Tampilkan postingan dengan label kismet. Tampilkan semua postingan
Tampilkan postingan dengan label kismet. Tampilkan semua postingan
With the Wind at My Back and a Picket Sign in My Face
Last week I landed a pair of Vanessa Mooney's aztec moccasins at a sample sale and be damned if almost all my dreams nearly did come true.
Six months of internet searches where I jumped around from one foot to the next until
they were all sold out culminated in a magnificent reunion.
I hugged them, I leapt in the air, I made a special space for them in my closet.
Yesterday I dressed up like somebody's mom and took them on their maiden voyage for a lunch date.
Overcome with glee I busted out some sort of homage to Danielsan--the one, the only, Karate Kid.
It was a moment.
But the best was yet to come.
This morning I got up, clicked my friggin heels together and prepared to go pick up the last size 6 in the bootie style. It's like the aztec moccasin fairies have been all up in my business this week. Bless them.
On my way out of town I noticed a significant amount of police activity. As in about 20 motorbike ones, 2 of those big vans, several police cars...and a chopper? Good thing I'm getting out of here, I thought to myself.
Well hold that thought, Carrie. As I got into downtown LA many of the streets were blocked off. Thinking it was construction, I maneuvered available one ways until I began to notice row upon row of police bikes lining the sidewalks for blocks. And I mean BLOCKS. LAPD is that big? It became apparent, once I turned down the ABBA Dancing Queen disco party in my car, that I was in the middle of an epic sh*tstorm of some sort. Choppers everywhere, so close their sound was thundering in my chest. Documentarians with cameras and those dustmop microphones strewn all over the streets. Police, more police, and food trucks? What?
Don't these people know I need my shoes? They're the last pair!!
Suddenly out of the corner of my eye I caught a SEA OF PICKETERS headed my way. Screeching into the nearest parking lot I bolted out of my car as a nice parking attendant hollered, 'Where you headed lady? It's not so safe for you down here right now. I charge you two dollar and you hurry back or you might not be able to get out. Why these people do this? It's not like the government is going to change immigration policy anyway..." as I rounded the corner and wound up marching amongst those picketers in the greatest irony of all. I'm an immigrant almost through the Naturalization process--something these people so desperately want for themselves--to belong, to make this country their legal home.
You know sometimes you set out to do one thing and, even though that thing (that you love and are so grateful to have) may get accomplished, you end up encountering something else that gives you a fresh perspective. I daresay the right perspective, at least for me.
It was a helluva day.
And the shoes? I made it to them safely and wish I would have hung around to observe a bit more. I think today was an important day for me somehow. As far as the shoes go, someday I'll tell them about the time I got swept up in an immigration protest, just to bring them home.
Kismet at Kumul
My first image of the Kumul Lodge grounds, shot with flash.Sometimes you take a photograph and think it's nothing special, only to discover later that you captured something surprising in it. On my trip last September to Papua New Guinea I had a bit of photographic serendipity one evening, though it would be weeks before I'd realize it.
Our group was staying at Kumul Lodge near Mt.Hagen, a very rustic destination famous among birders for its amazing feeding station which attracts tiger parrots, ribbon-tailed astrapias, and brown sicklebills, among other species. I plan to devote a blog post or two to the Kumul Lodge feeding station once I have a bit more time for writing. Just before dinner one evening, I thought to take a photo of the lodge's grounds and buildings. Standing near the main building I snapped a few images with my Canon G-11, switching settings between photos in an attempt to capture the mood of the scene in the fading daylight.
The first shot (top of this post) was taken on Auto, with the flash engaged. It washed out the beautiful cloudy sky and lit up the buildings.
My second shot of the grounds, without flash.My second image was more moody, capturing the sky and silhouetted trees, and giving just a hint of the buildings. But something else in the center of the image caught my eye... it looked like a detached part of the tree.
A closer look—probably a mountain swiftlet.A closer look revealed a bird swooping across the dusk-filled sky, captured kismetically in the image I shot. I'm guessing it's probably a mountain swiftlet because this species was ubiquitous at Kumul and elsewhere.
Kismet is a word of Turkish derivation meaning "destiny." I love thinking that my life and this swiftlet's life crossed for a millisecond, connected by a camera's lens, in the only moment it could have possibly happened, on the far side of the world.
Kismet is a word of Turkish derivation meaning "destiny." I love thinking that my life and this swiftlet's life crossed for a millisecond, connected by a camera's lens, in the only moment it could have possibly happened, on the far side of the world.
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