In the Moment, Humanity

Winter Picnic Table – High Level, Ab – Canada

Image – A picnic table lies dormant under a blanket of snow waiting its next use.

The song is ‘Wish You Were Here’ by Pink Floyd. I am helping a student gather its fretting. I work with a Seagull mini jumbo, the student with a Yamaha dreadnought. The student is learning his part for a school band. Music is part of his motivation for coming to school. We enjoy our practice times and the rabbit trails toward the investigation of other songs.

This morning, violinist, Stephane Grappelli, holds my attention. This classical violinist, whom my father admires, features in a recording of ‘Wish You Were Here’ found on iTunes. He and his violin add to the soulful drifting upon waves feel. Musical literacy would connect lyrics with soundscape. Imagery, imagination, memory would merge into experience for the listener. Drifting upon waves is there. Chords and strumming pattern echo a sense of being upon waves. Forward, a wave moves with momentum. It diminishes, receding to trough and moves forward again. The momentum only carries forward into future, yet there’s cadence in this movement, you expect it.

“Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd

So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell, blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

The lyrics – as an English teacher, I aim to expose nuance in the word read and the word spoken, in prose and poetry. Trying out words in roles other than those intended often exposes nuance well. The words between Romeo and Juliet become words between a priest and penitent. They become words between Apollo astronaut and ground control. The mismatch of speaker(s) to words spoken confronts students with their intent. What the words are and are not about become clearer. In ‘Wish You Were Here,’ the lyrics intrigue in terms of who can own them.

Who speaks these words and who receives such words? Are these words found strictly among Pink Floyd bandmates? The language at play is almost jibe or dig or taunt, yet they are intimate. They are the words of long-standing relationship. In their speaking, they hold concern and interest for the other. Contrast is there. That world that was once understood, known and mastered is no longer one’s playground. No longer is the world of youth’s heyday accessible. Sluffed-off, that former time is no more. A different, colder, more bland and more stark reality confronts the speaker. The lyrics seek commiseration – to confirm that one’s disbelief and disillusionment are valid. “Did this happen to you, too?” The lyrics do own a seasoned perspective on loss.

Longed-for is the good understanding of shared values and principles. Longed-for is reconnection to that other who knows you. That other re-orients you to who you know yourself to be. That other recalls you to Life. On the other hand, though, it is possible that that other from one’s heyday has moved on in his or her Life; perhaps that other no longer sees, recognizes or understands you. Perhaps that other has adapted through change(s). Perhaps that other is in a quite different state – stronger, weaker, hardened, older, frail. This relationship has encountered interruption and a shared Life trajectory is no longer possible. Life in the interim is at play.

Would this be one’s mind scrabbling back to a poignant, long-ago idea? Would that activity recall to Life the idea and the friend who breathed Life into it? The absence of friend is poignant in ‘Wish You Were Here.’ The possibility of reconnecting with that friend is absent. Alone, there is drifting, listing between what was and what is pending. There had been an approach to Life and its difficult next steps. Some of one’s confidence had been founded in the assurance of handling such next steps together. Now, one gauges Life’s next steps alone. It has become impossible to reconnect with the other. The song’s rhythm, melody and lyrics convey such listing emotion. The looking back to look forward is there when a pending, next, unfamiliar step must be taken.

The breadth of who can own these words grows. While the intimate questioning in the absence of the other has its origin in song among bandmates, they become those questions one would hope to ask of absent friend or soulmate. They are likely questions the band would love to wrestle with and consider with its audience. Yet the structure of concert, performance, band and listener makes such poignant sharing beyond performance untenable.

Who next can own these words? Is this the wrestling between conscience and ego? In the first person, these intimate questions express warning. They are the prickling words of conscience. They surface one’s selling-out of values, moral grasp and integrity. The intimate questioning is that from conscience to ego. Conscience asks, ‘Where are you in all this that’s going on?’ Conscience seeks to awaken courage, asking ego to man-up, not sell out and act with integrity.

In metallurgy, a crucible is a container used to heat metal to a molten state. The container allows skimming of impurities (the slag) from the molten surface. The metal’s quality improves with the removal of the slag. As well, a crucible refers to the ordeal one encounters that yields strength to the person and the group by having gone through it. A crucible is a means to apply heat to metal and refine it. A crucible is also a group process that exerts influence upon a person. Parents send students to school. Parents send children for music lessons. Learning and practice with skills build skills needed by the developing adult. A crucible can force compliance in disciplinary situations for children and adults. Adults can limit a child’s access to privileges in response to inappropriate behaviour. In party politics, censure ensures party compliance in voting. On the world stage, sanctions against a country seek compliance from that country. That compliance may be about social issues or what happens in war.

