The Photographer In Me (Part III)

The Photographer In Me (Part I)

The Photographer In Me (Part II)

Part III

The photo lay in hiding throughout my adulthood until just the other day, when I was boxing up my history for a move into my new house. I hadn't even thought about my masterpiece for a decade or more. I smiled when I saw it, nearly laughed even. And then I grew oppressively sad. It's hard to imagine, but those days of bullying and rage proved to be the best that Paul would experience.

The years since have been hard on my brother. I would say that life is paying him back in spades for those early advantures, but then I'm not a cruel son-of-bitch. Nothing Paul did in his youth earned this kind of punishment.

Late last night, I heard about life's latest insult via a jarring, snap-me-from-sleep phone call. This time, it was Mom telling me that my brother was in the hospital, the victim of both our unrelenting heat wave and yet another systemic infection born of his inability to move food through his digestive tract like a healthy person, like a person without MS.

By the time I was able to get myself together, Paul had been released and was back ‘home.’ When I made it to the assisted living place--it's called Shady Horizons, or Sunset Memories, or Dying Without Dignity or some-such--I felt a screaming urge to drop my gift off at the front counter with warm wishes for my brother. Instead, I forced my legs to carry me on past the smiling receptionist. When I made it to Paul's room, I found him staring blankly at the TV, where a big-breasted celebrity with flawless skin was trying to sell him a miraculous healing skin cream.

Without a word, I sat in the visitor’s chair and gave him a moment to come to terms with my presence. At first, it seemed as if he hadn't even noticed my passing between him and the TV. But, after a minute or so, he reached for his remote and shut off the blathering. Without so much as a glance my way, he said in a strained, whispy voice, "I need the noise to keep my insanity at bay."

"How's the rest of you?"

"I'm a turnip with vocal chords."

As painful as the description was to hear, it rang very close to true. At this point in his life, most of Paul's functioning is accomplished by strangers. They dress him, insert catheters, spoon-feed him, even encourage reluctant bowels with probing fingers.

Hands trembling, he took a sip of water from a bedside tray. "Mom call you in a lather again?"

I nodded.

"You'd think this shit would be old news to her by now."

"It's never old news when it's your baby."

He gave a resigned nod before his eyes landed on the envelope in my hands. "You bring me something?"

Slowly lifting the flap, I said, "I did." I palmed the print, stood and moved to his side. I presented it to him with a tease, holding it out, sandwiched between my hands, before easing the covering hand out of the way while watching Paul's face. At first, there was just confusion and perhaps a touch of irritation. But by the time a quarter of the picture was revealed, recognition flashed on his face. Recognition and an involuntary smile.

"Where the hell did you find that?" He took it in his infirm hand and stared, giving a faint, disbelieving shake of the head.

I leaned in close and stared with him.

It was a picture of an ass, really. Paul's youthful, naked ass, and beyond him the horrified look of his till-then-ecstatic girlfriend, legs wrapped around his waist, looking over his shoulder.

We both sat mezmerized by the image for several breaths before I broke the silence. "I don't know how to tell you this, Paul, but you were much better looking back then."

He laughed harder than I could have imagined, and, for the briefest moment, he was whole again. But then an awkward silence fell between us. And, before I knew it, tears were coursing down his face.

After staring at my hands too long, I looked back at my brother. I could find nothing comforting to say.

We simply sat in the silence, meeting each other's glance for several minutes before he spoke, his tone somber. "Mikey?"

"What?"

"Do you think you could show it to Mom again? Remind her that I wasn't always an invalid."

Smoke From the Fire Settles In

From what I understand, it's 80% contained now and should be fully under wraps by tomorrow sometime.


I'll post the finale to The Photographer In Me later this evening (SoCal time).

Brush Fires Close to Home

Hot, dry, windy weather has brought early brush fires. Spotted this from my front yard as I headed off for Starbucks this morning. For most of the day, the winds pushed the smoke south-west.



By sunset, the winds had calmed, allowing the smoke to linger close to home. It's biting and unpleasant to breath the air. I expect my car will be painted in ash in the morning.

I'm not sure if anyone's lost a home or, worse yet, a life, but I'm praying not.

Download Free Books On Tape (or volunteer to create 'em for others)

Check out LibriVox, whose tag line is acoustical liberation of books in the public domain. The idea is that volunteers record public domain books for others to download free. There are hundreds of titles--fiction, drama, non-fiction, and poetry--many of them household names.

