Category Archives: photography for self reflection

Grateful And Then

Posted on by

0

20131119_073511

Today’s picture isn’t in light of giving thanks all month long.  It’s just the shadow of this morning’s sunrise.

Its so hard that I feel grateful to people who also have really hurt me.  (I don’t mean some kind of bullshit silver lining “I feel grateful they hurt me, it made me a better person.” I hate that.)

Being hurt doesn’t spoil my thankfulness.  I almost wish it did.  I’m very clear about the 2 or 3 people I know I can’t forgive.  Instead, I have to live with the complications of love and disappointment.  Just like you do, with me.

Mostly, though, its love.

Grateful Lull

Posted on by

2

lull-2

Everybody was happy to see the sun today.  At the pond behind the library, birds still shelter, crowding the trees with silhouettes almost indistinguishable from the curled up leaves that cling to the branches.  They sing enthusiastically, maybe to keep the growl of the wind at bay.  It is a sweet surprise to hear such a thick cluster of voices in the cold, fresh air.

I know exactly how the birds feel.  Everyday, I have so much to do, and I know I’ll never finish it all before this lull is over.  It takes a lot of discipline to make sure I take a walk.  Anything, the slightest hint of an errand, can seem so much more important than facing up to the fact that I can’t do everything.  Even though it is risky to be unemployed three Mondays in a row, I have to remember:  Giant maple leaves matter, too.

I wanted you to see – it really is so beautiful here.

Grateful Does

Posted on by

0

_MG_4533

It isn’t getting any easier to write about giving thanks.  Each encounter with the friends who kept my little ship afloat makes the picture brighter, sweeter, and closer, closer, closer to the heart.

Thursday, when I took my phone out of my coat pocket, the dialer already displayed a number – 8.  Infinity, reciprocity, the mathematician’s answer to yin and yang.  The phone had matched that number to a single name – the friend who helped me start my career.  The friend who I discovered to be a shared (and much loved) acquaintance between me and two women I met for the very first time on Wednesday.

I dialed her number, not yet sure what the purpose of the call would be.  (When you get a sign like this, you don’t screw around – you make the call.)  Surprised to hear from me, my friend listened kindly to the tale of unexpected meetings and magical numbers.  “I don’t believe in chance,” she said matter-of-factly.   I knew she didn’t.

As my friend excitedly detailed her volunteer work – filling shoeboxes with everything from notebooks to toys, to be distributed to millions of needy children in countries around the world – her happiness glowed right through the phone.  Her purpose, her fulfillment, her joy in having a way to make her love for children real, filled me with happiness, as well.    “You have millions of kids now,” I said.

At last, I realized the true purpose of the call.  “I just want you to know, in case I haven’t said it enough before, how much I appreciate you helping me get started.”  “I did?”  she answered.  “I guess I don’t remember.”  I reminded her of each step where her friendship had opened a door along my path.  “It’s because of you, I found a way I could support and take care of myself,”  I told her.  “I didn’t ever believe I would be able to do that.”

The help my friend gives all her new children far outshines, in her eyes, any favor she did me – that much is beautifully, necessarily clear.  No reason to make a big deal out of it.  But the fact remains:  her ordinary generosity started my ball rolling – and to me, it is a very, very big deal.

You can’t anticipate the outcome of the good you do.  That is why you have to do any little bit you feel you can.  You just never know.

A While Ago

Posted on by

1

_MG_3528-2

Remember?
Soft black t-shirts and
the Gasoline Witch?

Remember?
Scrape-scrape-scrape
polishing short zippered boots
Scrape-scrape-scrape
smoothing soapy cheeks
Scrape-scrape-scrape
shining the wok that was
caked with dark sweet remnants of
spaghetti sauce?

And remember some you’d rather not
Come Here Your Not Here Yet
how cheeks can also sting
with tears and toughen from the redness
that burns when they are slapped?

This poem can not be long enough,
It requires all the time that I have

Spent already,
and this day
his longest day
today I know for certain
that there just isn’t any
more.

See What You Want to Say

Posted on by

1

_MG_3846-2

I have spent many hours gazing into this crystal ball, and just because its images appear soft and dark doesn’t mean they are not clear.  Here’s what I think this one might say:
“Your tender spot will always need protection, but that is not the same as hiding from vulnerability.  In fact, quite the opposite.  With the proper protection, you can dance on a bed of nails.”

Or, you know, something wispy and tough like that.  You can make up your own story.  That’s what crystal balls are for.

The High Wire

Posted on by

3

_MG_4037

I found this leaf lying next to my car, in the parking lot of my building this morning.  Now, if you go around picking up every pretty leaf you see, you’ll never make it as far as the grocery store across the street before they close, but this one was especially pretty,  so I scooped it up.

For the last several years, my inner life has been dominated by one theme – a struggle against futility.   My world has been bracketed on the one side with the fear of losing what I have, and on the other by the belief that I can’t have what I want, anyway.  Between these parentheses, my heart has been squeezed.

There’s a part of me that really, deeply, wants you to want to look at my pictures, wants the pictures themselves to be special to you.  I want to see things clearly – see what I love in a world of my making, and in myself.   If I say your perception doesn’t matter to me, that’s a lie.  But I really can’t know if I’ve revealed enough to entice you to see this leaf.  And I’m trying, trying not to answer that question.

Autumnally

Posted on by

0

20131024_073602

I know how to get through winter – books and coffee.  It’s a skill.  I don’t think about spring.  I meet the cold and dark on its own terms.  In the middle of summer, though, I worry whether spring will come again.  Autumn reassures me.  Once the leaves turn red, and I see the sky divided by grey and black veins I know:  I am going to make it.