Adventuring in Titusville and Orlando Wetlands Park

This weekend we went for a little adventure. We drove over to the Titusville Municipal Marina to double check the rates and whatnot about a mooring ball. My family is the best. They are always up for an adventure. And they do it right.

They are checking out a row boat and hoping to see dolphin. The row boat was beautiful. No luck on the dolphin front. The kid loves her binoculars.

On our way home, we stopped at the Orlando Wetlands Park. A thunderstorm had just passed when we arrived, and after our walk, another one hit. But it was gorgeous while we were there.

The kid loves playing the game where you yank on a tree branch to splash another person. She found a perfect tree from a look out spot. We saw an alligator from here.

The sound of the water falling through the trees was like music. The birds were chirping loudly, and an alligator was making the sound an alligator makes--something between a bellow and a growl. It was a glorious day.

On Receiving a Free Book in the Mail

I think I might have mentioned this a time or twenty, but I love books. I love them! Even books I don't love, I wouldn't want to see destroyed. There is power in story-telling. There is power in the written word. This is one of the tenets of my beliefs: Language matters.

After going to lunch with my family a few days ago, I arrived home to a familiar sight--a yellow shipping envelope with Amazon's recognizable typeset on it. I had a book. Like I said, this is a familiar sight. I order a lot of books through Amazon. Hell, I order a lot of books period, but I couldn't think of any that I had order recently. My last few purchases have been for my e-reader. I ripped open the package and found The Irresistible Revolution: living as an ordinary radical. I'm used to receiving books that are new to me, but I had never seen or heard of this book or its author--Shane Claiborne. I looked for a shipping receipt, but couldn't find one. On Amazon, for the three people in the world who don't know, you can leave a note and send a gift receipt with anything you are gifting, so this surprised me. It means I don't know who sent me this present.

Putting that aside for the moment, I flipped the book over and read the description where I learned that "Claiborne stirs up questions about the church and the world, challenging you to live out an authentic Christian faith." Here's the rub: I'm not interested in living as an "authentic Christian" because I'm not a Christian. I try hard to live and let live, but I'm an atheist and a humanist. Neither of which I hide. Whoever sent this book to me is connected to me--he/she has my home address--and either he sent this to me because he doesn't know anything about me or because she knows things about me and wants to tell me I'm wrong.

I don't mind having a discussion about religion or politics or any topic. One of my closest family members, D, and I have discussions about faith and religion and our worldviews regularly. And our worldviews are not the same. If she sent me a book about Christianity, fiscal conservatism, or anything else, I would read it because she respects and values my opinion, and I feel the same about her. But, and this is a big but, she would tell me she was sending it. She would ask before she sent it. She would follow up with questions on what I would recommend she read, so that our discussion can be a real discussion.

As it turned out, a different cousin sent it to me. He and I haven't spoken in a long time. Somewhere along the lines of three or four years. We, on occasion, comment on the same Facebook statuses, but we don't have that much to do with one another. We live states a part and always have, plus he's a few years older than me. A few months ago, he asked me for my address, and now I have received this book. I sent my cousin an email expressing my unease and unhappiness with this "gift." It came out of the blue, with no note, no explanation. It is a book that has nothing to do with the way I have chosen to live my life. Apparently, my cousin's feelings were hurt by my email stating these things. He thinks I overreacted and misconstrued his intentions. He said he sent the book because he thought I would enjoy the message and because he knows how much I like to read. He asked if I would recommend a book on secular humanism, and he would read it.

We have exchanged a few emails now about this, and I hope we are on a better footing, but it has made me aware of a few things: 1) I don't like being given unsolicited religious books. 2) I don't really like the proselytizing or teaching aspect of explaining my beliefs to someone that I'm pretty sure won't like them and only view them as a reason for further witnessing to me. 3) I will read anything if someone asks me to. 4) I really should get over that. 5) I hate confrontation, even if it is amiable. 6) I love keeping in contact with my family, but if the only reason you want to talk to me is to discuss religious beliefs and points of view, I'm not sure this counts as keeping in touch. 7) How do you tell someone you have no problem becoming re-acquainted, but the current conversation isn't how you want to accomplish this feat?

After emailing back and forth more, I don't think my cousin was trying to hurt my feelings or be disrespectful. However, I don't think his motivation was as "pure" as he thinks it was. I'm curious about the motivation to witness, and I'm curious as to why I'm the object of this witnessing. The only thing I can think of is that I'm the youngest of the cousins. Most of our family likes to read, but I'm the only one to receive this book. Why? Why not send it to my cousin D? She is a Christian and very interested in discussing different aspects and manifestations of Christianity. Why not send it to my sister or D's sister? They are both avid readers; they are also humanists, liberal, and share many of my beliefs. The biggest thing I have learned about myself in this exchange is that these issues fascinate me, but I don't really enjoy the process of discussion and confrontation.

