Well, due to being terminated from my job from hell, I am leaving the confines of my townhouse and returning to live with dad for the time being. Chances are, it will be a long time "being".
Sent out over 50 applications for good-fit positions in the last 4 months.
What is abundantly clear is that *nobody* wants a 51 year old man. Especially one without a degree. Even if I have over 30 years experience in a very exclusive field, and a lifetime of accomplishment.
Honestly, I really want these young fucking morons who work in HR departments to suck it down someday. Such arrogance about youth. An incredible lack of appreciation for older people with more experience than they could ever imagine.
But then again, that's why I've basically said "Fuck it" with regard to corporate America.
Every time I see some 30-something driving a Lexus SUV pull into the WaWa with a Blackberry earpiece at 7AM, already talking to their coworkers or boss as they hurriedly grab a cup of coffee and run off to the office...I realize.
I have it better than they will know.
I am glad to leave that shit behind. They can slave for some soulless company and asshole of a boss to try to get ahead.
In the mean time, I will be enjoying the time I have left, doing my writing and my photography and soaking up all the time I have. Time that means freedom.
I'll be moving from my townhouse and in with my dad on the 13th of February. It'll be a huge adjustment. I probably have no chance of dating someone or having a relationship, something I dearly miss. But I will have time with my father, and I will work on this book.
I think it's not only the only choice, but the right one.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Green Grass and High Tides
For me. For my mom.
------------------
In a place you only dream of
Where your soul is always free
Silver stages, golden curtains
Filled my head, plain as can be
As a rainbow grew round the sun
All the stars I've love who died
Came from somewhere beyond the scene you see
These lovely people played just for me
Now if I let you see this place
Where stories all ring true
Will you let me past your face
To see what's really you
It's not for me I ask these questions
As though I were a king
For you have to love, believe and feel
Before the burst of tamborines take you there
Green grass and high tides forever
Castles of stone souls and glory
Lost faces say we adore you
As kings and queens bow and play for you
Those who don't believe me
Find your souls and set them free
Those who do, believe and love
As time will be your key
Time and time again I've thanked them
For a piece of mind
They helped me find myself
Amongst the music and the rhyme
That enchants you there
Green grass and high tides forever
Castles of stone souls and glory
Lost faces say we adore you
As kings and queens bow and play for you
------------------
In a place you only dream of
Where your soul is always free
Silver stages, golden curtains
Filled my head, plain as can be
As a rainbow grew round the sun
All the stars I've love who died
Came from somewhere beyond the scene you see
These lovely people played just for me
Now if I let you see this place
Where stories all ring true
Will you let me past your face
To see what's really you
It's not for me I ask these questions
As though I were a king
For you have to love, believe and feel
Before the burst of tamborines take you there
Green grass and high tides forever
Castles of stone souls and glory
Lost faces say we adore you
As kings and queens bow and play for you
Those who don't believe me
Find your souls and set them free
Those who do, believe and love
As time will be your key
Time and time again I've thanked them
For a piece of mind
They helped me find myself
Amongst the music and the rhyme
That enchants you there
Green grass and high tides forever
Castles of stone souls and glory
Lost faces say we adore you
As kings and queens bow and play for you
Monday, January 25, 2010
One year ago tomorrow (January 26th)
I lost my mom.
Guess that's all I can really say.
Words fail you about things like this.
I miss you, mom.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Reclaiming the Cabin and "The Lake"
Excerpted from the book:
In July of 2000 my children and I joined my parents at our lake cabin in the Catskill Mountains of NY State. I’d been going here since I was a small child, and it was and is beyond beautiful. A small but gorgeous lake, with huge trees and incredible views. The smell of pines fills the air. It’ heaven on Earth. A place I had come to not only love, but where I could explore. Where I could see nature and wildlife in pristine surroundings.
The visit in 2000 was without my wife. It was just me and my children on this trip. I have a video tape of it. It’s something to this day I can’t even watch.
The cabin is a small and rustic structure built by my mother’s parents in 1956. Two years before I was born. There are two bedrooms separated by paper-thin walls. A small living room with the best view on the planet, overlooking the lake. A shower stall and a bathroom that you have to fight over in the morning. A kitchen with small appliances to fit it’s tiny size, and an ancient Oak drop leaf table, that has seen a lifetime’s worth of family meals. A refrigerator that serves as a place to store provisions, but more importantly, to hang photos on. There’s a rack near the door for the fishing rods. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves sit as witnesses to our joy and camaraderie on the fireplace mantle. A fireplace made of “bluestone”, a sand bearing slate-like rock native to the area, and bluish-gray in color. A fireplace that has warmed countless chilly mornings. For me, my parents, my mother’s parents, my brother and his wife and family, guests and friends, girlfriends and boyfriends, and all of those who ever spent a cold night in this place.
