Pictures of Life and Everything

I know the feeling of desperately wanting to take a picture. Pictures to tell a story, pictures to save a moment in time, pictures to show how I see the world.

My dad, when I was young, loved to take pictures of me, of my mom, of my siblings. He even put me in one of his commercials, for a playpen. Then when I was about ten, he stopped. Was film too expensive? Did it annoy my mom? Did his muse leave? I don’t know. Maybe his muse came to me. I love taking pictures.

I have a memory of watching film being developed. This memory might actually be of a television show or documentary. Dipping paper in chemicals, moving it to another chemical tray, and one more, each time more of the picture would emerge. Then wait and the page was filled, the memory there for all to see. Magic.

Saving holidays, birthdays, vacations, daily life. One snapshot in time brings back so many memories. For instance, the picture of my birthday party, where I am blowing out candles on a cake. We are having so much fun, laughing, anticipating eating cake. But what isn’t shown is that this is the fourth take, we are laughing because my dad made us set this scene up over and over until he got just the right shot. There is a picture of me standing on a bridge across the San Antonio River (many years later I would take a picture of my kids on that bridge), I don’t know if because the sun was so bright or if I moved or my dad did, but I look like a ghost standing there surrounded by sunlight. I liked to make up stories about that little girl ghost. Maybe my dad did too because he is the one who kept that photo.

My dad loved to set up takes so they would be just so. He rarely just took a picture. I am the exact opposite. I wait for a moment to happen and then snap. I love action shots, especially of my kids playing. Soccer or Monopoly; climbing trees or reading a book. I always kept my camera at the ready. A good bit of the time they didn’t even know I had taken a picture until we picked up the prints at the store. Now with my grandchildren and a cell phone it is even easier to capture them.

Pictures are memories, moments in time, moments that may never come again except in our minds. The memories demand sharing to complete the process of the moment. I love seeing my family sitting snuggled on the couch looking at an album. They are saying remember this. And then that happened. Yes, I often take a picture.

—Melissa Tolliver

In the Trees at Evening

“and you too have come / into the world to do this, / to go easy, 

to be filled with light / and to shine.” 

from “When I Am Among the Trees” by Mary Oliver

In the Trees at Evening

You too have come

into this world to touch

the hands of someone you love,

to look into the leaves

and be glad.

And, yes, there is pain,

pain so bright it is almost fire.

It burns into light.

Sometimes when all around us

is shards of glass,

broken walls, 

it is hard to remember

that this world is our home,

that hands still touch.

The sky at evening 

fills with a rose

that comes from burning,

a tender flush

that comes through sorrow

to reach us.

Someone says, isn’t it your duty

to be sad, to lament

all that is lost,

to rise up in anger?

Perhaps that is the work of the day

but now evening has come

to find its way through the branches,

and I look up

and am glad of the light.

—Sarah Webb

OH! TO BE THAT GRANDPARENT HEARING THAT UNIQUE LOVED ONE’S EQUIVALENT TO LAUGHTER!

Prompt: “Today my blind and deaf granddaughter put her hand on the top of my head as I was eating an apple, and she laughed.”

OH! TO BE THAT GRANDPARENT HEARING THAT UNIQUE LOVED ONE’S EQUIVALENT TO LAUGHTER!

So happy to hear this prompt because I find I tend to waddle in the dour, sour, and sad. Yesterday after my doctor’s visit, I went to Central Perk Café and happened to sit next to two women signing in American Sign Language. One was an earnest Black woman, head in turban, and her facial expressions where the same as you would expect in any animated 20- or 30-something person – very intense gesticulations, the pointing-finger wagging the rest of the upper body for extra effect. In fact, I think the queer community has appropriated this animated style of gesticulation under the rubric of “extra.” There was an occasional sound uttered, but just watching these women talk to each other was so mesmerizing, I found myself rudely staring. They stared back at me; I then caught myself and I had to slowly spell out in my limited ASL “Oh, I’m sorry.” 

Anyway, I had been to my doctor’s, was fasting, had my blood drawn, and made my way to the cafe un-caffeinated, hungry, maybe even hangry, when I sat down at the table next to these two women. The cafe is near the Texas School for the Deaf and there’s a large active vocal deaf community here in Austin.  Also a large blind/visually-impaired community – TX School for the Blind. And also nearby, a scaled down state hospital for the mentally ill. 

