Today, tell us about the most unconventional love in your life. Photographers, share a photo that says unconventional.
Pandora’s box had nothing on this one. Wow. Sizzle. Smoke. Hot, hot, hot!!
Okay, this is a G-rated site, so I won’t go there. Instead, I’ll tell you a story and leave you free to fill in the details from your own rich imaginings.
At 18 I married my first husband. I was already in my senior year of college. Jeff ran the college radio station as Station Manager. My now and forever husband was Jeff’s second-in-command, that is to say Garry was the Program Director. The two men were best friends. Together with most of the people I still count as friends, we had a great deal of fun. Not just the usual college stuff. We were creative. Just our Fall of Sauron Day parties — scripted, costumed, with special effects — were the stuff of lifetime memories. And, because we were young and healthy, we could party all night and go the work the next day looking none the worse for wear. Try that nowadays!
I married Jeff in August 1965. I spent the next year finishing my B.A. and having my spine remodeled, so it was a few years before I got on with life. My son was born in May 1969. We named him Owen Garry, Garry being his godfather and all.
Fast forward through a non-acrimonious divorce. I later realized if you just give up everything and walk away, it’s easy to be amicable. It’s also a big mistake you will come to regret sooner or later.
Off to Israel with the kid. Not too long thereafter, a marriage in Israel about which I won’t talk, even under torture. One visit from the ex and current husband – exactly in time for the war in Lebanon. It ruined our plans to see the Hermon and the Galilee, but created great anecdotes for another post. I have one picture that says it all: me, Jeff and Garry arm-in-arm by the Dead Sea. The picture taken by husband number 2.
Photo: Debbie Stone
August 1987. Back to the USA. Garry and I are an item. Subsequent to finalizing my long-distance divorce from husband number 2, we are wed. It’s the right marriage to the right guy. I declined to have my first ex-husband be best man at my third wedding. We did, however, have the “real” reception at his house. There was the official one at the church, but the fun was over at the old house.
Garry and I will celebrate our 23 anniversary in September.
I am frequently puzzled by pious sayings. I know they are meant to be comforting, but why? Things like “God opens a window when he closes a door.” “God will take care of it.” ” Have faith, God will save you” all imply that you … we … are helpless. That we can do nothing in the face of problems other than pray to a higher power for help.
Why is that? Why should helplessness be a comfort to anyone?
What makes you think God closed that door? Maybe the wind blew it shut. God may take care of you in a spiritual sense, but practically speaking, for every person I know who feels God saved them, there are many more who didn’t survive the disease, lost their home, wound up on the street, lost a child, lost a mate, didn’t succeed, failed to meet the challenge. I’m much more inclined to “God helps them who helps themselves.” Because it suggests that we have strength, that we are not simply at the mercy of forces we cannot control.
Does that mean I’m an atheist? Not at all. What I have is an unyielding belief that with free will, we also have responsibility.
God gave us gifts when we were created as images of Himself. We got intelligence, cleverness, reason, creativity. We were granted the ability to judge right from wrong, knowledge of good and evil. When a window closes, there is no reason to assume God closed it. It’s entirely likely, if you look around, pay attention and don’t collapse in a sodden heap of helpless tears, you may see a window is already there, was always there, but you weren’t looking for it. Walk over, brace yourself, and open the window. Voila!
You don’t need to ask God to do those things you can and should do for yourself.
I don’t believe clouds have silver linings, but I believe storms are no less necessary than sunshine. We need rain, wind and storms. It’s part of life, the normal ups and downs. Rain is not worse or less valuable than sunshine, only different. It keeps the aquifers alive and the crops growing. You may not like rain, but the earth loves and needs it. Creation was not made just for you and me and our personal comfort and convenience.
There are many things over which we have no control. We cannot fix all the broken things in the world or in our lives. Death is part of life and though we fear it, it’s the only certainty.
Until then, we have choices to make and responsibilities to meet. If we can’t make everything go as we want, we can do the best we can to take care of ourselves and each other, make the best of our choices. Pick good occupations, mates. When needed, find the right surgeon, hospital and treatment. Find good people to be our friends, who will support us through good times and bad. We can choose to be decent, kind, caring and treat others as we want to be treated.
We can choose paths of honor and love. We can be the good guys. We can decide to care for other people even when it costs us dearly.
We can make those choices because we were born to an understanding of right and wrong, with the ability to make the best of bad situations, to cope with pain and bear up under ill-fortune. That’s not punishment. It’s life. No one said it was going to be easy.
