(R)age

I reluctantly sat down for a haircut a few days ago. Haircuts are one of my least favorite activities…not just for today but for as long as I can remember. The young lady who cut my hair was quick though and I knew my time in the chair would be gratefully short. After only s few minutes she finished and said, “All set? Are you happy?”

I looked into the mirror and a younger me stared back, one full of passion and rage, always pushing, always edgy, often recklessly. Often selfishly. Fire in the eyes. The years raced by in my mind like a black and white movie short. Rock and roll. College. Protests. Flying jets. Skiing. Relationships. Exotic places. Exotic people. Courtroom battles.

The barber’s slight push on the chair abruptly brought me back to the here and now and an old man stared back at me from the mirror. White hair. Deep wrinkles. Sad eyes. Today’s me. A wiser me? A me without rage? Without passion? Without time? Hmmm.

I think calm is my new companion, a tangible, touchable part of my psyche that’s changed rage’s sine wave and made life easier for me and those around me. My life is no longer played in a minor key with roaring timpani and brass. That’s a good thing.

Wiser? I don’t know so I guess not. I’m more deliberate, my judgements are less selfish and more universal. My world is not so laser focused on, well me. I think.

Do I still have passion? Certainly. Different kinds, of course. Passion for my wife, my family, my friends, the earth, any art, tolerance, peace.

My calm is often challenged by the weaponization of religion, hate, racism, bias, extremism. That spirals me back to Nixon, Watergate, Kent State, MLK, Jr., etc.

“Well?” she says, again slightly nudging my chair. I nod at the mirror, quickly look away and stand up. Until next time..

1st Woman President in the Americas

Gym at Blackstone Campus

Years ago I was at a Methodist Conference Center in Blackstone, VA, for a weekend. The main building was, hmmm, I don’t really have the words, let’s say almost “grand.” Huge classrooms with high ceilings, wide, street like hallways, a palatial entryway, dozens of dormitory rooms, indoor swimming pool, gymnasium, etc. Quite a place, but a place that when I was there, had seen better days.

In its early days, the complex was home to the Blackstone College for Girls which was a feeder for Randolph Macon College for girls in Lynchburg. Two Blackstone College alumnae became famous, one was Bea Arthur, best known for her portrayal of Maude in “The Golden Girls” and “All in the Family.” The other woman, not so well known in the US, is Violeta Chamoro, elected President of Nicaragua from 1990 until 1997. Chamorro was the first woman elected to a presidency in all of the Americas. She’d gone to Blackstone for a short time before the school closed in 1950.

The campus was purchased by the Methodist Church and operated as a conference center for many years until it closed in 2016. Just a few months ago, after a major renovation, it reopened as the Inn at Blackstone. Looking at the images on their website, it looks like they’ve captured the grandeur of the building.

My images are from February 2016, just months before the place was shuttered. I wandered about the campus at sunrise and into unused sections of the buildings. The top image is from the running track that circled above the basketball court. The bottom image is the front of the building, where the main entrance used to be.

Sports has always been an observation thing for me and standing in this old building’s gym was no different…I imagined all the energy used by the young women on the basketball court and track. Natsukashii.

Blackstone Campus

On Top of the World

Lookout on Coopers Rock, WV

Almost 40 years have passed since I last flew the F-16. Sitting on top of the world was much more literal in those days. Exciting. Fun. Challenging. Clouds weren’t always my friend back then, lightening, hail, limited visibility, etc. I did love zooming in and around the little cotton ball clouds that may have been baby thunderstorms. When I flew the OV-10, the atmosphere outside was also the atmosphere inside plane so if I was flying in a cloud, I could smell and taste the cloud. Nowadays, clouds are usually a thing I only see from afar. Unless I go to the mountains.

I made this image several years ago at Coopers Rock in West Virginia. The day was rainy, sort of chilly, calm breeze, and damp everywhere. I was wet and worried about my camera, a Nikon, which was not weather resistant. All turned out okay but I probably rushed even though I had a plastic trash bag “protecting” the system.

I finished shooting and put my equipment away. I stood on this and another parapet for 30 minutes or so taking in the wonderful cool air, listening to the light rain in the trees, and enjoying the gray, comfortable light. It dawns on me now that I could have been on a boat dock, a sidewalk street, the back patio, and had all of the same sensory triggers…I think I’ll try it. But, without the view.

