Blog Posts

Between the lines

8/2/2015

Tal and I are living in a construction zone. Doors -- four of them -- are being widened. A garden tub and shower stall are becoming a generous roll-in shower. The bedroom, now thickly carpeted, will soon be smooth hardwood.

Demolition has passed. The builder is in the putting-it-all-back-together phase. Everyone -- the various workers as well as us homeowners -- is cheerful.

Tal and I are staying in the guest room where neither of us has spent any time in the two years we have lived in this house. I clean it between guests. That's all.

For me, staying in that room, especially waking up in that room, is like living in a different house. The master bedroom windows look out onto the terrace and our neighbor's screened porch. The guest room is upstairs (tricky for Tal, I'm sad to say) has a lovely set of double windows facing east.

I am taken by the light play in that room and find myself climbing the stairs simply to see what it's doing at various times of day. Take a look.

The wall opposite the windows at 7:30 in the morning.

The blinds closed to the hot morning sun at 10:45

Straight on at 5:00 in the afternoon

I'm only slightly tempted to get preachy here. I could write about reading between the lines, about what we see depending largely on our angle of view, about taking in the whole picture -- or not, about the patterns we play out through our lives, about truth or untruth seeping into consciousness.

I'd rather leave our construction zone as is this afternoon. I'd rather take the photographs at face value. I'd rather simply let what this set of blinds reveals at different times of day be.

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Miles to go ... 108 and counting

8/1/2015

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Tal received a Fitbit for Christmas, a suggestion from his physical therapist as a way to track steps and learn about sleep patterns. Since then Tal began using a ventilator at night. Now, his sleep is regular and restful. The Fitbit doesn't seen to record steps very well when its user is leaning on a walker. Hum.

To the top of the dresser it went. Another collector of dust. Until ...

A month ago I decided I would begin walking each morning. For exercise. To clear my mind. None of my go-to excuses exerted their usual power. On the first Monday in July I set out. To bad it took me a week to think about that abandoned black bracelet. So, it wasn't until the 13th that I charged the Fitbit and put it on. In the 19 days between then and the end of the month I walked 108 miles.

The best time to head out is between 6:00 and 6:15. I get to watch the light rise, to see the sun come up, to engage our neighborhood as people begin to move. It's a great time of day.

There are two pairs of shoes I alternate morning-by-morning now. I'm kind of interested in how many miles I might walk during August. I think I'm hooked.

Stay tuned.

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Tight spaces

1/26/2015

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Just when I expect spacious, I end up in a tight spot. Take Saturday. The funeral for my friend and mentor, Grahame Butler-Nixon, went well. The bishop's liturgical presence was to my mind lovely and tender. The homily, written and rewritten and written again, seemed to hit the right note. And, spending time during the luncheon with people I met right out of seminary in 1992 was simply wonderful.

I expected to get home Saturday afternoon and begin catching up the tasks I'd let slide while I sermonized through the week. Instead, I arrived home, brought in my book bag and vestments from the car and simply couldn't function. All I could seem to do was sit and stare, though, blessedly I was sent home with a plate of delicious food, so a late lunch/early supper for Tal was within my grasp. So, the potential for spacious -- and productive -- went unrealized.

Sunday was better and today better still. In fact, today was marked by dramatic bookends. During breakfast a Red-tailed hawk lit on the birdfeeder crook just outside our kitchen window. We were agape. Reach for the camera or just watch in wonder? Well, let's just say I have no photographic documentation to prove its stunning presence. When it lifted off, we were cloaked in silence and awe for some minutes.

Then, this afternoon ... oh, this afternoon.  Our weather went from the morning's bright sun and windy to brooding and ominous during the afternoon, the low, slanting sun turning everything golden.

With daylight fading so fast, I went out with the camera and found myself in a tight spot once again, a tight spot of a different sort. Our neighborhood is closely built, so it's almost impossible to get a shot without rooflines, garages, vehicles. I have mentioned that before, I think. (Translate: complained) Add to that having to work fast.

But, I think these two photographs capture something of the late afternoon's drama, despite the neighborhood's tight spaces.

This is looking west from the front yard with the lens lifted above the rooflines of the patio homes along our street. I like the framing provided by the river birch limbs overhead and the distant trees below.

This golden view is looking northwest, the leafless trees reflecting the setting sun. I am glad the power lines -- almost impossible to avoid -- are not as illuminated as the trees.

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Explored

1/23/2015

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This week has been an intense -- and a sweet -- one.  My homily for tomorrow morning's funeral has been written and rewritten, proofed, edited and, finally, printed. My vestments are ready; my not-often-used processional cross freshly polished. Tomorrow will be hard, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Through all those thoughtful preparations there has been something else going on.  I made a photograph last Saturday afternoon of light casting a shadow across the fireplace surround here in our living room. It was quite a phenomenon to watch. Truly awe-inspiring.

It ended up on Explore.  I don't know how it happened. Explore is rather mysterious. Something about an algorithm having to do with "interestingness." Yeah, I know ...