We don’t have to wait for a higher power to take care of us. We are grown ups. Expecting God to take care of every boo-boo is infantile. If we aren’t supposed to take care of ourselves, why did God give us the ability to do so? If He was intending to personally care for all the needs of every single person on the planet, why give us the wondrous gifts to which we are heir?
Do I pray? Yes. Do I think prayers get answered? Absolutely.
But remember this when you pray. Sometimes the answer is “No.”
We are free to ask, but free will cuts both ways. God has free will too, so there’s no guarantee we’ll get what we ask for. God never promised to fix every hurt or eliminate evil. No matter what religion you follow — or even if you follow no particular faith — nothing and no one promises to make all the bad stuff go away. So I will continue do my best to take care of me and mine, using the gifts God gave me as best I can.
The modern commercialized celebration of gifts, flowers and candy, bears little resemblance to Julia Ward Howe‘s original idea. Here is the Proclamation that explains, in her own powerful words, the goals of the original Mother’s Day in the United States…
Portrait drawing of poet, antislavery activist and suffragette Julia Ward Howe.
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Arise then…women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
“We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”
From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: “Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace…
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.
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To all mothers and children of mothers, wishes of strength, peace and hope for this Mother’s Day.
I live in a forest. Not an allegorical or metaphorical forest. It’s the real deal, mainly oak now that the oaks have grown so tall they block the light needed by maple and other trees. We’ve had to thin them during the last few years because trees were growing too tightly and many had become unhealthy.
No one who lives in a forest can see it as a forest, but that doesn’t change ones awareness. Whether or not you can see it changes nothing. You eyes can see only trees, but your mind knows there are many more trees and any thoughts you might have on the subject are tempered by this knowledge. Inability to see an entire picture does not make one incapable of recognizing its existence.
With my house planted more or less squarely in the woods, how many trees I see depends on where I stand and look. From the back deck, I see more forest. I see fewer trees — less forest — from the front or side of the house.
But what’s the difference between the forest and the trees? None! They are the same.
It’s like looking down and asking me if I see planks or a floor. I see both, because plank by plank or collectively, my mind understands its essential floorness and deals with it as such. Does it need sweeping? polishing? repair? I look at a floor, see planks and think floor.
One of the first signs of maturing intelligence (Piaget) in young children is their ability to recognize that the pieces of a thing are no different than the thing itself. By the time we are five or six years old, we have all made this leap of understanding. We know forests are composed of trees and trees are part of the forest. If we are regarding one tree , we don’t stop knowing it is part of the larger entity. Nor do we need to see an entire forest to know it’s there.
Things made up of many things partake of the spirit of the whole. This is how we understand our world and ourselves. No matter what piece you look at, unless you are literally blind, you are looking at the whole. We are individuals, but also part of our family, a group of friends and associates, and a member of our clan, tribe and humanity as a whole.
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No Man Is An Island
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
Before you decide this means we are or were “rich,” Garry had been sharing a house with a bunch of other people from Channel 7 and other Boston TV stations for years before I moved to New England. This was not their first house. There had been others, but this was the most recent and favorite because of its location. The group knew each other well and had been sharing this house or another for years before Garry and I officially became a couple, though we’d known each other and been involved off and on since college.
After I came on the scene, we continued to share the house, though it grew more awkward as many “housemates” paired off and moved on with their lives. Eventually, the problem solved itself when the owners of the house decided to cash in and sell it.
It had originally been a boat house for the New York Yacht Club. At some point, it was converted to a summer residence. Right on the water, halfway between Vineyard Haven and Oak Bluffs, it had a great dock and was just across Ocean Avenue from the hospital.
Drawing of he original boathouse, 1894. Artist unknown.
The house was currently owned by a pair of orthopedic doctors who worked at the hospital on the Vineyard and maintained offices across Nantucket Sound in Falmouth. A dock for the docs was useful and tax-deductible. Our rent paid their property taxes and perhaps left a bit of money over, though not much. Waterfront real estate on Martha’s Vineyard is expensive.
Mostly, I think they kept the place because of the dock and because we were amusing, all television folks, photographers, reporters, directors, producers … plus their insignificant others. We didn’t trash the place and were always up for a ride in their insanely over-powered Boston Whaler.The ferry ride from Falmouth to Oak Bluffs took 45 minutes. Either of the doctors could do it in just over 7 minutes. I don’t think they actually touched the water once they left the channel. They more or less flew.
