Thanks for all the comments on those "thangs" I do. I am working to figure out what, if anything, I might want to do with them. I'll probably be a bit scarce in the next week or so. I don't like it when I get scarce. I am always afraid I will miss something! But I've got a few things that need tending to in my real world.
I was already sprawled out in the grass like a dog (resting after throwing softballs with my daughter!) so I figured I may as well go ahead and snap a few photos. The changing of the seasons seems to energize me. That is a good thing, because softball season has started for my youngest so she has practice one night a week.
And I signed up for a photography class that begins Monday night and meets two nights a week. The class lasts six or eight weeks. I forget when it ends.
I finished this thing a couple of days ago and was not ready to put it up, was not sure it would speak to anyone else, but then I read Patti's post about one of her students.
In writing the text for this picture, I'd been thinking about that legacy of abuse, whether it is physical or emotional, how it gets threaded into the fabric of a family and it is darn near impossible to overcome. Add poverty and lack of education to the mix and it really gets to looking totally hopeless.
I thought of that comforting old song "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" and how some unfortunate people might actually desire that the circle be broken and then it just seemed right to ask "will the cycle e'er be broken?" and the answer, most of the time, is a resounding "no, it won't". It is a thread that just spirals down through the generations, wreaking havoc.
How do you end something like that? How do you bring healing to a child who has never known a healthy and loving family relationship? There are no easy answers.
(I was trying to recreate the look of the "Simple Philosophy" piece and did not succeed so now I have three slightly different versions of the same thing!.)
Have you ever been hurt by someone and you close your heart tightly and vow never to allow yourself to be hurt again? Have you ever held too tightly to a friendship because you were afraid to let go, afraid you would lose the friend? Have you ever just settled for the way things are now because you were afraid that what you had was a good as you were going to get?
We cannot be free to give or receive if our hands are holding our heart, or a friendship, or the "status quo" in our lives too tightly and too protectively.
I was already sprawled out in the grass like a dog (resting after throwing softballs with my daughter!) so I figured I may as well go ahead and snap a few photos. 
The changing of the seasons seems to energize me. That is a good thing, because softball season has started for my youngest so she has practice one night a week.
And I signed up for a photography class that begins Monday night and meets two nights a week. The class lasts six or eight weeks. I forget when it ends.
