Category Archives: photographer

It has been so long since I have watched TV …

that I have no earthly idea where the remote to the blasted thing is.  I wouldn’t be looking for it now if it weren’t required to set the menu up for a favored DVD that I was wanting to watch.

I don’t watch the news and have no clue, unless it is on facebook or twitter, what is going on in the world.  My journalist peeps keep me informed on the pressing stuff and the “Oprah, Fox, MSNBC and just happened to be surfing the web  crowd” keeps me informed (and entertained) on the rest of the goings on.

I am perfectly happy with that knowledge (or lack of as the case may be) in my isolated, yet mostly serene, little world.

On the occasions that people I know feel the need to fill me in on the seedier things that are happening, I find myself cringing and saying things like “ewww” … “stop … don’t tell me anything else” … “OMG, you’re not serious?”

It is true.  I am so close to hermit status that if I didn’t have to work for a living, I would be completely and happily oblivious with a backpack in tow and some flint in my pocket …

Thank you Dr. Blackwelder, for teaching me to make a fire with flint and a few dry twigs.

I could, I am relatively certain, live off the land, and thrive on apples, peaches and blackberries … and if that didn’t work out perfectly, I could, irregardless of hunger and thirst, photograph it and then write about it.

I might go hungry, but I would be happy while my belly growled.

I have learned a great deal from my dad, who is like the mountain man extraordinaire, who knows something about everything that has to do with nature and he, kindly, passed it along to me.

I paid attention and took notes.

It isn’t that I don’t care about people and things that are happening.  I do.  But most, in my experience, of what is considered “news” is the misfortune of others exploited well beyond what is necessary.

When my husband was living, I was current on all the happenings.  He was a news junkie and found it oh-so-satisfying to fill me in whether I wanted to know or not.

I see, in the day to day happenings in my life, family and job, plenty of drama.  I don’t need to know who has been in rehab, who is having somebody who isn’t their husband’s baby or what the name of the new Prince will be.

In all honesty, I could care less about that.

If there is a wildfire or other disaster, I find out from my journalist friends on facebook and then, can pray or curse, accordingly, as the event warrants.

There was a time when I was much geekier than was good for me.  Of this, I am certain.  I was a facebook, twitter and google plus junkie.

I have weaned myself, however, to be only a part-time junkie and rely mostly on my friends and family to keep me informed of current events.

I am grateful that my Jim cannot see this transformation from Heaven as he would simply shake his head and say, in that deep, sexy voice of his “Gina … you need to know what is going on in the world in order to live in the world”.

Well, I have little clue about what is going on and I live a relatively normal life.

Yes, there are goats that randomly come onto my porch.

Yes, a possum, nearly nightly, filches cat food from my feed pans.

Yes, my brother-in-law brings me, fresh from the chicken, eggs that I will never eat.

I may have eaten them if he hadn’t said to me “be sure to wash them first”.  Ick.  I took them, washed them with Dawn and placed them in my refrigerator where they will remain until I either give them to some unsuspecting person or throw them away but I know, without a doubt, that I will not be eating them.

Not ever.

But all of this has little to do with the fact that I really want to watch Lord of the Dance and cannot find my TV remote so that I can do so.

Maybe tomorrow … or the next day.

Eventually, it will turn up and when it does, I will have forgotten why I was looking for it in the first place.

Such is the nature of my life.

But it is all good, or mostly so, and it is all part of the whole.  I am who I am and will be who I’ll be.

When every day is like opening Pandora’s box, who, might I ask, needs TV?

Until next time, be well, my friends, be well.

My sweet ride for a couple of hours ... even without the horses, the Jeep was magnificent

My sweet ride for a couple of hours … even without the horses, driving the Jeep on the beach and over the dunes was magnificent

He played like a demon angel ... talent in spades

He played like a demon angel … talent in spades

He looked right at me and I felt his power through the lens of my camera.  I was awestruck.

He looked right at me. I felt his power through the lens of my camera. I was awestruck.

If I’m not me …

then myself, as I know me to be, will cease to exist.

