not pass this opportunity up, so we took some home and spent the afternoon making our own crazy candles - all for the cost of exploring.

Cloud's illusions

It is a childhood rite of passage, I think, to sit on the grass looking up at a blue sky filled with billowy clouds that magically take the shape of our imaginations - a bear, lion, cricket, horse.... I found, that while this game was fun, I tended to try to identify the artist that may've painted that particular sky that day: the whispy clouds of Renoir, the open sky of Wyeth, the dramatic sky of Thomas Hart Benton... and as my vocabulary of artists grew, so did my vocabulary of clouds.

Last night, standing at my living room window I watched the sunset over the mountains and, as with most days, was in absolute awe as vibrant oranges, reds, violets, and indigos splashed across a rather Dante-esque sky. At one point, my perspective was inverted and the clouds looked as if they were wet sand being revealed by a receeding tide. Pure Magic! At moments like these, there is an understanding of how the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Mayans, Mesopotamians... all felt when looking up at such an amazing sight.

I know I'm not the only one completely awed by the ever changing palette of the sky. Yesterday I came across the Web site of the Cloud Appreciation Society, whose slogan is "look up and marvel." How often do we actually do this? The act of looking up is no big deal, but how often do we look up and marvel? -How often are we filled with wonder or astonishment?

Challenge: Marvel at something today

Look up and marvel at the sky, look down and marvel at the inchworm. Marvel at your cats persistence... etc.

Activity: Look Marvel up in the dictionary

List as many marvelous synonyms for Marvel as you can. Write each word in a new Marvelous way. Hang your list in a Marvelous location, so that you may marvel at it.

Be a Thingfinder

photo by m00nbugg.

When I was a kid, my mom's side of the family would, every summer, meet at our cousin Ethel's cabin in Sand Lake, Michigan. For two weeks all of the kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, and cousins would gather - cram themselves into two cabins yelling, "I have dibs on the bed in the corner!" (as we all raced to that bed).

We would, of course, partake in all the activities that Sand Lake had to offer: sailboarding, water volleyball, swims across the lake, sun bathing, canoeing, and our daily ritual of walking around the lake.

This in particular was my, then 3 year old, cousin Matthew's favorite activity (other then, I seem to recall, eating candy). Matthew was our official "Thing Finder." And he was good at it. We'd walk around the lake, navigating marshes and wild blueberry patches, and Matthew would dart off in one direction or another, returning with a squirrel's skull, a buffalo nickel, neat looking rocks, worn bits of glass, etc. Of course, what he was really looking for were aluminum cans that he could trade in for candy at the local store, but he always came home with a bounty of "things" that we kids would always peruse and covet.

We always tried to be Thing Finders, but Matthew, since he was closer to the ground than we were, always seemed to find the best stuff.

Activity: Be a Thing Finder

On your walks or outings, as you're looking around, why not see what you can find?
Take a small bag with you, and collect objects from your walk. Bring them home and...

• Draw them
  
• Collage them into your journal
  
• write about them:
  
  • how did you found the "thing"?
    
  • What is the secret life of the thing found - where did it come from, how did it end up there...
  
  
• set up a mini-museum in which to display your best weekly finds
  
• Write descriptive tags for them & display them in your house somewhere
  
• Write descriptive or story tags for them, and leave them somewhere for someone else to find
  
  Along these same lines, there's a great movement | Web site that encourages you to leave your old books somewhere for someone else to find, adopt, read, and then leave somewhere for someone else to find, adopt, read, etc. You can go to the Web site and get a little ID code to put in your books, so that if someone else finds it, they can then go to the site, enter the ID code & you can track the journey of your released book. Kinda' fun, if you can get over the idea of letting go of your books.
  
  The Web site is Bookcrossing.com