Happy Christmas!!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!! It’s normally a super busy time for everyone this time of the year and sometimes I “right my gyros” (that’s old pilot talk having something to do with gyroscopes…old technology) with walks alone in the woods. The images in the linked YouTube video are from several winter walkabouts at Accotink, I used to live about a hundred yards from the creek and a half mile walk from the lake. I understand it’s filling up with silt from the neighborhood drainage and won’t be dredged again. On the one hand it will be a great loss, on the other, a great gain of a wetlands area.

This is a shot of a male and female eagle who nested just a short distance from the path. They had a nest and for many years raised eaglets, fun to watch but during the “green” months you can’t really see the nest and all the eagles unless they’re flying.

OMG, My Hands

DC, Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden

The spots appear like little continents on the back of my hand.

“Age spots,” Kelsey calls them.

  “No,” I respond, “I can’t be old enough to have age spots!”

  Hmmm, well, maybe I am. Perhaps there’s another way of looking at them; I will think of them as continents filled with tiny beings doing things that only very, very small beings might do. I’m sure they are concerned when their continent begins to fade, or another continent erupts into life nearby theirs.

  Is the threat of rain or sunshine a bad thing or a good thing? I imagine they must have tiny beings whose only job is to forecast things like that…maybe based on the things my hands have recently done. What do they think if their entire continent is suddenly drenched in CBD lotion? What do they do if they sense their continent is fading away toward nothing?

  Perhaps they build tiny ship-like craft and prepare to move to a new continent should theirs fade too much. I imagine that at some point they would sound the alarm, jump into their ready craft and head for a new continent and home.

  Of course, they wouldn’t know where to go if they didn’t have scouts. I’m imagining some very tiny, very brave beings, the most adventurous on the continent, are the ones who become scouts. They train hard because their role is important, nay, critical! They must find and investigate new eruptions as potential home spots for their current population. Once in a while, I can see the scouts. If they stop on their journeys long enough in one place, they appear as small freckles. Sensing danger from inactivity, they disappear after a day or two and continue their search.

  When the evacuation alarm sounds on a disappearing continent, all of my tiny beings clamber onto their craft and head for the newest continent. There is a frenzy of action as the teeny craft motor on to the newly discovered continent. They quickly populate their new land and I can tell they are present and happy as the land reddens around their growing population. Sometimes I wonder if the scouts don’t actually create the continent themselves. I imagine that if they are cruising hither and yon on my hand and find nothing new, they all gather in one place and poof, a new continent!

I’m guessing only one set of tiny beings exist on my hand and the continents thereon. I mean if different types of tiny beings lived on the continents, they’d always be fighting for space and dominance and I’d have scratches, bumps, and scabs.

So…age spots. No, dear Kelsey. Not age spots but exciting life that roars and laughs and races about with derring-do. I mean, after all, they are my hands.

Going Home

Frederick, MD

A Short Story

Just one more bridge. That’s all, I told myself. Just one more bridge. I smiled as my mind filled with bridge clichés and Hallmark Coming Home movies and Prodigal Son stories but none of them is what I’m feeling now. My smile faded. I’ve been sitting on this rock in the ditch looking at that bridge for an hour. Looking at it, hoping for a sign or any indication of comfort or familiarity. I mean, for crying out loud, the bridge should know me! For 18 years I’d been carried over, walked on, or driven over that rickety pile of boards and nails. I hid underneath the damn thing to escape the rain or the enraged football rivals from just over the county line. I remember thundering tires, creaking beams, swirling dust, and dripping mud. But all mine! This was my bridge. The gateway to my childhood home.

Becky and I would sneak out of high school every chance we’d get and head for my bridge. Once away from the school we’d walk slowly, hold hands, and pick daisies. When we were riverside, hidden under the bridge, we’d make a wish, throw the blossoms onto the water, and watched them swirl away. We imagined doing that same thing with our lives, swirling away and finding a new place together. One day we did swirl away. Just not together.

Dad would take me fishing under that bridge. He liked the bridge’s shade and told me the fish liked shade too. I doubted they did; I think in the ten years we fished under the bridge, we’d caught only five. I’d get quite frustrated about the lack of action and wanted to head somewhere else. He’d always say, “No, let’s give it a little more time,” and then he’d start to talk with me again. Even on the hottest summer day, it was always comfortable under my bridge. I asked him once why we didn’t fish at sunrise or sunset when it was cooler and a better hour to catch fish. He answered with a smile, “We aren’t here for the fish.”