It has been a trying few days … ok, truth be known a trying couple of weeks, but the past few days have been egregiously difficult.

For those who know me personally, you are used to the barrage of chattering that has little to do with anything and everything to do with nothing.  It is part of what makes me who I am.

But sometimes, there is a hitch in the rhythm that brings everything to a complete and utter halt.

That recently happened.  I don’t intend to dwell on it for as far as I am concerned, it is in the past, it is buried and I am well on my way to greener pastures.

It was Erma Bombeck who so aptly said “the grass is always greener over the septic tank” … well, she wasn’t just whistling dixie.

It is funny how life throws curve balls at us and we have two choices … either dodge them or get hit.

I got hit this time, but it will, without doubt, make me more able and prepared to dodge in the future.

I don’t do “woe is me” very well.

I am an optimist.

A follower of Christ.

A positive thinker.

A Sagittarius.

A sometimes bordering-on-crazy person.

All of these things work in tandem to help me to see the big picture.

I don’t even pretend to be perfect, and if truth be told, walk with distressing regularity, the fine line between sanity and oblivion.

But I know myself and my moods and have, over time, learned to live with them.

All of them.

I say curse words when they are warranted, drink Corona when I feel like it and roll my eyes when there doesn’t seem to be any other option.

I don’t hold these things against myself and if others do, that, in my opinion, is their problem.

I have found myself in the past few days facing demons and obstacles that, if given the rest of my life, I would never have dreamed such happenings would come to be.

But life happens as it happens.  It is the same for all of us.

No part of the time we are given is perfect.

Well, that isn’t exactly true, as I can, with perfect clarity, recall a few perfect moments … but for the most part, we are all on a deal-with-it-as-it-comes basis and we either deal with it or end up institutionalized.

Since I am still a free woman, I suspect that I have, at least up until now, dealt with it.

I don’t discount the things that hurt me for they help me grow, but I do learn from them.

If one doesn’t learn from the things that set them back a bit, then they are wasting their time living.

Life is for living; not for reliving failures, hurt or humiliation.

Living.

Learning.

Thriving.

That is how I roll and it is how I will continue to roll.

Wishing everyone who reads this to look inside themselves and decide that life, whatever it may bring, is worth living and worth living well.

Until next time, be well, my friends, be well.

only one of hundreds of my favorite things about West Side Market in Cleveland, OH

only one of hundreds of my favorite things about West Side Market in Cleveland, OH

Carl Tanner performing at Toy F. Reid Center, courtesy of Symphony of the Mountains

Carl Tanner performing at Toy F. Reid Center, a concert made possible by Symphony of the Mountains

The Cleveland Orchestra performing Mahler's First at Severence Hall

The Cleveland Orchestra performing Mahler’s First at Severence Hall

My niece, Gracie, living life and having a grand time doing it.

My niece, Gracie, living life and having a grand time doing it.

I have to ask myself …

is it a bad thing to ask people that I know to like something that has nothing, really at all, to do with them?

It feels odd to me to ask people to “like” a page that they may not like (to be specific, a page dedicated to my greeting cards, or mayhaps my rambling blog posts … like this one).

Gone are the days of simply calling someone on the phone, a phone that has a rotary dial and no inkling of caller ID (am showing my age even as I look through my collection of eight track tapes and vinyl albums)  to say, “hey … i have this thing going on and I would really appreciate it if you would call, rotary style, your friends, and let them know”.

The ability to reach hundreds, thousands or, even in the most wonderful of scenarios, hundreds of thousands of people, with a single link is nearly mind-boggling.

I am from another time.  A time when I stretched the phone cord (attached to the wall) as far as it would go to talk to a boyfriend that I wonder now if I even ever liked.

It didn’t matter how far I stretched the cord, however, as my sister was nearly always listening on the other line and was all too eager to tattle about anything I was saying.

Those of you who have younger sisters will understand this with chilling clarity.

The hair on the back of your neck will likely stand up.

I don’t begrudge my younger sister nor harbor any ill feelings about her, but at the end of the day, it would have been nice had she minded her own business.

