photography

Loops of Time

/ momshieb / 9 Comments

Sometimes it just comes back around and smacks me right in the head. Sometimes I think I’m perfectly balanced and no longer feeling the pangs of the old empty nest.

Then it just jumps up, grabs me by the throat and shakes me like a wolf taking down a limp old rabbit.

I still miss my kids. I still miss my Mommy days.

The other day we were down in our basement playroom. There are a bunch of old toys down there. Old games, old books, some aging camping equipment. And a few old photos.

My Ellie reached out to one of those photos and asked, “Who is that boy? Is he my cousin?”

“Who is that boy?”

My heart stopped, took a deep breath, started itself back up again.

“That’s your Uncle Matt.” I told my granddaughter. “That’s what he looked like when he was…..(your age? My little one? My sweet tiny boy?)….when he was about 4.”

And I held that frame in my hand.

I could hear his laugh. I could feel the warm sun on my shoulders. I could feel, as if it was right there under my palms, the smooth soft texture of his back. His golden silky hair.

He was my boy. My baby.

My eyes filled with tears.

I know. I know that my boy is not gone, although in the ways that matter to my Mommy heart, he is.

My beautiful golden haired boy is still here. Still a huge part of my life. Still in my heart and my thoughts every day. He is happy, grown, in love, loving and fulfilled.

I couldn’t have wished for anything more.

Except that in that tiny moment, when Ellie asked me about the smiling boy in the photo, I wanted THAT little boy back. Just for a minute. Just for a heartbeat.

That little boy who loved me so and who smiled with just joy as he played with a ball on a hot summer day.

We all move forward, every single day. We look to the future with love and hope. We grow, we learn, we continue to become the people we hope will be our best selves.

But every once in a while, time simply loops itself back and we are face to face with the moments that have passed us by.

I love my current life. I love the idea of my future.

But oh, how I’d love another chance to cuddle that sweet boy.

New Friends

/ momshieb / 5 Comments

So you probably know that I’ve been on vacation with my younger sister. We just spent a week in St. Pete Beach, Florida.

It was perfect.

I know, I know. Gag me and all that.

But seriously. It was about 80 degrees and perfectly sunny EVERY DAY. We ate fresh seafood. We walked on the beach every morning. We collected (I am not kidding) about 600 perfect seashells. We swam and floated and splashed in the Gulf of Mexico for hours.

And one of the best parts for me was meeting so many friendly and welcoming people. I met some new people, unknown to either my sister or myself. They were interesting, funny, and fun to talk with.

I also had the pleasure of meeting some people that my sister has known for decades. That was very cool, because at long last I had faces to match to so many of her stories. And I was instantly welcomed into the “family” of her long time buddies.

So special. Such a blessing.

And I mean that. Really and truly! My circle has grown this week, and that is always a wonderful development.

But you know what?

The best interaction that I had all week was with a bird.

We were walking along the shore one evening, gathering shells and watching the sun set. We came to a wooden pier, stretching into the gulf.

As we looked out toward the setting sun, I noticed a beautiful egret fishing on the rocks.

Perfection. Fishing on the rocks along the Gulf of Mexico.

I walked toward her, snapping picture after picture to capture her perfect white feathers in the light of the setting sun.

And then I noticed, further along, a beautiful heron. A great blue heron, standing on the railing of the pier. He was scanning the water below him, just as intent on catching his dinner as the egret was.

I slowly walked toward him, fully expecting him to take flight when I got too close.

But to my amazement, instead of flying off, he turned his head to watch my approach.

“Approach. But do it carefully.”

He was absolutely calm, watching me with his bright yellow eyes. As I held up my phone and started to take pictures, I swear that he lifted his head and posed.

He was regal. He was the one in charge.

He seemed, in a strange way, to be watching me as closely as I was watching him.

I could hardly breathe. I have never been so close to a heron! I have never been so close to a large bird.

He was gorgeous.

I kept moving forward, my phone help up in front of my eye.

The heron watched, but never gave the slightest sign of unease. His feet stayed steady on the post beneath him. His feathers were smooth, gray, supremely unruffled.

