Category: Street & Travel

Do You Mind If I Take Your Picture?

A mother makes a silly face for her child

This isn’t what it seems.

I was nearing the end of a long trip, first flying from Portland to Baltimore to visit my brother’s family and sort through some of my dad’s papers as we tried to reconstruct the last years of his life. From there I flew to Texas to help my mom pack before driving to her new home in Atlanta where she’ll be near my youngest sister. The day after we arrived the three of us and my sister’s dog Sari met up with my cousin and his son and one of their dogs and went for a walk along the Chattahoochee River. Near the end of the walk we crossed paths with a mother and her inquisitive young son. His interest was piqued at first by the dogs but as we approached a footbridge and I stopped to photograph a drawing of a cat, he became interested in my camera and asked if he could take some pictures. I was happy to oblige, he was short enough that I could stand over him and hold the camera although I couldn’t see what he was aiming at much less set up the camera for the exposure, but I showed him where the shutter button was and helped him take some pictures in the general direction of his mother.

Because I was watching him and the camera, it wasn’t until later when I reviewed the pictures that I realized she was making silly faces to make him laugh.

A couple of days later as I made my way back home to Portland, I thought about how the circumstances of our encounter influenced the experience of it. There was no fear or anger that might accompany danger or prejudice. There was no busyness or indifference that is a necessity of the large crowds on the train or plane. Just a chance encounter on a relaxed walk in a lovely place, a moment of warmth and frivolity that even in the weariness at the end of a long trip, that even in the weariness at the celebration of cruelty in my country, reminds me we can be beautiful when we want to be.

New Moon

Translation

Some of the homes in our neighborhood post poetry near the sidewalk that I like to read on our dog walks, and though I detested poetry when I was young a couple of them have really caught my eye and made me want to start exploring it. I loved this short poem from a few hundred years ago by samurai and poet Mizuta Masahide, who is quoted in this translation as:

My barn having burned to the ground

I can now see the moon.

Mizuta Masahide

There are several translations available, translation is tricky in general but I would guess especially so for poetry, another version is:

Barn’s burnt down –

now I can see the moon.

Mizuta Masahide

I was unfamiliar with the poem but loved it immediately, there are many layers in those few words. And I think this translation, though not as poetic, hints at that:

My storehouse having been burnt down,

nothing obstructs my view of the bright moon.

Mizuta Masahide

It’s important to stay positive in the face of tragedy, to see opportunity in change, to seek the beauty of the world that surrounds us but that we hide from ourselves, to see how easily our love of wealth harms the spirit. But to remember too, that barn may have stored food for the winter, and if people are suffering, they need more than “thoughts and prayers”, they need help. That they are us. Let us break bread together and wonder at the moon.

A Day for Dogs and Children

In a heavy snow, young parents pull their child in a sled down the street while in the far distance a dog walker approaches from the sidewalk

Young parents pull their child in a sled down the street while in the far distance a dog walker approaches from the sidewalk, all heading to Irving Park. I knew our black lab Ellie would love the snow but I was surprised to see even the small dogs were having a great time in the deep snow. I’m told we’re actually in the midst of a cruel heat wave, that the snow is not real but a distant memory surfaced, a hallucination brought about by what in the earth tongue you would call heat madness.