But, as younger sisters often do, she did not and, if truth be told, still does not.  She may deny this but as my dad is fond of saying, “the truth will stand when the world’s on fire”.

But then I digress about the obstacles that younger sisters (or brothers, as the case may be) entail.

As it is, this isn’t a post about old boyfriends, dead husbands or otherwise estranged friendships.

It is about whether or not it is acceptable ask people you know, friends or otherwise, to follow along on whatever endeavor that may be taking form at the time.

I am a photographer and writer and, because it is necessary in order to support such things, a nurse.

A paycheck, these days, comes in handy.

A job is a job and while I find myself becoming more involved with people than I feel comfortable with, caring about them, wondering about them, worrying about them, I try to distance myself.

It isn’t as easy as it should be for I find myself thinking of them as my parents, or daughter, or sister or friends and then I get all mixed up in their lives and wonder how they are doing and if they are eating and if they have air-conditioning on days when the thermometer reads 95 degrees in the shade.

I think sometimes that I am selfish and then realize that I want to be selfish, but can’t quite attain that status.

I guess, on some level, that is a good thing, that unselfishness, but it doesn’t change the fact that I want to be selfish.

I’m just not any good at it.

S0, with unselfishness that belies itself, I besiege my friends and family to promote my blog and greeting cards while harboring a sense of guilt for asking in the first place.

I am certain that somewhere, in all of this, an oxymoron is simply waiting to be born.

I am not going to apologize for being myself, but will, rest assured, feel guilty for not doing so.

Until next time, be well.

God will, without fail, have the last word.

God will, without fail, have the last word.

For the first time in a long time …

I am not sure where I stand.  I have worried my family, called unashamedly upon my friends and have, in the end, doubted myself and my abilities.

None of which, mind you, is intentional.  It is all a part of the person I am, which is the same person I was yesterday, the day before and ten years ago.

I find myself in a place that is completely and irreverently foreign, while at the same time, alarmingly familiar to me.

I have been here before and, unfortunately, will be here again.

It is my nature.

It is my being.

It is, on occasion, my life.

I can find no pleasure in anything, most especially in the two things that usually, without fail, bring me immeasurable pleasure and boundless joy.

Photography and words.

I don’t want to take them; I don’t want to write them.

I don’t want to develop them once I have taken them and don’t want to read them once I’ve written them.

I don’t want to see them or immerse myself in them.

I am, truly and most inexplicably, at a loss.

Those are the things that, irregardless of professions and degrees, make me who I am.

Without them, everything else is irrelevant.

Photography and words are what sustain me while I am trying my level best to live from one day to the next.

They center me and keep me from teetering over a sometimes fine and fragile line.

And yet, for now anyway, the joy, beauty and perfection of image and verse escape me.

I am perplexed.

Maybe I am a figment of my own imagination.

Wouldn’t that be one for the books.  A figment of an imagination that never really existed in the first place.

An enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a puzzle.

I usually reserve that description for others I know, respect and revere  … and yet, well, here I am.

I have become my own puzzle.  Odd and disconcerting and yet, this too shall pass and from it will emerge something beyond my dreams.

It always does.

Until that time, be well, my lovelies, be well.

a young man, lock of love, a pure soul.

a young man, locks of love, a pure soul.

I love the moon, the moon loves me ...

I love the moon, the moon loves me …

the epitome of summer ... such beauty my eyes behold

the epitome of summer … such beauty my eyes behold

He always manages to get where he's going ...

He always manages to get where he’s going …

I wonder at times …

just what kind of influence I have on my nieces and if it is, in fact, a good thing.

When they come over, we stand in the rain and try to catch raindrops on our tongue.

We stand on the porch in the dark of night, talking to the man in the moon and try to count the stars.

We watch lightning bugs and look for meteors.

We laugh at silly stuff and listen to music.

We bang on the piano keyboard making all manner of noise and then pretend that we know what we are doing.

I play Mahler, Beethoven and Bach for them and then we dance like mad to Crazy Train.

