"Where's the knife that goes here?", he said, two weeks ago today.  I remember using it, too.  It is the second big knife down from the vegetable slicing knife in the block we bought a few years ago.  It was, and is, our first set of recognizable brand name knives and when we bought it we felt proud.  Accomplished.

I don't know where the knife went.  I remember using it.  I was prepping food, and the veggie knife was dirty; it had been used so many times.  I pulled the next knife below it in the block, because I was lazy.  I remember saying to myself, using this knife for this reason is really kind of stupid. But I did it anyway.

We left, to go on vacation,  without finding the knife.  A week ago we returned home and the knife had not shown itself.  I think I believed that if we just walked away, if we just forgot about it and came back later, the knife would appear.

The knife did not.

Today, another search did not reveal the missing knife.  We both know that the other didn't take the knife, yet we say to each other, "are you sure you didn't... do this with it, or that with it?"

Of course we are certain.  Who takes a knife anywhere but the kitchen?  NO ONE in our house.  But the knife is missing.  There are just us two, here.  We look each to the other, we talk about the knife, we shrug toward each other.  We laugh-but-cringe at the fact we can't find it.

The knife is somewhere.  Likely, it is in a drawer or a freezer or a cupboard. It is just a matter of time, in this house, before we find it.  It won't be long.

Our eyes lit up when we discovered it missing, however.  For just a moment we shared a silence.

Where. Is. The. Knife.

We shrugged it off, uneasily.  But what is in our minds is:  Where. Is. The. Knife.

The knife is missing and we cannot find it.

 

Hello, Darlings.

I keep saying, I will write here, so very often.  I do, and then I do not.  I think I should address why I am not here every single day (or even once a month, or quarterly).  Without excuse but by way of explanation, sweethearts, it is simply because I defeat myself.  Those of you who actually know me, personally, know that I am a huge advocate, a giant voice for those who suffer from mental illness, depression, anxiety, fear.  As a social worker and therapist I spent many years of my life shining a light on the hurts and horrors of kids and families with whom I worked.  I spent a lot of time with those kids.  I heard so many gritty details, so many hurts.  I loved, I worked, I lost.  There is a place still, in my heart, for all of those kids and families.  I miss them.

The great unknown, and unsaid, is that I experience some of this very hard to understand STUFF.  I never knew I had a diagnosis until I needed insurance and I had to contact a therapist I'd seen, after brain surgery, to see if there was something "wrong" with me.  I felt strongly, there was not.  What a shock when I received a letter informing me that I did have "Major Depressive Disorder".  That threw me for a loop, sent me flying, shocked the hell out of me.  I called said therapist , we talked a bit.  It turns out, he was not just trying to get me insurance coverage. As life goes. we are shocked, now and then.  This was the greatest shock of my life.  After all, I was a therapist!  How did I not see this... I don't know.  I will never know.

The beautiful thing is, it does not matter.  Every bit of everything  is going to be just fine.  What i have learned is that embracing the sadness, naming it, working through it, brings one to such joy, such contentment. There is so much peace in letting go of the things we think we want/need to control.  Letting go is such peace.

I took this photograph a few years ago, at Glensheen mansion.  I have been so enamored and fascinated with history in many ways; this incredible home is something which takes one back, it is a place which always amazes me.  This photograph was taken in the closet of one of the Congdon sons, who chose his love, photography.  He built a dark room and spent his days and nights locked up in this tiny space, working his art. The other sons did some amazing things; hunting, taxidermy, politics..  This son, though, chose art in the form of photography.  There is simply nothing about this son, that I do not love.

There is a lot, unshared.  I appreciate, though, that those of you who follow, follow.  Thank you so much.  This photograph has kept me taking photos, grabbing snaps, enticing little kids to smile their very best smiles.  Every smiling child, brings tears to my eyes.  I suppose, such is art.

much love.
J

November 10/11, 2015


I took this photograph several years ago and it remains one of my favorites.  I love about it, that is is cows.  If you know me, you know, that I love cows and desire to have them around me every minute.   These cows, though, are fashioned after old toys. Antiques. I love the cracked finish and the little platforms with wheels.  I like the simplicity of these cows and I am drawn to these sorts of objects and images often.  If you know me, you also know that I am drawn to repetition and patterns.  I found this in one of my favorite places to go to shop, if I must shop.  It is called "The Depot" and there is only one place like it.  Part winery, part grocery, part home decor, part just really cool looking stuff.  They have seasonal things and a wall of antique clocks.  It is a great place to go when the weather is bad, or I'm feeling adrift, or I need to find a unique gift for someone I care about. It happens that I bought one of my favorite pots there.  It is a Paula Deen steaming pot and I still love it, even though it isn't cool to like her any more.

The cracked finish on these cows has always reminded me of maps. Maps to where, I do not know. But certainly maps to somewhere.  I have always loved maps, as they take you away and also bring you home. Where family fails to give you an anchoring place, maps succeed.  One of my favorite books of all time is the United States Atlas.  State by state, county by county, this glorious book can take you anywhere if you just start driving.

