Go the long way through Tennessee

After all the villles...Ashe, Knox, Nash. Oh yes, there were some pretty sights too.

 Nice skyline in Nashville...wonder what the double-pointy building is...

 A rather strange dome on the Nashville Electric service building.

 Kept trying to see the pointy building as we drove along the other side of it...it doesn't seem to be the tallest building there...

 AND THERE IT IS (behind that crane in the center right distance!) What is it? There are obviously some other nice buildings, but we became fixated on it. And the best I could find about the "Batman Building" was that it is the tallest building in Nashville, and in Tennessee, and is known as the AT&T building.

And this is the part of the story of the first day of driving that we'd rather forget.  We were told of an accident (even Google Maps told us early that there would 1:30 minutes delay there)...and we were still 3 hours away from it. We went through Nashville knowing it was there, but there wasn't any indication of a detour on our guide.  Until we'd done an hour waiting...and nobody was moving unless they just got off the interstate at the next exit and took back roads, which we did...not much further, nor slower, and traffic was coming through on the other side of whatever the accident was, not very much, but some. It must have been pretty bad that from noon to 4 pm, when we finally went around it, almost nobody got through on the 2 lanes going west.

Today's quote:

What you are, the world is. And without your transformation, there can be no transformation of the world.

J. Krishnamurti

The beginning and first stop

 All my stuff for over 2 weeks...and the pink bag is just food, and white plastic is too!

 And I find out my friend doesn't do 'photos' so I posed alone.

Saw a bit of the beginning of fall as we wound through the southern Appalachian Mountains from Asheville NC to Knoxville TN.

A comfortable lunch stop in Crossville TN...not very long, but we got to stretch our legs.

Today's quote:

The seed holds a very great secret—it never gets old. It is the eternal YES to life.

Anat Vaughan-Lee

As I pack, I also love my home. I also need to unpack, because the kitchen sink just won't fit.

I'm driving with a friend to New Mexico for the next few days (1500 miles.)  And then to see my son in Colorado.  What a great adventure. But I'm also anxious.  I have this need to be in control, and I won't be. I am thus facing one of my all time personality quirks...you might say, to be a co-driver, to not be in charge of anything.  Oh my.  It's another f-ing growth opportunity! At my tender age too!

But I am always up for an adventure. And this one has most of it planned, but with some delightful unplanned times.

So hasta a vista, mi amigos y amigas!

Quote for today:

One must view the world through the eye in one’s heart rather than just trust the eyes in one’s head.

Mary Crow Dog

The Weight

A great video of Playing for Change...with some artists I'm sure you'll recognize!

Thanks to my friend, Martha, for posting this on FB.

A gardenia without a brain

 It was very late blooming this spring...

 And now that it's getting cool again!

I gladly picked the first bloom and have loved smelling it on my bedside table.  I find taking several deep breaths clears my sinuses or whatever enough I can enjoy the scent.

The best laid plans

An early morning check-up...what the Dr. calls a follow-up. Don't really remember what was wrong last month that he said, come back in a month.  So there's this little skin tag on the bridge of my nose.  It had grown again after he froze it off a couple of months ago.  This time he says, let's cut it off.  So there I am on the table with bright light and he uses alcohol to clean around it. Then a prick and a sting of the numbing medicine.  And then in let's say 2 minutes he's done and put a bandaid on it.

Then off I go to lunch.  I ask a friend from Florida what skin care she uses against the sun. I've not been doing much of anything this summer, and not really being outside in sun much.  But I'm thinking I should do more since I'll be traveling next week, and maybe get more sunshine.  So I plan to buy some sunblocking skin cream.

I find everyone I talked with at lunch had a story of skin problems, some of which were cancer. So I am not going to be alone if this is what I'm dealing with. I go home from a mediocre lunch, but the price was right.

Then wham, I am not very interested in doing what needs to be done this afternoon.  I am not coughing, which usually leads to a need to nap...or at least rest a while.  But I lie down, read a while, and the next thing I know I've dosed for half an hour...then wake only to fall back asleep.  I took some Tylenol in case I had the usual reaction to "numbing" medications wearing off and giving a residual pain.  It hasn't happened (pain) but oh was I out of it there for a while.  Then I wasn't.  I got up, and looked at my project for this afternoon.  I keep putting it off.  Oh well.

At least I'm still alive. I am able to make choices still.

Now I want to have some emotions.  I often have anxiety.  I sometimes feel sad. But when was the last time I felt joy? Ha. That's a good goal. Chasing joy.

Credit Union's Sunflower Giants

 Right on State Street, or US 70, there is a virtual forest of sunflowers...across from the Monte Vista Hotel and Mellie Macks nursery.

Just some ramblings of mine

I woke up late this morning...well, I decided to let myself go back to sleep because I could. Retirement lets me do this a couple of times a week.

And that's when I dream.  Today it was delightfully involved, but fleeting in memory.

Then I read a few poems, here on blogs, or as newsletter in my email. And in between the lines, I kid you not, were fragments of my dream.

It was as if the memories were triggered not by the meanings of the words I was reading, but by the space in my head that enjoys poetry. It's probably that creative place, where dreams, sculpting, and poetry all merge.  I am serious. This experience was delightful, so I read more poems.