I took one picture after another.

Slowly, I moved past my royal subject. Now the sun’s setting light held him in perfect glowing relief. I took several more shots, unable to believe my luck.

And I’m not kidding. He turned his head, showing himself in perfect profile.

“Be sure to capture my best side.”

It was starting to feel a little bit surreal, standing so close to such an amazing bird, watching him in all of his elegant glory. Watching him as he watched me.

Finally I had taken as many photos as I thought I might need. I put my phone in my pocket.

For some reason that I don’t fully understand, I placed my right hand on my chest, and gave a tiny bow.

‘Thank you, sir,” I said.

And you know what he did?

I’m not kidding.

He dipped that magnificent head toward me, acknowledging my thanks and recognizing his own superiority.

I will forever be in awe of that moment.

Monochromatic days.

/ momshieb / 18 Comments

My Dream Yard. Really.

My Dream Yard. Really.

The thing about winter is that it just drains the life right out of me.

I know.  Thanks to global warming, we haven’t really had a good old fashioned New England winter in years.  We’ve been lucky in terms of snowfall, I know.

But it doesn’t matter.

It isn’t the amount of snow (although with good old Nemo we have plenty of that commodity, thank you).  It isn’t the freezing rain that’s falling today or the freezing fog that is blanketing the yard.

It isn’t really about those things.

It’s about the lack of color, don’t you think?

I remember, many years ago, commuting along to work as I did every day.  Looking out ahead at the gray highway, the gray skies, the dark gray branches of the leafless trees.  I remember feeling absolutely desperate for a glimpse of something vividly blue or red or green. Something alive.  When I got to work, I dug through my cabinets until I found a big poster of a Caribbean beach and I hung it where I could see it a hundred times a day.  I yearned for the aqua shades of water and the emerald green of the plants.

It got me through to spring, and those first few precious green sprouts.

Today I am sitting in my living room. Once again a captive of the winter days.  Looking out at the gray sky, gray trees, gray fog.  The snow is sodden and heavy and colorless.  The only hues that I can make out are the dark gray/green needles of the pines and the dark gray trunks of the trees.   My brain is overwhelmed with the boring sameness of everything I see.

So what can I do?

If I were rich, I’d get on my private plane and fly myself to Barbados.  I’d pluck the blossom of a big pink plumeria and I’d gaze deep inside of it to fill myself with energy and life.

If I were rich, I’d take off right now and take myself to Sidi Bou Said, on the coast of Tunisia, where the houses are blue and white and shining in the sunlight.

If I were rich…….

What can I do, seeing that I am so completely and absolutely not rich?  I can open iPhoto, and scroll through my pictures.  I can look long and hard at this:

SONY DSCAnd this:dsc00919.jpg

And this:

SONY DSCAnd I can remind myself that time goes on, even when we wish it would slow down.  Time moves forward, in a way that we cannot stop or change or impact in any way.

Time goes on.  And before we know it, we will be seeing the color and the vibrancy of spring.

The trick is to keep believing that spring will come.  And that we will be here to see it.

 

 

Captured Moments

/ momshieb / 7 Comments

I have always been one of those people who runs the risk of not enjoying the moment because I am so busy trying to capture it. As I move through life, I am always alert for tiny events that might one day turn into treasured memories. When the kids were small, I  would constantly pull out my camera so that I could try to capture just that one little second. I wanted to preserve each special moment like a perfect drop of amber, to be taken out later and admired in all its beauty.

If I didn’t have my camera, I was ready to memorize and immortalize the best times in words.  I wrote down the kids’ funny sayings, I kept a journal, I ran an endless sound track of commentary in my head.

Now the years have gone by, and the kids have grown and gone.  Now is my time to pull out the notes, the journals, the old photos, to see if I really can use them to recapture those fleeting little moments.

This past week, I have been scanning old photos and uploading them onto my computer, and into “the cloud”, where I imagine them floating around for eternity, meaningless to the multitudes, but treasures to me and to mine.  Some of the pictures are fun to see, because they capture us at different ages and in different stages of development.  Some bring back a general memory, and help me to recall a week or a place without giving me back all of the details.

