Labor Day Effort

For quite a few years, the Filthy Pikers have toyed with the idea of "10K for Labor Day" -- that is, writing 10,000 words over the four day Labor Day weekend. I've never managed to achieve that, but this year, I thought I'd give it another try.

In my voyage of creative discovery, I realized anew this past weekend just how much I hate deadlines and quotas. I could not find a single drop of desire to write, even though I have two interesting stories started.

However, I followed my sudden rabid urge to create. I needed to make an image to go with Charles Cicirella's poem "Modern Day Job" in the Piker Press, so I tackled a work of pastels. No, I wasn't thinking of the Hulk when I made green the focal point of the picture. (In fact, when I was done I wished I hadn't used green.) It was a lot of fun having ALL my pastels spread out on the side of my work desk, so much so that I'm going to do that again today.

Then it was time to move on. My Sony camera has more features to it than I was ever able to use (DSC-H400), but with the creative urge on, I perched on the back patio in the morning light and just played with the thing. Photo after photo, setting after setting -- it was glorious!

This is the breadfruit plant that thrives in the southeast corner of the yard, under a canopy of fern pine and hopseed. I loved the way the light was shining through this newly-unfurled leaf.

My neighbor's queen palm was blooming, and I had a good view of the fascinating golden cascade. Using the fence as a tripod, I was able to get a nice zoom-in of the blossoms.

Back to the shade and morning light! Bernie has a coleus on the shady bank, the variety is called "Camp Fire." The stems are dark red, nearly black, and the leaves catch the light beautifully. Sadly, the camera didn't want to catch the light except as a glare.

All that warm, pinky lit-from-within color was lost. How can a camera see things so much differently than my eyes? Exploring a light-blocking setting on the camera (for the first time ever) gave a somewhat better result:

From the darkness of the shadows, I moved to full sun on my potted corn plants. After giving me a few delicious ears this summer (it has been a lousy corn year everywhere in the Central Valley because of the high heat), the corn has dried. Beautiful when it's green, beautiful dried, too. When it turns white, I think of it as "ghost corn."

Back to the studio, and Photoshop. I needed a cover image to accompany Ken Dubuque's humorous essay, "Armed and Dangerous." Using some public domain clip-arty images, I was able to cut and paste together a contraption that put me in mind of the mommies who barrel along the sidewalks, shoving huge buggies before them, all the while staring at their smart phones:

The stripes were simply for graphic effect visually, but what was stupendous to me was that in fiddling with settings and tools in Photoshop, I was able to get onto the screen just what I could see in my head.

Between Photoshop and my camera, I was able to capture this antique-colored portrait of Bernie's zinnias. I've always loved how zinnias hold their shape even while their summer color begins to fade.

And finally, since our cell phone joined the ranks of Electronics That Refuse To Do What They Were Meant To Do, Bernie got me a Motorola g6 that has a pretty spiffy camera feature of its own. This is the first photo I took with it, on Monday evening:

My glass of wine! What better subject could there be, at the end of the holiday weekend? And with that tenth picture, if a picture is worth a thousand words, I did achieve 10K for Labor Day. Cheers!

Light and Shadow

In the early morning hours of June, my Japanese maple reproduces itself in shadows on the back of the house, a dark replica.

The charcoal-colored stars move and dance in the morning breeze that blows in from the Bay Area, but you can't touch them; it's only a trick of the light, only real to the eye. The actual tree is as high as the roof, with red leaves in the spring turning green as summer approaches. We watch carefully to see the first tiny red buds in February, lament the scorched edges of the leaves during July's inevitable 110 degree heat wave, stroke the graceful branches when we walk past it on the pool deck.

Nearly three years after my mother's death from Alzheimer's, I'm still working on coming to grips with what the disease did to her. Nothing about Alzheimer's is fair; plaques of a protein begin cutting off brain function, nerve by nerve: memories go, and recognition, and body function. As the nerves are cut off, they die of starvation. The victim is tied into an ever-decreasing circle, populated by ghosts and strangers. What are they saying? Why have they come for me? Is it any wonder that Alzheimer's patients are so aggressive, so angry, so determined to fight? All that's left is that fight or flight response, and there's nowhere left to run.

My God, my mother got so mean when the disease began to take her. She said things that hurt me so badly that I'd cry afterwards -- not even things about me, but just hearing such viciousness coming from her now-husky voice was like a serrated dagger slashing at the figure I'd known and admired most of my life.

I look at the shadows on the wall, the outline of the Japanese maple given a manner of shape by the absence of light. That was what my mother became: not a reality but an illusion. And illusion is not what I should remember. The illusion changes and disappears within an hour; Alzheimer's tormented us for years, but in the end, Alzheimer's need not last. For Mom, it's gone and done, and it can never touch her again. She doesn't need to be a shadow in my mind.

She grew that Japanese maple from seed, for me. The tree is a reminder for Alex of her grandmother's prowess at gardening, and a tangible connection with a woman who was brave and bold. Her daughter, Lillian, has never known life without that tree being there. Four generations of our lineage have touched it.

I want to see the tree first, not the shadows. The living, not the illusion. The creature, not the absence of light. And just as the shadows of the Japanese maple are beautiful in their darkness, maybe someday I'll see the precious glimpse of human frailty in my mother's death.