World Views

13 11 2022

The majority of the photos I take of the girls are from behind.  I follow them around like their little photographer, taking photos of all of these moments as they navigate their world.  It wasn’t until recently that I thought about what that meant.  Since the majority of the time I/we are following them, their worldview is wide open. 

These little girls (at 5 and 4 and 3 and 2!)  are experiencing a world where they are the leaders of their journey. 

They are experiencing their world not following behind myself or Nathan, or holding hands and relying on us to make them comfortable, they are already subconsciously forming their sense of self, their independence, their confidence in their abilities to understand and navigate through life, on their own, and with their sister by their side. 

I hope they always walk with the confidence and sense of purpose that I see at age 5.  I hope that they remain confident in their place in this world with the knowledge that they will go through life with the support of their sister beside them, and the safety net of everyone who loves them behind them. 


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Categories : California, Canada, Hawaii, Lake Havasu City, Miscellaneous, Oahu, Oregon, Seattle, Vancouver, Vancouver Island, Washington, West Seattle

The Power of the Written Word

19 10 2012

I’m having a weird reflective moment that I’m not quite sure how to explain.  I just read a blog post  (http://thehandwrittenlife.wordpress.com/2012/10/17/burning-bridges) that was about burning bridges; about making a decision whether or not to turn your back on someone who has been a part of your life, a part of ‘who you are’, but being torn because as much pain as you’ve felt because of that person, you’ve also felt the love – and which one is stronger?

Now, I think that that scenario and personal experience is something that everyone can relate to, in some shape or form.  But what made me react so strongly is to see how everyone else reacted so strongly.  Because if you are riding that same emotional roller coaster, or have just gotten off (or thrown off) that ride, well I think it would be hard not to feel ‘moved’ by the writing.  What was written has the ability to tug at your emotions and provoke you to respond because it strikes a chord in your memories and can dredge up some painful personal memories and experiences (and tears, probably a lot of tears).

So my odd reflective moment is seeing this all from a distance.  Yes – I have been torn in the past about whether or not to let someone go.  But, since that was long in the past (and I’m really quite happy right now), I’m impressed with the power of writing about a personal experience and all of the different ways it can be received and reflected upon and how it can provoke  such a strong response (written and emotional), depending on where the reader is in their life.

Last year I wrote a post inspired by the ‘Dear Me: A Letter to My Sixteen Year Old Self’ series.  I read some of the letters, it inspired me to write my own, and despite knowing that it was personal, I wasn’t unleashing any deep, dark secrets.  But the response was overwhelming – greatly appreciative that I shared my story, a feeling of personal connection, a solution to their own personal reflection, a lot of personal stories shared with me, and only a few negative comments about how trivial my problems were (but it still made a big enough impact to provoke a response, right?).  In my efforts to write something that was worthy of the jolt of inspiration I felt, I never imagined that it would strike a chord with so many people.  But I guess that’s my ‘aha’ moment today.  You never know who’s reading and what effect you can have on others – whether it’s deeply personal turmoil, or ‘tongue and cheek’ reflection, when you write from the heart, you have the ability to connect emotionally and sometimes, inspire.


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Road Blocks

7 10 2012

There have been many times when I’ve had an idea for a blog post.  After a trip, I have gotten a sudden wave of inspiration of this funny tale to tell about, for example, how I got trapped inside a San Franciscan public restroom as water came flooding into the little oblong capsule and as I kicked and yelled to try to get out, I felt like I was in some sort of Hunger Games booby-trapped room.  (This made me realize that I may have read the Hunger Games Trilogy one too many times). 