“On the Pitching of the Woo”

Reflecting

I am doing something today I’ve been meaning to do for months…arranging my books in the studio. Not Dewey Decimal Point arranging (and who knows what that is, anyway) but putting them in an order that makes sense for me today. If by some very remote chance I get this task done today, then re-organizing will be something I need to do again…soon. Ah…and I worry about not getting anything done. Sigh.

Great danger lurks for me when I move books from one place to another no matter the place. The books keep ambushing my sense of time and mission. Like old west stage coach robberies, I stop any progress, hope this is not the end of the ride, and then immerse myself in the books I’m “moving.” I love to handle books, when I pick one up, I gauge the heft, the texture of the cover, the grain of the paper and the look of the text. Some books even smell different. Since I buy mostly used books there’s always a hint of age (mold) but that’s accompanied by a sense of adventure, “No one has opened this book in maybe decades.” I get to be the one.

One after another I pick them up, gently take their measure and place them on the shelves, BIG, heavy photo exhibition books on the lower shelves. Interesting, quick speed-read scanned books, some completely read, most not so much…they go on the knee height shelves. One half shelf up in the next casing, books I’ve read, books I will read again, books I can’t stand to read but do. Years ago I worked with Avi Bender. Avi’s father, Benjamin Bender, was a Holocaust survivor, Buchenwald. He wrote about his years before camp, during camp, and after camp including coming to America. His wife (she wasn’t his wife then) had similar experiences, he wrote about them parallel to his chronology. Sadly, Benjamin’s real life environmental experiences are echoing the hallways of congress as ultra-right, racist conservatives embed their hate into others hoping for a dictatorship in our country.

The last book I’m moving today totally ambushed me. Actually three small paperbacks, wedged into a “to read” shelf lost to attention more than a year ago. One of the books is “Coyote, New Stories and Poems,” by Ted King of Minneapolis, MN. I guess Ted might be characterized as a “Jazz Poet.” Sort of a shoutout to the beatnik generation and Kerouac who mostly hangout in SoCal. Except Minneapolis Ted. I like his work.

Ted and I went to high school together in the 60s, only three generations ago, back when things were changing. We graduated in ‘67, I went my way in the world, he went his, we met again 50 years later at the High School Reunion. I’ve followed him as he sporadically writes but most often he goes to the “Tributary, ” where he reads, hosts, and has fun. One day, I’d like to fly in and surprise him with a listen. But he probably will be out that day, or not listening to anyone, or not remembering the old guys sitting in the front row. Ahhh, the scythe of Father Time knows no steel stalk. Here’s Ted’s Poem, “On the Pitching of the Woo.” If you like the poem, sharply and briskly snap your fingers together for 30 seconds.

Men,
When you meet two sisters,
and you like these sisters,
and you think you might like
to pitch that woo
to one of these attractive women

Woo the other one

Don’t do the woo
with the obvious one,
the talented
outgoing, flashy one
Woo the other one

Woo the one who knows
what it’s like to have
a sister to whom
so many men
are pitching the woo

Natsukashii

なつかしさ

Lonely bench

My workshop assignment this week is about natsukashii. Hmmm…a Japanese word that does not directly translate to English. (I’m finding that is not uncommon.) George Nobechi tells us the word comes from Natsuku (懐), to become used to or fond of. Hmmm, again. Not nostalgia, but sort of. He explained something is natsukashii when seeing that thing brings you a warm feeling of comfort or a fond memory. Not a specific, "I remember when” kind of memory but the kind of memory you have when you smell bacon in the morning and think of your family sitting down for weekend breakfast. Or the smell of the campfire at night when you’re roasting marshmallows. A more generic memory which is sparked by the visual memory of a smell or a sound or some other sensory input. A memory is comforting.

I went out yesterday to Maymont. I wasn’t looking or searching for this feeling, just letting the environment speak to me about things that made me feel…comfortable. These three images found my sensor.

I’m particular to benches…I love sitting in them, I love to sit with others and look out over the world. I always wonder about who else sat on them and what they were thinking. Benches.

Couple in the Shade

And who hasn’t laid in the grass in the shade of a tree on a gorgeous summer day? I have those memories, not necessarily of a specific instance, but just the idea and general memory of doing stuff like this. Makes me smile.

Picnic

Picnics! Family picnics, small circles of comfort food, comfort conversation, and family.