It was an interesting and wet ride, exhilarating and terrifying and a heck of a lot faster and easier than the ferry. Cheaper, too as long as you didn’t need to take your car across.
After the doctors sold the house, the group split up. Several of the couples, including Garry and I, had married by then. Garry and I found a charming place in Oak Bluffs with a long staircase down the bluff to a small, private, sandy beach. We could bring our dogs. The house had two bedrooms, so we could invite friends to join us … a big bonus.
We rented during the off-season to make it more affordable and to avoid the mid-summer crush. We rented two weeks in June and two more in September. With both of us working, it was affordable … for a while.
Some years before the doctors sold the house, Garry had covered a story about Alfred Eisenstadt and Lois Maillou Jones, both of whom had been given Presidential Medals of Honor for their work. After the story, we became friends with both artists. Eisenstadt was in his early 90s and Lois Maillou Jones was in her mid 80s, Eisie told Lois she was “just a kid.” We laughed, but time has changed our perspective considerably.
I had been an admirer of Eisenstadt’s work as long as I’d been taking pictures. I took my first roll of film on Martha’s Vineyard in 1966 when I had stayed at the Menemsha Inn where Eisenstadt resided from late spring till just after Labor Day. Books of Eisie’s work — that was what everyone called him and he preferred it — were all over the inn, in bookcases and on tables. Most featured landscapes of Martha’s Vineyard that Eisenstadt had taken over the decades.
I was using my first camera, a Practika with an excellent Zeiss 50mm lens but no light meter. It had a crank film advance. This was a barebones camera perfect for a beginner. I had to really learn how to take pictures. I had to get a light reading using a handheld meter. I had to focus. No zoom lens, just that 50 mm prime, so my feet did the zooming. I learned the basics of photography that many people of the digital generation never learn.Many erstwhile photographers have never encountered a non-automatic camera. Maybe it doesn’t matter. But then again, maybe it does.
Portrait of Robert Frost. It hangs still in our home, reminding me of some of the very best of the old days
My camera had been a gift from a photographer friend who had moved on to more expensive gear, but with that Zeiss lens and a good eye, I followed Eisenstadt’s path. I discovered where he’d taken each picture, then figured out how he’d gotten the perspective, framed it, and not only duplicated his shots down to the clump of grass he’d crouched behind to create the impression of a foreground, I even added a few original ideas of my own that worked out surprisingly well. It was most surprising to me since I didn’t know what I was doing. I was just winging it.
My first roll of film was declared brilliant. It was, except that the photographs were Alfred Eisenstadt‘s pictures reproduced by me on my camera. I learned photography by following his footsteps and seeing what he saw. By the time I was done, I’d learned more than any school would have taught me about perspective, angles, and what makes a landscape something better than ordinary.
When I actually met the man himself, it was like meeting your favorite movie star. I was dumbstruck, not something that often happens to me.
As we got to know Eisie better, I asked him to autograph his books for me and he did, but he didn’t just autograph them. He went through each book, photograph by photograph. He was in his early 90s and forgot many things, but he remembered every picture he’d taken, including what film and camera he was using, what lens was on it, the F-stop and most important, what he was thinking as he shot it. He could remember exactly what it was about the image that grabbed his attention. It was a wonderful education that money could never buy.
For example, the picture of the sailor kissing the nurse in Times Square on VJ Day, he said he was walking around Times Square with his Nikon and he saw them, the dark of the sailor’s uniform against the white of the nurse’s dress and he shot. He knew it was what he wanted. The light, the contrast, perfect. Great street journalism looks accidental … but it isn’t. It’s, in my opinion, the most difficult of all the various types of photography because you have to see your shot and grab it, get it right the first time with no framing, no planning and if you miss it, it’s gone forever.
Were we close friends? Close enough, considering the late date at which we entered his life. At that point, he spent most of his time in the company of Lulu, his former sister-in-law who took care of him. She was a lovely, warm, sweet lady who sometimes needed an afternoon off. We were happy to Eisie-sit and let her go to town for an afternoon. Eisie was interesting and funny, but high maintenance. He did not suffer from a lack of ego strength.
We spent time with him every summer for about five years until he died, and we were honored to be among those invited to the funeral.
The funeral was closed to the public and although it was sad because Eisie was gone, we also found things to laugh about. Knowing him was special and some memories are worthy of laughter.
With camera in hand, exploring European lands, cultures, food, and drink...mostly with a plan, but sometimes enjoying the adventure of just getting lost.
