big hair, big glasses, big smile

Michael encouraged me to share the rocker chick photo of myself that I thought would make him laugh, but I have no idea where it is, so instead I scanned this one, which is, I have to say, the biggest my hair ever got, and don’t you love my nerdy glasses? I really had it all going for me.

I’m supposed to be introducing myself and instead I’m sort of riffing off Michael’s post. I think that’s okay – you’ll get to know me as we go along.

Michael talked about those moments in life where so much is happening, and you’re taking it all in and really feeling those momentous shifts, and time slows down or speeds up in a way that those periods of time become distorted. High school is everyone’s forever ago, and your kids were born a few weeks ago even if they’re on their own way into high school.

And then there are some moments that get frozen, or repeat, or echo through time.

I went on a month-long trip through Great Britain, courtesy of my mom, the summer after I graduated from high school. I guess when you spend that amount of time away from your normal life, without the same responsibilities and daily grind, and when you spend those days making epic memories, well, those things tend to reverberate around in your personal space-time continuum. Back in 1987 during that month of travel, I saw so many places that have a lot more known (to me anyway) human history than anywhere in the United States. One place in particular stuck out as pretty incredible to see with my own eyes, and that was Stonehenge. It knocked the wind out of me when I saw it in person. I was just awestruck at the almost tangible feeling of how long it’s been there.

I’ve always been grateful to my mom for making that experience possible for me. I was really excited to take her to visit some of the same places I saw in 1987 when we went to Great Britain together this summer, 24 years later.

But my mom had a knee injury during our second week that kept both of us from doing any traveling at all for about two weeks during our trip. We shared the experience of being scared at facing an unknown medical problem in a foreign health care system. We shared stress and frustration and a slow healing process, too. We felt happy and lucky to be together no matter where we were and what was happening. But we were both a little crushed that we didn’t get to see many of the things we had planned together.

On our last travel weekend, we managed to rent a wheelchair, and Mom braved the long train and bus trips, and we went to see Bath and then Stonehenge together. When I saw Stonehenge from the bus window I burst into tears. It felt like such an epic journey just to get back there, and such a privilege to share it with my mom. Goosebump city.

Why am I writing about this? I guess Michael’s post makes me a little sad that I don’t have kids of my own, but it also reminded me there are plenty of wonderful experiences and memories for me with the family and friends that I do have.

Mom and me at Stonehenge, 2011, yes the British wheelchair came with the plaid blanket

Oh, and you better believe I wheeled Mom all around the monument as I babbled out every single thing I could remember about it from art history and British history courses.

victory photo at Stonehenge, 2011 - smaller hair, smaller glasses, bigger hips... but still fabulous

Walking around Nottingham this 3rd July, I noticed someone had dropped and then abandoned this ice cream cone and thought it would make an interesting context for a street photo. I didn’t get it straight, but I didn’t try a second times since I was in the way of many pedestrians. I still love this image because it tells a story, and in a way, I kind of like the slight skew.

I’ve had a hard time keeping up with my faculty duties and #ds106, and unfortunately that has meant not keeping up with #ds106. My heart is with you, you incredible crazy community! I miss you all terribly. I will be trying to keep up a bit. We have no wifi in my classroom or I would try to broadcast one of my class discussions. I may try recording one if it doesn’t freak my students out too much.

Meanwhile, many apologies for my lack of comments on your work. We’ll see if I can begin again.

I will head out to Cardiff, Wales this weekend to see their storytelling museum and meet one of the original Capture Wales team; more on that forthcoming. For now, I’m due in class shortly so I’m off.

#ds106forlife

5.5 x 4.25 inches - storyboard page from digital storytelling field notebook

So I’m just about ready to panic, because I’m having trouble moving from the brainstorming phase of my study abroad course materials for my digital storytelling class to the phase where I make it all coherent. I’m at that familiar point in the creative process where I begin thinking I am totally incompetent and unable to actually do my job. What did they hire me for? I’m an impostor!

Fortunately I have learned to recognize this as a symptom of being right where I should be just before I do something brilliant.

It doesn’t make it any easier to get to the brilliant bit though.

I’m having trouble adapting a class I normally teach with an eye toward lots of reflection in the development and expression of a personal narrative into a class more focused on vignettes, snippets, culture/shock and travel stories without as much time for reflection and refinement. If I could explain my thoughts to someone who “gets it,” it would be much quicker for me to find the holes in what is basically the narrative of my course timeline, and clean it up into something coherent. My problem seems to lie in needing to talk things out and having no one to talk them out with. And since I’m enrolled in the online version of #ds106 Summer of Oblivion it occurs to me how utterly ridiculous that is. No one to talk to? Hel-LO!

