Passion  

By John W. Vander Velden

 

Those that know me, know I take pictures.  But there is a difference between taking pictures and making photographs.  The difference is the lengths one goes to get the shot.  An example: It was a cold winter’s day many years ago.  The air was frozen crisp and clear.  I went to a state park near my home to take some pictures.  The camera I had then was a used Yashica LT-Electro a manual camera. I love manual cameras.  But that old Yashica required 2 mercury batteries to operate the light meter.  Surely state of the art in the sixties but not so much these days.  The weakness of that type of battery is cold temperatures.  The power they provide goes down faster than the thermometer.  It was sub-zero as I trudged in knee deep snow that morning.  The batteries were about the size of a stack of seven dimes, much larger than the button cells of newer cameras.  I would remove the batteries and place them in my pocket until I reached the place I wished to photograph.  Install the two batteries take my pictures and slip the batteries back into my pocket until the next opportunity. 

I do not know if that was sufficient effort to lift me from just an ordinary picture taker to a photographer, but how many people would have trudged in an insulated coverall and boots through the snow on a morning like that.  It takes passion to do something well…anything for that matter.  Passion drives us to heights that others feel unreachable.  Yet those of us that have this passion, for one thing or another, often do not realize it.  We are just doing something we enjoy.  

Passion, the word has been watered down and seems only tied to romance yet means so much more.  It is the energy anyone throws into an endeavor…an energy driven out of the “joy of the task”.  The extra effort that, win or lose, success or failure, is given toward a goal.  Passion separates the extra ordinary from the mundane. Passion is the thing that is missing in so much of life. 

For when it comes to photography, there are those that respond that all it takes the best equipment to do the best work.  Now don’t get me wrong a good camera, for instance, helps.  A story: Jackie and I were walking in that same state park years later on a summer Sunday.  On the trail we met someone that had a Nikon F-3 HP, the brands top of the line professional camera.  That camera cost about ten times the Ricoh I had hanging around my neck.  We spoke briefly and I asked, “You must take a lot of pictures?”  She told me that she shot about a roll and a half each year.  Perhaps she shot some really good photographs, I’ve never seen her work so who am I to say.  But does it show much passion?  I wonder.  Yes, good tools help in any endeavor, but it cannot replace the desire, the energy, the passion. 

(512 Words) 12-19-2016

 

 

Perma-Cloudy

Perma- Cloudy 

By John W. Vander Velden

 

Jackie said she would not mind winter as much if it were not “perma-cloudy”.  I see her point.  Even when its umpteen below, if the sun shines out of a blue sky, it’s doable. Ya dress for it.  But thirty degrees and thick overcast is…blaaaaa.  I won’t say we have the cloudiest skies in the U.S., though I was told we had the cloudiest in the mid-west, but the wonderful Lake Michigan does kick up some moisture and that moisture becomes clouds.  I’m not complaining about the nearness of the Great Lake…I love Lake Michigan…just stating fact that Lake Michigan is upwind and that thing called “Lake Effect”, well it affects the weather.  

Sunny days always makes people feel better…winter or otherwise.  It lifts our spirits.  And when the bright sun bounces of the white stuff, it’s beautiful.  A good thing to remember when I shoveling steps and walks.  There are special things about winter, just as there are special things about every season.  I guess it’s up to us to find them…enjoy them…whenever we can.  I try…honest…but sometimes it’s a little harder, especially if the sky is heavy and is the color of coal smoke.  But even those times have something…can’t think of it at the moment…but something.  I remind myself that each day is a gift, but it is up to me to use it.  And how much good I get out of the day is up to me as well. 

So today I have things to do, and am glad of it.  For whether it’s working on the combine or sitting at the keyboard, something’s happenin’.  Maybe not as much as I hope, but something.  Tomorrow will be another day, and I will move about and do something, because I can.  I hope that it will be something of value to others…I try.  But it will be something…and something is better than nuttin’.  But I do hope the sun will shine tomorrow.

 

(334 Words)                  1-3-2017

 

 

All The Marbles

All the Marbles              

 

By John W. Vander Velden

 

When I was young I had marbles.  And I played with them.  Boy, how has times changed.  I still have a bag of marbles stashed in a drawer someplace.  In that bag are all sorts of marbles, a few “steelies” but most spheres made of glass, purries and cat’s eyes.  Each is a different from the others.  Different colors mostly but some are different sizes too. In the fifties, first and second grade boys were measured by their marbles, how many and what kind.  Playground contests caused marbles to change hands…or owners…from time to time.  A guy might trade a few for one he wanted.  There were lessons to be learned with marbles. 

I was thinking this morning about the mental process which one of my fictional characters might employ to explain his actions.  Matthew is a humble man, who simply does not know how special he is.  He sees himself as ordinary, yet is anything but.  Matthew sees himself as a marble…just a marble in a bag filled with marbles.  He recognizes the uniqueness of every marble, and sees his own strengths and weakness as a sign that he belongs among the masses, because he sees strengths and weaknesses in others.  I think that is an honorable trait, don’t you? 

You might think this whole discussion is absurd.  For Matthew is a fictional character…someone that grew out of my mind and only lives upon the page.  But other writers know differently.  They, like me, have imaginary friends that we know very well.  We know our characters better than many of the flesh and blood people in our lives.  We build them piece by piece, layer by layer.  Reaching inside ourselves to give them life.  By understanding Matthew I understand others as well.  Bizarre isn’t it.  But we place these imaginary friends into circumstances we have never faced and watch them react in ways we feel their personality, a personality we have created, would lead them. 

