Pictures Gone Awry

CHRISTMAS PICTURE-TAKING GONE AWRY was the conclusive favorite December photograph, netting 7 out of 16 tallied votes. The next runner up only found 2 votes. Since this picture was so well-received, I decided to post more "awry pictures" from this series followed by the one I chose to use for sending in Christmas letters. It is an argument that the portrait photographer's job is not easy. It is also interesting to think about why we choose the pictures that we do. How much and why do we need/want to show our "best side"? And why was this picture the favorite? Does seeing imperfection relieve us from the pressure to perform as well as the fear that everyone is more perfect than us? Enjoy!

Favorite Photographs: January

1 "YOUNG GIRL" - PA Farm Show

2 "MAN WITH HAT" - PA farm show




3 "LYRIC'S ICE HOUSE"





4 "WOMAN WITH THREADWORK" - PA Farm Show

5 "GIRL VIEWING CHICKS" - PA Farm Show

6 "BUCKETS IN CORN" - PA Farm Show

7 "FACES AT HOME"

8 "OWL AND EYE" - PA Farm Show

9 "RUSSIAN EXCHANGE" - Shannon visits the Russian church

10 "INAUGURATION" - Maggie listens to Obama's Speech

Vote for your favorite! - thanks for the votes and all the comments on the photographs from December. Encouragment and critique are both welcome - I especially like to hear what the various pictures make you think about and feel.

A Quiet, Bending Footpath

We want so many things from life. We want our relationships to work, to be well-formed and nurturing. We want a work to do, an occupation that is innately meaningful and essential in some larger context. We want to be capable and self-sustaining, in order to be free of anxiety and fear. We want a place to call home, a resting place – and we want something to believe in deeply.

But tonight I take a break form all this wanting as I walk out into the chill of spring’s arrival. All my wantings are strangely condensed, distilled. I imagine that what I really want is a quiet, bending footpath – a place known only to me and the coon who has left his paw prints during the night. I envision this place unspotted from the road – unseen by the other passers-by. It is a place where, bending down, I can just make out its quiet invitation. I follow.

I comply with its graceful shape as it moves through scattered patches of dried growth, the chaff of the discarded winter, and over splayed pebbles, across pools of dried mud. It leads me under an arching tree and beside a heavy rock. I pause as my eye catches a robin fluttering among new leaf buds. The remains of a gray picket fence gently hold the slanting sun from slipping away too soon. I pass a tumbling rock wall and catch my shirt on a patch of briars.

I imagine this is all I really want – my quiet, bending footpath – where I follow its newness, its enticement to be alive.

The March of Tulips

Tulip in Akron, March 2007

Most of the time spent at my kitchen sink is after dark. After the kids have been put to bed I begin knocking out my handful of evening chores which almost inevitably includes washing the dishes. But sometimes I wash dishes during the day, and I always spend some amount of time standing by the sink – after rinsing things off, washing my hands, or filling up a bottle for Maggie. The kitchen sink is just one of those places where you end up spending a lot of loose moments within the day.

At this house we are lucky enough to have a window behind the sink(see previous blog “Ordinary Love” for photograph). In our previous one, the minutes spent washing dishes romanced the individual to a tiled wall vista. Since moving here in September of last year, this window view has been a welcome change of pace. While neither exciting nor mesmerizing, this view is mostly filled up by our immediate neighbor’s house, an entire 12 feet away. The siding is a nondescript graying white. The space between our homes is divided by a short wire fence into two walkways that lead out onto the street. There is some sidewalk, some scabby grass, the occasional yippy neighbor dog, but nothing noteworthy – until now.

The other day I was surprised to notice tulips poking their spearheaded leaves sharply up out of the soil along our neighbors house. Where I had guessed only weeds and their descendants to dwell – bulbs had been nesting away in their quiet homes all winter long. Ahhhh! I can’t wait to see what color they are. What a difference they could make to this window view! It would be like inserting some drops of dazzling color into a black and white photograph.

I wasn’t always so interested in tulips. While living in Akron, my wife spent some of her precious few moments of “down time” troweling up the soil around our little cape cod and planting enough perennials to make us reluctant to leave them behind. Right beside our most-used entrance to the house, she created a bed of bright pink tulips; the bulbs were a gift from her Mom. These tulips became an inextricable part of our cycle of life in the four years spent going in and out of that door – four spring seasons in which we looked forward to the March tulips as they sprang from the still cold earth, straight and tall, stalwart and inviolate in their symmetry.

