Y

I don’t know about you but I encourage and support inquisitiveness. Little children are particularly good at probing further when answers to their questions just don’t seem to make all that much sense to them. Somewhere in the growth cycle we begin to shy away from verbalizing curiosity opting to go along in order to get along as we try to find our place, gain likability, avoid conflict, get chosen, be part of. There are those who break out of that stage, yet too many are content to either say yes without a second thought or keep their mouths shut when doubt arises. In my opinion, those who fail to ask not only why but also who, what, when, where and how are doomed to follow not lead and we know what happens when folks blindly or in many instances enthusiastically follow with little thought to challenging the status quo.

Even when I am creating something, I find my head dropping slightly to the right as I ponder. For example, I took an 8-week ceramics class many moons ago. I listened, followed directions, attempted to shape a vase like everyone else; it didn’t feel right to me. So after learning what the instructor had to offer, I began to experiment developing skills that helped me create pieces that appealed to me and eventually to the more seasoned in the studio. I am equally as quizzical when I find a recipe I want to try; it just did not make any sense to me when I read one for sweet potato bread that did not have even ONE seasoning in the list of ingredients! So I sprinkled, liberally, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and a couple of other things into the flour to jazz it up, made the bread my own. Yes, it is delicious.

I was prompted to write this after downloading and reviewing hundreds of photographs taken on an exceptional day with the camera. When I get home, I go through all of my shots, immediately identifying those I want to print, playing around with editing on others. Never one to keep them all to myself because I get so excited about the images, I watermark and sign my favorite pictures to send out or post and these two were in that category.

Very different pictures taken hours apart at very different locations, I found them to have an uncanny resemblance; the Y’s of nature, one molded by a single twisted branch the other shaped by the wings of a butterfly caught at just that moment got me to thinking about the word why which then led to when do we stop asking questions and so forth and now I leave you with this…being a maverick is not always popular however, I’ll take that any day over being mediocre. So as my Grandmother used to say, put that in your pipe and smoke it and…

keep your peepers open! ®