We would spend summer vacations there as a family when I was growing up. The place is filled with antiques and knick-knacks and all sorts of memorabilia. It still has the same things I remember as a child. I can remember the times I woke up my father early in the morning to go fishing.
The walks through the woods. The incredible smell of enormous conifers and pines and the sweet smell of the lake wafting through them.
Wading in the water, barefoot, and turning over stones to see what was underneath. To this very day, I can go there and find and turn over the very same rocks under the water that I turned over as a child, 40 years ago. I can pick them out by their shape and location. They haven’t changed.
Taking the rowboat out and going fishing.
Seeing the Milky Way at night from the dock and watching meteors streak across the heavens.
I brought my High School girlfriend here 35 years ago. We made love on the bed that still sits in one of the bedrooms.
There are photographs of an entire lifetime posted on the refrigerator and on the mirrors in the bedrooms. Calendars from years gone by still hang on the backs of doors, as if to mark the passage of time, and the people who came, enjoyed and left, only to come back, again and again.
It was and is the last remaining piece of my life that has remained virtually unchanged for my entire life.
One memory of this place would come to turn my world completely upside-down.
When I returned home from the cabin that summer in July of 2000, I was greeted with the revelation that my wife was having an affair. From that moment on, I then associated the cabin and the lake not with all the wonderful things that had gone before, but with being there while she made love to another man. When my world was torn apart.
I would not visit that place for another eight long years as a result.
In the spring of 2008, I decided to go back. It was time. I had been away too long. I had been foolish. How could I let something so transient destroy the memories of what I loved? I couldn’t. So, I went back to the cabin. The feeling I had as I pulled into the drive and near the place was overwhelming. I was back. I was back where I belonged, and I was going to make it mine again.
So many things…indeed, virtually everything was still as I remembered. The very same lamps, tables and, chairs. The same kitchen table where my mom and dad and I spent what seemed like a thousand summers enjoying the weather, the food, the surroundings, the good times.
When I walked into the cabin, I was not prepared for the emotion.
I saw dozens of pictures on the fridge. My kids when they were small. Me, a much younger man, holding up a prize fish with pride. My brother with his wife and children. My mom holding one of their pet cats and rowing a boat in the lake. So many scenes. So many memories. It had been so long.
It’s a tradition of sorts for all of us to leave something to remember the visits we have there for other family members to see and share, and for ourselves, to recall the happy times for earlier visits. In the course of over 50 years now, there are a lot of moments there. It’s like walking into the past and seeing it all over again. You live it. Again.
All at once I was flooded with the recollections of a lifetime. The power of those memories, flowing now like a tidal wave, unstoppable, was so completely overwhelming. I sat at the table and the tears just started pouring. It all came back to me. All at once.
I can still picture my mother at the stove and telling me and my children to go shuck the fresh corn that we picked up at a local farmer’s market stand. The dinners being served as the sun hung low in the sky casting a golden yellow on the water just outside the window. The warm breeze blowing in through the open windows as we sat there enjoying delicious foods that always tasted better when we were at the lake.
As heart wrenching as it was to be back there, it was liberating. I loved this place. I adored it. It was so precious to me. I was so angry with myself for having waited so long to return. Now that I was back, I was going to go as often as I could. I made trip after trip back there this year. I reconnected with it. I made it my own. I called my mother to tell her all about it. How I was loving it there and so glad being back. She was so happy for me. She too loved this place so dearly. She was so happy that I had returned and that I had reclaimed this place as mine.
Later that year, in October, I went to photograph the incredible colors of Autumn in the Catskills. It was cold, but beautiful. That visit would turn out to be the last time I called my mom from the cabin to tell her how things were, and how I was so enjoying being there. She was so happy that I did go back, and that I spent many days there during the year.
I would never get another chance to hear her voice on the phone, from the place she so dearly loved.
The cabin. On Somerset Lake.
