day 52

not a very good photo -- dew on the grass, this morning. i was walking at eye-level with some sod and struck by the individual blades of grass each topped by a glittering. miniature globe of water. Unfortunately the iphone not as struck, since it demurred to capture the image my eyes were seeing.

day 51

I know that for the past few days I've been mainly posting photos of my kids. When I used to teach photojournalism I forbade my students to hand in cute kiddie shots -- they're too easy. I think though that I've been in a slow recovery from a really long, tough time, where I was focused on disaster control much of the time and not as present with my children as I aspire to be. So I'm crazy tired these days, and lost a bunch of weight I could ill afford to lose during all those long days of anxiety and figurative -- albeit a lot closer to actual than I'm gracefully able to deal with -- homelessness.

I'm home now, in my wonderful new house, and having a roof over me and a floor under me gives me the strength and stability to push back against all the other problems weighing down our life, the three of us, mama and Jack and Cole. And as a result I feel like I'm able to just be with them again, simply be in their presence and appreciate all the moments of innocent fun instead of trying to act like everything's ok while inside I'm secretly and completely decompensating due to fear that I won't be able to make a good life for us.

So the small moments, recently, have been huge. Like Groucho fake-nose-and-glasses on Jack, smiling in all his goofy innocence. I strove my utmost to shield my boys from the worst of the recent turbulence, and we got through. Now I can rejoin them. No photo, but I wore the Groucho glasses too, yesterday, for a good long while, and felt how laughter washes clean the weary soul.

day 50

We are at grandma's house, where there is electricity, since after the storm we had none. Picked up all the fallen branches and sticks from her yard and made ourselves a backyard fire for toasting marshmallows on a cool evening owned more by autumn than August.

day 49

The morning after the hurricane, power still out, early sunlight on the breakfast table as I ponder how on earth one makes coffee minus the aid of coffee grinder, electric coffee pot and water, since with no electricity there's no well pump...

day 48

A walk in the rain-soaked woods of the Shenandoah mountains.

day 47

In the very last of the light, a birdbath in a neighbor's garden reflects the marvelous sunset sky the day before Hurricane Irene arrives.

day 46 - Twin Probe

I bought a freezer for the new house, and it came in a giant box. Jack immediately appropriated the giant box and asked for help cutting two sets of eye holes and two gun ports in the side, then informed me that this was a robot named "The Twin Probe." He and Coley immediately climbed inside and began attacking all nearby alien invaders (i.e., me) with nerf dart guns. I fought back as best I could -- the Nerf rocket launcher is a formidable weapon -- but ultimately I could not prevail over the power of The Twin Probe.