They multiplied every year and when we left last July, we dug up what bulbs we could. They sit now in a yellow bucket in our basement, waiting for us to find them a new home. We, too, are waiting. We are only renting this place; and expect to be here only a short time. My wife’s trowel waits in a cardboard box – the garden hose lies limp under the porch. For now we will await the March of the neighbor’s tulips.

A Controlled Swordfight

We spent most of this week in Ohio while Shannon had her surgery. During this time Olivia also had half a dozen meetings with doctors in Akron and with Amish men in Walnut Creek. Maggie completely avoided her napping and feeding schedule and also came down with a stomach bug while Lyric’s cough eased. Dylan came along for the ride but was neglected most of the time as we spent our hours driving to and from meetings and the Cleveland Clinic where Shannon had a tumor, her esophagus and 15 percent of her stomach removed. We ate on the run but well due to meals given by friendly church folk. I ran six miles and drove about 20 hours. I drank one Rockstar, one White Chocolate Mocha and one Frappaccino.

On Monday my family camped out in the lobby of the surgery center from 4:30 a.m. until we were able to visit Shannon around 1:30 p.m. Olivia and I were sent to find out if Shannon could be visited so we ended up being the first ones to see her. I walked into her nook in the midst of the ICU – we were the only ones not wearing white - and moved into a swirling mass of emotion. I noticed few details about her tubing or appearance but simply felt sad. Her mouth was held closed around the ventilator with a rubber strap. I realized that it is frightening to lose verbal contact with someone, especially as their consciousness is compromised by pain and medication. (we learned later that her initial epidural was not functioning) As I looked into her face it felt like we were both floating in and out of a haze. Her right hand slowly touched her chest again and again. At first I thought she was cold then correctly guessed that she was indicating pain in this spot. She was clearly in a lot of pain but there was a subtle relaxing of her body when I told her how much of her stomach was saved. She had requested that we tell her this information right away. I also realized that I am not that good at one-sided conversations. I told her that she was doing a good job and that the surgery had gone well and that I would bring Mom and Dad in to see her. On the way home I decided that surgery is really just a controlled version of a nasty swordfight.

I attended Olivia’s final meeting in Walnut Creek with the mostly Amish board of the newly proposed Windows of Hope Genetics Information Center and two independent genetic researchers. I noticed with interest that the Amish men were adept at filling up a space quietly and purposefully at the same time – they did not exude an intrusive agenda in the same way my wife and the researchers did. After about two hours of discussion we stood, exchanged closing comments and made ready to leave. I reached for my black corduroy jacket made in Bangladesh while the Amish men reached for their nondescript homemade ones. The chairman of the board, after opening a door to check how much the temperature had dropped in two hours, decided to leave his bike there and hitch a ride home. Olivia and I stopped at the local dari-ette and casually discussed the beginning of the rest of our lives together while eating ice cream sundaes.

Saturday, March 7, 8:56 p.m.

Saturday, 9:11 p.m.

Sunday, March 8, 7:08 p.m.Monday, March 9, 4:37 a.m.Monday, 4:48 a.m.Monday, 5:17 a.m.Tuesday, March 10, 9:12 p.m.

Deep Into the Woods

I carried my questions deep into the woods
wrapped tightly and nestled down in my pocket
I wanted to find the place without sound
the quiet place
and leave them there

we entered the wood
my dog and I
free-spirited and buoyant
bathing, awash in the universe
alone among trees

a hole in my pocket, unknown to me
let slip my precious queries
one by one they slid away, unkept
discreet and untied


when we paused below the hemlock
its branches bearing down
its aged face unaware of our time
one fell
and gently lay undistinguished
from the needles in their soft bed

while scampering up the ice-strewn slope
tilting with outstretched, balancing arms
another left
and spilled like glass
cold and shining
onto the potch-marked moss
left behind
reflecting the sun

as we crouched by the stream bed
leaning into its trickling voice
another dropped
into the current like melted silver
clear and clean
lapped up by my dog

into the carelessly strewn leaves
silently red and delicate
one floated down
turning over
fluttering voiceless
resting

and when we came to the quiet place
as we stopped to hear ourselves breath
the stillness of moss
the endless waiting of old rotten trunks
waiting to become soil
one became silence
another the wisp of our moist breath

I reached into my pocket
but none were there
none exposed by filtered sunlight
or embraced by the bare trees
alive and gnarled
wanting to burst into spring foilage