Day: December 17, 2016

Beautiful women: Robin And Emma

I saw that my daughter Emma put this photo up on her Facebook Page, I asked her to send it to me, and she did. I was touched to see these two beautiful women. I am no expert on beauty, I’m not sure what it is or what it means. I know it has often been used to define and stereotype and diminish women.

Not being “beautiful myself,” it is an  abstract idea to me. Beauty to me is in the spirit, the emotion, the goodness of a human being, it really has little to do, at least for me, with one’s body type or build or what marketing people put on a slick magazine cover.

Too often, men have defined what beauty means, and that is the problem, I think. Women are now  beginning – or continuing – to define themselves. New notions of beauty are spring up everywhere. It is about time.

I appreciate photographing what I call strong women, women who are comfortable with themselves and look the camera right in the eye. Beauty is an internal thing to me, not an external thing. Photographs capture the soul of people, and that is what is beautiful for me.

Maria is very beautiful to me, I believe because of her loving spirit and her creative spark and empathy.

Her beauty is her radiance.

Emma has always been beautiful to me, she has a wise and ironic and telling look that has always seemed beautiful to me. People love to use the term “cute” or “adorable” when it comes to babies like Robin, and I’m not sure what that means either.

When I was young, I tried to look at the magazines I found in my father’s closet hidden away. He never once mentioned sex to me in any context, but he seemed to like these magazines with photos of nude women. Sometimes I got excited by these images, I was beginning to explore my own sexuality and there was no other place to go.

But the women never seemed “beautiful” to me, I knew nothing about them or what they felt or believed. I can’t remember one of them, and couldn’t five minutes after I looked at them. That was never what I wanted or looked for. At times, I thought I must be gay. I could never join in the conversations other men had about women and their ideas of beauty, I mostly stayed away from other men.

After a year or so, the magazines seemed creepy to me and I left them behind. I realized I had to find my own notions of beauty and sexuality. That is not a simple thing to do for young men in America, and it seems to get harder and more complex all the time.

Maybe I am, as I suspect, just a freak. But I started finding beauty in some of the women I knew and met, and it was never about the size of their breasts or how they looked. It was how they were.

When I see Robin, I see this quality of thoughtfulness and contemplation, that’s what touches me. When I saw this photo I saw two beautiful women, two more beautiful women in my life. Emma does not much care to be photographed, nor do we discuss varying ideas of  beauty.

But I was pleased she put this photograph up on her page, it is rare for her to do it. it was a very beautiful photograph to me, and very beautiful. Robin, as usual, seemed to be wondering what was happening, Emma seemed to grasp the irony of all of it. Her spirit is very beautiful.

I see myself as being surrounded by beautiful women, and none of them would wish to be on a slick magazine cover, not at gunpoint. None of them permit other people to define them, or submit to men’s ideas of what  beauty is.

That is one of the many beautiful things about them.

We went out this morning in a major snowstorm (Maria photographed me in my bathrobe taking these pictures). In the confusion, I didn’t realize he camera was set to manual, not automatic focus. I always use automatic focus in a snowstorm as the camera gets thrown off by the swirling snow sometimes.

Most of the photos were out of focus, but then I realized that captured the feeling of the storm better than a sharp and clear digital image. Photography is odd that way, sometimes – often – the camera knows much more than I do. This is very much the way it looked and felt in the center of that storm.

One of the first things I did when Red came to us four years ago was to take him to Battenkill Books. He has been there 100 times at least, and took to book events as if he had been born doing it. He goes to visit almost everyone in the store, looking to me for permission and affirmation.

We have a secret communications system of hand signals, nods and stares. He seems to always have known what to do. He goes behind the counter to see Connie Brooks or any of the staffers and then works the store, avoiding people who don’t look at him or respond to him, zeroing in on the people who love dogs and want his attention.

Today, he found Elizabeth Haggerty, a student in my writing class and a newcomer to our town. She came to hear me and Rachel read from our new books. Red is a master book dog and salesman, it is astonishing to me how he has fit into every aspect of my life as if he was born into it. Lucky me. I think he has a pretty good life too, hopefully the one Dr. Karen Thompson had in mind when she sent him to me.

We’ve had more snow this week than all of last winter, we spent much of the day shoveling and scraping. It’s finally winding down, but we got a good workout today. My friends are calling me up asking me not to shovel snow, but I have no problem shoveling snow, I did it for much of the day.

Maria is a great and determined – and fast – shoveler, I have to scramble to shovel before she is done. Tonight, I’m holed up making pizza and sorting through the photographs I took. Maria’s photo of me wandering around in the snow in my bathrobe went viral. I have to admit is is an unusual photograph.

I can’t imagine letting anyone take that photo of me a few years ago. Maria has definitely changed my perspective on life and my acceptance of my strange self.

More later.