In ‘Wish You Were Here’ the speaker and the other endured a crucible experience. They may have created it. Its boundaries may only include the two of them. They may not have been able to see where it would lead. They may have differed on what was best for them. Both may have sought the other’s compliance. Both may have applied censure. The mess of moving through that crucible experience halted relationship with the other. Time has passed. There’s that intimate knowing of the other. There’s that interest and concern for how the other dealt with it. That’s the arena of the song’s narrative.

Now, turning to the perspective of crucible, who might own these lyrics? Thomas Beckett comes to mind. Richard Burton played this English, medieval figure in the 1964 film, ‘Beckett.’ Well-educated, Beckett was a close friend of Henry II. Beckett served as chancellor to Henry. Later, by Henry’s appointment, Beckett served as the Archbishop of Canterbury. As Beckett grew into that role and understanding of that position Beckett stood-up for the Church. Doing so, placed him at odds with Henry. This issue was more than mere ‘truth to power.’ Beckett was opposing his King’s authority over the Church. T.S. Eliot wrote about this crucible experience Beckett faced in a verse drama, ‘Murder in the Cathedral.’ The play considers Beckett’s reasoning for not complying with King Henry II. Henry gives Beckett an ultimatum and timeline for compliance. Beckett understands that non-compliance not only undermines the King, but doing so becomes an act of treason. Through one long night, Beckett works within a crucible of seeking to resolve how he can comply with the king and still speak and stand for the issues of the Church. Beckett considers each possible action he might take. Each consideration is framed as temptation. And, the first three temptations are modeled after the temptations Christ encounters. There is a fourth and final temptation. Beckett masters temptation, the time of temptation through to not acting upon the temptation. Still, Beckett does not yield. Here, in relation to King Henry II, Thomas Beckett and Eliot’s ‘Murder in the Cathedral,’ one encounters political context and leadership within aphorism, ‘The strong rule by force, the weak by caprice.’ Ambition, politics and Christendom caress and collide throughout this play. They become the crucible Beckett works through. Beckett cannot comply with King Henry. In 1170 A.D., four knights find their way to Beckett into Canterbury Cathedral and assassinate him. Not only are the lyrics within ‘Wish You Were Here,’ those of any of us that might wish to investigate the integrity of Thomas Beckett within his crucible, they may also be those of his friend, King Henry II. The lyrics of ‘Wish You Were Here’ are words found on the other side of crucible. Where those lyrics might express our wish to know more about what was at play, they are the words encountered on the other side of conflict in which no resolution was possible.

A fellow blogger, Rajiv, has comments that follow. I would urge you to look at his blog, especially with an eye for the ‘down-and-out’ for whom Life itself is crucible. Lyrics in ‘Wish You Were Here,’ take on another perhaps more poignant shade of meaning, perhaps with the question of our role within their plight. Thank you, Rajiv.

Listening to – Pink Floyd’s ‘Wish You Were Here’ featuring Stephane Grappelli (and I’m curious about his involvement in the concert and how he comes to the song).

Quote to Consider – “There is one thing the photograph must contain, the humanity of the moment.”

Meandering, Stumbles & Tumbles

Home, Journaling, Light Intensity, Night, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Still Life, Weather, Winter

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 1

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 2

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 2a

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 3a

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 4

High Level Hospital – High Level, Ab – Canada

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 6

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 6a

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 6b

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 7

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 7a

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 8

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 9

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 10

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 10a

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 10b

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 10c

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 11a

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 11b

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 11c

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 11d

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 11f

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 13

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 13a

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 13b

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 13c

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 13d

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 14

Hoar Frost Morning – High Level, Ab – Canada 15

Our weather has been warm for January. In a portion of the year when we are accustomed to -40C and colder, last night rain fell upon our world. A thick slippery mat of ice coated all – vehicles moved with success while our biped selves slipped, slid, stumbled and tumbled. This set of images holds more meandering with a camera. Walking before school, white hoar frost dazzles. We may not see this weather outcome again this winter.