The disabled community separated itself from the mentally ill a long time ago for a variety of reasons: political, societal, stigma, funding streams, etc. But people overcoming whatever their disability is the single most continuous inspiring wonder to me in the world ever since I can remember remembering. I tear-up; my voice catches with emotion; I find I can go on.

My last boss at the hospital is a well-respected psychologist, wheelchair-bound, born with only mere stubs for legs, married, and bore a healthy child. And I understand that it took a village, meaning she needed and received a ton of help. Working with her has been one of the high points of my career. She has since moved on and I miss her. The occupational nurse at work who gives us our flu and COVID shots is deaf, can read lips pretty good – but imagine this when we were masked for three years.  She couldn’t read our lips. I always booked my time with her when she wasn’t busy so I could slowly letter-by-letter sign her my questions and answers. Sometimes we would default to old-school paper and pen. But at least I tried.  I think the last time with this last shot I signed “Love you” instead of “Thank you.” I left, awkwardly.

My daughter was severely speech delayed. We had to learn simple sign language for a 4-year-old in three-times-per-week speech therapy so that she could catch up for preschool. She was the happiest kid in the group, always giggling and taking the lead in their group activities that also served to coax them to speak. I can still hear her laughter when it matured from giggles to a child’s belly-laugh for the first time for her at age five.

Recently there was a short film nominated for an Oscar about a troubled teen meeting a deaf, mute, and blind man at a bus stop, played by an actor who really was deaf and blind, and in the scene was writing out he was lost. The story was based on fact and was transformative for the teen. He learned that empathy softens, just a bit, a 17-year-old’s antipathy for the world. There’s a funny Netflix comedy about the trials and tribulations of a cute gay guy with cerebral palsy. And remember the son on “Breaking Bad”?  So much visibility for the disabled as actors nowadays - surely for the good.  

But I do not romanticize their pain and suffering. I stopped saying long ago, “There but by the grace of God go I.” That’s still ‘othering,’ simply put. NO! Pain in this life is unavoidable. We all share in its suffering. And just like people overcoming their disabilities, the manner in which we suffer is a matter of choice. 

—Todd Cornett

Hand on Head (in gratitude to veda smith)

“I spent the afternoon with my Granddaughter, I was chewing an apple and she put her

hand on my head and she laughed. She is blind and deaf.”

the daughter of my daughter lives complete

with presence akin to gravity

that holds her gently attuned

without shadow or light

without boisterous or whispered vocabulary

and is perhaps content

with what I hope is love

as hand on head

with not a single doubt

she knows me by my chewing

and she laughs

and certifies

that where there’s touch

we are

a certain beautiful thing

—Ed Sancious

She’s Dead and Is

Tragedy rarely gives a heads-up

which is why it’s not so scary to run with scissors, 

it’s getting too near the edge that equals dread.

and she, like a lemming magnetized to cliffs,

loving that tenuous moment 

encouraged stillness to encounter chance.

She confessed

“it brings me closer to the sublime

and resolves most mysteries”. 

As proof she shared that

“elephants speak below the hearing of humans”

and swears

they told her that the universe pivots 

on dual confessions - 

• one confirms that love is blind,
• another always says yes to letting your light go out.

She mutters and repeats and mutters

these invocations like a monk intent on sainthood 

with a whispered benediction 

“to just feel it.” 

“To be like purloined moonlight giving texture to the dark.”

She offers thanks and gives instruction

saying an ending must have the strategy

to nod like you’re in the know

with what the voices of angels intone

as they, like elephants, vocalize low.

She waits 

for memories and 

feelings and

questions to come,

staying chaste

like acolytes on Sunday morning cruising the aisles, 

spreading incense to mask the stink of death,

an aromatic diversion inviting faith,

the kind that comes without

guarantee of reward.

Hers was a life that struggled 

to live the lessons learned

that love has no human face

and hers is that of a stranger.

So now no more attempts to flee

that tenuous moment 

when stillness embraces chance 

and romance accommodates apocalypse.

She’s dead and is still remembered

like a thousand Roman years 

of empire in decline

love can imitate Byzantium.

