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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2009 7:41:16 GMT
I'm thinking more about promises that we make to ourselves, but not only. (Promises that we make to others -- when they are sincere -- are just another version of promises that we have made to ourselves.)
Do you have any promises on standby?
Have you made good on some important ones?
I have a silly (but important to me) promise that is still at the top of my list. When I had to take my mother in for a year while waiting to get her papers sorted out and find a place for her in a nursing home, one of her teeth fell out. I found it and have kept it.
The reason? Starting from when I was a little boy, my mother would describe one of the greatest things in her life -- visiting the 1937 Colonial Exhibition in Paris. The thing that impressed her the most was a huge replica of Angkor Wat (made of wood!) and she would get stars in her eyes talking about it.
That's what always made me want to go to Angkor, even though for decades it didn't seem like it would ever be possible. But I went as soon as I could and was at least able to show pictures to my parents of all of the temples.
My mother is now incapable of travel, and she will never see Angkor in person. But one day I will return with her tooth and stick it securely in a temple wall, and she will become part of
Angkor forever.
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Post by spindrift on Jul 17, 2009 8:34:50 GMT
That's such a great idea. Will you tell her? and if you do tell her, would she understand?
The old man of 96 who's been my close friend and mentor for 35 years....well he had extracted all sorts of promises from me as to how I should dispose of his possessions (on his death), what sort of funeral service he wanted and how I should dispose of his ashes. In fact I had thought that I would scatter them into the sea from a ferry going to the Isle of Wight or alternatively take them to an Italian lake and scatter them into the water. He loves the sea. His happiest time was going as a young doctor on a 6 month cruise of the world in a J Class yacht owned by a magnate (this was in the 1930s).
Anyway since his carer has had me thrown out and I am no longer permitted to see him or even step onto his property, all these promises must come to NIL.
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Post by tillystar on Jul 17, 2009 8:46:36 GMT
Ha I like the idea of your Mum’s tooth buried there!
Well a couple of promises I can think of. I have never been to India and really want to go, but I don’t want to go until I can spend a couple of months there and spend some time traveling about. At some point we will take some time to do this. It might be 5 years and it might be 15 years, who knows? It always there but on a back burner for a bit at the moment.
I have also promised myself I will write down all the oral family history I have been lucky enough to have been passed on. I really need to do that actually, maybe if I start and little by little it will all get down on paper eventually.
I kept a good promise a few years ago. My Mum travelled loads when she was younger but never left Europe. When I visited Morocco when I was 19 I promised myself to take my Mum there one day as I knew she would absolutely love it. I finally took her for a week about 4 years ago and she did love it and has been back 4 times since!! Really that has led to another promise to get her somewhere else – she loves these adventures and is so fun to go away with but needs a real push to get her there!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2009 15:11:57 GMT
I like to always keep my promises, after I made them. But I very rarely make any. But, yes, the ones I do make, I keep.
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Post by traveler63 on Jul 17, 2009 20:29:34 GMT
Our promise was to fulfill Kirk's mom's request to have her ashes scattered at the Grand Canyon. So last year we made the reservations for the North Rim(South Rim is more popular). North Rim doesn't open until May 15th, because it is more remote, at a higher elevation and the road in gets snowed in, so generally they don't open in May, and sometimes not until June if the snowfall is particularly heavy. The North Rim is beautiful and less crowded because it isn't as built up. People who go there are generally hikers and photographers. It is more like what the South Rim was 50 years ago. So, we went and stayed a few days, taking pictures and just generally hanging out(no TVs or free wifi, only place to hook the computer up was at the campground general store). There is a huge lodge and basically that is where you eat. To go out of the park you would have to drive all the way back to Jacobs Lake, about 20 miles, so it is remote. Anyway, the last day we were there, at sunset, we walked to a place we had found and that is where we fulfilled the promise. Here is a picture of the site and a few more of the Grand Canyon, North Rim. api.photoshop.com/home_b720b413e253456899cf073f86ba1d1a/adobe-px-assets/90e4210c69d64654a3c1d393e588528dThis is the site api.photoshop.com/home_b720b413e253456899cf073f86ba1d1a/adobe-px-assets/602f9629c4e2412b82860c93dacf11fcThis one was taken about7:15 pm api.photoshop.com/home_b720b413e253456899cf073f86ba1d1a/adobe-px-assets/1a28f2479442428cae2301a67a597021This is one of the natural arches and you can see the Colorado river api.photoshop.com/home_b720b413e253456899cf073f86ba1d1a/adobe-px-assets/dfb5fa7183b341ac93ba3d09af489cf6This is the same pix as #2 but earlier in the day api.photoshop.com/home_b720b413e253456899cf073f86ba1d1a/adobe-px-assets/853a2852132f4ec6bba1385d9db8e8cb I am a novice photographer and I have been playing around with backlighting, so some of you out there, am I doing this ok? I haven't touched these, I do have Adobe Phote Elements 7 and I have been told the Grand Canyon is really difficult because of the lighting and trying to get as much of the sky out as possible. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2009 5:37:12 GMT
I have never mastered the sky in my photos. The sky does what it wants!