We watch Lord of the Dance and documentaries on Alaska.

We make up songs and sing them loudly, through a hairbrush microphone.

We burn incense and light the lava lamp.

We brew tea using a teaball and have tea parties with Irish Breakfast tea.

We sit in the floor and draw pictures using markers, chalk and crayons.

Blue is my favorite.

We let the dog in the house during a thunderstorm because I have a hard time denying them anything.

We don’t watch TV and we rarely watch movies.  There is so much that is there that they, as little girls, don’t need to know.

There is so much there, that me, as a big girl, don’t need to know.

I want to let them know how much I love them without exposing them to the things about myself that make feel crazy and out of control.

I don’t want them to know that sometimes my thoughts race, my mind falters and I don’t, more than any other hope I have, want them to be like me.

Manic and exasperated or crying and inconsolable.

I want, though, to let them know, that it is OK to be different from everyone else, to march to their own drummer, to follow their dreams and to seek what they want to know.

I want them to know that wherever they go, whatever they do, whatever endeavors they undertake, I will support them, love them and will always, always stand in the rain with them.

joy unspeakable

joy unspeakable

youthful innocence

youthful innocence

I have been waiting all week …

for this day to come.

The day that tickets to The Eagles concert, which is coming near my hometown, would go on sale.  I have (most impatiently, mind you) waited for the moment when I could go online and then, with great jubilation and celebration, say that I have Eagles tickets.

When I first found out, earlier this week, that they were going to be performing nearby, I immediately started researching; I studied over the seating chart of the venue, mapped directions and even considered staying overnight just to be adventurous.

I had, after careful planning, decided exactly where I wanted to sit in order to be able to see them up close and personal.

I even went as far as to rationalize the justification to dip into my carefully squirreled away new-camera-lens fund in order to be a part of something  that I found to be so incredible that it literally took my breath away.

I had my seat picked out and was ready to go forward with what would be a crowning moment in my life.

I haven’t slept much all week due mostly to the anticipation of today.  I was ready.  I was prepared.  I was going to do it.

I was going to see The Eagles, performing live and I could barely keep any other thought in my head.

Then reality slapped me in the face.

When the magic time came and the tickets officially went on sale, the sticker shock nearly sent me into a coma.

The ticket prices I had researched earlier in the week, which were high, but, as I said, I had rationalized the justification,  had risen over a hundred dollars.

WTH??

I found that I could get a ticket in the nosebleed section for a right arm and four of my total of six pints of blood.

If I were to be invited to dine with them and then become their personal photographer, I wouldn’t have blinked an eye … but let’s be real here.  I would be paying to watch them on video (because they would be too far away to see in person) and I don’t know about the rest of the world, but I’m not about to shell out a bundle of money, sacrificing a new lens for my camera, to see a video of something I can watch for free from home.

I didn’t want to be there, in the netherworld, the bowels, the forgotten area of the arena.  I knew where I wanted to be and if I couldn’t be where I wanted to be, then I wasn’t interested in paying an exorbitant price.

It is times like this that being independently wealthy would come in extremely handy.

I took a moment and thought of the price of the ticket and how much it would now take from my new-camera-lens fund.  The decision took about as long as the thought did.

I won’t be seeing The Eagles in concert because I want, more than to see Don Henley, to have a new lens for my camera.

And I can’t, at these ridiculous ticket prices, have both.

So, I will pass, with a huge pang of regret, on seeing The Eagles on, which is rumored, to be their last tour.

Sorry, Don, but the camera lens takes priority.

I have all the albums (vinyl, of course), many of the eight-tracks (if you don’t know what that is, don’t ask because I’m already in a foul mood), all of the cassettes, because that was the latest trend, most of the CD’s because I simply had to have them and every song that is currently available for download on Spotify.

I will most likely, knowing how I am, once the day approaches, regret my decision to fore-go the price of admission to an iconic concert by what is likely my all-time favorite music group, but when I have the new wide-angle lens for my camera, Don will be little more than a blip on my high definition sensor.