 

But once it came down to sitting down to write this funny little anecdote, I couldn’t do it.  The story never really came together on the page, and it sounded so much funnier in my head.  But it was definitely a story that I wanted to tell, and because I couldn’t figure out how to tell it, and because I am somewhat anal about wanting to tell stories in order of when they happened, I was stuck.  Since that horrifying experience thinking that I was trapped in a bathroom at Twin Peaks, I have gone to Napa and driven through wine country, I’ve taken a gondola ride up Crystal Mountain and seen crystal clear views of Mount Rainier, I’ve explored Pike’s Market and bought fresh seafood, taken water taxis and watched sea lions frolic, and seen the sun rise over the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge.  A lot has happened since those 90 seconds of bathroom terror.  But still, I haven’t been able to move forward since I couldn’t get past this one insignificant, but embarrassing moment in time.

Castella Di Amorosa

Up Close and Personal to my Friend Vino

Mt. Rainier View from Crystal Mountain

Mt. Rainier

Seattle Skyline

Early Morning at the Bay Bridge

This reminds me of when I was young.  Maybe 13 or 14 and I decided to try my hand at drawing.  Both my sister and brother are artistically gifted, and I on the other hand, always willed my hands to be able to create some masterpiece when I put pencil to paper, but it never felt like anything came of it.  But on this day, I decided I was going to use some sketch paper and one of those artist’s pencils and I was going to make a teddy bear be my subject. 

I drew feathery strokes on the paper.  Tried to do a little shading to create depth.  And I really wanted to capture that perfect glint in my teddy bear’s eye.  When I finished my drawing, I was so impressed with myself.  I patted myself on the back and showed it off to everyone.  I truly felt like I had overcome some sort of obstacle and that I did have some sort of artistic gene in my body.  But even though there is the saying that ‘practice makes perfect’ and that every talent needs to be continually worked on and practiced to evolve and improve, I decided that there was no way that I could draw any better than that.  I had peaked.  And anything that I drew after that point would surely not meet up to my now high expectations of myself.  So, that was it.  That was the last drawing that I drew…never allowing myself to improve or fail.

I don’t really know what all that says about me, (maybe I’m a control freak?), but during the last few months of my writing absence where I’ve felt like I couldn’t produce the quality of writing that I expected of myself, I realized today that I love writing too much just to stop because I haven’t been able to tell a story the way that I wanted to.  Perhaps one of these days I’ll be able to perfect my San Franciscan bathroom story, but for now at least, I won’t let not being able to tell that story prevent me from moving forward.

On to new adventures and life lessons….

Moving On…


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Categories : Miscellaneous, Napa Valley, San Francisco, Seattle

The Greatness of Storytellers

9 04 2012

I love telling stories through photos.  And I love seeing stories through photos.  There is something so attractive about trying to retell a story, or an experience, through your own eyes, to someone else.  Photos have the opportunity to take your breath away.  To make you want to click the photo and see it larger, to zoom in and look at each of the individual details.  Photos create a physical yearning – that feeling that makes you wish you were there, wish you could experience what you’re looking at and wish that you could capture a moment like that.  When you see an amazing photo, you just know, that you are looking at an amazing photo.   And then you feel a sense of appreciation, followed by intense envy.

But as enjoyable as it is to tell a story through photos, there is just something so rewarding about being able to express yourself in words in a way that makes sense to others, and in a way that inspires a connection.

When you can read someone else’s words as easy as if you were the one who wrote them, that’s when you know that you’ve found a voice that speaks to you.  In a time where we communicate in abbreviations and symbols, it is so great to be able to find blog writers that can share even the most mundane of stories, and turn it into a witty and entertaining piece.

And when you find a book you love, that’s the greatest thing of all.  I almost feel sorry for the people that will read books only once, despite how much they enjoyed the experience.  Because, when I read a book, I fall in love with the way I feel when I’m reading that book.  It could be the sense of urgency and intrigue and nervousness that I felt.  Or it could be a warm appreciation of the way a friendship is being told, or the sadness that I feel when a character in the book is hurting.  I love that people have the ability to create images in my mind, without having to show me a picture.  And how people are able to make me cry without telling me how I should be feeling.  And, if you’re like me, and you love how you feel when you read a book, as soon as you finish that last page, you flip back to the front and start all over again.