Color or B&W

King Street, Alexandria, VA

Some photographers treat the black and white versus color discussion as a religious debate. Reality. Emotion. Distraction. Quality. Tradition. All sorts of adjectives, hyperbole and art-speak, usually in support of shooting B&W. Leica builds a black and white only camera that is quite pricey.

I think the truth might lay closer to the photographer’s “druthers.” What do they want to shoot? When do they want to shoot? Do they want to develop film? And on. And on. And on. I have a friend who enjoys shooting B&W, he usually goes out at mid-day when contrasts are high and shadows are “small.” He takes fantastic images. But, they’re all black and white. Oops. I entered the debate and I can feel the responses beginning to form in B&W shooter’s vocab quiver. I yield.

For me, some images might “need” to be B&W but it’s really more of what I need or want than what the image demands. Oops. I did it again. I don’t want to tread on the sacred ground of “real photography” so I’ll just say that perhaps my “fail” is to not have a go-to mode…sometimes I like B&W, sometimes color.

These two images are classic examples for me…they could go either way. The child at the flood in Old Town was cool in color…it was just after dawn…but B&W seemed to emphasize the child’s space with no adults. The lighting in the Building Museum was crazy, reflections off the bronze pillars and wall coverings creating awesome shadows and the pillar’s edges glowed! B&W was cool but I wanted the warmth of the sunlight and the bronze. So for me, the religious debate between B&W and color is a tie…I like what I like and that’s my mojo.

Building Museum, Washington, DC

Riverbank

Shenandoah River

River banks are the best seat in the house for life’s theater. The ever-changing characters, the dynamic dialogue of earth, wind, and water, the emotions of still pools and raging waves. I love rivers…but I most love my first row seat on the bank.

River’s actors are always changing, sometimes swiftly, other times glacially. The characters inevitably move offstage, carried away, away from my stage but onto someone else’s. How did they come to be in front of me? How long did they travel? How many people had seen them? Did anyone pay attention? If the character was a leaf, I’d imagine a tree, the leaf providing shade for someone or something. Did the shade from the leaf bring joy and comfort?

I know. I know. Crazy, crazy thoughts. I mean, theater of life? Front row seats? Call me Pollyanna.

Tony Bennett passed away a few days ago. I hear his songs in my head, remember his smile, and am thankful for all the music he made, the memories his songs conjure, and the joy he brought to so many. And me, with a front row seat.

Time

Canal Walk

Does anybody really know what time it is?
Does anybody really care?
If so I can't imagine why
We've all got time enough to die

“Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?”
- Robert Lamm, Chicago Transit Authority,

Man invented the clock to measure time. Time, that uncomfortable concept we can’t manage, only measure; we track its passage and dislike our inability to control it. We resist the “immeasurable” and consequently invent myths, superstitions, mechanics, and algorithms to understand time’s romance, mystery, inevitability, and seething reality. Cliché alert: We can’t stop the march of time. Many try. Cryogenics? The frozen faces of Hollywood’s aging elite? Time machines? Peels, botox, supplements, and on and on and on?

To compensate for fuzzy thoughts on time I think we objectively measure its passing by counting something…generations, circles around the sun, deterioration of nuclear material, revolutions on a clock, etc. The “big measure” might be our individual life spans…each of our lives. The aggregate of our lives in the community doesn’t seem important, at least in western culture. I think Asian culture might take a longer view, one that doesn’t rely on meaning to a single individual. But, that’s not my story.

Westerners erect monuments, dedicate university buildings, and create tangible “things” to defy time and mortality. Sometimes the things are without further merit beyond the thing itself, an expensive place for pigeons to land. Once in a while endowments are created to carry someone’s legacy into medical or educational institutions. Sometimes racism and hate are built into the legacies.

Art tends to freeze time, capturing an instant of memory or fantasy…one nano-nano-second of life captured with oil, or watercolor, or film, or some other medium…a single data point in an unbelievable mega-verse of life’s data points. I am puzzled about showing time’s passage in a photo. Motion is certainly an option but sometimes overdone. Aging patina is a symptom of time’s toll. India’s Ragamala artists showed the passage of time in a variety of ways, for example, several lotus blossoms falling to the ground from a woman’s hands. The individual blossoms hint at the time that’s passed since the woman has seen her lover.