My mom taught me to drive in a 1957 Rambler station wagon with a three-speed stick shifter on the column, a very, very manual transmission. I didn’t know then and I don’t know now, the magic of car mechanics but I do know this Rambler did not have power steering or brakes. I was only 14 and barely able to reach the pedals. Turning the beast while changing gears and accelerating or decelerating was a challenge. Of course, on the home side of the bridge, the road curved sharply, very sharply; you had to slow, change gears, turn, straighten, accelerate, change gears, turn, slow, accelerate, and then NOT hit the bridge! I’m willing to bet the marks from my first three Rambler bridge crossings are still visible.

Even the Hallmark Channel admits you can’t go home again and yet here I am.

I haven’t been back here in decades. I left in a horrible huff...angry, hateful stinging, stabbing words between us. I hadn’t seen him since that night’s fierce battle, and now, now I realize I never will. I just missed him, by only one day.

Time to head over the bridge. Hmmm.

Well, no, not quite yet, let’s give it a little more time.

Under the bridge, Frederick, MD

The Thing About AI

Readers Branch Dragons

I’ve been on the margins of AI for a long time…I’m a fan of Jules Verne, Asimov, HG Wells, etc., and was fascinated by “2001: A Space Odyssey.” HAL 9000 was a real thing, well, if not then it certainly is now. T’was inevitable that HAL would become real…truth starts in fiction and hope, I think. But the issue might be, where is the real edge between AI and “not AI?”

It’s not a stretch to say AI is a tool not unlike other tools we already use and are comfortable using. It’s also not a stretch to say that the first photographs were labeled “magic,” perhaps the 18th century version of AI. I’ve used AI for years in photography…I’ve adjusted the colors, the tones, the size and lots more to the images I’ve made. I’ve modified images as part of my art…the technology allowing me to make such images is, well, magic to me. I’m not a photojournalist and so am not ethically bound to never change an image…although I bet they adjust colors, etc. So where is the AI line?

The image above is partly from a new Apple program. The bridge is truly in my community, I “removed” the houses from the far side of the bridge making the bridge the predominant component in a lonely landscape. But then…based on a large “murder” of crows we saw yesterday, I wanted to add some winged creatures. I typed into the new Apple program the term, “Dragon roosting” and “Dragon flying” and got the two dragons you see in my image (the third dragon is a transformed image of the other flying dragon). So what is my image?

(Some of you are turning away in disgust muttering “Abomination!” )

I think it’s art…it’s not just a photograph, it’s not just AI, it’s a hybrid, my hybrid. It came from my mind, both parts. I found the image, I changed the colors in the image to go from RAW to what I remember; I wanted the feeling of a lonely landscape so I created one. And then I wanted to include something different…I asked Apple to create me a murder of dragons. Apple thought some, beeped, and I had them.

So I haven’t made up my mind on what I think of AI…well, except I do think it’s a moving target. Both AI and my opinion will continue to evolve. I don’t want a HAL 9000 watching my every move or SDIO Star Wars Brilliant Pebbles keeping international peace….no, I’m pretty much happy where we are.

Walking With a Golden

Sunny Checking Up

Walking styles are very personal and usually changed only with patience and practice. Diane and Sunny have a good and healthy style…quick, purposeful, with occasional time for sniffing the trail for other creatures (Sunny, the Sniffer). But that’s not me, I like to saunter, in fact, I am a Slow Saunterer. I stop to look at the silliest things: dead leaves, pumpkins in the forest, potted plant remains, and other stuff in the wild (smile). But mostly to take pictures and enjoy my time with the trees. Diane doesn’t mind slowing (she says) but Sunny minds, she does not want me to stray or get behind. She will stop, turn her head, and if I’m not close by, she will turn and stare at me until I get back with them. Kind of funny. I made a one minute video of our walk this morning.

That Christmas Tree!

Fireplace mantel view of tree

The Christmas tree seems to be staring at me, daring me to decorate it, to complete its mission and sparkle for the holiday. It’s morning, very early, the house is sleeping, it’s dark, and the outside temp is a chilly 20 degrees F. And here sits this empty tree looking all lost and forlorn and, well, undressed. The boxes of decorations are close by and certainly I could quietly unbox and hang them without waking anyone. But, no.

For now, I’ll “unbox” memories of tree decorating, I can unpack that box without waking a soul. When I was growing up, oh so long ago, we decorated with strings of huge bulbs, glass ornaments, garlands, and my favorite: tin foil icicles! What a mess. I enjoyed the time with my sister as we turned the family tree into a magic wonderland of waiting and fun. Sometime in my early teens the sense of sparkle with the tree went away and didn’t return for many years.