So this is a post to show my appreciation of all those great story-tellers out there.  Be it through photos, through the written word, or if you are one of the chosen few who just know how to tell a great story face to face, thank you for all those great stories and for everything that they inspire.


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Two Peas in a Pod

26 01 2012

After the last three and a half years of travelling all year around zigzagging across North America, I’ve come to realize how important friendships are.  You can’t remain emotionally sane with only one person in your life – although I have tried.

When you are constantly traveling you do meet some great people, but I’ve always been a firm believer in friend chemistry and the fact that great friends can’t be found in all places all of the time.  You can’t decide to just pick up a new one.  In fact, the planets have to be aligned and there has to be just enough spark and just enough interest on both sides to form a true ‘two peas in a pod’ friendship.

And let’s be honest.  Friendships are a lot of hard work.  It’s not enough to click ‘like’ on someone’s photo, to text them once in a blue moon and say, ‘what’s going on? ‘ and not care that you don’t receive a response until 3 weeks later.  To all of my friends out there – that three week lag time pains me!  I go on a rant about long distance friendships, one-sided efforts and why do I care SO much.  That is, until I get that phone call/bbm/text from you, that reconfirms why we are indeed such great friends.   But by the way, call me anytime, regardless what time zone I’m in – if I’m sleeping I won’t pick up, but I will sleepily look at my phone and smile, knowing that you’re thinking of me.

No, a friendship cannot survive on social media alone.  Well, they can, but I’ve realized over the last few years that keeping that strong emotional bond that you had with your childhood or university friends, where you spent 20 hours a day with a person, could finish each other’s sentences, and really just didn’t want to have any special moments without them, can’t be sustained with a quick catch up every once in a while.  Yes, you do marvel at the way that you can pick up where you left off even though it’s been months since you’ve talked, and maybe even years since you’ve seen each other.  But when you’re not in someone’s day to day life (and often you aren’t) then you hear the quick highlights like (yep I finally travelled to Africa – that was fun – and then I met the man of my dreams, blah, blah, blah, he proposed and a year later we got married.   So here I am, a wife and mother of 5.  That’s about it, what about you?’  And since you’re not part of the day to day lives, a lot of times you resort to reminiscing about those youthful times when you stayed up all night watching Disney movies, sang karaoke and they kicked you off the stage or when you curled up together on the couch, post graduation but pre-career wallowing in self pity, but still positive because you were about to embark on a Project Runway marathon.

So I guess what I’m trying to say, is if a friendship is important to you (and again, it’s hard to make those really special new friendships when you’re travelling all the time), it is so important not just to play catch up but to actually create new memories.  Yes, it could be as glamorous as a Vegas weekend where you have to kick yourselves out of the hotel room because it’s just so much fun trying to learn the ‘Single Ladies’ dance after a box of wine. (Yes, I did say BOX).  Or it could be as cosmopolitan as jetting off to LA for a “Ladies Who Lunch” weekend, which just happens to coincide with the Glee concert.

Ladies who Lunch (at Universal Studios)

But, it could be just as easy as having a few good friends over to your house in a very rare moment in time when you can all get together, to eat, drink and stay up until 3am making sundaes and chopping up candy with a mallet (or meat tenderizer…whatever) – just because that’s all you want to do.  It also doesn’t hurt to play Taboo and reestablish all of those memories, especially if you’re playing against people who don’t have your intense friendship history.  They wouldn’t even know what to do if you yelled out, “Fiona apple!  Song that we sang at the top of our lungs at a McDonalds drive thru!  Aka. Paper Bag”.

Yes, that is a meat cleaver...

The morning after 3am sundaes...a little rough but the view was great!

