I have a little problem on my hands. I am behind on one large chunk of paperwork, two regular May month end jobs await me too. In good conscience I just don’t have the time to blog. On Tuesday I had an hour of time driving by myself and I told myself, “no music, you are going to brainstorm how to make all this happen, create a strategy.” That resulted in a detailed daily schedule I have discussed with Russell and an option for the blog, which I also shared with Russ, I really needed his opinion. He said, “do it.”
Back in late summer as my Mom’s cancer diagnosis was settling in, living 550km from her and with Covid distancing a big deal, I struggled to know how to support my Mom. I got an idea. I had 150 of the pictures Liz Griffin had taken printed up. I had the goal of mailing one to Mom every day, so she would always have something personal in her mailbox. The pictures were a selection of my favourite images from the various times that Liz had been out at the ranch capturing work and celebration photographs for us. I wrote on the back of the photos, thoughts that came to mind as I explained or reflected on the action or person in the picture. Those thoughts started out very brief, but as the days unfolded the reflections got a bit lengthier. I realized reading them all over yesterday and sharing them with Russell, they contain alot of work. Not the prep to write and post, but the inner work that might get to happen walking the journey we were on. There are lots of thank yous. I was glad to read that when I looked over them again. So, the question is, would it be a good idea to day by day share them until this mountain of paperwork is done? Keep the blog going without much new thought? Its now Thursday and I have spent most of my brain wandering time in the last two days pondering that question. What I have come to is this……first, the pictures reflect beauty. Liz is a first rate photographer and she has a talent for drawing out the meaning in a moment, adding a layer of beauty to an image that is already about wonderful things. Secondly, our world is hurting. We have been going through a really hard thing and there is much division. I wonder if the contents of these “postcards” is a celebration of sorts, an upholding of what it is to be human, of what matters, there is no one who reads this who will say, “love doesn’t matter to me.” Love matters. Maybe that can be a source of unity. The story that unfolds behind the scenes, my Mom’s journey through her final days, remains her story, very little of it is disclosed here. The pictures allow continued exploration of life on a ranch and are a point of connection to human things. So, I have decided to share these and here is the first.
As Far As The Eye Can See 