Sidetracked Charley

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. Abraham Lincoln - The Gettysburg Address I say this every election. Nobody cares. But I feel compelled to say it again because the DNC has taken possession of my inbox on two email accounts. And in spite of promises they have made in the last couple of days I doubt I will get them back for my use because the 2016 presidential race will formally kick off. BTW when does any politician actually govern instead of run for office?  Election laws have to change. And not the way they recently were changed by Citizens United and the SCOTUS. We as a nation began this dubious experiment when it took two years or mo

Cap Stones The Pope just said he believes in evolution and the big bang. Who would have thought such things would happen in my life time. And yet I am surrounded by people I personally know who believe the earth to be only 6000 years old. The cap stones in the opening photograph are older than that. And once they were on top of pillars of sandstone - the heads of goblins. And before that they were the top layer under a huge inland sea. All that we see is slip sliding away. It is true of people too. Friends come and go talking of Michelangelo. I once told a friend, who was upset I was moving on, that it would not matter if I was staying because friendships come and go even if you live next door. She didn't get it. In fact she chose to never speak to me again. Instead she became fast friends with another friend I left behind at the same time. And that ended. Neither of us know what became of her. The shared friend currently lives next door. She is moving soon. But our friend

Dream Home? I love living where I live. I love living alone. I am a true introvert and really have few close friends. Most of them live someplace else. And that is mostly fine. I used to consider having an attached rental unit a chance for both financial and safety stability. Now I consider it and renters a liability. Renters have become plagues in recent years. But winter is approaching and since the dreaded New Year storm of 2006/2007 I am a bit tharned about winter. Only about five occupied houses on my "block" and one of those is going to be empty all winter. She is a long term friend and I am totally pissed at her about it when I am not celebrating getting her neediness out of my field of vision. She says I am not a nice person which is why I have so few friends. She does not see that as a choice or her fault I am not nice to her currently. (note: Translation of not nice - I am not doing what she wants.) So yesterday I drove to Las Vegas, New Mexico and fell in

I do not take long vacations. Partly because of finances. And partly because I am rather a home body. Besides there is enough in my backyard to keep be interested. The trek this fall was from here to Farmington to Pagosa Springs, down to Chama and over Cumbres Pass. This blog is about just below Pagosa Springs. We were late for aspens but those we found were wonderful in their contrast to the trees already absent their leaves, and the dark skies of fall weather. The pickup allowed us to get up forest roads with ease and into areas not photographed by the average tourist. Just south of Chromo we took Buckles Road into the National Forest in search of Buckles Lake which we never got to. Another day perhaps. It was only a seven plus mile trip but photographers can take a long time to make that distance if the scenery is good. And it was. Then you could also stand in the same spot and watch the clouds travel and highlight different spots on the mountain. All the photos

I have an old friend who insists we are old, and that I ought to act my age. It is time she claims to move to a retirement home in Florida and begin to die. I say Florida just makes you want to die. "Your life is precarious," she said to me over coffee yesterday. "You need to take it easier. You are too old to go hiking by yourself, or camping in remote areas, or climb ladders." My mother, a firm believer in taking it easier, died at 67. And her older brother mowed lawns with a push mower until 87. But all life is precarious as the recent Ebola epidemic here in the states is proving. And if it was not a pandemic it could be volcanic eruption. There have been swarms of earthquakes around Mammoth Mountain just up wind from us. I married and divorced a man eight years younger than me. He died three years ago. We do not come with expiration dates though nobody has avoided the final exit yet. I see no advantage to living each day so that I do not hurt myself. In

I love taking pictures of reflections in mirrors and ponds and glass. Believe it or not regardless of the close concentration and focus one very often winds up with a picture you did not realize you were taking. I think that is true with those quick snaps we take of friendships, and marriages, jobs too. We put all our focus on the obvious, in the photo above it was the wonderful job I did trimming out a very difficult door through a foot of wall sandwich not cut straight. The photo I got was a duo of me and my cat. And when it comes to friendships and marriages and jobs we keep our eye on the positive. Keep your eye on the prize: Friends for over 30 year, married for almost 50, working for the corporation for ten. And then something happens; often something silly and seemingly unimportant and we see the image beyond the surface. September was the third anniversary of my ex-husband's death. We were friends, co-workers and lovers for 23 years. At first I just missed our talks b

The Gorge Filled with Smoke There are times my singularity stands out so starkly even I gasp at its meaning. Yesterday, standing at the top of the horseshoe cresting the Taos Volcanic plateau was one of those times. It had been creeping up on me all day during my drive down to Albuquerque to pick up a friend. Even my manner of friendship is unique. I have friends in rotation more or less and seldom more. Friends for me do not come in groups, cliches, bunches, collectives, or even covens. They are more often than not artists and as much loners as I am. I make few demands on them and do not accept many demands on me from them. One of the bigger demands is "stop the car." In my wild and crazy drinking days that had one meaning but now as a photographer it is infinitely more serious. My photographer friends totally understand this and are therefore preferred in the rotation, others are definitely befuddled. Yesterday as my non-photographer friend and I emerged from the E