December 1986
Where I Am Now
I’m sitting at my desk watching the moon rise over the Berkshires; I’m in an apartment; I’m not in California
Minnie: Rest In Peace, Mom
In the second week of hospitalization my mother’s denial abruptly stops. I see a deliberate motion away from life, an about-face toward death, with a new-found dignity and acceptance.
Amazing Conversations
All my life I’ve heard the expression: a photograph doesn’t lie. But the real truth is that photographs do in fact lie about some things, and not about others. Is this what Diane Arbus meant when she wrote, “A photograph is a secret about a secret?”
You’re Weird, Irene
The woman sits there a while and then we can see her face changing. It looks like she’s got all the troubles in the whole world. Her face crinkles up and she starts to cry. She wipes away her tears but they keep coming down and flowing into her toothless mouth.
Backlighting
Alice’s husband was a man constantly in motion, and now that he has returned as a blue jay he is not much different. If anything, he is more nervously energetic than ever.