A couple weeks ago, I downloaded Treasure Island and have just started listening. Since it's an all-volunteer effort, I'm sure the quality is hit-and-miss amoung the books. But you can't beat the price, and the whole project is an exciting one.

Over the past couple years, I've listened to some wonderful books on tape, all of which, up to now, I had to pay for. The great titles--meaning wonderful stories, well-read--include Moby Dick, Crime and Punishment, 1984, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and the first four Harry Potter novels. Don't bother with anything abridged, by the way.

Even if you have to pay for the stuff, I can't recommend the experience highly enough. It's one of the few opportunities you have in life to buy time (listening while driving), and it allows you to get your 'reading' in even when your eyes are too tired to function.

Witchy Tree

Sycamores waiting for spring, as well.

The Photographer In Me (Part II)

Part I (read me first)


Eventually, the photo, my Masterpiece, found a home inside a hard-cover edition of Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends, next to the poem The Flying Festoon. I rarely thought about that picture and even more seldom took it out to examine it. Usually, when I did make the effort, it was done in the tail-wind of one of my brother's extra-special bullying escapades.

I remember heading for the book the day he yanked my bathing suit off at the public swim. And I remember it again the day he filled my baseball cap with dog crap. I learned quickly, even as young as I was, that the presence of any of Paul's many girlfriends seemed to light his torturous fire.

During that stretch of my life, as Paul and his puberty cut a raging path through our lives, I took odd jobs around the neighborhood to support my photo habit. I mowed Mr. Schmitz' lawn, walked his wife Helga's two quivering chihuahuas, raked the Palmer's leaves, and took out cans on trash day for at least a dozen families.

Over the course of nearly a year, I strung enough pay-days together to afford a clean used Nikon FM and an off-brand zoom lens, with a reasonable chunk left over for film and processing.

Unfortunately, I bought the camera (and brought it home) the same day, and at the same time, as Paul had invited his new girlfriend Pam over to the house for the first time.

Within seconds of my walking through the front door, Paul vaulted up off the couch, where he and Pam were huggily watching MTV. He spotted the already-loaded camera in my hands and broke into a broad grin. "A Nikon?" With a theatrical brow-raise, he turned to Pam. "Stevey's got himself a Nikon." Then he had her by the hand and was ushering her to her feet. "Take our picture, Nikon Boy."

It was the last request on earth I wanted to honor, but I figured my best chance at an easy escape was to humor him. So I put the camera to my eye and made a couple directive motions with my hands. I needn't have, though, since Paul and Pam were playing their own scene, with his hand around her waist, tongue in her ear.

As quickly as I could, I fired off two shots and left without a word.

"Hey. Wait. Nikonsky, where are you going?"

I pretended I didn't hear and continued my scramble down the hall. But before I reached my room, a rough hand landed on my shoulder, bringing me up short.

"We were just getting started."

Trying to be as forceful as I could without waking the monster, I said, "I've got stuff to do."

Paul froze in mid-motion, apparently also in mid-thought. When he turned to look over his shoulder, he caught site of Pam, who'd clearly witnessed my insurrection. With an angry flourish, Paul backhanded a year's worth of work from my hands. The camera cartwheeled painfully, a slow-motion, three-foot dance of death, before it struck the floor at my feet. There was cracking on contact, a sickening I'm broken crunch from the lens.

At first, Paul looked as horrified as I felt. But the feeling didn't last. Just as quick as his look had come, it morphed into a smarmy grin. "Now look what Niko has gone and done." And he choked out a laugh.

That night, as soon as my mother got home from work, I went wordlessly to my bookshelf and opened Where the Sidewalk Ends. Within a minute I had chased her back down the hall to her room and handed over my masterpiece.

The sound of her stunned voice shouting, "Paul! Get in here!", still rings in my head.




part III to come...

A Sunburst Over My Neighbor's House

Looking West From Hills in Yorba Linda

Taken last night, minutes before an adult-ed fiction writing class I'm attending. The class is populated by a prolific bunch who bring ten page submissions for classmates to read at home and review in class. I suppose it's really more of a workshop than a traditional class. It was a lively meeting last night, with some solid writing and a lot of laughter.

