Category: Uncategorized

The photo show has been up for a few weeks and, I hope, showing well. I have distanced myself somewhat from the experience, feeling grateful to have just been chosen to participate. If I sell anything, it will be a wonderful bonus. The exposure and acknowledgment is the real high point for me.

School is moving along. I am still having fun with my US/Caribbean Foreign Policy course but the Digital Art and Design class is wearing thin. PhotoShop is all wonderful, but I have become bogged down in the sanitary nothingness of the truth behind web design and logos: it’s about advertising and self-branding, as a famous librarian friend has mentioned. I really feel kind of slimy trying to promote myself like a piece of meat. A few of us have stated this in the class, but I don’t know if the instructor has read the comments yet. The class is almost over, however, so I’ll push through and take the grade given.

I have begun looking at MFA programs in photography. One school, very near to me, offers one of the best. I attended the MFA open-house last week and was a bit apprehensive as I walked in the room. I was immediately put at ease by a friendly face that I had not seen for a while. That allowed me to relax, participate and enjoy the day. I will be applying there next January, 2010.

I am a sort of a purist when it comes to photography and computers. I really have no use for PhotoShop except to re-size, canvas, and crop. Beyond that I try my best to make the best image that I can with the camera first. If the picture sucks, it sucks. Screw the philosophy of post-production…It;s a cop-out.

Deer season opened yesterday…We have hunters up in the woods thinning the herds…Guns are booming. That is a pretty unnerving sound.

Mom is doing well, I suppose. She is alert, very capable still, and extremely feisty. My sisters and I will be having a meeting during the Thanksgiving weekend concerning her care and where we go from here. The 24-hour women who are here now are fantastic. My opinion is that nothing is broken so nothing should be fixed. The family has seen fit to live their lives away from here so far, and they should continue to do so.

These kinds of family summits have long since ruined the holidays for me. Thanksgiving should be a time of gratitude and peace-making. Instead, for me at least, it has become a symbol of fear, invasion and sudden change. This is all very sucky, and no amount of post-production will cure it.

Johnnyboy

I have been reflecting on the past 4 years I have been spending with my mother. Initially I moved home because it was all I could do, having left my old life behind in a pile of debris and smoldering, burned bridges. Within a month or so it was obvious that I was there to help her more than the other way around.

As the years went by, her Alzheimer’s progressed, my sobriety grew, her frailty increased, and my role as caregiver expanded to include more than just the occasional trip to the store for her. I have now taken over the household accounting and serve as her Power-of -Attorney. I am not alone in these tasks, and for this I am thankful. There is her financial manager in The Big City who oversees her rather large estate; her attorney who manages that as well as her estate legal affairs; her CPA who prepares her taxes each quarter; there are my two sisters who offer me support from long distance and visit when they can — they are also listed as POA’s should I not be able to fulfill this task; and the crew of amazing caregivers working 24 hours a day that allow me to not only live my own life but to handle the above responsibilities round out the team.

Mom’s habits have shifted since her broken rib incident a month ago. She has withdrawn and spends much of the time in bed. Sometimes she is sleeping, and sometimes she is reading. Sometimes she just sits there and stares off into space, perhaps just thinking. Her depression is palpable. She is angry at the world and confused about what is happening to her. She is frightened by the loss of self that has accompanied this emptiness in her mind. The worst part is that she knows this is occurring.

Someone mentioned to me the other day that it must be hard to see this going on. I think I have begun dismissing this kind of statement by rationalizing my being here as a gift, some sort of frightful challenge that is helping me grow. I think from now on I am going to acknowledge the pain and tell them it is especially hard on me because I have absolutely no control over the slow and terrifying slipping away of my mother, who I will always remember as being fun-loving, brilliant, energetic, and youthful.

This may sound selfish to some, but I think that part of living my life is to not be so tough or reserved when it comes to this matter. This is the most painful time of my life, and I hope none of you ever have to go through it. But if you do, don’t do it alone.

Johnnyboy