Not that I want to get into that whole new years resolutions thing, but it is the start of a new year, and yes, although life is busy, don’t you just feel giddy at the thought of spending some real quality time with your friends?  Even a phone call that lasts 10 minutes (that doesn’t consist of negative ranting) seems to have long lasting residual effects on my happiness level (which all those around me appreciate).

So here’s to spending some great time with friends, and being able to reminisce about these new memories as long as you’ve reminisced about the old ones.  Oh, and remember to take photos….and keep them somewhere safe – you’ll want to remember these times!


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Thank You

15 12 2011

When you sit down and write a blog post you hope that someone will think that it is interesting enough to read it (hopefully someone that is not related to you).  You hope that it’s not too boring.  And you hope that it’s not too personal that it makes people uncomfortable.  But mostly you just send it into the blogosphere for anyone and everyone to read.

When you have a moment of inspiration and you have to tamp down the excitement you feel after writing a blog post that felt like it wrote itself, you feel nervous.  You hesitate before you hit ‘publish’.  When you finally send it out there, you wait, and you check your dashboard, and you wonder why no one is commenting (even the people that are related to you).  And then you feel a little bit vulnerable, like maybe you said a little too much.

The ‘Dear Me: A Letter to My Sixteen Year Old Self‘ post was my ‘I can’t wait to post this blog because I love it and it’s probably the best post I’ve written, but I feel so vulnerable because it’s personal and more than my  funny little travel stories’ post.  Considering how much I loved the post, I was a little sad that I didn’t get any comments within the first few days after I posted it.

Inspiring Sights

Coincidentally, I wrote that post while I was flying from Denver to LA, and the post was Freshly Pressed while I was flying from LA to Seattle a week later.  And the response has been amazing!  Three days and almost 10,000 hits later, I am overwhelmed at how supportive people have been to write comments, share their own stories and feel inspired enough to write their own letters to their eleven, sixteen, eighteen year old selves.  No, we don’t think that literary time travel actually exists, but we do think about how cool it would be if it did.  Writing this letter to yourself, regardless if it is to a younger or an older self, is all about reconnecting with yourself.  You’re able to remember the uncertainties and sometimes unstable emotions of your youth and also give yourself a pat on the back for all of the successes and obstacles you’ve overcome since then.  It is personal and it is emotional and I am touched that so many people were able to identify with my experiences.  Because, there really is no bigger frustration than dealing with a frizzy mane that you can’t control 🙂

So Thank You! to everyone that took the time to read my post, to ‘like’ it, to comment, to those who have become new subscribers, and good luck with your own letters to your past selves (or future selves), to the teachers who have been inspired to bring this exercise into the classroom, and to the 15, 16, 17, 18 year olds that connected with this letter and maybe have a little bit of a different perspective on the life they’re living and the future they have to look forward to.

Traci


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“Dear Me: A Letter to my 16 Year Old Self”

5 12 2011

On a recent flight on Southwest Airlines, I came across a feature in their Spirit magazine.   A book was just published called ‘Dear Me: A Letter to my Sixteen Year Old Self’, edited by Joseph Galliano, which is a collection of 75 different letters by a variety of different celebrities (actors, comedians, writers, etc) writing their own version of a letter to their sixteen year old selves.  I have to admit, it caught my attention and made me remember all of those times I was young and told myself, ‘when I have kids, I will never do …..’.  To this day, I have no idea what any of those things were, I just know that my eight, ten, twelve, sixteen year old self made a mental note.

I’ve always been a huge supporter of journaling and reflecting on my day-to-day life, not only to sort out the troubling times but also to keep those exciting, adrenaline rush memories alive.   And, most importantly, to get to those ‘AHA!’ moments; because, if you write just to write, whatever you are feeling, without judgment, and with the expectation that not even you will be reading what ends up on the page, you WILL get an ‘AHA!’ moment.

The idea of writing a letter to your former teenage self is such a unique way to reflect on what was most likely a time of self doubt and self-absorption and reflect on all of the lessons you’ve learned since then.

