Strange Days and the Passing of Time

I have no excuses besides some laziness for not posting anything here in over a month. Time just has a way of accelerating sometimes, doesn't it?

In the past 6 weeks, I have been (mostly) more happy than I have in the past 12 years.

baby geese with guardian, Presque Isle, late May

Dan has moved out. The sad part of that for me is that Liam is staying mostly with him for the summer. This is good for Liam and I know Dan will take decent care of him. It's just that Dan and I differ widely on what is appropriate and not appropriate for an eight-year-old boy, so when Liam comes back to me full-time for the school year, I'm sure I'll be faced with a very spoiled kid. No matter, though, I'll face that when I come to it.

In the meantime, I busy myself with working and taking pictures...

Waterfall at Wintergreen Gorge, Early June

and I have found a friend to have adventures with. (This would be a big part of the reason for my current state of happiness.)

At Rimrock Overlook, early June

Meanwhile, the kiddos seem to be adjusting just fine. Less tension is always a good thing for everyone.

At Cook's Forest, mid June

Emily and I are getting on well...she's attending summer school for Geometry so she can move on with her current math track in the fall. Her pierced lip still bothers me some.

At Presque Isle, mid June



And I am adjusting to this new sensation of calmness. I think this is what life is supposed to be like. The song I chose for this entry is called "Light and Day" by The Polyphonic Spree. One of the lines is "just follow the day and reach for the sun." Good advice, right?Sunset, late June.

On Finding a Violet

I was melancholy on Sunday and thought maybe I'd head out to Edinboro to hear some music at the bluegrass festival they had going on. But as I was heading into town, I pulled off the road at the old cemetery instead.

Old graves here, with the symbols of the 1800s...willow trees, draped urns...

and holding of hands.

Simplicity...

and grandeur...

And always the children's graves. Here's Little Bayard Swift.

And most touching to me, Our Little Nelson T.Died in 1871...only 5 years old...
and I can still visit his grave and take photographs of the violet that blooms from his headstone.
I never made it to the festival.

This Girl

This girl is fifteen years old.

Next year at this time, she'll be driving my car.

She is generally a willing participant when I want to take photos.
She loves music and drawing. She still eats Spaghetti-O's with hot dogs.

She's always up for a road trip or a walk through a cemetery with me.
She is the heart of my heart.

This is the Forest Primeval

On Saturday, Em and I took a ride to Allegany State Park and circled back via Kinzua and Warren. Across from the Kinzua Dam, there's an access area where you can hike among boulders and a long waterfall.

We didn't climb very high; we didn't have to.

The forest smelled like spring and new growth. Everywhere you turned, you could find more pockets where the waterfall was streaming out around the rocks.It was so beautiful and peaceful, I found myself wishing for a moment that I could be a leaf or something, and just let myself get carried away.

A Cardinal Sin

Couldn't sleep last night...I dozed in fits and starts and finally got up for good at 3.

5:30 am found me at the corner of 2nd and State, thinking I'd take some shots of downtown as the light started to come...maybe the workers filtering into Hamot...maybe that courtyard behind Modern Tool Square with all its secret spots.

And then the camera beeped at me to tell me that I was an ass for not bringing an extra battery or checking to see how much battery life I had left before I left the house. So I hung my head in shame and drove back home in defeat.

Abstract Art

So last weekend I stopped by Asbury Woods and made my way around the boardwalk to the swamp. As per usual, there were frogs, ducks, turtles, etc. But what I found more interesting this time was the intricate array of patterns in the algae and duckweed on the water's surface.
I love the reflection of the light in this one, and the dead brown leaf in the center.This one looks like a painting to me.

And this one is maybe some kind of weird Rorschach test.
And okay...I was at the swamp. So maybe one frog.

Seeing the Light

Clarity is always a good thing, no? And often it takes some time. I felt the need to clarify for those of you who read here that my divorce is not a cause for sadness or sympathy. I mean, I guess it's a sad thing that it failed because it's sad for my son. One could also argue that it's tragic when any marriage fails, but in our case, we really didn't have much business being married in the first place, so I think it's more of the universe righting a wrong

Anyway, I think right now that things are coming into focus in my life.

I'm not sad at all for myself...I'm excited.

I can't wait to see what's next.

File under What's New

I've been absent since Easter...lots of real-life drama. I'm about to take the train to Tammy Wynetteville and get a d-i-v-o-r-c-e. Dan's found a situation with a friend where he can move out after school is out for Liam, so there's some progress on that front. I've been taking lots and lots of pictures...I just haven't been posting anything here.

So what's been new?

1.Sunrises

2. Masses of violets and fresh green grass

(*see the teensy little inch worm on the top of the leaf in the middle left of this shot?)

3. New buds coming out on the trees and bushes

4. Gorgeous sunny daffodils

5. Bright green duckweed
And even though they've been taken before, even old pathways look fresh now.

Hot Peep Show after dark

So imagine all the Peeps in their factory, lined up row by row.

They have their little Peep conversations...business stuff.

But maybe after dark, the Peeps like to cut loose. They get out for happy hour. Maybe they even make a Soul Train.And Peeps don't discriminate. Two boy Peeps or two girl Peeps are totally accepted. And what happens later, in the privacy of their own home, is nobody's business but their own.

Not with a Bang, but a Whimper

So.A lot of you who read this blog don't know me in person, but some of you do. If you've been reading for more than a few months, you can probably pick up on the fact that things run pretty hot-and-cold between my husband and I. It's been better for the past 6 months or so, but apparently our run is up. Truth be told, we are an incredibly bad match for one another and have stayed together all these years out of a combination of fear of the unknown, misguided attempts to keep things going for the kids, stubbornness, pity for each other, and some weird version of love (or co-dependence), I guess.
Nothing major has happened...we had a fight that most couples would weather in a couple of hours, and it ripped the scabs off the all the old wounds, revealing all the cancer that's long been festering underneath. There's no point in going on. We've been pretending for far too long already. The thing is, when one so-called "partner" in the relationship has been unemployed with no intention of trying to find any work for over a year, that "partner" is kind of shit-out-of-luck when it comes to having any money to get the hell out of the family domicile.
So.
On the Saturday before Easter, I find myself feeling somewhat bittersweet but hopeful in this season of renewal. I'm cool with having a roommate for a couple of months, as long as he can get his shit together. If he starts making my life any more miserable than he needs to, I can play rough too, but there's no need for that right now. For now, I'm going to look forward to the day when I can finally take a deep breath.