Deep Thoughts and growing up

I haven’t been feeling well lately, so I have done some time sitting around and reading, contemplating.

My stack of National Geographic magazines.

When the issue came, I realized I had never cracked the previous one.

I’ve had a subscription to National Geographic since I was 18, an annual Christmas gift from my grandma.

I stared for a long time at this image in the magazine, of a woman singing next to a Sioux Sun Dance pole, and thought about what that meant to me.

I had a list of items I wanted to photograph for National Geographic, a list that traveled with me up through college, where my history classes were of the worldly kind and I kept my French fresh for world travel.

A Sun Dance.

The stone soldiers of China.

A trip down the Amazon and a tomb in Egypt.

Traditional Romani life.

Russian ballerinas.

Ancient Gaelic sites.

The Taj Mahal.

A lot of these have been done before, but a Sun Dance had at one time been illegal and outsiders were not invited to see them anymore.

There are no pictures of the actual dance in the magazine, where they dance into an ecstatic trance and rip small pegs from their chest or back (see scars). Which makes me wonder if the photographer did witness it, if they did take pictures of it, how they felt.

I also wanted to be Indiana Jones when I was younger.

That thrill of discovery, the thrill of finding a gem of civilization and letting the world learn from it.

Life got in the way, of course, and my visions turned into a different reality.

C’est la vie.

I’ve always had a love of history, and a love for learning about new places, although I will probably never see many of them.

The last couple of years I’ve seen myself completely morph into Mom mode.

There is a lot to learn, to understand being a parent, and as I am home with him it seems he is always in my line of sight, taking attention away from other things.

So lately, I have been making it a point to Do Different Things, Have Deep Thoughts, Not Be Mom.

I’m reading The Blue Sweater as part of the Charitable Influence book club (still a great time to jump in!) and thinking about where my own clothes have gone when donated. There’s a certain sweatshirt I have never seen again but always wondered about because, years, later, I can see it was hideous.

I have a mad passion for Instagram right now and am looking for more than just fellow like-minded bloggers to follow. National geographic photographers, charity organizations, media outlets.

I started a Polyvore for fun, although I wonder why it took so long- even though I may not always look it I love reading about fashion.

And with these deep thoughts I’m also contemplating here.

I always have my deep thoughts while washing dishes, drifting asleep- those times when my mind is quiet and whatever has been lurking jumps out at me. My next mission s to try to get some f those deep thoughts, the ME thoughts, out instead of a hasty note on the phone and then days later trying to find that place again and finding its lost.

Finding more of the ‘me’ behind the ‘we’ of daily life.

Finding a little adventure, a replacement of  exotic Sun Dance in my daily life and giving that deep thought life, over and over.

To find something worth sharing of myself and breathing life into it.