When Diane and I were first together we had maybe a half dozen ornaments and not much else to decorate our first trees. Our discretionary income went to buying the tree, a few decorations, and gifts. We made popcorn and cranberry garlands but we had a blast doing it and the sparkle came back. Over the years we’ve added decorations and when the children were born, we started collecting memories along with the ornaments.

Each year our growing family would spend an entire afternoon decorating the tree, laughing, joking, playing pool or foosball (when older), and watching “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” We have ornaments from each kids first Christmas and many of the craft ornaments they made in their early years. For a few years we also had a “curated” tree we called the “Mom Tree” because the mom designed and decorated it. Pretty to look at but not as much fun as the downstairs tree where all the presents were stored.

We’re down to one tree now with half the decorations and mostly functional tree decorating. But each ornament has a memory, each memory a person, each person has our love. Someday the decorations will end up in a box on the way to the dump but for now, I want to share the joy of hanging memories on the tree. It will surely sparkle.

THE THING ABOUT TREES

Trees

I’m writing down bits and pieces of my memories…life seems to have happened so fast I probably won’t remember to tell these stories to my kids or theirs…writing them down seemed the thing to do. I have a thing about trees and I wanted to tell them why that might be. I also did a video and voice over of the story which you can find by clicking this link. But here’s the transcript of the video.

THE THING ABOUT TREES

I was raised in the Great Plains where trees are rare, usually found only in city parks and around rivers, streams and lakes and in shelter belts. There weren't many trees in South Dakota and so all of them were very precious. Now I've never seen a redwood tree or any famous tree from so my view of trees is very well, pedestrian. Oh, I knew famous trees existed. Trees so old they predate written history. Trees so big they make photographic works of art. Trees so cool they are planted in sculptured gardens. But trees in my young life were just plain old trees at first. But then I met my grandparents’ trees and things changed.

My grandparents lived just six blocks away and had two wonderful apple trees in their backyard and that's where I spent most of my time or at least that's where I wanted to be. I loved to climb those trees knotty twisting limbs to reach their highest fragile branches(...) immersing myself in their winding grip. They challenged me, they guided me, they gave me their best fruit, the best climber, me. Other apple trees existed in other yards but these were the family trees. These were my trees and the apples. Oh my God. Tart biting crisp green pellets of energy and flavor. The first taste of the day. A trumpet fanfare on my tongue.

When visiting I'd sit with my grandparents and politely respond to the quizzes about school, friends, music and family. But I really wanted to be outside and climb in my trees. I would climb mostly year round but not in the winter and early spring when they were most vulnerable to breaking and climb I did. But I'd also sit a lot too and look and think. I shared my trees with lots of critters mostly squirrels and bees. The trees provided protection for all of us from the sun, from the rain when I could get away with it and from prying eyes. A haven, a safe place. I was pretty sure the two apple trees somehow talked with one another.  They seemed to know what I was doing and how they should help or guide me in my climb. My grandparents worried about me falling, murmured concerns for breaking branches and damaged fruit. But the trees, it was the trees. They showed me how to climb, where to sit, when to rest, where to notice.

The squirrels were my grandmother's bane. Grandma used all the apples we picked. Pies, jams, jellies, applesauce and on and on and on. She deeply resented any reduction in the harvest including my occasional sampling or so she said. In the fall the squirrels would sit just feet away from me or grandma. Chatter, bob their heads, dodge quickly to another branch and start to eat an apple, which would then fall to the ground. That's what made grandma mad. One bite, apple falls and then on to the next apple, another bite, another apple falls and pretty soon you have one bite apple strewing the grass under the tree and one mad grandma is muttering at the chattering tree rats.

I'd laugh and enjoy. Imagine being eye to eye with the grace and speed of a racing squirrel. They'd dance around me just out of reach, just far enough to not worry about me. Close enough to taunt me with their twitching tails and sharp focused eyes. The confidence, the ballet-like leaps, the strength. How could I not enjoy how they played in my trees? Grandma wanted grandpa to get out to 22 and save her apples with mass squirrel executions. Grandpa said it was nature's do and to let it go. I agreed with him.

Grandpa died. I discovered girls and rock and roll. I quit climbing trees.