So here is my version of ‘Dear Me:  A Letter to my Sixteen Year Old Self’:

'Six Year Old Traci' - Read this in 10 years - it will be waiting for you!

 Dear Traci,

 You have curly hair!  You have to stop fighting it and accept it.  Yes, it may take you until you are 25 to be able to figure out how to style your hair, but you do finally figure it out, and everyone is jealous of your curls (you even learn how to blow it straight!).  You will one day find your hair stylist soul mate who knows exactly what to do with your mane, and despite what you think now, a ‘wash and wear’ hairstyle that does not require any blow drying will never work for you.  

 It is okay if it doesn’t seem like you have found your clique of friends yet.  Your best friendships are yet to come.  You will have great friends in life.  Friends that know exactly what cartoon bird video to put on to make you feel better, friends that you will stay up all night with for no reason at all except that the conversation never stops.  Friends that encourage you to follow your passion and friends that encourage you to leave your comfort zone, but are protective enough to say, ‘make good choices’ before you embark on a new adventure.

 You will discover that school and grades are not everything.  Yes, you will have a fluke genius moment and get 100% on your first calculus test when you were sure that you had no idea what you were doing.  (It was short-lived and lasted only for that one test).  It is not so much what you are learning, but the work ethic that you learn from your dedication to school and extra curricular activities that keeps you moving forward and rising to the top; and, ultimately allows you to enjoy life to its fullest. 

 Don’t worry.  You end up doing so much more than you ever thought you would.  You do not take the traditional route that you think you are destined for.  You discover a fork in the road that you did not even know existed, and for your willingness to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves to you and your commitment to take a chance on the unknown, you are rewarded with a career filled with travel, excitement, and a sense of confidence in your abilities that will stay with you always.  Trust your instincts because they have proven to be trustworthy and make sure you take risks, because they always seem to put you in the right place at the right time.

 And boyfriends?  It’s okay that you’ve only had one boyfriend back in 7th grade (there is another one in your future before you graduate).  You are picky, and you don’t waste your time on crushes.  You like who you like, and if you aren’t absolutely positive that you like him, it means that you don’t.   Unfortunately, you will experience heartbreak but you will also experience a love and companionship that still surprises you.  It’s supposed to be easy, and when you find the right person, it is.  And guess what?  He’s American!

 Love Always,

28 year old Traci

28 Year Old Traci

 I am so glad that I came across the excerpt from this collection of letters.  Feeling a bit of writer’s block lately, this inspired me so much that I felt the need to take out my laptop and write this 35,000 ft in the air somewhere between Denver and LA.  It’s nice to know that with all of the pop-culture, media-diluted content out there, that these pieces are finding their way to people and that a few words from the heart can still make such an impact.

**  This post was Freshly Pressed on December 13, 2011 **


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My Apologies

27 09 2011

I just read a blog post that sparked some feelings of guilt that it has been almost a month since my last post.  Especially since my last post was just a couple of photos (the underlying message being, aren’t you jealous that you aren’t going sailing on a Monday afternoon…).

Apparently when you have a blog you have certain responsibilities, like writing on a schedule, a dedication to your readers, and you can’t use the excuse of not feeling inspired or having writer’s block.  I admit, often I say to myself, ‘I’m just not feeling it, I have writer’s block and I just cannot put a post together’.  Even if there is a lot happening.  Like, for example, hiking the Grand Canyon.  Definite writer’s block.  I probably started that blog post three different times, but I think it was worth the wait.  Hopefully you felt the extreme pain, exhaustion and relief that we felt, once I finally felt inspired to write a post about it, rather than just the retelling of a hike, the amazing landscape, blah blah blah.  I guarantee that those first three attempts were just plain boring to read….because they were boring to write.