Improving My Vision

In December last year, I bought a little point-and-shoot camera (a Fuji F30) with the idea that I'd carry it with me everywhere and use it as a photographic sketch-pad. I've enjoyed photography for many years (since I bought a cheap Nikon back in high-school), but I never shot enough to learn much (shooting film was expensive) and never even really considered carrying a camera around with me full-time.

Now that digital has made heavy photography approachable (it's free after the purchase of the camera unless you decide to print something), I'm learning to take every opportunity to shoot the world around me. Mostly, I don't make specific trips out to take pictures. Instead, I've forced myself to pay close attention to the workaday scenes around me.

I've been surprised, again and again, as I've engaged in this exercise, how much interesting stuff there is to see around me in what seemed, before I was really watching, an average day.

More importantly--at least with respect to a writing blog--I find that I'm seeing the world better even when I'm not carrying my camera. I can't point to any direct affect on my writing, but it seems clear to me that my ability to better see the world around me will improve my ability to describe it in interesting, meaningful ways.

Whether you're a writer or not, I can't recommend this exercise highly enough. The world will be a richer place for you, I promise.

If you do take this little challenge to heart, let me know how the experience goes for you.



P.S. The F30 is a wonderful little camera (good in low light while providing just enough manual control to let you do whatever management of the image-making process you might reasonably hope to do). But act fast if it sounds interesting; unfortunately, Fuji has supplanted this model with an F40 that is a downgrade in both low-light performance and battery life.

Muscling a Jagged Boulder Up a Muddy Slope

I've been working on what I'd call a mainstream suspense novel for just over two years now. In the first year, I felt remarkably productive, especially considering that I hadn't written for something like eight years and that I had very little time (and only got it in short stretches) to do any writing.

This last year, however, has been a different and frustrating story. I wouldn't say I have writer's block, exactly, since every time I sit down to write I manage to get something done. But my life beyond writing has been much harder than I would like (not giant tragedies hard. Just hard).

So I find myself working, once-again, on a strategy for getting something done when my life doesn't seem to want to allow it. I've been reading Wooden on Leadership and am loudly struck by John Wooden's obsessive attention to making the most of the limited time at his disposal. It seems an obvious idea, really, but I think very few of us pay enough attention to what it implies. And I think it's safe to say that virtual none of us pay the kind of laser-like attention to time that Mr. Wooden did (and presumably still does).

Wooden mentions in the book that he had his practice sessions scheduled down to the minute. And, even more interesting, he claims not to have been a great strategic thinker in basketball terms. Instead, he believed his success was attributable to his effective use of time.

While the details might sound extreme--he could tell from year-to-year, what he had done in a given minute of any previous year's practice--no-one can argue with the results, and the general notion, itself, seems indisputable.

So, in the spirit of the gentleman John Wooden, I am going to make a very conscious effort to squeeze the most out of the minutes available to me. If I make any headway on this front (and it proves a profitable change), I'll be sure to let you know. If I fail to make such progress in some interesting way, I'll let you know that, too.

My Son Falls in Love With Stories

A few weeks ago, for reasons I can't possibly explain, I remembered how much I had loved the Hardy Boys when I was a kid. I only read a handful of them back then (from a total of something like 56), but the stories of Frank and Joe Hardy tackling grand mysteries on their motorcycles had me entrhalled. I both admired and was jealous of their lives.

The memory of that enthrallment drove me to stop at Borders Books after work the other day and pick up the first two in the series--packed as a double feature (The Tower Treasure and The House on the Cliff), two books bound back-to-back under one cover--to read to my seven-year-old son.

Before I'd taken the opportunity to give it to him, my wife looked at the books with upturned nose and a, "Why did you buy this?"

I explained how much the books had moved me, but my explanation moved my wife not at all. She gave me a dubious look--that why have you handed me this steaming turd when you know I just had my nails done look.

The conversation ended there.

The following day, as I was waiting for a slow-moving software install on my son's computer, I picked up the books and began to read to him. Within less than a minute, I had him captured.

Since then, we've been reading for long stretches most nights. Several times, seemingly out of the blue, he's come to me to ask for more Hardy Boys. XBox and TV have lost ground to Frank, Joe and Fenton Hardy.

Even my wife has had to grudgingly admit that the Hardy double-feature was 8 bucks well spent.