Listening to – Ray LaMontagne and the Pariah Dogs’ ‘Beg, Steal or Borrow,’ David Gray’s ‘Fugitive’ and ‘Kathleen,’ John Mayer’s ‘Queen of California’ and the Avett Brothers’ ‘Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise.’

Quote to Consider – “Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever … It remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.” – Aaron Siskind

Flatiron Dreamcatcher

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Gibson Block Building – Edmonton, Ab – Canada 1

https://lumensborealis.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/gibson-block-building-edmonton-ab-canada-4.jpg

Gibson Block Building – Edmonton, Ab – Canada 3

Gibson Block Building – Edmonton, Ab – Canada 2

This building is likely the only building in Edmonton in the Flatiron architectural style – triangular in shape with curved windows at its toe. One would find this building in the twentieth century and it would reflect Edmonton opulence. The Gibson Block building, built in 1913, precedes many things. It precedes Canada’s involvement in World War I. It precedes the roaring twenties. It precedes the era of Al Capone, the American prohibition and a Canadian connection. It precedes the Great Depression. The Gibson Block building associates Edmonton to being Metropolitan. One would find a similar building in Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver. Its Canadian, older metropolitan style works well as possible landscape to Morley Callaghan’s novel ‘Such is My Beloved.’ One can imagine the Great Depression and the lives of Father Dowling, Ronnie and Midge intersecting in such a building, a building with ground level retail space, apartments upstairs and Turkish baths below. Neglected, the Gibson Block building faced possible destruction in the 1990’s. The Edmonton City Centre Church Corporation recognized possibility and repurposed the building. The Gibson Block building is now home to the Women’s Emergency Accommodation Centre and provides refuge to those in need – homeless and transient women. At Christmas, the building’s curved glass toe held a huge dreamcatcher, one, in size, able to encompass a person.

Listening to – Bruce Springsteen’s ‘One Step Up’ and ‘If I Should Fall Behind,’ The Black Crowes’ ‘Twice as Hard,’ Neil Young’s ‘The Needle and the Damage Done,’ Alison Krauss’ ‘Lay My Burden Down,’ Hank Williams’ ‘My Heart Would Know,’ Willie Nelson’s version of Coldplay’s ‘Scientist,’ Lucinda Williams’ ‘East Side of Town,’ Shawn Colvin’s ‘All Fall Down,’ Peter Himmelman’s ‘Impermanent Things’ and Ryan Adams’ ‘Chains of Love.’

Quote to Consider – “To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place … I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” – Elliott Erwitt

Darkroom Fodder

Project 365 - Photo-a-day

CKUA Signage – Jasper Avenue, Edmonton, Ab – Canada 1

CKUA Signage – Jasper Avenue, Edmonton, Ab – Canada 2

CKUA Signage – Jasper Avenue, Edmonton, Ab – Canada 3

CKUA Signage – Jasper Avenue, Edmonton, Ab – Canada 4

CKUA Signage – Jasper Avenue, Edmonton, Ab – Canada 5

In the era preceding satellite radio, for us in Northwestern Alberta, CKUA was a radio station that could be caught and tuned-in to driving south, somewhere around Rycroft, Alberta, three hours into a Friday evening’s drive toward Grande Prairie, right about the time Andy Donnelly would bring to Life, ‘The Celtic Show.’ We would listen – current and traditional gaelic music, interviews among voices often sharing common brogue, sometimes sharing a spot of tea on either side of a phone line; listening brought a sense of connection to the world, to Edmonton, to Andy Donnelly and different artists. In a former Life, CKUA had been my father’s radio station, the station he’d listen to on a Saturday afternoon, in his darkroom downstairs, developing film and exposing images on photographic paper. Jazz and Swing music were his afternoon fodder. Now, CKUA is online and I listen via my computer, often while I’m editing and considering where to take an image. Along with my photographs, Saturday mornings move me through different CKUA programs – ‘Dead Ends & Detours,’ ‘Wide Cut Country’ and ‘A Time for Jazz.’ Downstairs in our home, one of Dad’s Edmonton autumn images hangs framed – it looks up from under the 105th Street Bridge, framing through brush one of the white houses of the John Walter Museum; I’ve photographed these same buildings, returning to thoughts of Dad, considering how he saw them.

