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The thing is that I shoot the same stuff almost daily, these days. I am still “movement in the world” challenged – in other words I don’t get around much anymore. I love shooting the fog and mist. I kind of relate to it ” just hangin’ out on a winter’s morning hunkered down and still here. Wasn’t a done deal not so long ago. It’s better this way. For real.  Someone offered to drive me to some shooting locations. I confessed that I have become a parking lot kind of guy – at least until my back heals up, no uphills and downhills for this ol dude. Keepin’ the faith…

My FB year in review had lots of photographs, some of them are pretty good. It has a lot of words, some of which have been described as unflattering, or unnecessary or in my mind, just bad writing. Shit happens. It has been a complicated year. It started out with the arrival of my fabulous granddaughter and morphed almost immediately into a terrific project, Long Run pictures shot a lot of races and we seemed to be doing very well. All of that activity can tire a person out, so one day I lay down to take a nap and woke up having suffered a stroke which knocked out my peripheral vision. The next day I went for a run and two days later I shot an event here in Eugene. Grit is where you find it. It seemed to me at that time that there was nothing to fear and by the end of the year it has turned out that way. Shortly after the nap, I drove down to Western States, arguably the most historic and high-profile 100 mile race in America, a true privilege for a guy who makes a living shooting ultras. When I got back, full of enthusiasm for the project that we called ” Slammin’: Voices From The Middle of The Pack, damn if there wasn’t another stroke and after that another one. I canceled all of my shooting arrangements for the rest of the year, and the slam project went on hold. Not so very easy to do. I said goodbye to a friend I had hoped would be in my life for a long time to come. It didn’t work out. I wish for her and for everyone the best of everything goin’ forward in the new year: as I hope that we can do our level best to get out of our own way and find the best of each other in one another.

As of today, the year will end with the return of my daughter Ariel from two years abroad. Color me happy. As I was leaving the café where I often have breakfast, big old Ken, owner of the best BBQ joint in town called out to me, see you next year Mikey. Count on it. I said that.

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Note to self: do not use the arm load of wood that you are carrying into the house at 4 am to protect your face when you fall into the boardwalk going into the house – no real harm, some manly blood – and some scrapes, the mirror says I lost the fight, hmmmm …

The day ended better than it began. Age is not kind to my illusions about aging but the truth will come out. This one shook me up pretty good. Just sayin’. Doin okay though, friends checked in and made it easier: Bucklin Moon moved the wood inside; Good man that one. Early childhood training in the snows of Vermont. Told me he loved to chop wood and stack it. He said a stacked cord looked like a job well done. Roger that, Buck. Thank you.

Long night last night not much sleep to be found. A demon’s festival, inside my bruised head. Got out of bed and went out to get some wood – made it back inside, one demon down… grabbed my camera and went out to look over the valley bathed as it was in crystal cold pre-dawn light. Got the shot. Tough 24 – hell make that tough run from May to here. Broke down a little: “He will not see me standing here to watch the valley filled with snow. I have promises to keep”, said I to no one in particular. With Apologies to Mr. Frost. And Godspeed, Mr. Mandela.

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Into the room the elephants come and go remembering Michelangelo (I always wanted to do that) giving advice over coffee cups and dirty spoons, speaking words of love as if in the alley of recently uncrated targets and teddy bears, that are props in the carnival of our lives, a zoo of our own making fading away under the weight of black and white dreams never to be repeated. A kiss is still a kiss, so too the abyss. The elephants know that memory is a two edged sword. Memory is indifferent to itself and its use, on account of the past is always past. Even when it is never really past, (Bill Faulkner said that, I think).

The zoo is always open. Until it isn’t.

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“It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us.” ~ Norman Maclean

Hope that this isn’t a mistake to make contact… there are no unknown dangling promises here, and nothing needs to break but I want you to know that in the hard hours under tonight’s uncertain skies, I go to my zoo, I ask the elephants what to do and the answer I find is; tell yourself no more lies. But where you are concerned, I never learned to ask; what can I do to ease things for you? I can tell you though that after I lost my way, broken by the deluge of pain, I found no sweet kindness in my refuge of rage. Please make no mistake, there is no repair here I can offer that will make your hill easier to climb but I’m troubled to know that I let you go because I could never offer you the key to what you wanted from me.

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Restless night last night so I picked up Genesis and got as far as the part where God says to Abraham, “Kill me a son.”

Naturally Abe says, “No, you got to be kidding me.”

God says “Word!”

Abe goes home. Sarah asks, “How was your day?”

He tells her…. She says, “Oh, my”…. Abe shrugs and says, “Waddayagonnado?”

I ain’t them but I woke up thinking dark thoughts about what’s been happening and the whole thing made sense to me at 3 AM. With apologies to Bob Dylan, I gave up making lists of who has checked in and who has checked out. I slept better after that. Waddayagonnado? Indeed!
 
RIP Phil Savath, December 28th, 1946 – November 3rd, 2004.

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