At any rate, in a 24-hour period that one photograph received over 15,000 views. Imagine that!

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A light extinguished

1/19/2015

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While I was dressing this morning, the light through the oxalis leaves here in the bathroom window had me reaching for the camera. At that same hour a dear friend and mentor, one of the most important people in my adult life, was loosening his grasp on this earthly existence.

Grahame Butler-Nixon, an Episcopal priest and naturalized American citizen, had the most wonderful Australian accent. In June of 1992 he welcomed me to Grace Church in Camden South Carolina, fresh out of seminary, unsure of myself. Fact is, he taught me with patience and love, over the course of the three years I was his assistant, how to be a priest. I owe very nearly every success I enjoyed during my fulltime parish years to him.

A friend wrote in an email announcing Grahame's death that "the loss is almost unbearable." I agree. But, the last two months have been excruciating for Grahame. I, along with many who have walked closely with him this sudden and final illness, are happy that his pain and struggle are finished.

Rest in peace, Grahame.

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Drenched to dazzling

1/16/2015

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It has rained for days. The purple Muck boots Tal bought for me last week (a belated Christmas present; click here to get a glimpse) have been my go-to footwear for five days. The deck under the outside table has turned green. A friend told me she was beginning to mildew!

Then came this morning.

While I waited for the coffee to finish brewing, I stepped outside the front door to feel the air. I was greeted by the sun forcing its way through the fog and hints of blue higher in the sky.

An hour later the mist remained heavy, very nearly obscuring the tree line in the distance. But, the light on the palmettos across the street danced.

We watched the light all day -- into the late afternoon.

The table in the kitchen has windows facing north and west. Here the late-afternoon sun streaming through the blinds made competing stripes on the plaid table cloth.

And, the curl of my napkin seemed to glow from within.

While I am not one to complain about gloomy weather (it sort of suits my personality), I did relish today's de-light-ful light. In fact, it interrupted everything I set out to do -- from getting the Christmas decorations into the attic to preparing meals to tending the washer and dryer. I was drawn to notice and to stop and even to reach for the camera. Such interruptions are wonderful invitations to pause, to attend to what's revealing itself, to revel in the sheer magic of it all.

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Holiday recollection

1/12/2015

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Our home is back in order. Well, for most part. Fact is, all the boxes of decorations are upstairs. I have some in-the-attic reorganizing to do -- perhaps involving a visit to Lowes -- before stowing everything for the next eleven months. I am pleased with our steady progress. We'll be so organized next Christmas!

We had a wonderful and sweet holiday, involving a bit of travel, lots of cooking -- and eating, good family visits, news from friends. I wouldn't have changed a thing.

What follows is a little nine-image gallery -- views and scenes I want to remember and to share. Simply click on each thumbnail to see the entire photograph and to read the caption. Enjoy!

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Now for another word

1/9/2015

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Making resolutions at the beginning of a new year has lost its appeal. Coming up with the list is simple enough. Over time, though, maintaining a number of sudden, varied and usually dramatic changes in one's life is difficult. I have found it all but impossible.

Resolutions -- like the process of giving up something for Lent -- emphasize the negative. They zero in on the ways we see ourselves as lacking, on what about ourselves we think we need to fix. We weigh too much, we eat the wrong things, we are not industrious, kind or generous enough. That negativity itself is hard to overcome. Our resolutions (and Lenten disciplines, too), no doubt well-meant, only add to the negativity when we abandon them. A terrible cycle.

Another way of instigating change in one's life has me intrigued. It involves choosing a word for the year. Maybe instead of choosing, we could invite or ask to receive a word. Whatever works.

One writer whose blog I follow spent last year gently considering the word "threshold." This year her word is "immerse." So, the word can be anything. Nourish. Peace. Intentional. Amends. It can even be a word we might consider bad or negative. Like the focus of my last essay: failure. So, impatience, maybe. Or daunting. The point? Living with that single word for a year. Letting one's understanding of it -- and of one's self -- deepen. Getting to the essence. That's the point.

I like the word "attentive," along with the associated "attention." I have to admit that once I took to the dictionary I almost changed my mind! What I do not intend in choosing attentive is this definition: thoughtful of others; considerate; polite; courteous. It's not that I don't want to be those things. For some reason that list of attributes brought to mind immediately Eddie Haskell (of "Leave It To Beaver" fame; solicitous in an unnerving sort of way). All the more reason to stay with it, I suppose.

There are three turns of phrase in the longer definition of attentive that intrigue me:

1. Paying careful attention
2. Being receptive to what is
3. Alert stillness

I hope having one word for 2015 will provide insights and engender change in ways resolutions for most part have not. We'll see ...

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Failure understood

1/5/2015

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January began the same way December ended: in failure. Admittedly, my failure -- the specific one I'm thinking of, anyway -- isn't particularly notable when set against a life's general challenges, debacles and slip-ups.