Priorities, and all that jazz.

Beemer, a sweet Great Pyrenees, shows his Hollywood

Taking it easy, literally …

Hotel California ... ok, really just the view from my front porch, but still ...

Hotel California … ok, really just the view from my front porch, but still …

what is it about dreams …

that seem to plot the course of the day ahead.

I have always, nearly without fail, remembered in detail and almost painful clarity, my dreams.

Sometimes they are of strangers and other times, erotic and provocative images and happenings of and including  people I am acquainted with.

Images that have no business being in my head are there and they tempt me to try to relive them in reality as well as in the dreams, of which I have no control, in which they were born.

I don’t make a secret of them.  I share them with the cohabitants of my dreams, often to my regret afterward, but nonetheless, I find that the ability to lie escapes me.

It doesn’t help matters that I, on occasion, am a blabbermouth and just blurt things out at random.  A curse and one of the things that, were I able, would immediately change about myself.

Those, I think, are more disturbing than the bloody, murderous ones for they are more realistic and leave me feeling vulnerable and exposed.

And then there are the non-dreams that are climatic in their own weird and distorted way.

I am certain, given facts that I am sure of, that I sleepwalked last night.

Things that were present when I went to bed were missing and no evidence, anywhere, of their disappearance, could be found.

I looked.

In the trash.

Under the couch cushions.

Under my mattress.

I know what was there and what is now missing so either I walked (and ate chocolate Nekot cookies) in my sleep, or there was an intruder who only wanted my cookies.

And who, pray tell,  breaks into a house leaving a priceless collection of vintage vinyl and takes only chocolate-peanut butter cookies.

Especially if they know me and know that I sleep with a very large cast-iron skillet capable of causing a serious brain hemorrhage or, if aimed just right, instant death

Nobody, that’s who.

So since the latter is improbable, I have only left to assume that I am, once again, up to my old tricks.

Walking and performing tasks, like eating, cooking and cleaning, in my sleep.

It disturbs me on some level that I do things in the night that I don’t remember.  It should disturb me.  It should disturb anyone.

But I know the cause, or at least I think I do.

For several weeks, as anyone who knows anything about me knows, I was manic to the point of being carted off by the men in white coats.

I thought it would never end and once it did, I missed it immediately.  That rush of feeling, the power of confidence that, in a normal state, I lack.

But one phase which lasts so long does not go without the alter-ego phase coming in to claim their share of the  psychosis.

I call it psychosis because what else is one going to call it … hyper to the point of explosion one moment and despondent to the point of mediocrity the next.

I live this every day, every week, every month.  One would think that by now, I would know what was coming next.

I don’t.  And people who try to pinhole me into their idea of normalcy don’t either and end up doing nothing more than pissing me off.

As do those who lie to me. Or make excuses instead of just being up front.

An omission or generated excuse is no better or worse than a lie and I put them all in the same bag.

I expect people to be straight with me no matter what and if they aren’t then they immediately lose their credibility and, as far as I am concerned are no longer relevant in my life.

I no longer listen to their words for they are, from that moment, nothing more than blather.  Filler because they can’t think of anything useful to say and therefore are useless to me on any conceivable level.

It is disappointing to me to think that I have friends who pretend to understand me only to find out that not only do they not understand me, they have no intention to.

Valuable time wasted if you ask me.

I try to conserve the space in my mind for those who actively want to be a part of my life.  I realize that I try too hard to make friendships sometimes.  I find people who pretend to understand me but have no real inkling as to who I am or what makes me tick.

It is a disappointment to realize that I have been, for lack of a better term, led on by their pretense.

But in time, all is revealed and life goes on.

I don’t hold it against the pretenders because in all essence, I have better things to do than hold a grudge.

But I will be more cautious in the future.  Once a manipulator, always one.

Funny, isn’t it, how they don’t see themselves that way.

Life. Goes. On.  and that is just the way of it.

I may be hanging, at times, by a thread, but in my mind, I am happy simply to be hanging.