It's difficult to resolve a need for roots, and cows and dogs and horses and fences and fireplaces against a need to break out the atlas and travel, on a full time basis, forever.  Every minute, feelings change. This image, simple as it is, has always spoken to me in a way others have not.  As life goes on, so to speak, and things change, priorities change, still, this image speaks to me.  The simplicity is important; life certainly is not simple.  I grieve the loss of people through death; I grieve loss through misunderstanding and conflict.  I feel sad about the loss of mentors in my life who have deemed my work, "contrived" yet taken on other students with great joy and praised very similar work. I've returned to old work (my beginnings)  and appreciate it on my own.  This photograph is one I found, that I love in a hundred ways.

There is something else, what I love about cows: they are sweet, and honest.  Sometimes they are really assholes, they do stupid things.  And we have to round them up and herd them and so on. But basically cows are made of love and instinct.  Once you understand that, you can communicate.  When I was a kid, we had a white cow on the farm.  My Grandpa would let me sit on her back during milking, with a piece of binder twine around her neck as my 'bridle".  She was my "horse" before I had one.  Poor old girl never even had a name, except "the old white cow". I loved her with a depth and innocence only a four year old can muster.  I suppose this photo makes me think of her, too.

Cheers.

Something like normal

It has been a while, since I visited this page, and although it belongs to me, I allowed some comments to hit me personally and keep me from sharing thoughts here.  It has, in fact, been more than a year since I opened this page and opened my thoughts to all of you.

During the year I have not posted to this blog, understand that I have spent much time writing.  I have spent much time looking through a viewfinder.  I have spent countless hours researching.  I have dedicated less and less time to silliness and negativity.  I have let go of a number of habits, foods, and people.  I have walked over and through the comments which sent me away from this place.   If you are still following, thank you.

I took this photograph at the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory in St. Paul.  It was a gorgeous day in May and I was enjoying a visit with two of my best friends and the daughter of one of those friends.  On this day, we saw gorillas, giraffes,wolves, birds, multicolored stingrays, neon spiders and a sloth.  What I remember most though is the incredible joy I felt that these two women would put a child in a car and drive what became fourteen hours to visit me.  These two wonderful, crazy women actually put themselves in a car and drove here.  This, to me, is beyond the scope of friendship and common sense.  I loved them for doing it. I still do.

This photograph remains one of the best I have ever taken, and one of my favorites of all time.  This photograph will remind me of that day, forever.  It is tender and tough, soft and strong.  It is wild.  I loved how the petals of this flower were tipped in tendrils which reached toward something to anchor them.  The plant was tall and strong, the leaves, deep green and ribbed with life.  The flowers would never lose hold.  Still, they reached for each other, and felt better while they touched.

I have never enjoyed a life which would be considered "normal".  I don't know what that is like, and neither do most of my dearest friends.  On this day, walking through tropical gardens, viewing exotic animals, watching my niece Katie see all these new things, wide eyed, I was thinking, "I have the most spectacular family".  I realized then, as I do now, that while we are strong and we stand alone, we reach toward each other.  We feel a little bit better if we can touch.  We are a family.  We are something like normal.

Magic Exists.

Complacency will come back to bite you in the ass, every single time.  It's been a difficult couple of months .  I feel tired, spent, done.  I'm impatient.  I'm owly.  I have cared little for others or their experiences, as my own have taken the front seat in my mind and I have been, if not overwhelmed, certainly preoccupied.  I haven't been a good friend, sister, daughter, wife, human being.  So mired, was I, in this muck of self absorption that I couldn't see past my own nose.  My grandmother used to say that and I never truly understood what that meant.  How unfortunate, the person who couldn't see beyond his or her nose, I thought, quite literally, because it wasn't very darn far.  How would such a person navigate through life?  Indeed, now that I am much (much) older, and able to appreciate metaphor, I ask the same question:  How does such a person navigate through life?  Those in my life, who have been at the least, self absorbed, and at the most, narcissistic, have been the ones who both inspired the most anger in me, and also the most fervent need to be noticed, to be loved, to be acknowledged.  This was of course, the perfect example of futility.  But all of that is in the past.  Perhaps lately I have behaved similarly.

 

I'm not good at being confused, or at lacking control, so I have spent a lot of time, lately, at the barn with Lucy and Magnum.  Horses make sense, in a complicated way.  Something about the ritual of grooming, tacking up, working, riding, always in that order helped me to feel some calm.  And then... Boston.  More bombs. More lives lost, more lives changed forever.  It's a very dark place, or it can be.  I've continued taking trips to the barn, and I've taken my camera along.  For the past two weeks (before Boston and since) I have made a point of taking a few shots each day I visit.  I've captured some good barn cat shots, some decent people images, and of course some horse photos.  These days have been a bright spot in an otherwise difficult time.

