#138
12.31.10
I started this blog on 01.01.10 with two basic goals. The first was to demonstrate my firm belief that high-resolution photography isn't the only way to capture beautiful and interesting photographs. I think that grabbing the closest camera, oftentimes the camera-phone in your pocket, offers a decent chance to trap a moment before it passes forever.
The second goal was to develop the habit of writing every day, and more importantly to allow others to read that writing. Those who know me best know that someday, if and when I grow up, I've wanted to be a writer. That doesn't mean I want to quit my day job, because I enjoy that too... but to be a published writer would be a dream-come-true.
I've been writing since I was a kid, and my folks even have a copy of my first short story somewhere in a box (may it burn to ashes!). An ironic obstacle to my desire of becoming a published author is the visceral fear of others reading my writing. It's worth mentioning that this blog isn't the type of writing that interests me, and I'm certainly not saying it was even worth reading. What I am saying is that a principle goal in the whole enterprise was simply to write something, anything, every day, and then let it be read by whomever so chose. I thought it might help me get over my fear and let others see some of my attempts at fiction.
Objectively speaking, the blog is a failure. I didn't post a daily photo. The string was broken at #98 on 04.08.10 upon the tragic passing of my amazing sister-in-law Michele. Eventually I started posting sporadic entries until my mother-in-law Ruby passed away after a year-long battle with cancer on 06.28.10. Those were two big blows that made this blog feel frivolous. Even still, I decided to start posting yet again to finish the year-long project, even if I had to limp across the finish line.
There are other reasons this blog ended up a failure, too. I posted some photos that weren't worth posting, especially early on, just to meet the daily deadline. Many times I didn't even write a word other than the song title and musical group. And finally, very early on the blog sort of morphed in to an exploration of music, with the photos becoming more of an adornment.
Upon reflection it is clear that the music actually pulled me along more than the photos or writing ever did. In the end I've learned what I've always suspected; I can do without most of my hobbies or interests... but not music. So perhaps I should change my aspiration of someday becoming a published author. Instead, I'll aspire to become a late-night disc jokey on a listener supported radio station like WXPN, KNBA, or even an internet based station like SOMA-FM, or a satellite station like Sirius XMU. Yeah, Podiatrist by day, and Disc Jockey by night. Two jobs at the fringe of the Human Experience... that's just about exactly my style.
Thank you to anyone who has perused this little blog. I hope that one photo, or one song, or one anecdote or written passage made you smile or think or feel 'something'. I actually enjoyed it more than I thought I might, even considering its shortcomings.
Photos
I didn't have a good idea for a 12.31.10 final blog entry, though I've considered it off and on for months. I simply ended up looking for a bright series of photos from the past year that I hadn't featured yet, and which might impart an feeling of optimism at the ending of one year, and the beginning of another.
The photos I picked were all taken in the first week of July at Lake Powell in southern Utah. It's where we went after those two leading ladies in our family passed away within a cruelly short span of time.
Once again, Nature found a way to help us begin to heal.
I think the little 2 megapixel iPhone 3G camera held its own this past year. It has surprised me on several occasions, and helped me resist the urge to upgrade to the 3GS and 4 models when they came out. Right now my iPhone is carrying 7,684 digital photographs; most of them taken in this past year. The iPhone app Photogene was indispensable; I relied on that camera-based program to tune up many photos, and found that program superior to all the others I tried.
Music
Swim Until You Can't See Land -
Frightened Rabbit
A close friend introduced me to this band and this song earlier in the year, and I've literally waited months trying to find an appropriate spot in which to feature it. It makes me smile to finally post it in this the final blog entry.
There can be many interpretations of the song... but in the end, all of them share the feeling of optimism, daring and adventure that I think most of us feel going in to a new year. I think it is a challenge to face one's fears;
Are you a man, or a bag of sand?
If my goal for 2010 was to put myself Out There publicly and to expose myself more than I thought I could (or 'you' may have thought I should)... then my goal for 2011 is to Swim Until I Can't See Land.
We salute at the threshold of the North Sea in my mind
And a nod to the boredom that drove me here to face the tide and swim.
I swim. Oh, swim.
Dip the toe in the ocean. Oh how it hardens and it numbs.
The rest of me is a version of man, built to collapse into crumbs.
And if I hadn't come down to the coast to disappear
I may have died in a land-slide of the rocks, the hopes and fears.
So swim until you can't see land.
Swim until you can't see land.
Swim until you can't see land
Are you a man or are you a bag of sand?
Swim until you can't see land.
Swim until you can't see land.
Swim until you can't see land
Are you a man or are you a bag of sand?
Up to my knees now, do I wait? Do I dive?
The sea has seen my like before though it's my first and perhaps last time.
Let's call me a baptist, call this the drowning of the past.
She's there on the shoreline throwing stones at my back.
So swim until you can't see land.
Swim until you can't see land.
Swim until you can't see land
Are you a man or are you a bag of sand?
Swim until you can't see land.
Swim until you can't see land.
Swim until you can't see land
Are you a man or are you a bag of sand?
Now the water's taller than me and the land is a marker line
All I am is a body adrift in water, salt and sky.
So swim until you can't see land.
Swim until you can't see land.
Swim until you can't see land
Are you a man or are you a bag of sand?
Swim until you can't see land.
Swim until you can't see land.
Swim until you can't see land
Are you a man or are you a bag of sand?
And a nod to the boredom that drove me here to face the tide and swim.
I swim. Oh, swim.
Dip the toe in the ocean. Oh how it hardens and it numbs.
The rest of me is a version of man, built to collapse into crumbs.
And if I hadn't come down to the coast to disappear
I may have died in a land-slide of the rocks, the hopes and fears.
So swim until you can't see land.
Swim until you can't see land.
Swim until you can't see land
Are you a man or are you a bag of sand?
Swim until you can't see land.
Swim until you can't see land.
Swim until you can't see land
Are you a man or are you a bag of sand?
Up to my knees now, do I wait? Do I dive?
The sea has seen my like before though it's my first and perhaps last time.
Let's call me a baptist, call this the drowning of the past.
She's there on the shoreline throwing stones at my back.
So swim until you can't see land.
Swim until you can't see land.
Swim until you can't see land
Are you a man or are you a bag of sand?
Swim until you can't see land.
Swim until you can't see land.
Swim until you can't see land
Are you a man or are you a bag of sand?
Now the water's taller than me and the land is a marker line
All I am is a body adrift in water, salt and sky.
So swim until you can't see land.
Swim until you can't see land.
Swim until you can't see land
Are you a man or are you a bag of sand?
Swim until you can't see land.
Swim until you can't see land.
Swim until you can't see land
Are you a man or are you a bag of sand?
For a final time; thank you for looking, reading and listening.
CCE
