Doing all the things

There are times when I ignore the blog because I have nothing new to report. Then there are times when the exact opposite is true, and I can’t write because there is so much going on and I don’t know how to begin to process it. This latter situation is where I am now.

Since I last posted, I have:

• visited Chicago, where I met my editor and some fellow contributors to The Places We’ve Been: Field Reports from Travelers Under 35. They are all amazing and inspiring people. We shared meals and a museum visit. We got to be on the radio. We did a public event. I will write another post, sometime, all about this, but for now I’ll leave you with our radio clip and a couple of my favorite photos from the trip.

  with the wonderful Daniel Ketchum

  

  jamming with Justin Howard

  

• realized, thanks to some of my Chicago conversations, that I need to be doing more combining of words and pictures. I have an idea for that; you’ll be seeing some examples soon.
• begun promoting and planning the upcoming showing of my kitchen portraits in the APAture 2014 visual arts showcase, which debuts next Friday in San Francisco. This is such a big deal for me that I can’t even tell you whether I’m excited, nervous, or just plain stunned.
  
• gone to a volunteer orientation in West Oakland. Soon I will be matched with an elementary school student and start weekly mentoring meetings. I haven’t done any one-on-one mentoring since 2009, nor have I sought out anything that would involve me so directly with a local community. I’m not exactly anxious, but it’s still a big step.
• continued talking with my hair salon about doing portraits for them. It’s looking like this might be a longer-term project than I’d originally thought, but I love that.
• met with friends, in person, explicitly to talk about race. Another thing I’ve never done, but in the past couple of months I’ve come to realize just what an important part of my life it is (not just race, but diversity in general), so I love that this is becoming a bigger and more conscious part of how I spend my time and thinking.
• continued to have good conversations and gatherings with my Meetup group.
• visited (and thought a great deal about) a family member who is recovering from… well, “injury” is not exactly the word, but it’s a similarly long recovery process.
• begun a new life drawing class at the Richmond Art Center, my old haunt (and I’m so happy to be back there).
  

I didn’t really think I was doing that much until I began to list it all, in an email to a friend, and then realized, oh, yes, this is no small number of projects. It is good to be this busy, but I’m also trying to hold onto feelings of spaciousness and stillness, because I have chosen all these things and I don’t want any of them to start to feel like a burden.

I will post again when I get the chance, but until then, you know what I’m up to. See you soon!