What would we do without the commercialized holidays? Just as Thanksgiving was approaching, I started seeing Christmas merchandise and hearing jingles all around me - at the supermarket, drug store, and mall. Our lives and activities revolve around the scheduled holidays. Most people follow the created traditions of the holidays. We spend more than we should and could afford, usually buying unwanted and inappropriate gifts. I love gifts. Nonetheless, I see the impulse to spend unnecessarily during the holidays, just because we have been programmed to over the years by billions of marketing dollars. We have become slaves to our possessions. Often, we give of things, rather than from the heart.

Christmas isn't here yet, but it is fast approaching. On my walk, I saw Christmas lights being thrown out. It was unexpected. I don't usually see that until after the holidays, when it's uncool to still hang the lights on our windows and dead trees. The sadder sight for me would be to see the tossed out, dried-up Christmas trees. Every year they laid on the ground by the curb like corpses awaiting the garbage truck. They are the saddest sight. Why do we sacrifice living trees for our amusement? What does it all mean anyway?

Button-down blue jeans with frayed cuffs laid on the pavement haphazardly as though someone had just taken them off. Their casualness took on a strange beauty. They didn't seem to be belong to anyone anymore, yet they were the perfect pair of jeans. I could have owned them. They looked worn and comfortable. I thought to myself, "Who just took off these jeans?" I could still sense the body that wore them. The previous owner's height and proportions were revealed in their size and cut. They were lovely.

No matter what language the message was written in, the danger of cancer from smoking came through on the used cigarette package. Walking around the neighborhood, I was struck by the amount of cigarette buds that littered the pavement. Like grafitti artists, smokers left their marks everywhere they lit up.

Living in sunny Santa Monica, the beach beckons me every day. I spend most of my free time laying on the warm sand and staring up at the clear, blue sky ... thinking absolutely nothing. How beautiful to just be.

When I awoke this morning, I could feel the air getting cooler and the sky getting gloomier. Summer is slipping away, but I will continue seeking out my inner peace. I will continue heading towards the deep sea. The closer I get to the water, the closer I am to that calm. As the waves crash against the shore, they wash away my worries and turmoil. I get lost in the rhythm of the undulating waves. I feel small. I feel insignificant. I feel the need to continue the fight.

I have a fascination for birds, especially crows. On a recent walk through my neighborhood, I noticed a crow sitting on a powerline. It was very still but attentive. As I pointed my camera at it, it started keeping tabs on me.

Its behavior confirmed my thought that photography is invasive. In trying to capture a moment, I have altered it. Beauty is. If I try to hold on to it too much, I will destroy it. The lone crow serves as a reminder of that for me. There's no photograph that could properly convey what I felt at that moment or how the crow reacted to me. Our awareness of each other and that shared moment in time and space can only exist in our minds. In learning to live in the moment, I am free.

Age is beautiful. Living in a country that's hyper obsessed with youth, I value age, ironically. I like the stories the wrinkles and folds on a person's body convey about his/her life's hardship and pleasures. The winkled lips of a smoker, the crow's feet of someone who's smiled or squinted too much, the scowl of someone who has been perpetually sad are all revealed on the human face. Muscles have memories and every experience leaves a visible trace on the body.

On a hot Saturday afternoon, many objects caught my attention. If I look carefully, there's always something different and exciting about my environment. Here's a sample of what piqued my interest.

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Click on thumbnail to view image. Press "n" to view next image and "x" to close.

I can't imagine why the table set was not sold during a yard sale. While driving around, I saw it sitting on the lawn with a "Free" sign. It called out to me. Not because it was free, but because I found it charming and quaint in its own way. One woman's trash is another's treasure.