When I went back in 2009, my mom was already gone. This time, going inside for the first time that year, in May, it was even more heart-wrenching. She was gone. I wouldn’t be calling her to tell her how things were at the lake, and to chat about the goings-on, or the neighbors, or if I was getting nice photographs. To this day, I will wake up and think to call my mom about something going on in my life, and in that split second, I forget that she is no longer here. Then, I remember, and I grieve all over again.
These visits back to the cabin would end up being a huge turning point in my life. I realized then and there that what I wanted to do was to end up living here. That somewhere down the road, not too long from now, I wanted and needed to call this place my home. It’s not only the most gorgeous place on Earth, it’s the last remaining constant of my entire life.
A connection with every phase of my life. A link to memories and times that I can recall the instant I am inside that cabin, or on the lake. A powerful nexus that hold the pieces of my life together for me.
Everything else I had is gone. My childhood home, my own home, my marriage and my intact family. They are but memories now.
At The Lake, I still have me. And all the things that made me who I am, in so many ways.
They still live there.
That’s why I need to.
In July of 2000 my children and I joined my parents at our lake cabin in the Catskill Mountains of NY State. I’d been going here since I was a small child, and it was and is beyond beautiful. A small but gorgeous lake, with huge trees and incredible views. The smell of pines fills the air. It’ heaven on Earth. A place I had come to not only love, but where I could explore. Where I could see nature and wildlife in pristine surroundings.
The visit in 2000 was without my wife. It was just me and my children on this trip. I have a video tape of it. It’s something to this day I can’t even watch.
The cabin is a small and rustic structure built by my mother’s parents in 1956. Two years before I was born. There are two bedrooms separated by paper-thin walls. A small living room with the best view on the planet, overlooking the lake. A shower stall and a bathroom that you have to fight over in the morning. A kitchen with small appliances to fit it’s tiny size, and an ancient Oak drop leaf table, that has seen a lifetime’s worth of family meals. A refrigerator that serves as a place to store provisions, but more importantly, to hang photos on. There’s a rack near the door for the fishing rods. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves sit as witnesses to our joy and camaraderie on the fireplace mantle. A fireplace made of “bluestone”, a sand bearing slate-like rock native to the area, and bluish-gray in color. A fireplace that has warmed countless chilly mornings. For me, my parents, my mother’s parents, my brother and his wife and family, guests and friends, girlfriends and boyfriends, and all of those who ever spent a cold night in this place.
We would spend summer vacations there as a family when I was growing up. The place is filled with antiques and knick-knacks and all sorts of memorabilia. It still has the same things I remember as a child. I can remember the times I woke up my father early in the morning to go fishing.
The walks through the woods. The incredible smell of enormous conifers and pines and the sweet smell of the lake wafting through them.
Wading in the water, barefoot, and turning over stones to see what was underneath. To this very day, I can go there and find and turn over the very same rocks under the water that I turned over as a child, 40 years ago. I can pick them out by their shape and location. They haven’t changed.
Taking the rowboat out and going fishing.
Seeing the Milky Way at night from the dock and watching meteors streak across the heavens.
I brought my High School girlfriend here 35 years ago. We made love on the bed that still sits in one of the bedrooms.
There are photographs of an entire lifetime posted on the refrigerator and on the mirrors in the bedrooms. Calendars from years gone by still hang on the backs of doors, as if to mark the passage of time, and the people who came, enjoyed and left, only to come back, again and again.
It was and is the last remaining piece of my life that has remained virtually unchanged for my entire life.
One memory of this place would come to turn my world completely upside-down.
When I returned home from the cabin that summer in July of 2000, I was greeted with the revelation that my wife was having an affair. From that moment on, I then associated the cabin and the lake not with all the wonderful things that had gone before, but with being there while she made love to another man. When my world was torn apart.
I would not visit that place for another eight long years as a result.
In the spring of 2008, I decided to go back. It was time. I had been away too long. I had been foolish. How could I let something so transient destroy the memories of what I loved? I couldn’t. So, I went back to the cabin. The feeling I had as I pulled into the drive and near the place was overwhelming. I was back. I was back where I belonged, and I was going to make it mine again.
So many things…indeed, virtually everything was still as I remembered. The very same lamps, tables and, chairs. The same kitchen table where my mom and dad and I spent what seemed like a thousand summers enjoying the weather, the food, the surroundings, the good times.
When I walked into the cabin, I was not prepared for the emotion.