Fabulous photos, traveler63 -- and a nice promise kept.
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Post by Jazz on Jul 18, 2009 8:16:54 GMT
I keep my promises to other people almost always, but sometimes I don't keep promises to myself. Kerouac, I love what you want to do and somehow I think your mother will understand.
Tilly, your idea of writing down the oral history is wonderful and I hope that you do it. Once the 'elders of the tribe' have died you don't realize what you have forgotten...their stories. My family is not long living, on either side, (oldest, 73) and there is now no one left to tell the oral saga. This is a great loss.
I don't know what to say Spindrift, only that I know that he appreciated you for a long time.
Very lovely photos, Traveller63 and a promise kept.
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Post by spindrift on Jul 18, 2009 19:51:12 GMT
Jazz, thank you.
T63 - Oh Oh Oh! those pictures are wonderful...especially picture 4 (the natural arches). I will have to go to the Grand Canyon and see for myself.
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Post by lola on Jul 21, 2009 21:16:30 GMT
Unspoken promise to my daughters is to support them through undergrad studies.
After the suicide of a family member, long ago, the rest of us promised each other we would never take that way out, knowing the pain it caused.
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Post by lola on Jul 22, 2009 12:34:10 GMT
I wake up this morning promising myself to get with the program, stop whining and get that To Do list started.
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Post by rikita on Aug 4, 2009 20:09:28 GMT
very nice pictures! a few little things - if you have a horizon on there, make sure it is straight (i.e. not tilted - else correct this later on). the last picture is a bit too bright. and personally i like it if the darkest parts of a picture are really dark - in some of your pictures the shadows are almost a bit too light, and appear a bit noisy... not sure it is clear what i mean - and of course that is only my personal opinion, i am no expert either... but really nice pictures. nice compositions...
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Post by rikita on Aug 4, 2009 20:10:30 GMT
as for promises - can't really think of any big ones i made... other than promising my parents again and again i will graduate until whatever time limit they suggest - and never keeping that promise so far. i am trying, though.
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Post by spindrift on Aug 4, 2009 22:11:20 GMT
I once promised an old man that I'd look after his wife after he's gone....he's not gone yet so can I renege on that promise?
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 5, 2009 1:37:20 GMT
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Post by lola on Aug 5, 2009 2:03:16 GMT
Amazing self portraits, bixa.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 5, 2009 6:15:14 GMT
;D
Marie Antoinette meets the Bride of Frankenstein!
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Post by rikita on Aug 5, 2009 23:54:19 GMT
ah, thanks for the link... yes, i had a very nice time...
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2009 16:35:04 GMT
I also like to keep the promises I make to myself.
I'm a very goal orientated person, and always have been, I make no apologies for this, that is just me. There are things that I want to do, and said I would get done within the next 2 to 3 years. And there are promises I made myself, years ago, that I want to keep, beyond that time...
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Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2011 5:35:28 GMT
I may have run out of promises, except for unspoken ones to myself.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jun 13, 2011 17:56:23 GMT
I try not to make too many promises....but ones made are usually kept.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 7, 2012 15:12:56 GMT
I don't think I have any promises in stock at the moment. That's a bit ominous.
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