And the dream was how I had a neighbor who had hired a catering crew in a food truck, to do a wedding reception I think. The neighbor lived in a house next door (not next to my apartment now) and the food truck people (4-5 of them) needed a place to sleep until the next day when they would be cooking.  I met them, and showed them a menu that I'd picked up in Gainesville FL, where they were from, and even had that experience of meeting one and hearing her name, then forgetting it and asking what it was again.  The rest of the dream had to do with finding beds and bedrooms for them all, and apparently I was magical in creating spaces for everyone.

And then in Browning's Sonnet #43, between those familiar lines, and a couple of other poems, which had beautiful wording...slipped the dream back into consciousness. How do I Love Thee, Let Me Count the Ways.

Speaking of consciousness, I'm reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, and enjoying his concepts of adaptive un-consciousness, and talking with all my friends about some of the experiments that psychologists and others did, which were included in the book.  They know I'm creative and interested in exploring all those things about the mind.

When pottery students sit around a table working on their designs, we pondered the difference between mind and brain!

The geese coming at me...imagine doing chair yoga on the second floor of the Lakeview Center, looking out at Lake Tomahawk.  Then against the backdrop of mountains in the distance, suddenly about 20 Canada Geese are coming right at me, as they change from v-formation and plan to land.  They don't all come straight down, rather turn in one direction or another to flap wings and slow themselves before they gently splash down. I stared at this phenomena rather than tilting my head as I breathed deeply. In the space of half a breath I had a transforming experience...looking into the eyes, wings and huge bodies of these creature of air, land and water. I won't forget it.

A Sepia Saturday post

I'd like you to meet Cody. He is one of my "grand-dogs." His owners are my son and his wife, and their three daughters.  I think they all are more or less in love with him.

I haven't the time to find my other grand-dog photos...nor those of my friends.  I am so glad that they have dogs in their lives.  But honestly, I'm a cat person.

And how I know it is how uncomfortable I felt a few weeks ago, when walking along with a friend (person style, 2 legged) who would stop and pet each dog that came along...and talk with the owner! It happened so frequently, though I know she missed her own dog who was back home while the owner visited me, I did say something about how dog persons seem to stick together.

And then I noticed another friend who I walk with frequently, stops her own walk to say "Look at that." She acts like a dog herself, always finding something interesting to stop and look at, just as if it was the scent of something that fascinates a dog.

So am I the only person who just wants to stroll along, and keep on going? Not that I don't mind stopping to take pictures. Maybe that's my dog interest.

Anyway, I know I'm a cat person...and can't count on just one hand how many I've had.  They don't need to be walked at all! They are so independent, much like me.  We come together in a home, share the space, give each other warmth and companionship...but then go to our separate corners.  That is I used to have a cat. I'm past that now dealing with breathing difficulties. I do miss having a little companion, but me get a dog? Not likely!

Sharing with Sepia Saturday this week.

More from the museum

Boarding Houses:

Hotels and Inns:

More about these inns and hotels

Miami sign, then Peabody hotel

Where Alexander's fountain began

From Old Black Mountain

Two places still in business for overnight stays...

The Monte Vista hotel...

A toaster (electric) from the Red Rocker Inn - a prosperous B &B as well as nice family restaurant

Boarding Houses that aren't still in business

Artifact from Monte Vista Hotel

Thanks to Swannanoa Valley History Museum for sharing these artifacts!

Bucky Fuller

Just look at all those triangles! This is one of the designs in the gallery that was an extension of the presentation last weekend at the Black Mountain Center for the Arts.

A friend and I attended the Sunday night performance, and it was a really wonderful experience. - Another talented one-man show! And David Novak had the Buckminster Fuller persona down pat.

 And then he even had memorized a whole 2-1/2 hour show(with 15 min. intermission)!  I loved it, and wondered that he is going to be performing it in Poland this next week. I can't imagine being able to discuss these concepts in another language...but apparently he can! The author of the play was D. W. Jacobs, and it's been performed more than 1,000 times since he wrote in in 2000.

My first experience with R. Buckminster Fuller was reading his book "Operating Manuel for Spaceship Earth" back in the 60s-70s...as well as many iterations of the Whole Earth Catalog. He was very popular with the counter-culture, and I was thrilled in 1971 to join a UU Church in Tampa FL that was housed in a geodesic dome.  I also saw the domes in the New York Worlds Fair and Expo 67 in Montreal. Then Disney World had opened in Orlando with Epcot.

David Novak as R. Buckminster Fuller giving a lecture/performance at BMCA

Anyway, I also remember driving my camper van with some friends from Tallahassee to Altanta GA to hear Bucky Fuller speak in person, probably in 1977-78.  We camped in the van after the lecture, which might have been in the Fox Theatre. It was amazing to hear him talk quickly in much the same long drawn-out sentences, with no words less than 3 syllables, and often modifying something that had been mentioned in several sentences prior, but it mostly made sense. When did he catch a breath?

I just looked quickly at his biography, because I was pretty sure he was related to an early UU/transcendentalist, Margaret Fuller.  Yes, she was his great aunt but they never met, because she died about 50 years before his birth. And I learned in the bio that Bucky Fuller was the world president of MENSA from 74-83.

But back to the performance...and the great exhibit in the gallery at BMCA last week.  We quickly looked at the exhibit during the intermission.  It included some panels and artifacts from the Museum of Black Mountain College (Asheville, NC). The college is where Bucky first put his idea of the geodesic dome into models...and finally a working one.