I have been questioned about a portion of my novel.  It hinges on one particular moment when the two main characters must make a choice.  Most of my readers wonder how the story goes the way it does.  But knowing Matthew and Elizabeth as well as I do, I can see no other outcome.  For Elizabeth is a strong woman that has made up her mind.  Locked solid in her decision. And Matthew has never asserted his desire above any other person’s. 

Too often we wish to place ourselves and our wants toward the top of the bag.  How easily we feel our own needs as more significant than those of others.  That we are a more important marble than those that surround us.  But Matthew understood…oh, how he understood. 

The novel is a story about personal value.  How we see others.  How we see ourselves.  The story touches that topic time and again.  It centers on how Matthew and Elizabeth view themselves…and the value they place upon the other.  Those values do not match, for neither feels the other’s equal.  Humility is much more interesting than ego don’t you think?  So it comes to the point that if Matthew would assert himself, say the right word for instance, the results of that action would change the story.  But Matthew does not feel he has the right.  He does not feel that his wants or desires should trump another’s. And though that appears noble, it is not particularly.  For in truth, he feels that he is not worthy.  Matthew does not accurately see his true value.  He feels insignificant, and sees Elizabeth as unreachable. 

And though this is a fictional story about made up people, yet it holds truths we see each day.  Each day we set values upon others…we set values upon ourselves.  We do not view humanity as a bag filled with marbles.  At least not equal marbles.  We have favorites, and we have those we abhor.  We use our own crooked measuring stick to measure others.  This is neither right nor fair.  We are all marbles.  Each of us has strengths and flaws.  That is the truth of our humanness.  Just because my flaw is less objectionable that another’s doesn’t mean that another person is of less value than I.  And just because you are not wealthy or famous doesn’t mean you carry less worth.  No one knows all the battles others have endured.  No one knows all the secrets hid in dark places of others.  No one knows all the pain you or I have borne.  Each of us has had bumps and bruises throughout the years of our lives.  When we look honestly at ourselves…really honestly…we should see our own failings and seeing our own failing become more tolerant to the failings in others. 

You see we are but one among all the marbles.  Each different and yet not.  GOD made us that way.  Be humble but honest.  See the best in others.  Care about the pain they suffer.  Smile when you can.  Cry when you must.  Forgive others…but don’t forget to forgive yourself as well.  And never forget we are but one among all the marbles.  

 

(860 Words) 11-5-2016

 

 

Adventure of a Lifetime

 

By John W. Vander Velden

 

 

This post might seem different than what you might have expected.  The phrase I used for the title is usually tied to some one time event…hang gliding…bungee jumping…or something unique and exciting.  But what I’m writing about is no less exciting…if exciting is what you’re looking for. 

We live in an amazing age and in this era we share, there’s social media.  For most Facebook is a way to spend (or waste) time reading posts and rants about things we might not even care about.  But it is also a way that people reconnect.  A way that did not exist even a generation ago.  So it was that a childhood neighbor and friend reached across the 54 years of separation and “touched” me.  In doing so she reminded me of those years long shoved into the dusty file cabinets of my memory, the two and a half years my family lived in Florida.  

My father was a farmer, which in the early 60’s meant we, the whole family, were farmers.  And being farmers, the type of farmer my father was, the climate of central Florida was not a good fit.  The summer’s heat and humidity made the work he was required to do more than difficult.  Added to the fact that 1100 miles separating my family from the only people on the continent that shared our blood did not improve the situation.  But rural central Florida was great for a boy like me.  Though I was not as “outdoorsy” as my older brother, I enjoyed the creek with its warm water flowing across a sandy bottom, the blue tailed skinks that dashed so quickly out of sight, the sound of the whip-or-will calling in the darkness, and the squirrels moving about the live oaks, the long limbs their highways.  I enjoyed the friendships of those in school, in church, and those that lived nearby.  Those years were an adventure.  I ‘spect I didn’t know so at the time…seriously, I might not have thought so last week.    

But occasionally we are reminded of times and people long forgotten, of events that helped to shape the people we have become.  Sometimes it takes Facebook to show us the way back and going back to appreciate better what “back” was.  Not that everything in “back” was wonderful.  We might want to forget the less than pleasant times, there were plenty, and see the past through rosy lens.  For it seems that time has a way of “sanding down” the rough patches, and that may not be a bad thing.  I am not one that believes we should live in the past.  Remembering is OK but it is in the “rearview mirror”, today is what really matters.  

However these thoughts of yesteryear show me that I have lived an adventure.  I think everyone has if they just consider it. When I think of the places I have lived, the people I have known, and the things I have done, it would be enough to fill a book…and more.  There hasn’t been anything extra ordinary in my years, like I said everyone’s life is an adventure…really.  But the best part is…that my adventure continues.  Oh, what new and unexpected experiences lie before me.  I prepare to enter a new phase of my life…and I’m excited…for I enter my retirement, whatever that means.  I am looking forward to doing new things in new ways, my story certainly is not complete.  You see…I’m living the adventure of a lifetime….

 

(589 Words)  12-29-2016