- yes -

That's Amy.  She's a pretty happy kid.  The blame for this I'll take.  Viv bears a big chunk of responsibility for that as well, and when it comes right down to it, there is a whole bunch of laughter in this house.  Even though I get cranky I'm still a very fortunate man.

*****

When I spy on my daughter during her moments of play out in the backyard or in the living room or in her bedroom, fate's pendulum swings toward calm and relief.  She'll be lost in blissful ignorance of time, floating a story in the breeze about mermaids or warriors, and from my chest the love comes brimming and spilling and my sighs are more audible, maybe on purpose for reassurance.  I wish I could muster a blissful ignorance of the pendulum, but I know that joy trades on loss and grief.  Deep down I know the worst is not tragedy or doom.  The worst is when the pendulum loses its swing altogether, and so when I go strutting and fretting I do it with a knowledge of entropy.  Our bones are cooling, and love is good friction.

I suppose there is such a thing as healthy self-delusion if it is the act of masking duality, forgetting time, and immersing oneself in the core of experiences we can single out.  Making love, laughing with friends till the milk comes out our noses, roller coasters, are they pathways out or pathways in?  Okay, they're both.

It is to laugh, yes?

*****

It should be an active weekend around here.  Events coming up include a sleepover tonight (Amy's friend Laurel arrives at 7:00pm for what promises to be an all-night gigglefest), a birthday barbecue tomorrow afternoon for neighbor Karen who just turned 14, more darkroom time, and, if I'm lucky, maybe some sort of mini photo safari.  

I bought a new loupe and a lightbox yesterday for my slides (I'm shooting more slide film since I got the film scanner) and I'm going a little nutty with color these days.  Iris may be dropping by with some old slides of her own to scan onto floppies, images that her father made when she was a kid.  That'll be fun.

See?  Life is delightfully more mundane now that my little headstorm has passed.  I still feel like laying off of words for a while though, and photography is fulfilling my expression needs nicely.

In fact, I think I'll just mosey on over to the darkroom right now...

__________________________

"Shelter From The Storm" -- Bob Dylan -- BLOOD ON THE TRACKS

today's wisdom:

"Take more pleasure in giving what is best to another than in having it yourself, and then all the world will love you, and I more than all the world."

- Thomas Jefferson (Letter to his daughter Maria, 11 April 1790)