My time passage images are also not literal, I’ve wrapped my own sense of time’s movement into each image. For instance, the first of a young man walking next to the canal beneath the streets of Richmond is a story of decades. That’s my son, walking on, curious, heading to things I can’t imagine. How do I describe time’s measure of him…one day, one generation, two decades? The time is different for each of us; for him, I’ve always been there. For me, he’s new, I met him just yesterday and yet he’s moved my sense of time immeasurably.

The second image is a young lady on a bike about to disappear along the canal. I watched her ride away from me and thought, hey…there’s another microcosm of time’s march. To her and to my son, it’s probably about moving through the space or getting to a destination. Mayibe. But also more than a data point, it’s an entire time capsule.

Going

My Favorite Restaurant

Fontaine Cafe, Alexandria. Not my favorite, still very good.

Down a rabbit hole I went this morning on my walk. I started thinking about food and how important good food has been to my family for…well, always. My wife is a superb cook who maximized nutrition and wholesome ingredients as part of her recovery from cancer. I went to a French cooking school (not in France!!!) to balance that out. All our kids cook and cook well. Where did it all begin? Hmmm…rabbit hole, here I come.

We had little discretionary income when we married some 33 years ago. We lived in a small “cabin” of about 800 square feet but in a forgotten part of Crystal City. It’s not so forgotten in today’s market. We often walked three blocks to 23rd Street where several reasonably priced restaurants were flourishing. Two of them were our go-to places. One was a pizza place with dirt floors…or at least that was my memory. We loved the pizza and my law school classmates hung out there as a counterbalance to tuition. The other was a Chinese food place.

To me, a good restaurant is like eating at home, or at least an extension of home. We went there every week, sometimes two or three times a week. That’s what this small, family owned Chinese place was…an extension of our home and of our family. After a year living close by, we moved several miles away but continued to visit the place every week or two. We came to know the owner and his family quite well. Sadly, their names are buried in other memories and I can’t bring them back but the times we had in their place are quite alive.

The owner was Chinese but his family had moved to Vietnam sometime in the 1950s. He was a fighter pilot who flew for the French in the First Indochina War. After the War ended, he came to the U.S. His son also worked in the restaurant as did his wife and mother. We used to swap pilot stories but his were always more exciting since he was in combat almost every mission.

They would take me to the kitchen where impossibly large woks rested over burners that seemed to have the heat of hell as their source. The menu was small as was the restaurant, maybe 8 tables, inside and out. On the deck were planters where they grew peppers, very, very small white and red peppers. Less than an inch long. I asked if they were edible. The son said they were but they couldn’t serve them. Later, as we were leaving, he brought a small jar of paste. “These are the peppers we use that you see here.” They were awesome. This ritual was often repeated. We exchanged gifts, small gifts, nothing elaborate, to thank them for the peppers and hospitality.

Two years after we had moved away, our first child was born, a girl. The restaurant owner’s son came to the hospital with a large bag of new diapers. But he didn’t know our last name and so didn’t get to see us.

When our daughter was three days old, we took her to the restaurant. Everyone there came out and made a big deal of her. Lots of “Ooos” and “Ahhhs.” I was walking back to the kitchen, the son met me at the doorway and said something like, “You have a beautiful daughter, may she be blessed with happiness and wealth and may you soon be blessed with a baby boy.” We both smiled.

So that’s my favorite restaurant. I don’t remember the names of the wonderful owners or even the restaurant’s name, just that they welcomed us into their place with good food and treated us like family.

I was on a long photo vacation and so have no images from those years except for those in my memory. The image above is from Old Town Alexandria, the Fontaine. Great crepes.

Seven Day Battle

In the name of slavery, confederate forces attacked McClellan’s U.S. Army here, at Beaver Dam Creek in June 1862 to prevent McClellan from entering Richmond. The U.S. forces established defensive positions back along the treeline on the east side of the creek. Confederate forces attacked across a flat plain, across the creek and up the hill towards a mill that the U.S. was using for cover and artillery. The confederates killed more than 300 Americans in the weeklong battle but had even more losses themselves. Despite winning a tactical victory, McClellan was worried about his supply lines and pulled back, away from Richmond.

There’s not much to see, no buildings or roads or even a dam. It is part of the National Park System and the Battlefields of Richmond. The tall trees and quiet stream belie the terror of the battle of just over 161 years ago. A battle that continues in the minds of those who still carry the mission of the lost cause and want to harm Americans.