Recently I was looking through old photographs, trying to find something worth posting that I had not already put on gab. When I got all the way back to the photographs that I took with my first digital camera, a Canon S95 point-and-shoot, I immediately saw the difference in the quality of the photographs. Much of the loss of quality came from my inexperience with photography. But a great deal of it came from the fact that my camera had a tiny sensor with a somewhat inferior lens attached. Today’s photograph is one of those old photos. I spent a lot of time trying to get to look halfway decent, not because I would ever be able to make it into a great photograph, but because of what this particular scene means to me.
Read MoreSomething To Think About On My Birthday
When I was approaching 50 years of age, I had a bad chest cold. At that point, I had not been to a doctor in several years. I was 50 pounds overweight and in terrible physical condition. I felt so bad that I went to a doctor, scary as the thought of that was for me at the time. I had developed a fear of doctors (and medical staff, procedures, facilities) during my stay in Vietnam. When asking about my family history, my new doctor learned that both my father and his father died in their middle 50s of heart attacks. The doctor looked at me quite seriously and told me that history might well repeat itself, given my current condition.
Read MoreCornbread
before baby sister came along and spoiled everything
it was just me and mama and daddy around the supper table
mama would cook up some beans
daddy would work the cotton fields
don’t tell nobody
but I’d probably be out exploring the forest down behind the barn
Getting Better
I walked the trails at Paris Mountain State Park for a number of years, starting back in 2001 after I left my career, trying to out-run the anxiety that plagued me, trying to find some peace of mind out in nature. Some of those walks lasted over four hours, up and down wooded hillsides and mountainsides, alongside creeks, around lakes. And I admit I did occasionally find some peace there. I also found some things that triggered old memories of war trauma.
Read MoreMy Three Friends
Sometimes the trauma of war or the trauma of life can lead to a dark place. If the mind is weak, as it often is, that dark place may beckon to you in perverse but appealing ways. In a day-to-day life where anxiety is hell and depression is heaven, slipping into the darkness, where nothing matters at all, seems as natural as a puppy's wagging tail.
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