I saw dozens of pictures on the fridge. My kids when they were small. Me, a much younger man, holding up a prize fish with pride. My brother with his wife and children. My mom holding one of their pet cats and rowing a boat in the lake. So many scenes. So many memories. It had been so long.
It’s a tradition of sorts for all of us to leave something to remember the visits we have there for other family members to see and share, and for ourselves, to recall the happy times for earlier visits. In the course of over 50 years now, there are a lot of moments there. It’s like walking into the past and seeing it all over again. You live it. Again.
All at once I was flooded with the recollections of a lifetime. The power of those memories, flowing now like a tidal wave, unstoppable, was so completely overwhelming. I sat at the table and the tears just started pouring. It all came back to me. All at once.
I can still picture my mother at the stove and telling me and my children to go shuck the fresh corn that we picked up at a local farmer’s market stand. The dinners being served as the sun hung low in the sky casting a golden yellow on the water just outside the window. The warm breeze blowing in through the open windows as we sat there enjoying delicious foods that always tasted better when we were at the lake.
As heart wrenching as it was to be back there, it was liberating. I loved this place. I adored it. It was so precious to me. I was so angry with myself for having waited so long to return. Now that I was back, I was going to go as often as I could. I made trip after trip back there this year. I reconnected with it. I made it my own. I called my mother to tell her all about it. How I was loving it there and so glad being back. She was so happy for me. She too loved this place so dearly. She was so happy that I had returned and that I had reclaimed this place as mine.
Later that year, in October, I went to photograph the incredible colors of Autumn in the Catskills. It was cold, but beautiful. That visit would turn out to be the last time I called my mom from the cabin to tell her how things were, and how I was so enjoying being there. She was so happy that I did go back, and that I spent many days there during the year.
I would never get another chance to hear her voice on the phone, from the place she so dearly loved.
The cabin. On Somerset Lake.
When I went back in 2009, my mom was already gone. This time, going inside for the first time that year, in May, it was even more heart-wrenching. She was gone. I wouldn’t be calling her to tell her how things were at the lake, and to chat about the goings-on, or the neighbors, or if I was getting nice photographs. To this day, I will wake up and think to call my mom about something going on in my life, and in that split second, I forget that she is no longer here. Then, I remember, and I grieve all over again.
These visits back to the cabin would end up being a huge turning point in my life. I realized then and there that what I wanted to do was to end up living here. That somewhere down the road, not too long from now, I wanted and needed to call this place my home. It’s not only the most gorgeous place on Earth, it’s the last remaining constant of my entire life.
A connection with every phase of my life. A link to memories and times that I can recall the instant I am inside that cabin, or on the lake. A powerful nexus that hold the pieces of my life together for me.
Everything else I had is gone. My childhood home, my own home, my marriage and my intact family. They are but memories now.
At The Lake, I still have me. And all the things that made me who I am, in so many ways.
They still live there.
That’s why I need to.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
When life tests you to your limits.
Today my father took flowers down to the church, in memory of his wife of 52 years, my mother. Prayers were offered in memory of her today there. The same place where we all gathered, family and friends, at her memorial service a year ago. In a little over a week, it will be one year that she has been gone.
And what a year this has been.
I would love to say that we have all prospered in spite of such overwhelming loss, or that we found comfort somehow.
But life has been cruel and harsh and unyielding.
For me, it has been the hardest one yet.
In a few weeks, without a miracle of a new job, I will lose my home and my freedom and independence yet again. I was terminated from the job from hell a little over a week ago.
There's nothing left.
Still, the work on the book goes forward. I may have to pack up the cameras, the furniture and the computers and move it somewhere soon, but it's not going to derail me.
I've been tested so many times I now consider Job to be a kindred spirit.
In the end, he caved after tumultuous losses in his life, and forsake God and condemned him and lost faith. The Devil "won" the bet with God. But God forgave Job.
The one thing I don't share with that biblical character's story is that I don't expect any redemption to come my way. It is what it is, and no divine intervention or miracles are coming.
The most profound of my life's lessons comes in the form of a line in a powerful movie, "Unforgiven".
When Gene Hackman's character is wounded and on the floor of the Saloon, and Clint Eastwood's character is standing over him with a shotgun pointed at his head...Hackman says "I was building a house...I don't deserve this. I don't deserve to die like this".
Eastwood responds:
"Deserve's got nothin' to do with it".
And then pulls the trigger.
If life were fair and I got what I believe I would deserve, than I wouldn't be facing such overwhelming loss now, and for the last 5 years. My dad wouldn't be struggling to hold onto what he has left.
