So I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook and the role it serves in society and my life. But a recent "challenge" offered me what I
do like about it.
"Seven black and white photos that represent your life. No people. No pets. No explanation." I had fun taking photos each day and looking at the ones my friends were posting. The lack of commentary made me look at the photos are differently than I would have expected. Now that I am finished the seven days, I offer a little ditty on my uploads:
11/24/17: C.H.U.D.: When I was in middle school I participated in a winter sport called the Hardy Project. It was a combination fitness/outward-bound run-in-the-woods, rope-course, team-building, adventure-style athletics. One day on a run through a local green space park that hugged a stream that ran through northern Baltimore we explored a storm drain tunnel that had an oval entrance about 3 feet high and run under suburban homes with stone walls and green lawns. I processed quite a bit of claustrophobia and fear when at least 30 feet in one of my schoolmates began muttering "chud" under his breath like the little boy in
The Shining muttered "redrum." Long before I had read Steven King's
It (1986) which would have given me more reason to fear storm drains and tunnels, I knew of Douglas Cheek's movie
C.H.U.D. (1984) which stood for Cannibalistic
Humanoid
Underground Dweller. I read
that it could also stand for Contamination Hazard Urban Disposal; both spoke of a danger that could lie in the storm drains and tunnels in northern Baltimore. If one were brave enough—and I was—to proceed about forty feet in, past a bend, in the dark, one would find a small room dimly lit by small holes from the man-hole cover above. Proceed beyond this little room required belly crawling which I was
not brave enough to do...
11/25/17: Lightrail: I have always loved trains. And I have always loved Thanksgiving. And I have always loved my brothers (even when at times we did cruel things to each other). So for the last two years I have engaged in what feels like a new tradition; hitch a ride to Baltimore with my older brother and his family to have Thanksgiving with my family, take the light rail downtown with both my brothers and the kids (laughing and making jokes the whole time), walk the harbor to the edge of Little Italy, and order a bowl of seafood bisque (not the Maryland chowder) from Moe's Diner. There is lots of walking, and taking, and walking on rails, and harmless shenanigans. I love the holiday because it is with family. I love the holiday because there is no membership requirement to participate fully; it is not nationalistic nor "club" specific. It's about gratitude. That simple. I am grateful for my family, the love they offer me no matter what, my good fortune, and well... trains...
11/26/17: Mullican: I spend a lot of time at my desk, writing, grading, surfing, creating. I have a double monitor and a high performing mac, several hard drives and fans, a scanner and a printer, optical drives and other peripherals. I am surrounded by technology and gadgets that I suspect chomp more kilowatt hours than I care to admit. But just beyond the field of technology is my bulletin board. It holds reminders of appointments and the usual fare, but it also serves to remind me of my inspirations and motivations. It is an eclectic array but has served me well love the years with little change. Contained within are spirt animals and philosophical anchors, aesthetics infused with relationship, and small trinkets of friendship. There are so many stories and positive forces I continue to celebrate my gratitudes...
11/27/17: The Ghost Train: I live by the tracks. Actually, I live on the other side of the tracks, whatever that means. I drive alongside them when I go to shop for food. When my children were small we would race ahead to a crossing where the train had not yet reached, get out and stand right next to the tracks, and feel the rumble of the Norfolk Southern engines shake our insides; then we would stay and listen to all the cars click and clack past. Occasionally the coming of night brings a fog, and a train passing through just then with it's three bright headlights lit, light up the air in front of the engines, and we declare it "The Ghost Train." [It's a carryover from the Thomas The Tank Engine story days.] On the 27th I was fortunate enough to catch such a ghost train lighting up the crossing bar just before it dropped. I snapped my shot, placed my phone back in my pocket, closed my eyes, and felt the rumble in the depth of my childhood come to life...
