day 42

Nothing I can do to help this image be any better than it is. A pause in a very long day of unpacking and running around buying things. In the past five days I have gone to Home Depot an average of once every 20 hours, by my calculation. But in the middle of all that, a stop at a small roadside farm stand for peaches. Sweet.

day 41

Exploring my new neighborhood -- I saw this fascinating-looking place yesterday, driving on the way to pick up the Uhaul truck. Some kind of work and storage yard for heavy equipment, and they've made their own homemade pavement of wooden pallets sunk into the ground. I mean literally hundreds of these pallets forming a sort of DIY highway leading off further than I could see from where the wooden road commenced. I pulled off a busy road to shoot this and was nervous about straying too far from the car, plus I was in a hurry to get somewhere, so I walked around marveling and taking a few shots but not getting anything that captured the fascination I felt with this place. Turning around to go was when I saw this zigzagging fault line between phalanxes of pallets. I am looking forward to going back to this place, with my plastic cameras and some time to wander.

day 40

Been a long time since Bible school, but I recall the significance of 40 days as being the period of time God would take to work major transformations. Yesterday was a day of major transformation, not to mention transportation, in these parts -- one 17-foot U-haul truck, filled and emptied twice. A long day indeed, and I crawled into bed at the end of it thoroughly exhausted yet thoroughly happy to be sleeping in my new, wonderful house. It was just shy of 11 pm and I was drifting off to sleep when I realized, holy cow, I never took a photo today! So I got up and took one picture -- the mountain of unpacked boxes in in my living room a simple, graphic explanation of the reason why photography was rather distant from my mind today. Then back in bed with me, and asleep less than 60 seconds later.

day 39

Packing to move to my new house. My. House. Along the road an explosion of Black-eyed Susans. It's like suddenly I can see color again, after living without even realizing it, and for much too long, in a dimmed-down world.

day 38

Early yesterday morning, it's still dark in the lowest portion of my mom's back yard, sun coming over the horizon and limning everything from behind, glorious pale gold edging darkest green. A set of rough timber stairs leading to an opening in overgrown yew hedges, opening to the already brightly sunlit field beyond. Words from Anne Tyler's "The Accidental Tourist" run through my mind:

"She took one of his wrists very gently and she drew him into the house, still not fully opening the door, so that he had a sense of slipping through something, of narrowly evading something."

Walked through my new house yesterday afternoon, showing the boys where they will come home to on Sunday when I pick them up from their dad. A long way to go betwixt now and then, much packing and organizing and carrying and loading and unloading and unpacking and reorganizing. It will be hard work, and long, and I relish the prospect.

day 37

After at last getting word that I had successfully rented us a new home -- a five-days-long nailbiter of a wait, because the real estate agency just couldn't find a way to grapple with the fact that I am self-employed and several times nearly backed out of the lease because my life didn't fit their standard forms and application processes -- we went to our favorite Westminster restaurant, Baugher's, to celebrate. Burgers and fries for everybody! And then a good long romp on the Baugher's playground, eating nectarines we bought from the farm stand. Fruit so ripe you couldn't help but drip juice all over yourself, so you'd then get dive-bombed by bees intoxicated by the lush perfume. Jack inventing an obstacle course around the playground, me following, from gazebo to tractor tires to swing set, the idea being never touch the ground. Nil desperandum, dear mama -- across the obstacle course lies the promised set of monkey bars.

Not a great photo maybe, compositionally speaking, but a joyous one. The one below is the one Jack prefers, because it shows him successfully executing the swing-to-swing step and split maneuver of his own invention. Master of the obstacle course.

day 36

This photo was taken on the evening of a long, hard day, and I very nearly just didn't. I was so tired and photography seemed to matter so little in the face of all that was happening -- I felt so powerless to change or help my own situation, and so depressed. So at the time I made myself drive the long way to my mom's house, where we are staying, along a rural road I love, looking for photos. But my thoughts kept cycling back to what seemed like my unsolve-able problems, and the landscape passed by in an undifferentiated blur. At the traffic light leading into my mom's community, the curve of the road in the side view mirror caught my eye and I made two exposures before the light turned green.

Many of my recent pictures have been of paths, roads. Partly because I am always on the move these days, I think -- spending much of my time literally on the road. But also informed by an interior sense of path, of traversing a tough time, feeling my way along the uncertain course from my old life to my new one. Two nights ago we watched "Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory" and I loved when Willy Wonka says to a distraught Mrs. Gloop, as she is being led away to find Augustus wherever the chocolate river has taken him, "Nil desperandum, dear lady. Across the desert lies the promised land." Wrote that on a post-it note and carried it around with me all day yesterday. And yesterday was the day things started to turn around.