For a full three years, 2011 through 2013, I made, edited and posted an image to Flickr every day. That happy record began to falter in mid-2014. October found my efforts sporadic and half-hearted. By Thanksgiving I had stopped even pretending to be interested.

Failure. The words and phrases that go along with it, so full of negative judgment, are hard to consider: proving unsuccessful, nonperforming, insufficient, deterioration of vigor, delinquent. Pretty terrible, huh? Accurate, though.

Having failed at this scheduled picture-taking I am not without excuse. If I'm generous with myself I could even call them reasons.

1. There's having been prohibited beginning in July from walking the golf course before or after the day's play. For some reason I took what was termed a "friendly reminder" terribly to heart. Belle and I took to the streets, not joining those who continued their cart path walking. It wasn't the same, the views all of garages, cars, mailboxes ...
2. Tal's medical challenges have taken increasing time the last several months. I have found the creative urge to limited in fairly direct proportion to growing concern and responsibility for Tal, the house and the yard.
3. Holidays, of course, had their own demands.
4. The decreasing light attending the onset of autumn and winter always has its way with me.
5. And, most telling, has been our sweet Belle's death in November.

As I worked out that list with the 12-days of Christmas drawing to a close, I chose to be gentle with myself. What's to say, after all, the commitment to posting that image-a-day had to go on for more than one year? And, I made three! That's pretty good. I probably need to be a little more careful about starting and ending dates for such endeavors.

A writer I admire* has observed that failure, more than evidence that we cannot do something, can actually be an indicator that things need adjusting. Life and growth and trying new things doesn't have to an all or nothing deal, he says. Flexibility and adaptability have to be part of the mix.

So, what I'm hoping is that the apparent diminishment of my creative and photographic energies is a temporary thing. I don't want to continue using -- or even thinking -- any of those above-listed, loaded words in relation to photography or by myself.

I have played with the camera a bit the last several days, and enjoyed it. Eventually, I'll begin posting to Flickr again. But, it won't be for a 365-project any year soon.

*Leo Babauta, Zen Habits

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Going up?

9/8/2014

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One of the features I like most about our house is a simple thing. Our stairs, which start at the front door, are not entirely enclosed. In fact, they are open into the front hall about half way up on the left and then open to the second floor the rest of the way on the right. The best part is that section in the front hall. As you can see from the photograph, it's pretty handy.

Our office is a little dormer room directly over the front door which looks down on the street and, wonderfully, through a space between two houses to the water guarding the fifth and sixth holes on the Golden Hills golf course. In the winter when the trees are leafless I can see Twelve-Mile Creek glinting in the sun. I refer the office as "my little perch."* From this vantage point (I am sitting there now as I type this post) I have watched a full cycle of the seasons, kept Quicken up-to-date, edited photographs, written letters, talked on the telephone, even kept count of the sometimes numerous FedEx and UPS visits to the street on a given day. And, from here I can almost see into the living room below. It's an hospitable spot.

But, back to the stairs. Having such an inviting and even essential room on the seldom-used second floor means that all sorts of stuff, from paper to camera equipment, has to go one way or another. While on occasion a backpack or a tripod gets left at the foot of the stairs for a time, it's the pickets supporting the bannister that get pressed into use regularly as a sorting device. Catalogs to peruse, documents and labels to shred, bills to pay -- all the stuff that needs to go up, it all ends up there, each category in its own slot. The kitchen counter stays cleared off and I am saved many a climb. Convenient. (The appliances in the laundry room serve much the same purpose for everything needing to go to the garage, from tools that need to be put away to recyclables on their way to the various bins.)

These collection spots make me wonder. I wonder about the considerable and unstoppable amount that comes into the house every day, mostly paper, but there's plenty of plastic, glass, steel, as well. It's staggering, particularly in light of the fact that we are not shoppers for very much beyond groceries -- and then we carry our own bags. We're not bringing home what I call "dustables." It surprises me how much, in our down-sized state, we have to dispose of every day.

It's just the way life is. I know that. But, all of it means something, doesn't it? All that stuff going up the stairs, coming back down, making its way to the garage is made of some raw material, was dreamed up, designed, produced by someone, exists for some purpose and ends up somewhere. It's part of what makes our lives work.

I have an occasional moment, when I'm placing things between the pickets at our stairs, when I realize the considerable time I spend controlling the flow. Then, I consider what life here would be like if I didn't bother to deal with it. Either way, I have a hunch it's more controlling than it is controlled!

How does it seem to you?

* Click here to see a view of the office on a neat day.

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Welcome

For most of my 60 years I have let the question "what is this all about?" dwell somewhere in my being -- in the forefront at times, frequently banished to the depths. It's persistent, that question.

This space is one I want to hold open for myself, and for all who visit, where I can use photography and the written word to contemplate life's wonders and mysteries.

Between the lines

Miles to go ... 108 and counting

Tight spaces

Explored

A light extinguished

Drenched to dazzling

Holiday recollection

Now for another word

Failure understood

Going up?

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