Of Winter Flowers

Sometimes little girls (who aren't so little anymore) make things out of paper they've painted, taped, tied with yarn.

Mother and son collect once-a-year songs.

We wrap ourselves into ourselves. We make. And then we give. Then we make again.

The shortest day is a song. The next, a flower. The next, they are grown.

Of Playmobil and Jesus

Apology

I want to write an "if I had the time" post. It's silly, decadent, not necessary.

But autumn makes me do it. Something about the way light hangs on a tree, cat on a branch. Everything orange. And sad--in a happy, loved way.

Bird on a wire.

A song. Flight.

Catch.

There are photographs everywhere. I breathe and take a picture. Pucker, sweetly.

To kiss a new baby. Nuzzle a cheek. Stretch.

Fingers--long. A kiss for each one.

For you.

August

Summer, it is here. Immediate. And demanding.

It is a breath. Fleeting. Green. And envious.

It is blueberries. Raspberries from the garden. Sweet peas. In a bunch.

Ankle deep. A whisper. A kiss.

A yawn. A moon, before a swim.

This sky. It is now.

Thread....

Fiesta is over. Shadow of rain competed with this year's festivities, but could not overtake the sense of community that staggers, leaving behind a path of invisible thread--a mystery weaving, of sorts.

I still consider myself an outsider looking in, but after 11 years, St. Peter's Fiesta is familiar. I've held candles given me by tiny Italian grandmothers. I've shouted. Laughed. Stared at a sky of cast off cares and swirling confetti. I've visited Ambie's famous sausage stand and been encircled by the sweet, greasy smell of fried dough.

I've watched children call out to one another, surrounded by a sea of rocks as men crab walk out to the end of the pole, oars quietly pushed through a threat of rain, the boulevard filled with watchers and drinkers and swimmers and onlookers--looking on for sport and to catch the locals doing what the newspaper says they do best.

Some describe Fiesta as nothing more than a ridiculous, drunken party that the city has to clean up after--but with this description comes a failure to see the invisibly fine strands of community that persist in Gloucester as soulless enclaves of nothingness creep up around the country.

We've got something here, but you've got to look beyond the surface of the party to see it. For every drunken fight that gets recorded in the police notes, dozens of significant connections go quietly unnoticed. Families come together. They anticipate. They plan. They take time to catch up. They dress up--little girls with fancy white ribbons, boys in handsome sweaters and shoes. People smile. They pray. They take notice. They care.

There is no question about it as statues are carried through the streets of downtown Gloucester on the backs of boys and men preceded by prominent religious figures that Fiesta matters--not just as an excuse to party, but as a time to honor God, to honor family and those who have died, a time to honor tradition, a time to reunite and reconnect. People come out of their houses to celebrate and to mourn and to talk to one another. Strangers strike up conversations. The feeling of community is palpable.

This time of year makes me feel lucky--lucky to be living where I am, raising a family with people I love. St. Peter's Fiesta brings this out in me.

Viva. Viva. Viva San Pietro.

Additional photos here.

City Wide

Art made by Gloucester Public School students K-12 as displayed at various places during the citywide arts festival--City Hall, Sawyer Free Library, downtown businesses. Everywhere, Gloucester, Mass.

Standing

Too much change and loss all at once. I want to grieve, but I wonder what it is that I'm grieving. Unable to give it a name. Unable to quantify or qualify or bullshitify.

I think it's that I want people with me instead of straddling the fence--that place where people quietly pretend. It's hard to know where people stand these days.

Of Washington, District of Columbia

I will myself to write about Washington. D.C. I will write. I will. I will. I'll write about photographer Robert Frank. Today with Ernie I called him Frank Blank. I get confused when there is black or Frank or Jack Black.

He sequenced photographs with a wink. A wink and a smile. A black smile. "Cynical," said EM. "That," I said. "Coming from you?" "He made a film about the Rolling Stones called Cocksucker Blues." Is it necessary to say more?

Who is cynical now?

I am not cynical today, the air after a rainstorm lovely. And art. Art everywhere, least in the museums. High boots and short skirts. A man laughing or falling asleep. Game Fish. Hope along Pennsylvania Avenue and in throngs, not thongs. I photographed a flower that belongs with Dr. Seuss. Or in gardens. Southern gardens.

Exquisite light and a pint and talk of Gloucester.

I walked. I walked like the pioneers walked once as it goes in song. "Pioneer children sang as they walked and walked and walked."

The city all lit up at night made shadows on the wall and I took photographs. Moving. Along the wall. Deep as bodies and up again for air.

One, a self portrait, but in shadow. Distant, in memory, but moving.

Always moving. That moving. And this moving. Then, not moving at all.