Archives for May 2011

Tarmac Mediations #50: A Letter to My Editor on Why I Ain’t Writing

May 31, 2011 By longrun 6 Comments

Writer, photographer and runner Michael Lebowitz writes a letter to his editor to try and explain where the words have gone. In an act of faith (and perhaps as an incentive to encourage Michael to keep writing), his editor decides to publish the letter.

To My Editor:

I have trouble writing; that is, I have trouble being a writer at the same time as I am shooting photography and building my little business. I am a different guy when I write… I like him a little better and I miss him because he’s quiet and he allows things to happen. The shooter in me is often about making decisions that are already known: e.g. this light, that setting. The results are often as magical; that is, surprising, unexpected, but I am aware of being different in the world when I’m shooting, of seeing it differently, of seeing with a frozen moment. It’s quite different from the drift of imagination that comes from the sentences and words of a piece of writing that expands time and goes as deeply as I am willing to go to heart of things.

"...sometimes I can barely see" Photograph by Michael Lebowitz

Writing, I guess, is an act of courage and faith, whereas shooting is preparation meeting fate. Both “me’s” have something of value, but one life is hard enough, and these days I am stretched and waiting in the places where I truly come alive, where peace comes into the silence in the dark of the moments before the dawn, in the slow footfall of memory and desire along the crooked path to daylight on the backs of the words that come into the waiting day, bidden but unannounced and unknown until they are there. And then, from time to time, remarkably, they are captured forever in stories that tell me who I was and who I have become.

Today, I am shooting another race. Many of the same faces will be there, the miles will unfold, the weather will turn, and the photographs will be taken, sorted, uploaded, and possibly sold. I guess inside this I am tired. My runner’s body is sore, still old and slow, still a little heavy, still fighting age by tooth and nail — and yet tomorrow is my long-gone Mom’s birthday so I think mortality and memory is having it’s way with me this cold May morning.

Oh well, hello words, good to see you back here on the screen. We’ll talk soon and spend some time together. With Dylan Thomas, we (me and my inner Ray Chandler) ain’t about to “go gentle into that good night”.

We rejoice, indeed we revel, in our small ways, with the coming of the light.

Michael

Photo Credit

Tarmac Meditations #49: The Fire Keeper

May 6, 2011 By longrun Leave a Comment

Michael works up a hunger by participating in a human ritual “that predates damn near everything” — chopping wood for the fires.

November 3, 2010

Wrote a story once called “Woodpile” about moving the wood that is implied in the picture below. I let the wood sit facing west since then and now it is time to revisit the story and the work. Gray day, hint of rain, no words flowing, a heavy heart. It’s a perfect day to transform the rounds into fireplace logs that will heat the house and become background for the stories to come.

Getting ready for winter is as old as winter itself. Feels good to know that, to participate in a human ritual that predates damn near everything. Fire bringers, light in the dark, heat in the cold…survival and myth. Perfect.

I decided to catch a late run this afternoon. The woodpile was calling my name. Cross training is how I think of it when I don’t think of it either as a job, work, or some mystical connection to the fire starters and the dawn of man.

There is something to be said for putting up your wood for the winter. And, equally, stopping for lunch and eating because you worked up a hunger.

I’ll go a couple of miles this afternoon and feel like the day has gone well. Tomorrow I’ll be back on the track and I’ll likely do some more wood chopping. Hard not to like the early Fall.

Photo Credit

Tarmac Meditations #48: Track Work on Election Day

May 4, 2011 By longrun Leave a Comment

On this past election day in Oregon, Michael looks back to the time he got his voter’s card when he came out of rehab, and how a bureaucratic slip of paper signaled a new start.

November 2, 2010

Met M and R at the coffee shop. The rain was light but steady, as much mist as rain; gentle, warmer than expected. Walked to the track. Straights and curves today. It’s my fourth day with steady output. Came back later to take a picture of the flag on election day. Did not bring a tripod, which limited my range of choice. Got what there was. I’ll likely go back another morning.

On the way back to the car, I remembered coming home to the US nearly 10 years ago. I went to get my license renewed at Motor Vehicle Branch in Denton, Texas. A big-haired, bored Texas gal took me through the paper work. Finally she looked up, said we were done but for one question: What party affiliation did I want to list on my voter registration card? I told her Democrat.

After another minute or two she handed me my license and my voter registration card. I could drive legally in the US, approved by the State of Texas my license said, and I could vote legally in the 26th congressional district in the Great Lonestar State.

It was just another Texas-hot day in June, but there in front of me was a battered, slightly crumpled guy, standing in front of the MVB window, staring at two slips of paper with an amazed look on his face. I saw him looking back at me and it was only then that I noticed the tears rolling slowly down his cheeks. The gal who had driven me over from the rehab joint I was in at the time came up to me and asked if everything was all right. “Yeah,” I said, “I guess.”

And I handed her the papers. She looked at them for what seemed a long time. “Welcome home, Michael, glad you made it, ” she said and then turned away and headed back to the car. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t referring to Texas exactly, more like home from 30-plus years living abroad and more than that locked into drugs and alcohol. Yeah, I said to myself, long time comin’, and wiped the tears away.

Funny thing how the biggest moments, the end of the longest journey, can be marked by a little scrap of bureaucratic nonsense. So it’s election day. I already voted by mail as we do here in Oregon, but before I did I took my now out-of-date Texas voter’s card out of its resting place in my desk drawer and renewed my acquaintance with it. I remembered a big-haired ol’ gal in a Texas motor vehicle bureau and said, Thanks y’all. My time to go and be counted.

Photo Credit