Day: May 31, 2014

I went to the pharmacy to pick something up and when I came out, Maria had vanished, I knew she was in the NV Consignment store on Main Street, a new place. In the time I’ve know her, Maria has never bought a new piece of retail clothing, she has one or two new pieces that I bought her. Four months ago, her now famous pink pasture boots got torn and I realized recently that she has been wearing them out to the pasture in the rain and cold, even though her feet get wet.  She does not ever buy new clothes, and has never bought a piece of clothing online.

Today, prowling through this store in our town of Cambridge – she says it is one of the best she has seen – she found a skirt she loved for $9 and a pair of green plastic boots from France for $8. She wore them this afternoon, she loved them. The owner of the store came over to me and asked if it was customary for me to photograph my wife while she shops – she would never let her husband near her when she shops, she said.

Listen, I said, my wife is an artist. She wears her wedding dress out to the pasture to shovel manure, that’s all I can tell you. She looked at both of us curiously. This was a fun place, and it is so rare for Maria to buy anything for herself that I made a fuss and paid for the skirt. I think a gift certificate would be a good idea.

Had a sweet Saturday afternoon in my wonderful town of Cambridge, N.Y., and I’ll record it in a few photos and posts. First, we went to the Round House Cafe where Scott Carrino brought me a wonderful lunch he has been urging me to try: A Greek Salad with tuna fish, avocados, lettuce, tomatoes and feta cheese, among other things. It was so beautiful I should have taken a photo of it, and I will the next time, but it look so good I ate it. Great in protein, fiber, low in cholesterol and quite delicious, I’m on board I’ve found my lunch.

I was also happy surprised by the music of the day (there is music at the Round House on Saturday), beautiful music from the Battenkill Spring Band, the town’s very own old-time Appalachian string band, the town is filled with happy surprises. Julie Duggan (banjo), Aaron Pacitti (guitar) and Alyson Slack (fiddle) played some great music while we ate. I don’t even remember life before the Round House.

Plato taught his students that the goal of all learning and enlightenment and spirituality, of all writers and artists – our challenge as thinking beings – was to see the good. It was, he said, the great aspiration of the awakened being. I have struggled with this question for much of my life, torn between the different ways of looking at the world – anger, fear, hope, faith, resignation, acceptance – but only in recent years have I come to see the brilliance of Plato’s lesson.

In life, in love, in work, family, creativity, the animal world, the horse carriage story, politics, religion, science, there are those who see the bad and those who see the good. My photography and writing have become a search for the good, my task is to capture the color, light, emotion, and beauty of the world and try and make sense of it, for me, for others.

Animals are surrogates in the search. You can look at a dog and see the wonderful companion nature has offered human beings, or you can see a sad creature in need of rescue. You can mourn the cat who died years ago, or you can celebrate the one lying at your feet today. You can pine for what you have lost, or rejoice in what you have. You can look at a horse in Central Park and see a contented and fulfilled animal sharing work with human beings, or you can see a pathetic creature, cruelly treated and abuse, desperately in need of saving.

For me, one is the path to enlightenment, the other to anger, hate, disconnection and the shrinking of the mind and soul. Self-pity and self-righteousness, like nostalgia, are bottomless pits without reward.

Seeing the good does not mean being blind to the realities of the earth – the sadness, sorrow, loss, and pain. Quite the opposite, it is the darkness that makes the light so meaningful.  One gives the other beauty and feeling. Seeing the good is, for me, the great aspiration of my life as a human being, the point and purpose of my thinking and work, the mark of excellence and thought.