Until next time, be well, be yourself and know that whatever you learn today will be most useful at some point (unless is is geometry and the jury is still out on that one)

in reality, what dreams are made of ...

in reality, what dreams are made of …

Today, I got lost …

in the hospital where I have been working for weeks.

It doesn’t matter why, really, though there are reasons; personal ones, and yet the simple fact that I got lost is paramount.

These last couple of weeks, I am more distractable (is that even a real word?) than usual … so much so  that I got off the elevator on the wrong floor and proceeded to wonder aimlessnessly (again … is that a real word)  until I realized that I was well and truly lost.

I focus.

Then re-focus.

Then re-focus again.

I find that I would have much more time to do my work if I wasn’t constantly re-focusing to  bring myself back into the moment that is before me.

How many times must a person focus to get off the elevator on the right floor?  I guess, all things considered, that is is good thing I am covering in a position that doesn’t require giving injections or starting IV’s.

I try to reign my thoughts in and find it is taking much longer than usual to move past this obstacle.

I wonder, credibly, if I will be able to find my way to work tomorrow.

Sometimes, and there is no way to say this other than to just say it … then apologize to God for thinking such …

Sometimes, life really is a bitch.

Damn her.

Old man smoking his cigarette … wagontrain_bw (5)

Sometimes the light really is just a train …octobersaturday-151

It’s funny how it’s funny …

later.

I am a facebook junkie. I admit it.  No reason not to really, since people I have never laid eyes on see the things I say.  I post random thoughts at random times and forget, more often than not, to change the filter that goes from my brain to my mouth; or in this case, my fingers.

Often, things that other people say or do remind me of events of my own life.  Tonight was one of those times.  As it happened this time, it was something I said that brought the old-but-not-forgotten memory into focus and I was taken back, decades, to a time in my childhood.

I was six years old.  Ok, maybe I was five or even seven; it has been so long ago that the age has escaped me, but the clarity of the memory has not.  I write this, not to remind my beautiful, wonderful Aunt Nell of the error of her ways (though to a kid, the error was heinous), but to relive a priceless, however painful, moment in time.

She was like a mystery wrapped in an enigma, was my Aunt Nell.  She was beautiful, knew famous people and likely, most importantly even, owned a portable tape recorder and brought presents in her multi-colored bag.  She and my Uncle Ford lived in Pennsylvania which, to a kid growing up in the back country, tobacco-farming, cow-milking, chicken-raising, hog-slopping, corn-hoeing, bean-picking, mule-plowing area of Southwest Virginia, could just have well been Ireland or Italy or France.

Or Gate City.

All I knew for certain was that it was hours away and trips there, with Grandaddy in the back seat with me and later, my little sister, was never a joy.

And yet, I digress.

As I said, I was a kid, the age remaining undetermined, and was on the cusp of pulling  a tooth.  Even as a little girl, the very thought of blood in my mouth made me sick to my stomach.  So obviously, pulling a tooth was right up there with being staked to an anthill.

They, she and Uncle Ford, came to visit, along with the snazzy clothes, tape recorder and gifts that I could never resist hinting about.

That drove my mother crazy … the hinting, not the presents … but I knew she would bring me something and the suspense nearly gave me a coronary.

How embarrassing  that would have been at five, or six or whatever.

And so, I digress again.  This was supposed to be a story about an event that has, for obvious reasons, stuck with me for nearly forty years.

The loose tooth.

So, Aunt Nell, or as we in the family call her, Aunt Neldie, had the bright idea that she could pluck that tooth right out of my mouth, painlessly and with little to no bloodshed.

I, being a gullible child, went along with it.

She was, after all, the well-respected, visit-anticipated, living in another country, Aunt Nell.

I let her, against my inner voice’s urging, tie a string to my tooth.

Then I watched in barely contained horror as she tied the other end of the string to a doorknob.

Then I stood, idly by, as she proceeded to slam the door with the strength of a Sumo wrestler.

Or Batman, even.

This being the same door holding the string tied to my tooth.

It should have worked, she said.

I don’t understand it, she said.

Don’t cry (as if!), she said.