In Edmonton at Christmas I happened upon Jasper Avenue, CKUA signage painted colorfully on a building side; the building may hold one of CKUA’s studios. This morning, reading through CKUA’s history has been interesting. I am grateful to be able to access ckua.com .

Listening to – Paul Pena’s ‘Jet Airliner,’ Elmore James’ ‘The Sky is Crying,’ Walter Trout’s ‘The Sky is Falling,’ the North Mississippi Allstars’ ‘Mean Ol’ Wind Died Down’ and Shawn Colvin’s ‘All Fall Down.’

Quote to Consider – “When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate I shall be content with silence.” – Ansel Adams

Stabilizing Forgiveness

Best Practices - Photography, Christmas, Christmas Lights, Flora, Journaling, Light Intensity, Night, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, School, Still Life, Weather, Winter

Christmas Lights – Town Hall, High Level 1

Christmas Lights – Town Hall, High Level 2

High Level Public School – Gym Entrance

High Level Public School Walkway

Lattice Work of Trees – High Level, Alberta

REW Memorial Pool – High Level, Alberta

Senior’s Centre – High Level, Alberta – 1

Senior’s Centre – High Level, Alberta – 2

I have been intrigued to find success in creating night time images from handheld shots using wide open aperture and ISO 6400; stabilization must have been accounted for and become the forgiveness factor in this camera. Good!

Listening to – liking Martyn Joseph’s new album, ‘Sanctuary;’ enjoying the tribute to Robert F. Kennedy in ‘Bobby’ and the instrumental work in ‘Sanctuary’ that reminds of songs from Martyn’s album ‘Thunder and Rainbows.’

Quote to Consider – “You’ve got to push yourself harder. You’ve got to start looking for pictures nobody else could take. You’ve got to take the tools you have and probe deeper.” – William Albert Allard

Discrete, Moveable – Beyond the Gym

Home, Journaling, Light Intensity, Night, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Still Life, Weather, Winter

Morning Walk – High Level, Alberta – Canada 1

Morning Walk – High Level, Alberta – Canada 2

Morning Walk – High Level, Alberta – Canada 3

Morning Walk – High Level, Alberta – Canada 4

Morning Walk – High Level, Alberta – Canada 5

Morning Walk – High Level, Alberta – Canada 6

Morning Walk – High Level, Alberta – Canada 7

Morning Walk – High Level, Alberta – Canada 8

Morning Walk – High Level, Alberta – Canada 9

Morning Walk – High Level, Alberta – Canada 10

It is a colder time of year in January; often we’ll have two or three weeks where northern cold from the arctic pushes down over us and us into -40C temperatures. Many people who exercise like to be outdoors; but, colder temperatures anchor them to a gym or within their basements with activity involving free weights and a treadmill. Some will make it outside at regular hours when there are others around, perhaps after work or in the evening. Their endeavor may be no more than a walk, a solitary effort or a discrete, moveable meeting place for two friends to discuss their worlds. At this time of year, what’s common, regardless of the time of day, is that you’re usually walking outside, beyond your work hours in darkness. For me, I favour an early morning walk, to be outside listening to a podcast or music prior to the day’s priorities becoming priorities for the day. Included here are early morning images gathered while walking (in the dark).

Listening to – Dream Academy’s ‘Life in a Northern Town,’ The Cranberries ‘Dreams,’ Aerosmith’s ‘Walk this Way’ and the Steep Canyon Rangers’ ‘More Bad Weather On the Way.’

Quote to Consider – “Your photography is a record of your living, for anyone who really sees.” – Paul Strand

B-Sides, Life and Form

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Trappers Shack Diner – Fort Vermilion, Ab – Canada 1

Trappers Shack Diner – Fort Vermilion, Ab – Canada 2

Trappers Shack Diner – Fort Vermilion, Ab – Canada 3

Trappers Shack Diner – Fort Vermilion, Ab – Canada 4

Trappers Shack Diner – Fort Vermilion, Ab – Canada 5

Trappers Shack Diner – Fort Vermilion, Ab – Canada 6

Trappers Shack Diner – Fort Vermilion, Ab – Canada 7

Trappers Shack Diner – Fort Vermilion, Ab – Canada 8

Trappers Shack Diner – Fort Vermilion, Ab – Canada 9

This day had begun with intention – to consider the state of this wordpress blog and consider what’s next; what does it become? For the longest while this blog has been memory’s placeholder, a responding point for photographs created. In the editing of each image, memory could be pulled forward to surface, the image associating to personal history and consideration, a starting point from which to journal. Today, though, the question was that of what does this blog next become. Is it now time to move the photoblog towards a Blurb book or perhaps a Mixbook, a hardcopy, something you need two hands to look at?

