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Seedpod1_IMG_5807December 6, 2018: When a friend looked at the above photo, he said that it made him want to jump in a pool. I admit that I was more than a little surprised — for me it was/is just a lovely photo, but I love seed pods. We all react to photographs differently.

 

The Desert

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December 3, 2018: The emotions keep surfacing, although not with the intensity that they were. I think about my parents and the people that I’ve lost — those that have died and those that haven’t — I talk to them all and continue to explain or argue or tell them that they were right or that we just weren’t ever going to be able to agree or come together. I have continued to peel back the layers of my life and the emotions. It’s a process that I hope never stops.

When I started this blog, I wrote about the salt marshes offering me peace. Hiking in the desert has a similar effect — it can be a bit more grueling, even daunting, but it has helped me heal physically and emotionally. Hiking by myself was and still is stupid in so many ways, I understand that, but it has allowed me to regain my independence while helping me become physically stronger. It gave me the space I needed to think through whatever was bothering me. If I was angry at the bottom of “my” hill, feeling sorry for myself or fearful, I was too tired by the time I reached the top to still be angry. Just having reached the top always makes me smile — I did it! As for fear, I’m able to look at it more clearly.

My hikes are a form of meditation for me.

Emotions

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October 26, 2018: The emotions that have surfaced in me since my mother’s death have been surprising because of the intensity of them.. I retreated within myself to a level that I hadn’t done since I was a child. I didn’t want people around “offering comfort” — I didn’t want to talk to anyone.

The depth of the emotions that have surfaced has been surprising. Even when you know where something comes from, even when you understand it completely, you might be surprised at how you react. I certainly was and still am. I keep peeling through the layers or finding another branch that takes me even deeper.

The power of touch

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October 26, 2018: Holding Mom’s hand today and on Sunday (February 24, 2018) … I’ve thought a lot about the connections, what we feel and transmit — watching her calm down or be disturbed by what I was feeling.

I’ve always understood the power of touch, but this was probably the most intimate and difficult for me.

I thought about my hand therapist and the thousands of hands that he’s held… and how emotionally intense it must be.

Dying

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October 25, 2018: I took this photo 3 months later. The change in my mother was shocking. When I saw her in September, she was still interacting with us. Now, very little.

So much has happened and so little

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October 22, 2018: It has been a year since I posted my last entry. The photo above was taken on that trip. I was having lunch with the girls, now women, women that have known me and my family since we were children. All of us are still recognizable. When I looked out the window, I was struck by how much that view reminded me of growing up there — the beach, the rocks, the easel. There are no longer any vacant lots along the beach — all those spots have long since been filled with upscale homes. As has almost every other location except the dunes. When we were kids we roamed freely on the beaches, in the woods and on the dunes without supervision. Almost everyone walked to school with friends or by themselves. We had a freedom that is seemingly unimaginable today.

 

Thoughts

10/31/17: We all deal with death differently just as we all photograph for different reasons. I realized that as my father lay dying in the hospital that the only way for me to deal with it was through my camera – how we each interacted with him.

I’ve been doing the same with my mother.
 
Photographing Mom and Dad, I have wondered if I was putting a barrier between me and them, but I have realized that it allowed and allows me to focus in on them without any of the extraneous noise. To actually be there, not in grief, not allowing my emotions to overwhelm me, but in a way that allows me to be there for them. Looking at the photos I can see how sick my mother is, but also moments of peace and even playfulness.
 
I see details that I hadn’t seen or noticed before.
 

I shot the photo above after a particularly difficult session with the doctor and nurses about how to proceed with my mother’s care. The salt marshes have always been a special, even magical, place for me. Shooting out there that day helped me find some peace, but it always does.  

The website and other musings.

September 20, 2017: There are so many differences in the world from when I was growing up and yet so many things seem to be static and even going backwards. Since I started my photographic work back in 1984, I marvel at where we are technologically and despair at where we are in understanding of and compassion for our fellow human beings.

The Peace Accords had only been in effect for 16 months when we returned to Guatemala in 1998. In the Ixcán, there were 2, maybe 3, radio phones — 1 was at the UN’s Compound, 1 was at the military base and there might have been a 3rd at the bank.  If you wanted to use your cell phone, you had to know the locations around the area where one might work — by this tree, or a 100 yards from so and so’s. At our house, I had to climb up the ladder to the water tank on the roof to be able to get any reception. When we left in 2003, there were internet cafés — satellite connections had gotten much better. This meant greater safety for everyone. Living in an area that had seen years of bloody conflict, where the news might reach the “outside” only in a whisper. Where people disappeared, where whole villages disappeared. Where neighbor was afraid of neighbor, it brought a certain peace of mind that there was a way to contact the outside world easily and instantly, certainly more so than before.