Come back, she said.

At least I think she said these things.

I had disentangled myself from the doorknob at this point and was stalking up the hill towards the smokehouse.

I’ll explain a smokehouse some other time, but it isn’t where you go to smoke, unless you were my cousin.  It’s where he went to smoke unless he wanted to be skinned by my mamaw.

As I was stalking off, I was crying.  I hadn’t yet learned to say curse words or I would have been cursing, which would have gotten my mouth washed out with soap.  For real.  I made it to the top of the hill, the house still in view when I stopped.

There at the top of the hill was the mule that everyone called Old Beck.  She was a gentle creature, but I, as a child (and even into my teens and twenties – and let’s just be truthful here, my thirties) was an avowed chicken.

I was afraid of everything.  Bugs, airplanes, grass, bees, water, dark, oxygen.

Even sweet-natured-if-stubborn-to-a-fault Old Beck.

It would be much simpler to say what I wasn’t afraid of.

Dirt.

I wasn’t afraid of dirt.

Unless there were bugs or worms in it.

At any rate, I found myself too chicken to actually run away as I had originally planned and went back to the house where the offense had occurred.

While it wasn’t funny at the time, it has been a constant source of amusement over the years.

I forgave Aunt Neldie, because otherwise, she wouldn’t have given me the present she brought or let me play with her tape recorder.

But I didn’t forget it.

Some things just stick with you, ya know?

I. Was. Running.flolicking

Don’t panic .. and wear your sunglasses.Beemer, a sweet Great Pyrenees, shows his Hollywood

I’ve said it before …

and I’ll say it again.  I am much too soft-hearted to be a  nurse.  So many things that I come into contact with on a daily basis makes me want to weep and scream at the injustice of life.

I am supposed to simply speak to people and let them know that they are not just a patient, but it isn’t  that simple.  They are people to me.

They are my mother.

They are my father.

They are my daughter, nieces and sister.

They become part of my heart and being and I take them home with me.

I have cried many, many tears for those that I visit with.  I have held their hands, held their family’s hands and prayed with them.  I try to leave them where they are, but they won’t stay there.

They come home with me.  I think about them and hope that they will live until morning; hope that if they don’t, their sons, daughters, mothers and fathers will be able to cope with loss of their existence.

I want to be strong.  I will myself to be stoic and unattached, but that lasts as long as the mist under a strong morning sunrise.  I love these people.  I fall in love with their families and I feel the pain, sorrow and devastation of their loss on every front.

The older I get, the more squeamish, melancholic and dramatic I become.  I surely thought that I would be stronger and more able to control my emotions at this point, but the truth is that I am more susceptible to emotion and empathy than I ever thought possible.

Sometimes, things happen that are funny and yet, the humor battles sorrow for there is nothing beautiful or funny about someone who doesn’t know who they are or where they are or what they have accomplished in their lives.  The emptiness is devastating.  I find myself bringing people home with me in my thoughts and crying over their infirmities.

I never wanted to be a nurse.  I wanted to be a photographer.  I wonder sometimes if I don’t make a better nurse than a photographer.  And then I realize that I can be both.

One makes me a better of the other.

I photograph for the sheer pleasure of it and  yet, when photographs are forbidden, I see past what is present.  I am thankful, on many levels, for the blessings bestowed upon me.

I am a nurse.

I am a photographer.

I am myself.

I am content.

What more can anyone ask than to be content in the life they are living.

I am, above all things, thankful, for the joys, the trials, the triumphs and the the lessons.  Thankful for the things that hurt me and those that bring me joy.

One without the other is insubstantial; combined, they are powerful beyond the description of words.

I. Am. Blessed.

And I am thankful.  The images, whether in real time or captured on film are what life is about.  Life is images and images make up life.

Again I say, I. Am. Blessed.

Bodie Island Lighthouse (my OBX favorite)bodieislandlighthouse

Matt … a truly beautiful human … hatteras_lightning-59

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A doe at Bodie Island hatteras_lightning-71

Beach Beauties … outerbanks_day1-327