Still thinking

about portraits, and the way that they pose more questions

than they answer.

If you want to learn about nuance

come to the coast and watch the light change moment by moment,  

so that people and dogs seem to inhabit a long, slow, Nordic film.

There are so many ways

that the days are longer in the summer.

Precisely because life is not simple

I feel a wave of relief when my eyes fall on something this quiet and complete.

Cold water and a swift current

made the crossing chancy in just the right way.

Just a few months ago

summer was beginning, and the days that stretched out in front of us seemed endless.

We're all looking out for you

How our summer began--

just a rumor, now.

Two girls and a rose

Distance

The state or fact of being apart in space.

Easy

The only map we found

was from the 1930's, so driving involved a lot of guesswork.

She likes to tell me her dreams

and then ask about mine. I told her that sometimes my dreams are so strange 

that I wake up laughing out loud; those are my favorites.

Twenty four summers at the lake

and more to come.

On this unexpectedly cool day

I notice that I'm already nostalgic for this summer.

Summer parties seem to follow an arc

Last week

Time

is what's missing during the busy part of the year. 

Sudenly there is time to notice the light, to think about what it might reveal.

We headed home

right as the rain began. It was a tropical rain---
welcome and warm, rinsing the salt off of our bodies.

Dream time

Wrapped:

after a long day, a hot bath.

When I'm too tired to think,

I still find myself startled and blessed by what I see.

Out of the corner of my eye

The last day of April

and it's my Dad's 83rd birthday. Last night I was making a chocolate sour cream cake 

for this occasion and he was watching "The Unforgiven", and he looked up at me and said, 

"we've had a lot of birthdays together". I'm wondering if this endurance in time, this 

persistent scramble to understand, is the real hallmark of love?

As far as I can tell

this is a solitary time for her, although her days seem crowded with activity and change.

Just opening the door,

Enmeshed :

These days I can't help thinking about how we are all rolled up in one another's lives-- 

it's unwieldy and intimate-- sometimes claustrophobic, sometimes all the comfort I need.

Every Friday afternoon,

there is an hour when I sit across the room from my daughter and watch as she puzzles out the details 

of Satie with her piano teacher. Her concentration shows in her straight spine and I am undone 

by the strand of hair spilling down her back.

Rain seems to carry us

through the flowering trees and into another time. 

 

After the party,

a few flowers and a tip of the hat to Morandi.

Seeing the girls at this distance

I can almost imagine them traveling the world on their own, and I feel a crack and
a shudder like the instant an iceberg breaks in two--a seam of cold water outlining 

the long white scar.

A careful attention:

The season of unexpected

      sunlight, and flowering trees, and memories as fierce and lovely as the changing skies. 

Everyday,

we like to make things---poems, photos, paintings, little alphabet drawings, 

and origami bookmarks in the shape of a heart.

This time of year,

 I want to press my face against the cold glass and feel the outside days approaching, those long days when everything happens under an open sky.

Awash, aware, afloat,

envelope, encompass, cradle.

An apple to eat,

 a bright horse to stand nearby.

This morning's fog

muffles sound and time, and we float out to the car.

At the Chinese garden

I drank my tea very hot and watched the people coming and going along the stone paths.

The sun was just beginning to burn the clouds away.

One possibility

is to arc back into the water, praying the sea will bear your weight.

Winter blues? Try this:

get out under the sky, ski towards the horizon with wet snow glazing your cheeks and the trees leaning close to the little flame of your warmth.

After a long day at work,

a persimmon in the fruit aisle, 

a soft cross between a flower and a robin's breast. 

I placed it in my palm and couldn't let it go.

But oh, the acerbic pucker-- 

the bitterness of that first bite.

Recalling

Diane Arbus's dictum that "a photograph is a secret about a secret."

Finding the world unexpectedly

electric.

Still thinking about portraits

and how brave it is to reveal one's self for even a moment.

Painters have always known

about the power and mystery of a subject emerging from darkness (think of Whistler's yearning portraits in the Frick), and it occurs to me that those same moments happen in our lives with one another---the casual words that allow a person to move forward into our line of sight, gradually revealing them as separate from the dark surround. I think I like taking photographs of people more than anything else for the heady combination of enigma and accessibility that occurs: this reminds me that we can never know another completely. And that is a great thing. Like living next door to a wilderness.

These winter roses

seemed like postcards from another climate as I walked through the east winds today.