They say if you take photos of things you love, you will take good photos. More than anything, I seek to capture the emotion, light and beauty of the world in my photography. For much of my writing life, I thought my job was to tell the truth, to capture the sometimes harsh reality of the world. As modern media and neurotic medicine and government and law – institutions increasingly centered on promoting fear and alarm for profit or gain – my own notion of my role has changed. The human view of the world has darkened, perhaps more than the world has.
I see my job – the job of the contemporary writer and artist perhaps – to make sense of the color and imagery of the world and remind people that there is much beauty and light and promise around us.
Flowers and animals don’t have to take tests and pills, have health care or IRA’s, call customer service, remember their passwords, or vote for lunatics. In my series of photos of Maria and Rocky or Maria and the donkeys – Maria and Fran – I see the emotion in animals and in people, and the way in which they communicate with one another. Maria has the gift of opening people up. So does Simon. Both have opened me up, and I see in these photographs to show that process. They are clearly talking to one another – not in our language, but in the emotions of each.
Maria does not put words into Simon’s mouth, does not project her own human values onto him. She simply expresses her joy of life and love for him, and he reflects the the same thing back to her. How lucky I am to have the tools to try and capture this beautiful thing. My work.
I got my first Kindle a few days ago. It’s a significant evolution for me. The Kindle is one of those revolutionary pieces of technology – like the phone or the Ipad – that transforms culture and human behavior. There is guilt, controversy, opportunity surrounding this device and the impact it has on traditional ideas of reading and writing.
It is customary for people to apologize for getting a Kindle. They love bookstores, they still love paper books, they only read mysteries or romances on it. I will skip over that part. I love the Kindle, it has surprised me. It is very classic, simple to use. It feels like a book and is very easy to carry around. I have ordered two mysteries and one non-fiction book about the Chinese Cultural Revolution. I saved $40 in two days. I sat up in bed reading it using the simple light that comes out of the top.
In the two days since I got the Kindle, I’ve also ordered three books from my local bookstore, Battenkill Books. I can see that I will order paper books if I think they are special, if I want to give them away – I love giving books away – or if I want to keep them and re-read them, something I rarely do. As much as I know about the Kindle, I am shocked at how easy and inexpensive it is to buy a book. How wonderful for writing and story-telling and book reading. I also see the impact on bookstores this machine has had.
An amazing dichotomy really – if you love books, you almost have to love bookstores. If you love books, you have to love getting one on this very easy-to-use digital book (many books within) in seconds, for very little money or for none. And isn’t this the drama of the Internet? It liberates information and cheapens it. I can tell you it has changed my life also, and not just for the better.
Still, apart from my personal considerations, the Kindle is a window into the world of reading, and I am simply confounded by people who say this technology spells out the end of books or reading. I can’t imagine how that could be true. E-books are books, and the Kindle is one book with many inside of it. A miraculous thing, in many ways.
For some people, bookstores are a window into the world of ideas. For others, they are an obstacle, a place they have to drive or walk to, a place they might feel uncomfortable, a place some feel they cannot afford. I have never felt uncomfortable in a bookstore, but I am also not an elderly person home bound, or a kid in college strapped with big loans, or a soldier in Afghanistan or a commuter with a full briefcase.
I believe the world has room for good bookstores and for Kindles, but that is not up to me. I loved this device right away, and I hope no one who buys one ever has to feel the need to apologize for having one. For me, a book is not defined by the material that binds it, but the material inside of it. Stories are alive and well in America.
Soon, the Kindle will take on an additional dimension for me. My first E-book original, “The Story Of Rose” will be published on it, the Ipad, Amazon, Bn.com, the Nook and anywhere digital books are sold (computers also). The book will be published in mid-August, and will soon be available for pre-ordering online.
In the last week, two different people – one writer, one artist – were complaining to me at two different times about the Internet and the end of culture and literacy, writers are finished, books are dead, artists will perish blah-blah-blah (this always surprises me a bit, as the Internet, for all of its troubles, seems to spawn unimaginable quantities of stories, books, art and culture) and then both looked at me, and said, “but you are lucky.” One said I was lucky because I had found a niche, the other said I was lucky because I was focused.
This is always interesting to me. First because I never know what the life of anyone else is like, and it seems odd to assume such things without asking. How could they know? Secondly, I don’t agree. I am blessed with many good things, yet I don’t honestly believe that you can write 22 books or paint a thousand pictures or make 100 quilts out of luck. Luck is technically the force that seems to operate for good in a person’s life, as in shaping circumstances, events or opportunities. With my luck, my next book will be a bestseller.
But I don’t feel comfortable the label or the idea. I would never tell another writer or artist he or she were successful because they were lucky. Might get me slapped. Did Maria and I find one another of out luck? If you had been around at the time, you might not think that process was lucky, as wonderful as it turned out to be. Is it luck that makes a good book or sells it? Or takes a good photo. Or is it rushing outside and hauling bags around and crawling in the mud for hours? I took a great photo of the sunrise a few weeks ago and I have a 100 black fly bites to prove it.
When someone tells me I am lucky, what I hear them saying is “well, the only reason you are surviving is that some mysterious force other than you brought you good fortune.” And as many good things as I have in my life, I would not dream of detailing the pain and loss. My problem, not yours. I have traded a lot of things for my life, and paid in money and blood. My choice, not lady luck.
I love writing and I can proudly say that no one reading this blog has ever heard me complain about being a writer or the travails of publishing, e-books or the Internet. I am responsible for me, and I can’t even honestly blame my divorce, the greedy publishers, the scumbags at the banks or the slimy villains in Washington. If I do well, it is because I have worked hard, taken risks, sought to change and grow. If I do not, is it bad luck to blame? The Internet? E-books. I am so blessed it stuns me. Yet I would not agree to the idea that I am still writing books because I am lucky. If I get the blame, I get the credit.
Someone told me that Maria is so lucky because we have a great marriage, and she loves animals, makes good things and sells them. It is not the term I would use to describe her. I can tell you from where I sit that I have never seen a human being work harder, be more focused and adaptive, worry and adjust more. Seeing her work day and night, every day and night, her fingers blistered and cracked from her sewing, her 3 a.m. sleep-shattering ideas bursting out of her consciousness, I would not call her good work and life lucky. She has fought every hour of every day for her life, and she will never say so or pity herself. I hope I never do either. Fate is real, but I believe that we never know what is inside of anyone else’s life. I also believe that we make our own luck, every day of our lives, in every thought in our heads and action that we take.
I love being responsible for my own life. It took me a long time, and I’m not going to give it away to luck or anything or anyone else.