Adventuring and Art

Last weekend I went on an adventure. One of my favorite tattoo artists, Mark Hartenberger, was tattooing at the InkLife Tattoo tour and convention in Fort Myers. My sister, brother-in-law, and man-friend (have you noticed the awkward way I avoid saying husband? I don't know why, but I have never really liked that term) drove the interminable distance so that my sister and I could get work done. The drive was made longer by the fact that we were dropping the littlest members of our family off to stay with grandparents because the only thing worse than going to a tattoo convention would be dragging children to a tattoo convention.

We arrived in Fort Myers late in the afternoon on Saturday night, which left enough adventure time for roaming to the beach, acquiring snacks and cards for at the hotel, and eating dinner. I know this sounds like a fairly laid back adventure, and it was, but with my companions laid back adventure is kind of where it's at. These are the best adventuring companions around. It's mostly because they are all hilarious and really smart. I don't want to brag, but I've got some of the best friends around.

We went to the beach where we froze our asses off in the wind. I thought the ospreys were going to drown themselves due to the wind strength, and a sailboat gave up on its sunset cruise.

The wind off the Gulf was cold. I thought I was going to lose toes.

The wind blew the ospreys off course.

For some reason, we decided that walking in the water was warmer.

This could be their album cover.

Lovely sunset.

On Sunday we woke up, ate bagels, wandered in a park for a while, and then the boys left to while away the time. The lovely sis and I waited around for the convention to start. Conventions in general are funny things, but tattoo conventions draw such an interesting assortment of people. It's not the ideal environment for me to get a tattoo, but after waiting nearly five years for Mark to come back to Florida, I wasn't going to miss him. The sister started things off, and damn, she's tough. She spent about five hours in the chair.

This is the outline for the new work.

 

And this is the new addition. It's not finished yet, but it's pretty incredible. 

My tattoo took somewhere between three and four hours. I added a kestrel to the inner part of my upper arm--on the outer portion, Mark had already done a peacock for me. This won't shock anyone who has had an inner-arm tattoo, but they hurt worse than the outer arm, and due to the limited space in the booth, I had to hold my arm at an odd angle for the duration of the tattoo. But I love my new piece, so all-in-all it was worth it.

This is my finished kestrel.

I can't wait for my arm to heal completely. I love my new piece. And with every new tattoo, I love tattoos more. I carry my art with me. I carry it on my arm, and neck, and back, and leg. I know tattoos aren't for everyone. I know there are jobs where having my arm covered in birds might not be ideal. I know my skin won't always have the elasticity it does now. But goddamn, I love art.

Sisters!

Last year, I had the pleasure of teaching two sisters. K and C are amazing. They are both empathetic, smart-as-whips, and beautiful. They were not in the same class, so I was lucky enough to hear them talk about each other. They often referred to their "sister-bond." Now, I was their teacher, so it's not likely that they were going to air their squabbles to me, but we did spend a lot of time in their classes talking about our feelings. I feel like I know these girls fairly well. And the thing I love the most about them is how supportive of each other they are. They love each other and are proud of each other. I like seeing female relationships that take this tack. Too often it seems we ladies fall into the role of jealous and bickery rivals. The world can add to this competitive feeling in many damaging ways. I enjoyed seeing two sisters throw all that shit aside and revel in their individual and shared accomplishments.

Last Thursday, I drove down to the attraction area with my sister and our daughters to visit our grandparents.* It was great to have some uninterrupted time with my sister. You see, my sister is (my 14 year old self is struggling not to call her the bomb) fucking awesome. She's funny, tall, smart, beautiful, creative, smart, tall, and all around bad-ass. For proof of the tall, beautiful, and bad-ass part see below. This is us at the best New Year's Eve party ever, which she hosts. EVERY YEAR.

Back to Thursday. It was great because although we live near each other, we usually only hang out about once a week because I am a ridiculous home body. When we hang out there are usually tons of equally awesome people, which leads to great discussions and fun times, but not a lot of one-on-one sister time. We had to drive in rush hour traffic from our homes in real Orlando to where our grandparents were staying in Kissimmee, which means lots of time. We talked about art, life, books, the tattoos we will be getting soon (I'm so excited!), feminism, douche-baggery, our awesome brother, and lots of other things I don't remember. But it wouldn't have mattered what we talked about because my awesome, beautiful, intelligent, insightful, hilarious sister made a usually horrible drive wonderful simply by being herself.

Yay for the sister bond. Whether it be between biologically related sisters or non-biologically related sisters. Yay for the relationships in your life that make you happy even when you are doing things you hate the most--like driving. Celebrate the people you love. Celebrate the people who make your world a better place. Celebrate the people who make you want to use way too many adjectives in your writing.


*On an unrelated note, why do all relatives who visit Florida say they are in Orlando when really they are in Kissimmee? It's not the same place.