So this is an invitation. If you’ve got an organizational mind and want to help me make sense out of the swirling chaos drifting around in my head, then I want to get on the phone or Skype and talk to you. I need a bounce board to speed up my creative process with a little illumination. Anyone want to help me distill a million wild ideas into something that shines?

[OK. I'm hitting the publish button before I talk myself out of it, dammit.]

Today, I am so glad I made this recording of the birds singing. I still think the crows have an Aussie accent. I know there were magpies around, and a mated pair of beautiful green parrots of some sort. And there was a little bird that looked a lot like a quail, only with the wrong colors. I don’t know all the other voices, but hearing them is still a form of sustenance.

Robert Croma asked if there is more from Australia. I’m actively looking for a few videos I remember making. I’m not sure if they are on tape, or already waiting my attention on a hard drive here in my office. But the travelogue I wrote with my mom still exists: Dreaming Down Under. And so do two photo galleries, one from 2004 and one from 2005.

Of course, my mom is also a source of awe-inspiring beauty and energy, and you’ll hear her voice along with the sounds of the Well.

If you ever come through Phoenix, I’d love to take you up here for a picnic.

Finally, 12 posts later, we have reached the end of the videos depicting how I spent a few hours on June 28, 2006 at Puniho Pa Marae in the Taranaki region of Aotearoa (New Zealand). Understand that I left for this journey about three days after Vloggercon, and was all fired up to document my trip. To force myself to remain in the moment, I took only three miniDV tapes with me. I had to capture video every night, or lose the ability to record more. But after this particular night, I couldn’t keep up, so this has been sitting on a hard drive since 2006.

I’m so glad I could finally share it. You have no idea.

By the way, the woman in red on screen left is Mahinekura the way I will always remember her.

I should mention we were gently told later that women do not stick out their tongues when they pukana. This wasn’t mentioned during our learning because the evening was all in fun. But our Maori friends told us afterward so that, should we visit other marae, we would not do something that might be offensive or embarrassing.

So this is the final performance by one of the groups we split into. I think they did a great job! It’s not easy learning to twirl poi if you didn’t do it as a child. Your wrists just aren’t that flexible. But this group did a wonderful job, and performed with joy and enthusiasm.

Performances continue tomorrow – stay tuned!

I gave my camera to my Maori photographer friend, Jo Tito, who shot great footage of us learning to haka. I love that she also shot the crowd observing us – it looks like they had a good time! I had about ten minutes of great footage and only cut it down to 5:30 – mainly because I want anyone from our group to be able to use this video to re-learn this haka. If our Aotearoa friends visit the U.S. we can welcome them in proper style!

Don’t worry, I’ve got all the final performances coming up next, and then some!

You’ve go to hand it to this “Sharing Cultures, Connecting Communities” international travel course. Where else would you find this diverse group from the U.S. all playing together, cooperatively, in such a spirit of love and respect. There are over seven cultural groups represented, including Choctaw, Euchee-Creek, Navajo, Mexican, Spanish, European and Maori. And I know I’m forgetting Jim’s tribal heritage – one of the tribes whose lands straddles the Canadian/U.S. border if I recall correctly.

Mark does a great job as an orator. Though we do not understand the Maori language, the intent of his speech is crystal clear. He helps us with his gestural language and his facial expressions. A waiata (song) always follows such a speech. It means that the singers support what has been said.

This is something I love about the Maori people I met. They are committed to preserving their language and culture, which they do for their children by immersing them in it. That means no compromise with respect to te reo (the Maori language). The Maori have the utmost respect for their guests, but they do not pause to interpret for them during formal greetings like this one. They trust in themselves that the spirit of their intent will come through, and they trust in you to take it in, to get it.

You may think the video is too long at over four minutes, but I challenge you to value another culture and language enough to watch and really listen. There are ideas being expressed for which English has no words. Therefore this moment is a treasure beyond measure.

Ooh! I found the words to this song.

Ehara i te Mea

Ehara i te mea
Nō naianei te aroha
Nō ngā tūpuna
I tuku iho, i tuku iho
Te whenua, te whenua
He oranga mō te iwi
Nō ngā tūpuna
I tuku iho, i tuku iho

Anyway, my travel group was made part of the “home crowd,” and given shelter at Puniho Pa Marae, and the dance troupe is seen here entering as welcome guests. In this video they are performing, and the next video will show the traditional way Maori groups enter one another’s communities. Over the next few days I’ll be showing several more videos from this evening. The performers split us into 3 groups, taught us each a different skill, and then we all performed for our hosts. It was an evening of much laughter, sharing and love.