Grandma moved. I moved. First to west Texas where a tree was just a non-moving tumbleweed. Then to Iceland where trees are only a concept. Then at last to the mountains where trees are plentiful. I reconnected after 20 years. But it wasn't all peaches and cream.

I'm not a camper. I don't like sleeping bags, tents, campfire, cooking or waking up to find a tree to be behind. Nope. None of it. But to reconnect with the trees I did it all. On one of my trips to Bridger Lake Utah, a place known for its “nowhereness,” I became convinced the trees talked with one another. Not sure how I came to that conclusion but the sensation of community the trees exuded helped me and reminded me of my apple trees.

I didn't climb those giant mountain trees. I just opened myself to their dancing shadows and reveled in the deep feel of their bark and leaves. Back then I hadn't heard the term forest bathing in Japan called Shirin Yoku. But with the help of my trees legacy, forest bathing is what I did many times. Many, many times.

But then I moved again and then again. And finally to a place with lots of trees but very little time to spend with them. Life was a moving target. London, Oslo, Sweden, Brussels, The Hague, Copenhagen and more.

And I lost my connection with trees.  I lost a bit of me too. In those years, forest receded and time blurred. People, places, relationships. A tumultuous torrent of everything. Fast, furious, exciting.

But suddenly I'm alone.

I don't think I noticed. And I didn't notice that I was missing the trees. Looking back, I know now I simply wasn't paying attention.

One day a friend asked me to go for a walk with her in an Ohio forest. We paused to sit on a bench and poof. Magically, the trees, the trees came back. I was connected again.

I don't live in the mountains anymore and most forests in my neck of the woods are on private land. But I still find the odd strip of accessible trees and I settle in amongst them. Climbing is right out at my age. But sitting, touching and even hugging a tree is perfect. I lean into the tree, close my eyes and take a deep breath.

I connect.

Prison

Back Gate Cresson Prison

A few years back I visited Cresson Prison which was abruptly abandoned by the state of Pennsylvania in 2013. The prison’s sudden closure was a surprise to the employees and to the community and was swiftly carried out. So quickly that many of the fixtures and furnishings were left in place, literally right in place. As I walked through the dark cells and long hallways I admit I was creeped out…t’was truly a spooky feeling. Cafeteria tables, beds, chairs, cabinets…all in place. Well, not exactly in place, over the decade plus since its abandonment controlled access has been granted and so lots of stuff had been “repositioned.” But I wondered what it was like.

The place started in 1919 as a tuberculosis (TB) sanatorium on land donated by Andrew Carnegie, hence the resort like buildings that appear quite out of place on a prison campus. The “higher” ground of Cresson, PA, was thought to be beneficial to TB patients. As healthcare progressed (I’m guessing) the need for sanatoriums like Cresson disappeared. But…there was all this real estate with these “magnificent” buildings so in 1987 Pennsylvania jumped in to convert the property to a correctional institute for men and it stayed a prison until it closed in 2013. Newspaper articles say it closed because of the poor facilities and, BTW, a new prison had opened that could take all the Cresson prisoners.

I can’t imagine how the prisoners dealt emotionally and physically with the stark prison…this is one like you see in the movies…and not one of the high tech prisons. No. This was stark. I stood in what was sort of a gatehouse at the back gate and looked around. For heat, a half oil drum with grate, bars on the window. English style Tudor building abutting the 12 foot high fence. Door open to go out and inspect incoming trucks and cars. A pedestrian (prisoner) walkway with orders to “STOP HERE WHEN VEHICLE PRESENT.” And concertina wire everywhere. And just there on the very left, hidden by shadows but close to the door frame, a chest high button labeled, “ALARM.” Just sit with me in this spot and let your imagination talk to mine.

Grandpa Time

A POEM

Yesterday was a thousand years ago.
My mother’s gentle hands tucking me in
And a moment later smelling the
Innocent youth of my own baby’s hair
And suddenly her baby’s hair.

Memories rush to the front of my today’s brain
Like children’s faces to a Macy’s Christmas window
And blur my sense of what is

Now.

Season Greetings!

Cresson Prison & Sanatorium

This prison was closed many years ago and used to be open for tours, especially during this season. Not true anymore. As I walked through the cell blocks, the kitchens, the laundry facilities I wondered about the people who lived in and touched these walls. I was especially interested in what the inmates who sat in the dentist chair must have been thinking. Perhaps I will write an essay one day but in the meantime, you can enjoy a haunted walkabout with me on the linked video. Alternatively, you can watch the same video but all in black and white (with some audio changes), your choice!!