The day began with photoblog intention, investigating the integrity of photo files starting with the blog’s oldest photos. I was surprised to find that first photos I’d posted were surprisingly out of focus – the consequence of using Adobe Lightroom with presets alone; these images were created long before editing images in NiK Collection and Topaz software. I returned to original images and had a second go at editing. Along the way I rediscovered images that had been b-sides, those that had not been first choices for presentation in this blog.

The endeavor began in fueling my body in front of a computer screen – coffee, an omelette and raisin toast. The images for editing were four-year old photos from Fort Vermilion, Alberta (December, 2011). A previous century building was first edit, a building that had been re-purposed to serve as restaurant – The Trappers Shack Diner. And, while it was all the go four years back, it has, within these past two years, sat vacant. This blog has tended to do that, encourage recognition of beginnings and recognition of how and when change occurs, particularly slower moving changes – the aging barn photographed has collapsed, the rare find of a La Crete-bound forties, three-tonne REO Speedwagon cab and chassis has now been sold and removed from its Manning, Alberta farmer’s field, the forested land that was forest, is now cleared, a farmer’s field with next use in Rocky Lane, Alberta.

Time editing, today, has held music. A friend and minister recommended new tunes, an album by Mary Coughlan and Erik Visser, ‘Scars on the Calendar’ – jazzy, dark and resonant in lyric and tune. A second album that I’ve previously looked for was recommended and found today on iTunes, ‘Another Day, Another Time: Celebrating the Music of ‘Inside Llewyn Davis,’ a look at the sixties folk scene and the music associated with the movie, ‘Inside Llewyn Davis.’

Curious Quotes to Consider – “‘Religion and art,’ he says, ‘are almost the same thing anyway. Just different ways of taking a man out of himself, bringing him to the emotional pitch that we call ecstasy or rapture. They’re both a rejection of the material, common-sense world for one that’s illusory, yet somehow more important. Now it’s always when a man turns away from this common-sense world around him that he begins to create, when he looks into a void, and has to give it life and form.’” … Mrs. Bentley quoting her husband. Sinclair Ross, ‘As for Me and My House,’ p. 112; after re-reading this curious quote, the pull toward Carl Jung and his quote surfaced – “Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.” Jung’s quote is engraved on a dark metal plaque I have hanging in my office at school.

Listening to – musician and songwriter, Brian Houston’s ‘We don’t need religion,’ a protest song – ‘we could use the love of God’ (excerpted lyrics).

That Which Was Is

Best Practices - Photography, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Fauna, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Still Life, Summer

Dinosaur – Drumheller, Ab – Canada 1

Dinosaur – Drumheller, Ab – Canada 2

Dinosaur – Drumheller, Ab – Canada 3

Dinosaur – Drumheller, Ab – Canada 4

Dinosaur – Drumheller, Ab – Canada 5

Dinosaur – Drumheller, Ab – Canada 6

Dinosaur – Drumheller, Ab – Canada 7

I had a go at photographing remnants of long ago creatures, fossilized and in many cases fully intact, displayed to be discovered again by the would-be archeologist at The Royal Tyrell Museum of Palaeontology. The challenge then became that of presenting images that focused solely on the creature; that was accomplished with editing.

Quote to Consider/Inspire – “I began to realize that the camera sees the world differently than the human eye and that sometimes those differences can make a photograph more powerful than what you actually observed.” – Galen Rowell

Listening to – Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town,’ Over the Rhine’s ‘White Horse’ and ‘New Redemption Song,’ The Steep Mountain Rangers’ ‘Atheists Don’t Have No Songs,’ Martyn Joseph’s recently released ‘Bobby,’ ‘The Luxury of Despair,’ ‘Are You Ready’ and ‘Sanctuary,’ Deacon Blue’s ‘Bethlehem Begins,’ The Pogues’ ‘Fairytale of New York,’ Dustin Kensrue’s ‘This is War’ and Bruce Cockburn’s ‘Cry of a Tiny Babe.’

Merry Christmas, all – Take good care of your good selves.