—Ed Sanctious

two hearts might make a hero

in this paragon’s fortress of solitude

all my thoughts are heroic.

as more and more

it takes less and less

to hold this imaginable, 

almost alien, hope that love

might breed us into heroes

with powers to fool and pardon

with an x-ray vision to see, 

and be, 

that tender infinity 

between those moments of making a self.

in truth, I wonder if love can have a hero

although there are those times without doubts 

about the clarity of supposition,

where there’s touch

that certifies

that we can be 

a certain beautiful thing.

two hearts that craft a hero’s code.

that spooned, attuned,

in semi-sacred consolation

for 20 and 10 remembrances

which lessened the room for doubt.

yet still …

even with heated flesh on flesh 

I find sometimes 

it’s lust 

that gets defined 

as love.

but hoping heroes are human too 

with all the villains of imagination subdued 

we are just hearts 

enticed to hold each other’s 

every fragile awkward gesture,

affirmed to be enough.

two heroes, two hearts 

without the need to be persuaded.

to simply be an imprint 

on impermanence, 

heading home

remembering, embracing 

the rhythm, 

the patience 

of ordinary things,

which is all that love may very well be.

—Ed Sancious

Untitled

The photo was taken by my classmate Yaacov in Israel of the Mediterranean at sunset.  

My dad might have seen the same sunset in 1920 at the age of 6 in Beirut.  

Buddha was the work of AI. All I did was to bring these two voices together.

—Kim Mosley

About Dismantling Grief

“Dismantling Grief is never a straightforward thing. Start
with a handful of earth, scattered over the wrapped
body lowered into the ground.” 

from Dismantling Grief  by Zeina Hashem Beck

a handful of dirt

not enough to bury you

nor enough for grief

—Paul Causey

Considering

is there anything?

there is life

there is life

that comes with audacity

making the smallest part

a thing to submerge the mind and heart 

with unreasonable wonder and joy

and too, there are acts within this life

that burn through souls and flesh 

and bone and blood with horror 

determined and justified

that out-screams any dialogue of peace and justice

and yes 

there is darkness 

that lighting of lamps

can shape to just be shadows

and there is light that’s best known 

by the nuance of gloom

each moment accepted 

has an option 

to ease attachment

that makes chaos almost sweet

with less attention 

to grooming memories 

to live as changeless certainties

and here’s the thing

not each moment will be a nourishment

but each can advocate for wonder

for a life like a river

that’s moved by its own way of being.

—ed sancious

May We Exist

How often do we see?

How often do we see ourselves?

How often are selves inclined to be seen? 

Is certainty only face to face?

The body tries to say all, 

yet it barely offers what it can.

Wholeness, by design, 

hinges on the lyrics of the heart.

Syncing breath with being.

Embracing ancestors in the blood.

We are birthed inert, yet bonded,

by ordinary miracles 

and manageable necessities.

Being human – being perfectly imperfect.

Being mindful,

learning there is that watershed moment

which is a drop, 

which is a stream, 

which is the wave

that washes away illusion

that without the mud

there will be a lotus.

—ed sancious

Christmas Cactus

I left you alone.

Two weeks without water.

When I came back I thought your limbs drooped heavy 

because: flowers.

Some already sticky, rotted fruit, 

others waiting to burst forth into the sun.

I considered giving you away, as easily as you’d been given to me.

You are a cactus, you don’t need water.

If your withered greens fall off in places it’s because you are a cactus.

You don’t need water.

You don’t need love.

You don’t need attention.

Alone at home, I doused you in a bath of tap,

set you outside 

to listen to the insects hum

to feel the warmth of the day’s last rays of sun. 

When chill descended, I brought you in, 

considered dinner:

lion’s mane mushroom rips, garlic smashed, asparagus singed.

When it was done, I turned to find your limbs raised up.

It was probably just a little bit.

But you looked a ballerina, revived and ready to dance

Forgive me, little teacher.

I didn’t love you, I didn’t tend to you.

But you still did the work of bursting forth with flowers.

Forgive how quick I dismiss. 

Forgive how little I look around 

to catch your beauty, most profound.

—Emily Romano

Blue Sky

a blue sky

stretching out before us

wisps of clouds

along the distant horizon

Mt. Tam in the background

my Mt Fuji

the Golden gate bridge

magnificently across the Bay 

my little dog Noodle

sits close and shivers 

together we look from

our mountain bench 

inspired by the panorama 

Noodle frightened

by the vastness    

—Bruce Linton

while the world was on fire

while the world was on fire   

I watched carefully 

as the low sugar 

strawberry jam 

spread across the 

thinly sliced  

sourdough batard bread, 

the smell of the

the Arabian coffee 

was intoxicating,  

our small dog "Noodle" 

chewed on her bone relentlessly,  

Carolyn did her concert in C Minor 

as she unloaded the dishwasher,

our bird clock chimed 10am with the Owl hooting, 

the rain had stopped

outside our open door to the garden 

Japanese maples rested for winter

—Bruce Linton