Day: July 5, 2013

Men, listen up, if your wife or girlfriend or partner is an independent woman and does not wish men to tell her what to do with her body or her life, you can not buy a better gift than these Mizuno sneakers, which Texas Rep. Wendy Davis wore in her now famous filibuster in the Texas State Legislature. It took a few days to get them – they are selling like crazy – but I ordered mine the minute I saw a video Wendy Davis after her day-long filibuster and they arrived today.  Maria yelled at me for buying her an expensive pair of sneakers, but she was very happy, she not only loved the shoes (this was  a surprise gift) she loves what they stand for, and she even loves the way they look. Big points for hubbie, I will be dining out on this for a few days.

Maybe I’ll even get my socks washed.

The pink shoes worn by Wendy Davis have made these shoes something if an iconic smash, and the reviews on Amazon are worth a visit alone (not a place for men who like to control women). The reviews are a riot, a new American way to give voice to politics, they are witty and funny. I posted a five-star review myself and I am considered buying a pair of ( navy blue, not pink) Mizuno sneakers for me. Solidarity and comfort. This turned out to be a great gift for Maria. She never buys anything for herself, and even though she supports Wendy Davis’s politics, she supports the notion of independence even more. I was very pleased with this gift, it is really perfect for her, and once she stops bitching about my spending too much money on her, I will expect to see the famous pink sneakers wandering about town. Aside from everything else, she is on her feet all day, too, filibustering for creativity and a meaningful life.

Animals, even border collies, veg out in the kind of heat we are having, this morning, for the first time since I’ve known him, Red just stretched out on the lawn and went to sleep. It is already 90 degrees here and humid.

The scions of culture have it that you are not a writer, not an artist, not a photographer unless they saw you are, unless you have glowing reviews, are pursued by gallery owners and publishers, agonize alone on your mountaintop with your tormented gifts. I don’t see the world that way. You are a writer or a photographer or an artist if you think you are, feel you are, say you are, there is no one in the world who can tell you what you are. That is a gift no one can take from you. When I began taking photographs – I am not into lessons or workshops, into people telling me how to think – a brilliant photographer who was dying at the time, sent me e-mails every day about my photos. You can take a beautiful photo of anything, he said, it isn’t what the camera sees it’s what you see.

Again and again I have felt and seen the power of this good advice. Maria went into the barn this morning to shovel it out, as we do together every morning but I can’t go into the sun while I am on my antibiotics for Lyme Disease, so I hung back and saw this beautiful image. Can a picture of manure being shoveled out into a field be beautiful. I think so, it was too me, you can judge for yourself, I thank this good man for his wonderful advice every day and I pass it along. I do not like advice and I do not tell other people how to think and what to do. The creative spark is sacred to me and it is so easily snuffed out by thoughtless and angry and fearful people.

When Dahlia’s Bloom. In our Dahlia Garden.

When Dahlia’s bloom, from our Dahlia Garden.