11/28/17: 81,500 pounds of force: I teach for work: I keep toys on hand, and oddities, and little gifts; i'm like so many others who value the personal space of a cubical at work; but I work in a classroom and therefore my cubical is large and filled with visitors and is full of life and strife and purpose. In the corner is my desk where I can often be found during the time I am not dancing about in front of my students. The dashboard buddha can be pulled up and released to do a spastic dance that no dashboard moment could ever manufacture. The firedog cup holder was a gift from the now passed-away secretary who
always had my back, especially when I race out of work to go to a fire. Origami, binary teaching flashcards, and a host of cables that link me to my teaching tools add to my beloved clutter. And at the heart of this still life is the cup from the brother who was the engineer who worked on thrust for engines and taught me that propulsion works with a suck, squeeze, bang, and blow...
11/29/17: Holiday Walk: The first Saturday of December marks the day of a holiday walk in my little town, The Village Beautiful. It's a college town with an old congregational church (among many other churches) near the center, and a side street about two blocks long that has shops; barber shop, the liquor store, several restaurants and a few art galleries. But there is also a small movie theater with marquee and a book store and cafe. A coffee shop a few other stores that make the whole scene feel like a moment out of a Norman Rockwell painting. And the light posts that run the length of the street are adorned with greens and stars and little lights, all in preparation for the walk and the holiday season to follow. I love little twinkling lights in the dark afternoons of winter. The icicle lights are my favorite; incandescent and low watt, casting an amber warmth into the chill of winter. And on the day of the walk we arrive on the street to watch a '"reign-dog" parade (with an occasional interloping goat or two), and put raffle tickets in boxes for dozens of prizes at a penny social, and get hot cocoas, and visit with friends promenading up and down the street, and we just breath a little slower and take an afternoon to do nothing in particular than doing the things we have done each year before. College groups sing a-capella in a variety of spots, and the model trains go in loops and loops in the window of the sports shop where there are cookies and crackers...
11/30/17: Joe: Two Christmases ago I bought a motorcycle who I named Joe. It is to be a learning vehicle and has been on the road a few times with issues. So have I. There are so many stories to be told about my journey in repairing Joe, while slowly reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. This bike in no way defines me, just as each of the other photos do not either, but each in their own way tell a part of my story. The bike is a metaphor for me. It is a dream that is in process. It is a 40+ year old piece of beautiful manufacture that needs a little attention to fulfill its purpose. The battery is tended, the rubber is new, the engine just needs a little work to go really fast. Spring will bring new life for sure...
11/24/17: C.H.U.D.: When I was in middle school I participated in a winter sport called the Hardy Project. It was a combination fitness/outward-bound run-in-the-woods, rope-course, team-building, adventure-style athletics. One day on a run through a local green space park that hugged a stream that ran through northern Baltimore we explored a storm drain tunnel that had an oval entrance about 3 feet high and run under suburban homes with stone walls and green lawns. I processed quite a bit of claustrophobia and fear when at least 30 feet in one of my schoolmates began muttering "chud" under his breath like the little boy in The Shining muttered "redrum." Long before I had read Steven King's It (1986) which would have given me more reason to fear storm drains and tunnels, I knew of Douglas Cheek's movie C.H.U.D. (1984) which stood for Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller. I read that it could also stand for Contamination Hazard Urban Disposal; both spoke of a danger that could lie in the storm drains and tunnels in northern Baltimore. If one were brave enough—and I was—to proceed about forty feet in, past a bend, in the dark, one would find a small room dimly lit by small holes from the man-hole cover above. Proceed beyond this little room required belly crawling which I was not brave enough to do...
11/25/17: Lightrail: I have always loved trains. And I have always loved Thanksgiving. And I have always loved my brothers (even when at times we did cruel things to each other). So for the last two years I have engaged in what feels like a new tradition; hitch a ride to Baltimore with my older brother and his family to have Thanksgiving with my family, take the light rail downtown with both my brothers and the kids (laughing and making jokes the whole time), walk the harbor to the edge of Little Italy, and order a bowl of seafood bisque (not the Maryland chowder) from Moe's Diner. There is lots of walking, and taking, and walking on rails, and harmless shenanigans. I love the holiday because it is with family. I love the holiday because there is no membership requirement to participate fully; it is not nationalistic nor "club" specific. It's about gratitude. That simple. I am grateful for my family, the love they offer me no matter what, my good fortune, and well... trains...