Photographic Recollection

Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Farmhouse, Home, Journaling, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Season, Weather, Winter

Homestead in Late Fall – Fairview, Ab ii

Canadian Geese – Flying South, Fairview, Alberta – Canada

Homestead in Late Fall – Fairview, Ab i

Homestead in Fall – Fairview, Alberta – Canada 1

Homestead in Fall – Fairview, Alberta – Canada 2

Homestead in Fall – Fairview, Alberta – Canada 3

An audio-book calmed us, my wife and I, during a night drive north on Alberta’s highway 63. Moving past our Grassland pit stop, we turned left traveling northward to Fort McMurray. As we drove, a snow storm brewed until we were within a wall of big, heavy snow flakes. I backed off on the gas and turned our high-beams to low. I minded the road, scouting the snow track left by previous vehicles. I gave oncoming vehicles a wide berth. I placed our vehicle with care on this highway with sharp shoulders.

I pushed the first audio-cassette in.

A familiar, Canadian voice met our ears – Donald Sutherland began narrating our story. “Did he know? Had he guessed that I knew for certain what everyone else only suspected?” … “I found myself looking straight into the past. Sunday, October 28, 1956. A cabin, not ten miles from where I stood now.” … “This is the weekend when we’re closing the cabin for the season and my mother has been moving around in the other room, cleaning, but now the screen door snaps shut as she steps outside. It is now that I see my father. He is hurrying away from the cabin ….” (Part 1 – May Brightman, Chapter 1 – ‘The Red Fox’ by Anthony Hyde, 1986). The cabin is starting point for a narrative that moves the reader compellingly around the world, a journalistic detective story that weaves historical fiction into curious and intriguing questions of ‘what-if.’

The homestead in the photographs posted here is one I have photographed many times. The edit arrived at in this image has brought forward mind’s eye recollection of the family summer cabin that Robert Thorn, protagonist (and journalist) recalls, as well, in an October funeral for his mother. Anthony Hyde’s novel led us as listeners through the untangling of truth from lies and the consideration of possibilities and where their trajectories of reasoning would lead you – definitely the right book to listen to on a long, snowy drive into Alberta’s north.

Listening to – Bruce Springsteen’s ‘If I Should Fall Behind.’

Quote to Inspire/Consider – “The eye should learn to listen before it looks.” – Robert Frank

At Home – Dad

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Pontiac Memories - Manning, Alberta - Canada

The Open Road - Sunshine Ski Resort, Banff - Canada

It was a Pontiac, the car my father taught me to drive – an olive green, two-door Pontiac Parisienne built for 1969 yet available to Dad in the fall of 1968. On St. Brendan’s field, hanging out with friends, I saw Dad drive it home – colour, class, chrome and shape. It had a 350 cubic inch engine, powerful enough to pass others easily on the open road; Dad said it had ‘Pep.’ There were seat belts for us all and an a.m. radio tuned to CBC 740, CKUA 580 or CFRN 1260 on the dial … and you dialed in best sound. With Dad, I learned to drive carefully, eloquently and with ease. There were wake-up calls and near misses and other drivers who spoke with their horns. On the highway, Dad said my foot was a little heavy … he said that with a smile. The transition was from driving with Dad to driving alone the way Dad would have me drive. There were times when the tie-rod end came off, when after ten years the regulator was jammed so full with dust and sand that the alternator couldn’t keep a current running through the electrical system on a slow idle and there was that time when a lifter clanged loudly after a drive with me at the wheel. Dad knew what to do and we kept the Pontiac running. My Dad, who made time for all this, did this for me, his son.

Parker J. Palmer speaks of something similar with his father; his father gave him, “… a sense of being at home in [his] own skin and on the face of the Earth.” William Stafford’s poem ‘Father’s Voice,’ resonates in similar fashion.

Father’s Voice
by William Stafford

“No need to get home early;
the car can see in the dark.”
He wanted me to be rich
the only way we could,
easy with what we had.

And always that was his gift,
given for me ever since,
easy gift, a wind
that keeps on blowing for flowers
or birds wherever I look.

World, I am your slow guest,
one of the common things
that move in the sun and have
close, reliable friends
in the earth, in the air, in the rock.

Listening to – Brubeck’s ‘Time Out’ and for a bit more fun, ‘Bru’s Boogie Woogie’ – tunes Dad would play on a Saturday night on his Heintzman grand piano in vertical form, a very bright sounding piano.