Other pictures, though, bring me right back to the exact second when I snapped the shot.  Here is one of those pictures, taken in February of 1998.

Tim and Grampa, who was always a sucker for a cute kid.

When I look at this photo, I am swept right off my feet, and back to the moment.  It was a hot day, and we had spent all of it at Busch Gardens in Tampa.  My entire huge family was spending the week together in Florida, something that we had never done before, and have not repeated.  It was my parents who had arranged and paid for most of the trip; they wanted to have all of the crew around for one special week.  It was a blast.

On this particular day, about 10 of us had gone to Busch Gardens.  My kids were 12, 8 and 6 at the time, and by the end of the day we were all pretty tired.  Just before this photo was taken, I had given six year old Tim a “puff” on his asthma inhaler.  The heat and dust had taken a toll, and the little guy was tired.  He had started to whine, and was asking to be carried.  Paul and I just kept encouraging him to keep walking, because we knew that he was fine and was just sort of acting up.

“We’re almost back to the car, Timmy, keep going.”                                                                 “But I’m wheeeeeeeezy! Carry me!!”                                                                                            “You’re fine! Keep going.”

And here came Grampa to the rescue.  My Dad was the gentlest of souls, and was always ready to soothe and comfort.  He was also a real sucker for a cute face, and Tim’s was one of the cutest.   I tried to intervene, to tell Grampa that this not-s0-little six year old was perfectly capable of walking, but he would have none of it.

Dad reached down, scooped Timmy into his arms and started to walk.  I lifted my camera, and my sweet little rascal flashed me this triumphant grin.

I am so glad that even in a moment of annoyance at my boy, I was the Mom who wanted to capture the moment.

It’s elemental

/ momshieb / 8 Comments

I have just come back from two blessed and glorious days in Newport, Rhode Island. We stayed at a very nice hotel, ate at lovely little restaurants, walked through countless clever and adorable shops.  And none of that was what reached into my soul or touched my heart.

Newport is famous for its opulent and outrageous mansions, of course.  We ventured along the “cliff walk”, where chain link fences separated us from the .01%.  We gazed like indentured servants at cold stone estates that to me resembled sand castles without the charm.  I felt no desire to either come any closer or to join that set of elite residents.  What must it be like, we wondered, to live in a place where nature is so filled with glory, yet to struggle each and every day to keep that glory to yourself, and to keep out your fellow man?  One particular stretch of fencing along the “cliff walk” was marked every six feet with the following sign, which made me feel simultaneously ashamed and filled with mirth.  I mean, seriously?

Are they warning us about the dog, or calling us a "dog"? Who knows!

Were they warning us that they owned a “bad dog” or referring to those of us among the riffraff as “bad dogs”?  Who knows!!

What did fill me with joy and peace, though, was the time that we spent simply sitting and gazing out to sea.  Newport has absolutely glorious, wild beaches, where a person of limited means can relax on a bench or a craggy rock or a stretch of broken shale and watch the waves roll in.

When I can see the endless view of water that is the Atlantic Ocean, I am immediately at peace.  When I can sit in perfect silence and listen to the whisper and call of the waves as they roll in one after another, I am filled with calm.

And when I can stand chest deep in the ocean, and lift my earth bound feet to float above the anchoring soil, I am a part of something as elemental as the universe.  And I don’t know why this is true for me, when I know that the same is not true for everyone that I love.

For me, to stand surrounded by the feel and smell and sound and taste of the ocean is to be back in touch with whatever it is that gives animation to my being.  For me, if there is a god, he lives deep in the sea.

I wonder if some people, people like me, feel a tide in our blood. I wonder if my heart and my brain are made of a salty, briny water that makes me one with the gulls and the seastars and the mermaid tales from days gone by.

All I know is this: I don’t yearn for a mansion, or a fence or a castle to keep me safe.  What I yearn for is a place where I could lay my head down every night and still hear and smell and feel the constant murmuring movement of the sea.