A blog about photography & transformative art
One of the best things about cell phones is that I can now talk to myself in public. Not that many years ago it was considered odd to have a conversation with oneself. Now people are talking aloud seemingly no one just about everywhere. True, they usually have some kind of Bluetooth earpiece attached to to them and they are, theoretically, talking to an other human being somewhere. But, who knows for sure?
Sunday I bought a fish. Sick of Safeway and its hermetic seals, I went to the farmer's market. There you know what the food is and from where it comes. Contrary to the Safeway illusion, meat is not born in plastic trays. It comes from animals that once lived.
The daisies in our front yard reach high for the midsummer sun. A fantasy forest, they come from nowhere and then, one sad autumn day, I realize they are gone. It happens every year.
Like a snapshot, my reflection catches me in a moment of my life. There was a time when I looked forward to a surprise reflection of myself. These days it merely shocks me to see how much I've aged since the last reflection. I shake it off and tell myself to stand up straight. It's hard to find a flattering reflection these days.
The doggie paddle was the first thing I learned how to do in Cook's Pond, a muddy swim hole in my New Jersey hometown. I dearly wanted to swim with the big boys out to the raft. But keeping my head above water had to be my first priority. The raft would wait. The doggy paddle came before the kick board which came before the breast stroke. I seemed to swallow a lot of water back then. I guess the murky pond was safe. I never did get sick.
Daylight Saving Time plays tricks come October. The mornings are dark long beyond when my body clock says "Morning!". My brain tells me to get up. My eyes say something different. I don't like to move clocks forward and backward. It feels like I'm trying to cheat the cosmos or mold it into some kind of seasonal convenience. It never works. October mornings are dark forever.
"Let's get the show on the road!" my father always said when he got impatient. I always imagined us as small circus ensemble as we'd rush to get into the car. It felt like he was ready to drive off without us if we didn't hustle. Dad loved to drive. If it were a long trip he'd have a thermos of coffee that he'd refill again and again at truck stops along the way. Day or night, he'd drink coffee and drive.
A fair! There is nothing like it to stir the imagination. I've loved fairs since I was a young boy on the boardwalks of the Jersey Shore. Fairs, carnivals, circuses and boardwalk, they will forever gladden my heart.
You can feel it in the air the day before. There's a undercurrent of apprehension. No one will admit to it, everyone seems a little too cheerful. But, little things give it away.
With lots of time and open space, my imagination expands. The North Kaibab Trail has led me here. I started the morning seeing my frosty breath and now, after descending into the belly of the earth, it's nearly 100 degrees. Ponderosa pines have given way to gnarly little cacti that are nipping at my ankles.
