~Upstream and Down~

  I clicked open the email with “Hello from the past!” in the subject line to find a note from from a former student, Josh. How I love hearing from former students. I remember Josh well: a little imp of a guy with a perpetual grin and a frizz of curls and an insatiable curiosity. He played the saxophone…or was that his brother Matt? I think both. I’ll let the email exchange speak for itself …  Hello Mrs. Douillette - Would you be, by chance, the same Mrs. Douillette who once taught at Cedar School (at least, I think it was Cedar School?) in Hanover 30 years-or-so ago? If so, I believe I was one of your fortunate students. I seem to remember spending countless hours--and reams of magical tracing paper--gleefully working on projects about dinosaurs and whales while under your tutelage. Happy days indeed. Anyway, if this is really you, hello! I'm sure I can conjure some more memories of those heady days that will make us both feel much older! Josh Hi Josh! ...

When I visited my 92-year-old mother at her assisted living home, I thought of butterflies—the painted ladies I’d seen sipping the last sweet nectar from the buddleia in my back yard. Painted ladies don’t live long, and my 92-year-old mother certainly has. So that’s not the comparison. And she certainly wasn’t sipping anything when I walked into her room; she was sleeping in front of a blaring TV. And neither was she painted. She’s never been much for make-up. But nonetheless, painted lady butterflies that popped into my mind as I watched her sleeping. “Mom?” I said softly. She startled and I could see in an instant that she didn’t have a clue who I was. So I told her.   “It’s Ruthie,” I said. That’s always been enough for her face to blossom into a smile of recognition. “Ruthie!” she always exclaims with pleasure. But this time her smile wasn’t convincing--she didn’t exclaim--and I could tell she didn’t know who I was.  But she went...

I spent the last day of 2011 with a group of photographers, taking pictures in Saint Anthony of Padua Church in New Bedford.  The ornate interior, decorated for the Christmas season, was beautiful. Gleaming floors and polished wooden pews reflected color and light from stained glass windows and detailed carvings.   Despite the color and detail available to shoot, I found myself drawn to the light that played through the rails of the drab stairway leading to the second and third levels of the church. The stairs were off to the side of the foyer, easily overlooked by anyone intent upon entering the splendid sanctuary.  Probably those who trudge up to the choir loft, which looks out over the gleaming center aisle in the nave,  don’t give the stairs a second thought, but they are as necessary as the marble columns that support the arched ceiling.   A friend who saw my photos called the stairs “grungy and worn and burnished with age.” And ...

At Thanksgiving time, I always think back to my years as a young teacher. It was traditional to have students list all the things they were thankful for. But I was a think-outside-the-box teacher, and I urged them to think beyond what I thought were the obvious things to be thankful for. Yes, yes, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, I'd think, as I listed their comments on the board. Sure, food and pets. Yes, of course, your house.   "But what ELSE ?" I'd ask. They were silent. For these seven- and eight-year-olds there really was nothing else. What they were thankful for fit neatly into the box. And I've come to realize this is true for me, as well. My box is full of the obvious blessings. What ELSE could I ask for? What else really matters? The blessings outside my box--and there are plenty-- are mere frosting on the cake...or should I say, stuffing in the turkey? Happy Thanksgiving. May your boxes be full. May all your thorns have roses. --- Givin...

Sometimes it’s fun to photograph something different, something playful,  to take a break from  landscapes and sunsets, as much as I love them. Fun to shoot something I could never do on my own.  So I was happy to have the opportunity through the Plymouth Digital Photographer ’s club to do just that.  Roy Marshall, a member of two local camera clubs, did the prep work, setting up a sophisticated system that relies on perfect timing, with strobes designed to flash in time to catch the split-second of action--in this case,  a splash of colored water. Roy partially filled three brandy snifters with colored water and set them on a platform. About twenty of us stood behind our cameras, which were perched on tripods, and focused on the glasses. Then Roy pulled the platform up a short incline, and lights were turned out.    In this pitch-blackness, we clicked open camera shutters, using "bulb mode," which allowed the shutter to stay open until release...

A local man, Michael, was killed when the North Tower of the World Trade Center, where he worked on the 105th floor, collapsed on September 11, 2001. For the ten-year anniversary of 9/11, a monument in Michael’s memory was designed and built by an architect from his town, and was to stand somewhere in the section of the town cemetery dedicated to veterans.  The architect wanted two things: granite of a certain grey color that to him signified somber respect, and granite that was quarried in America. He searched for granite wherever it is architects search, and eventually found just the grey he’d envisioned. And it was quarried in America -- Shanksville, Pennsylvania, to be exact – a perfect and symbolic touch for a 9/11 monument. It didn’t take long for those in charge of the 9/11 ceremony to pick the proper spot for Michael’s monument.  It was placed just behind the Iraq memorial … because the attack on the World Trade Center had spurred another man from this town,...

I was in Rockport recently, a picturesque North Shore coastal fishing town. It’s got a small artsy village where tourists roam the narrow street that leads to Bearskin Neck and a view of the ocean. Bruce and I stopped to watch a cat hunting a grasshopper in a raised flowerbed, that  bordered the roadway. The cat was quick. She darted and leaped, following the erratic hopping of the insect. When the cat looked right, the grasshopper leaped left,  perching triumphantly on a zinnia. I thought briefly of scooping it into my hand and moving it farther away from the cat, who was still searching. Then the grasshopper hopped onto my foot, but before I could walk away--taking it with me out of harm’s way--it made a dynamic leap into the street ... where an oblivious tourist immediately stepped on it. The crunch--like biting into a potato chip—stayed in my ears. The unexpected unfairness of it still lingers. The man continued walking; the cat went on hunting. And I was lef...