I spent time with this troupe in 2004 and was thrilled to see them again. They are amazing and very giving. I’m planning to start a little fund raiser to help them come to the U.S. and visit local tribal lands. I also hope to help them book some performance gigs – anyone engaging them will get more than their money’s worth.

You can see my friend Mahinekura in the background – she’s the woman wearing red. Going through footage from Puniho Pa brought so many great moments and feelings straight back into my heart. I’ll be sharing some of them with you on and off during the rest of December.

The video script with a bibliography is available in PDF and Word Document formats. I also posted a Barringer Meteorite Crater photo set on Flickr from my visit to the crater. The video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.o License and can be embedded elsewhere by using the Share tool at Blip.tv.

The funny thing is, I never had any idea where the place was. The phone number was on the fridge. The menu was in a drawer. They showed up at the door. With great food. This is something I never questioned, never thought about. It just was, and boy, was it good.

When I moved back to Phoenix, I missed this food so much I could barely believe it. After fifteen years, I still dream about those egg rolls. I could remember exactly how they tasted. The only other foods I dream about, with the exception of a certain Mexican food restaurant here in Phoenix, are foods my mom, dad, or grandma made when I was a kid. So it’s a big deal that I dream of Pekin House egg rolls.

So when I went to Chicago for BlogHer this past summer, I had to see if I could find the place. I found an address on the web, and figured out how to get there. It would be a 45 minute journey by El-train and bus from my hotel room. I talked up these egg rolls all day long to everyone I met, but at the end of the day, nobody wanted to be adventurous and go with me.

There was no way I was going to give up on these egg rolls, so I went all by myself, even though my very favorite thing is sharing good food with friends.

So I brought you with me. It was better with you there. We had an adventure together on the streets of Chicago. I’m sorry I forgot to tell you that you came with me for this long. Thanks so much for coming along with me. It really meant a lot for me to share this with you.

I got truly crappy audio in the restaurant, because I was a little embarrassed sitting there telling my camera about dinner, so I did it quietly. I got even worse audio on the El, because it’s just so loud. So I subtitled myself. If you have trouble reading the wee little version, consider downloading the mid-size.

The Amtrak route I took to get to Chicago is called the Southwest Chief. I got on in Flagstaff, AZ and got off in Chicago, IL. This video shows what that was like, in snippets. Overall, it was a really pleasant experience. Relaxing, plenty of friendly people to talk to when I wanted, and the HP7 tome to read when I didn’t want to talk. And a lot of beautiful landscape. And I got to reduce the environmental impact of my trip somewhat. I feel like that’s a pretty good trade for my time, at least right now, when I have the time to spend the extra time on travel (3 days round trip by train instead of 8 hours round trip by plane).

Aboriginal Welcome Song by Cheryl Colan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at hummingcrow.com.

It’s video from when I received my moko in June of 2006. I was in the Taranaki region Aotearoa as part of an intercultural exchange. I handed my good friend Wendy my video camera and she captured the experience for me.

This was a very personal experience that’s hard to put into words. I have been interested in ta moko for a long time. I have a couple of tattoos, but never felt they were a true and deep expression of myself.

Mahinekura Reinfeld arranged for us to meet the artist who designed her moko, Rangi Kipa. Mahinekura explained that instead of picking out something pre-designed, Rangi works by listening to you tell a story about yourself, which he translates into Maori iconography, and that he aligns his artwork with the muscle and skeleton structure of your body. She believes he channels from the spiritual realm as he works. (So do I.) She told us about her own preparations for receiving her moko, including spending three days fasting and purifying herself in a sacred place.

Since I knew I would have the opportunity to receive moko I decided to fast for three days and meditate as much as I could during our busy schedule. With the exception of Wendy, I didn’t tell my travel-mates I was doing this. I didn’t want to dramatize it. I wanted to honor this tradition. And it’s a good thing I did. I waffled about what story I would tell, but on the third day, a mere hour before we were to meet Rangi, the story came to me, and I knew it was right. I’m not sure that would have happened without my fast.

For those tattoo artists and aficionados who copy Maori designs, all I can say is don’t. Ta moko is a highly personal, spiritual process. Stealing a design is akin to crass identity theft, and totally inappropriate. It is more than worth your time, resources and energy to do it properly by working with a Maori artist.

Speaking of which, Rangi Kipa will be in the U.S. during May. At least I hope he will. Keep your eyes open for his visit, and come support his art.

More about Rangi:

• http://www.maoriart.org.nz/profiles/rangi_kipa
• http://www.whenua04.com/artists/rangi_kipa.htm