 

Today I worked my horses.  I gave them molasses treats and let them slobber all over my hands.  I braided Magnum's mane, I let Lucy free-lunge in the arena... wow what an incredible connection it is to just speak quietly and have a half-ton animal respond as if she is connected to me by an invisible line.  We're just getting the hang of this, free-lunge thing, Lucy and I.  It is, if I must say so myself, quite spectacular.  When I was done, horses were cooled and fed, I cracked a beer and visited with other horse-owners.  It is a tired-yet-accomplished feeling.  There is a camraderie, much like among snowmobilers, bikers, or boaters.  The difference is, though, horses are not machines, and one must earn trust and develop relationships. 

 

I made my way back to the arena and watched this little girl ride her giant horse.  The girl is young, the horse is old.  The girl looks at the horse the same way I looked at my first horse, with eyes full of stars and love and hope.  This tiny little girl rode this very tall horse around and around the arena, walking, trotting, turning circles.  This small horsewoman has done it a hundred times before, and today, like every day she rides, she was breathless with excitement, stopping the horse periodically to exclaim her love and to lean over to hug the horse's neck.  Priceless.  I remember feeling that way, when I was young.  I remember feeling like no troubles were bigger than getting on my horse and riding out.  I felt the heaviness lifting as I watched her.

 

I spoke with this young professional; I asked if I could photograph  her and her beautiful horse.  She said, of course I could.  I took many photographs of her and the horse.  This one is my favorite.  I love it because her helmet has fallen down over her eyes, and while her eyes are quite beautiful, I feel this photo perfectly captures the relationship between tiny kid and giant horse.  I laughed out loud, as I was photographing her.  My eyes got a little prickly.  I felt, for just a moment, that breathless rush the little girl was feeling.  Before bombs.  Before fear.  Before sadness.  Pure joy.

 

The horse's name?  "Magic".  Of course it is.  Magic exists. 

A Dog and his Girl

This is a moment which can only be described as pure joy.  I know both girl and dog, so I recognize this capture for what it is, when it happened and how it came to be.  The dog belongs to my house.  The girl belongs to some very good friends, and thus, they are, and she is, a bit like family.  While everyone else was paying attention to the Superbowl, Beth and Jax were having their own party.  I'm thrilled that I could capture this moment.  And, I couldn't be happier that not just the dog, but also the girl, her brother and her parents belong to my family, in a roundabout way perhaps... but in every way that counts.  Thanks Beth for this, and tons more great moments on Superbowl Sunday!  Much love to you, kiddo. 

February 7, 2013

I'm thinking about a photograph I want to share here but I am unable to connect it to my thoughts.  Perhaps there is simply no connection.  This is, after all, a writer's life, through the lens.  I'm halfway sorry about the way I named this blog because I realize, now I have an intense need to live up to it.  Whatever that means.  I think it means different things to different people, and if you know me, then you know I have expectations of myself which far exceed any expectation I have of anyone else, whether known to me, family, or famous.  So if you don't mind, I think I will just be forgiving to myself for now and quit expecting so much.

I took this photo on the morning we were to leave Duluth, a city which seems like home to me.  We'd spent two wonderful days and nights there, and the plan was to spend three.  But on this rainy Saturday morning we chose to head for home, as within a week we would be packing up and hitting the road for New Mexico.  There was so much to be done at home yet, and so much to pack.

We drove up and down the city streets, looking for a place we'd heard had good breakfast.  We found it, parked the car and hurried almost two blocks to get back to this famous place, because it was drizzly out and while it wasn't cold, the air had a chill.  I tucked my bulky camera inside my shirt and ducked my head down inside my sweatshirt hood as we hurried along like hungry, featherless birds.

The restaurant was warm and inviting.  It was popular, too, as evidenced by the number of patrons.  We walked into what could only be described as a gallery, or perhaps, a lobby where people milled about with no real direction.  We were welcomed and pointed toward a counter where we could order a special coffee and muffin or breakfast sandwich to-go, or we could choose to be seated and dine-in.  We chose to be seated.  I loved the place as it showcased local art on the walls, most of which was photography on canvas.  Each print was for sale.  I left my camera on our table and walked the length of each wall in the room, judging myself against each print-for-sale.

I will always remember this place, although I cannot remember the name, as the place I had the best Greek omelet of my life.  I don't wish to try to recreate it.  The Viking was less thrilled than I, when we discovered the place was vegetarian, so the sausage we ordered wasn't what we expected.  Poor Viking.  When it was time to leave, I stuffed my camera back inside my shirt and cradled it as though it was a newborn baby as I waited for the Viking to run down the street to retrieve the car.  I was ducking under an overhang, happy that I didn't have to run through the rain with him.  I took my camera out and shot a few random shots.  Then, this wonderful young man with the guitar came around the corner.  There were a few seconds during which he was walking toward me, but mostly I was able to get him walking away. 

I love this shot because it breaks all the rules of good photography and yet it still works.  I am, after all, a good rule-breaker.  Technically this should be just focused on the guy with guitar.  But I loved the rain and the muted colors, and some of the architecture.  So I left it all in.  Even the 10 speed bike, it all seems a bit junky on the right side of the photo, if you focus on that.  But, with all that left in, it all leads the eye back to the guy with guitar in bright shirt. 

I am happy to hear your thoughts.