11/26/17: Mullican: I spend a lot of time at my desk, writing, grading, surfing, creating. I have a double monitor and a high performing mac, several hard drives and fans, a scanner and a printer, optical drives and other peripherals. I am surrounded by technology and gadgets that I suspect chomp more kilowatt hours than I care to admit. But just beyond the field of technology is my bulletin board. It holds reminders of appointments and the usual fare, but it also serves to remind me of my inspirations and motivations. It is an eclectic array but has served me well love the years with little change. Contained within are spirt animals and philosophical anchors, aesthetics infused with relationship, and small trinkets of friendship. There are so many stories and positive forces I continue to celebrate my gratitudes...
11/27/17: The Ghost Train: I live by the tracks. Actually, I live on the other side of the tracks, whatever that means. I drive alongside them when I go to shop for food. When my children were small we would race ahead to a crossing where the train had not yet reached, get out and stand right next to the tracks, and feel the rumble of the Norfolk Southern engines shake our insides; then we would stay and listen to all the cars click and clack past. Occasionally the coming of night brings a fog, and a train passing through just then with it's three bright headlights lit, light up the air in front of the engines, and we declare it "The Ghost Train." [It's a carryover from the Thomas The Tank Engine story days.] On the 27th I was fortunate enough to catch such a ghost train lighting up the crossing bar just before it dropped. I snapped my shot, placed my phone back in my pocket, closed my eyes, and felt the rumble in the depth of my childhood come to life... 
11/28/17: 81,500 pounds of force: I teach for work: I keep toys on hand, and oddities, and little gifts; i'm like so many others who value the personal space of a cubical at work; but I work in a classroom and therefore my cubical is large and filled with visitors and is full of life and strife and purpose. In the corner is my desk where I can often be found during the time I am not dancing about in front of my students. The dashboard buddha can be pulled up and released to do a spastic dance that no dashboard moment could ever manufacture. The firedog cup holder was a gift from the now passed-away secretary who always had my back, especially when I race out of work to go to a fire. Origami, binary teaching flashcards, and a host of cables that link me to my teaching tools add to my beloved clutter. And at the heart of this still life is the cup from the brother who was the engineer who worked on thrust for engines and taught me that propulsion works with a suck, squeeze, bang, and blow...
11/29/17: Holiday Walk: The first Saturday of December marks the day of a holiday walk in my little town, The Village Beautiful. It's a college town with an old congregational church (among many other churches) near the center, and a side street about two blocks long that has shops; barber shop, the liquor store, several restaurants and a few art galleries. But there is also a small movie theater with marquee and a book store and cafe. A coffee shop a few other stores that make the whole scene feel like a moment out of a Norman Rockwell painting. And the light posts that run the length of the street are adorned with greens and stars and little lights, all in preparation for the walk and the holiday season to follow. I love little twinkling lights in the dark afternoons of winter. The icicle lights are my favorite; incandescent and low watt, casting an amber warmth into the chill of winter. And on the day of the walk we arrive on the street to watch a '"reign-dog" parade (with an occasional interloping goat or two), and put raffle tickets in boxes for dozens of prizes at a penny social, and get hot cocoas, and visit with friends promenading up and down the street, and we just breath a little slower and take an afternoon to do nothing in particular than doing the things we have done each year before. College groups sing a-capella in a variety of spots, and the model trains go in loops and loops in the window of the sports shop where there are cookies and crackers...
11/30/17: Joe: Two Christmases ago I bought a motorcycle who I named Joe. It is to be a learning vehicle and has been on the road a few times with issues. So have I. There are so many stories to be told about my journey in repairing Joe, while slowly reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. This bike in no way defines me, just as each of the other photos do not either, but each in their own way tell a part of my story. The bike is a metaphor for me. It is a dream that is in process. It is a 40+ year old piece of beautiful manufacture that needs a little attention to fulfill its purpose. The battery is tended, the rubber is new, the engine just needs a little work to go really fast. Spring will bring new life for sure...
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