I guess what I’m trying to say, is I’ll try to post more frequently, even if the inspiration isn’t there, but I promise not to post boring things (hopefully this post doesn’t fall into that category).  In return, you, as my dedicated readers that may be disappointed with my silence, have an obligation to provide a little bit of feedback.  You must know that the sight of a comment, “like” or a new subscriber is like an instant jolt of energy, and a renewed sense of purpose.  Unless the comment is actually spam selling some kind of drug.

So read, scroll down, enjoy the photos, and provide some positive (or negative) reinforcement.   I welcome the feedback, I’ve gotten over my fear of feeling overexposed and vulnerable in the public eye (at least for the most part).  It’s been three years since I started this blog, and I will share a little bit of insight with you.  Looking at my stats, it seems as though most people find my blog because they are searching for ‘Ryan Seacrest’s car’ or are on the hunt for photos of Spring Break pastie girls in Lake Havasu, AZ.

Hopefully I’ve provided something a little more memorable than these two topics….


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Change is in the air…

24 07 2011

Do you ever get the feeling that you’re so busy with keeping the things in your life organized that you start to lose the ability to organize anything?  That no matter how many things you can cross off your list, there’s always three items to add on for every item crossed off?  And when you wake up in the middle of the night; for that brief second between when you realized that you were awake and the next second when you turn over and go back to sleep, you have to literally stop your mind from picking up where it left off on your checklist.

It sucks doesn’t it.

Maybe instead of fighting against the flow it’s time to embrace the change and start moving in a different direction. Everyone always says, the only thing that remains constant, is change.


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Where am I again?

3 02 2011

Sometimes I forget that it’s not normal to be constantly traveling from one city, one state, one hotel room to the next.  More often than I’d like to admit, I wake up in the morning and think, ‘where am I again?’ – and not because I had one too many ‘happy’ at Happy Hour! – but because it’s been a whirlwind trip that has taken me to Detroit, to St. Louis, down to Tampa, over to New Orleans, into Alabama, and then back to New Orleans, a flight back to Detroit, then a day trip to New Jersey, a quick bite to eat in NYC, and then a jaunt back to Alabama on the way to Dallas.   It’s exhausting even writing it all down much less living through that much traveling in the span of 2 1/2 weeks.

Wow.  2 1/2 weeks?  That’s all it’s been?  No wonder I walk, key card in hand, thinking what’s the room number again?  409?  No wait 203.  No that was last night.  Aha….312.

This was a real sign!  Just last Thursday in Mobile, AL.  I saw a ripple in the water, do you think it was an alligator?

Here I’ve been thinking that nothing’s happened the last couple of weeks, but I guess potentially seeing an alligator in a hotel parking lot, eating traditional cajun redfish and catfish in New Orleans, and a candle lit dinner in the village in NYC (with some apricot grappa that you could light on fire) is nothing to scoff at.  I’ve just gotten so used to the randomness of daily travel.

Traveling so much you become an expert at small talk.  True to my Canadian roots I talk about the weather a lot, it’s a great ‘go-to’ conversation topic.  And it doesn’t hurt that the weather’s been a hot topic for everyone lately.  And if you’ll note my travel route above, one might say that the storms have been following me around the country!

When you always look like you’re from out of town, but act like you’re a local, people ask questions.  I never thought that answering the question ‘Where are you from?’ would be so difficult.  Most often I respond, “good question” or “[awkward pause]….well my work base is out of Detroit, but I’m from Vancouver, Canada”.   You have to give people a sense of where you’re coming from so they can place you in the overall scheme of things; however, I need to make sure I’m clear that I’m not from Detroit, and that I’m not American.  And if you say Vancouver, BC, no one knows what you mean.   It was even worse when I first moved to the US from Toronto because then I would add that extra detail – ‘well I work out of Detroit, but I’m from Toronto, but originally from Vancouver…..so……yes, that’s where I’m from”.

What is probably just a quick question from someone wanting to do a little polite small talk soon becomes a complicated story of a work/travel/personal lifestyle that’s all wrapped up into one very messy, but somehow cohesive, ball.


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