We wouldn't be anguishing about what comes next.
No, we are tested. Sometimes to the very limit we can endure.
When hope for calm and peace and security and some measure of happiness becomes so elusive and distant it become a cruel joke. That it even exists for us comes into question.
Neither my father or I deserve to be here now.
Yet we are.
Because deserve has nothing to do with it.
And what a year this has been.
I would love to say that we have all prospered in spite of such overwhelming loss, or that we found comfort somehow.
But life has been cruel and harsh and unyielding.
For me, it has been the hardest one yet.
In a few weeks, without a miracle of a new job, I will lose my home and my freedom and independence yet again. I was terminated from the job from hell a little over a week ago.
There's nothing left.
Still, the work on the book goes forward. I may have to pack up the cameras, the furniture and the computers and move it somewhere soon, but it's not going to derail me.
I've been tested so many times I now consider Job to be a kindred spirit.
In the end, he caved after tumultuous losses in his life, and forsake God and condemned him and lost faith. The Devil "won" the bet with God. But God forgave Job.
The one thing I don't share with that biblical character's story is that I don't expect any redemption to come my way. It is what it is, and no divine intervention or miracles are coming.
The most profound of my life's lessons comes in the form of a line in a powerful movie, "Unforgiven".
When Gene Hackman's character is wounded and on the floor of the Saloon, and Clint Eastwood's character is standing over him with a shotgun pointed at his head...Hackman says "I was building a house...I don't deserve this. I don't deserve to die like this".
Eastwood responds:
"Deserve's got nothin' to do with it".
And then pulls the trigger.
If life were fair and I got what I believe I would deserve, than I wouldn't be facing such overwhelming loss now, and for the last 5 years. My dad wouldn't be struggling to hold onto what he has left.
We wouldn't be anguishing about what comes next.
No, we are tested. Sometimes to the very limit we can endure.
When hope for calm and peace and security and some measure of happiness becomes so elusive and distant it become a cruel joke. That it even exists for us comes into question.
Neither my father or I deserve to be here now.
Yet we are.
Because deserve has nothing to do with it.
Monday, January 11, 2010
The Hardest Blow of All
On the morning of January 26th, 2009, the phone rang.
It was about 9:30 in the morning.
I picked up the phone. It was my dad. His voice was quivering.
He said, “Eric, I don’t know how to tell you this, so I will just tell you…” He was starting to fall apart when he said..
“Eric, your mom passed away last night”.
“She died in her sleep. When I went to wake her this morning, she wouldn’t wake up”
I had already had all I could take. I couldn’t take this.
This to me was to become the final blow that would rock me and crush me and leave me reeling in such pain that I couldn’t imagine how I could survive. Not to even mention what this would do to my dad.
I don’t have any adequate words to express how I felt, or even how I feel today, with her gone. But what I will do is tell you a lot more about her a little later.
This book is dedicated to her. She was the one who opened my eyes, my mind and my heart to the beauty and majesty of nature.
Especially a love of the birds.
She was my staunchest ally. My defender. My teacher. My nurturer, my friend. She instilled in me the curiosity and desire to learn more. To experience more. To see what the world was all about.
My mother.
God is so very fortunate to have her with him. I miss her every day. I will for the rest of my life.
Her leaving this world for the next also would come to inspire me to write this book, pursue my dreams, and share my photos and experiences. In some ways, I hope, for her to speak through me and thus share with others the joy and beauty of the birds, and of nature, and the love for them she instilled in me.
It was about 9:30 in the morning.
I picked up the phone. It was my dad. His voice was quivering.
He said, “Eric, I don’t know how to tell you this, so I will just tell you…” He was starting to fall apart when he said..
“Eric, your mom passed away last night”.
“She died in her sleep. When I went to wake her this morning, she wouldn’t wake up”
I had already had all I could take. I couldn’t take this.
This to me was to become the final blow that would rock me and crush me and leave me reeling in such pain that I couldn’t imagine how I could survive. Not to even mention what this would do to my dad.
I don’t have any adequate words to express how I felt, or even how I feel today, with her gone. But what I will do is tell you a lot more about her a little later.
This book is dedicated to her. She was the one who opened my eyes, my mind and my heart to the beauty and majesty of nature.
Especially a love of the birds.
She was my staunchest ally. My defender. My teacher. My nurturer, my friend. She instilled in me the curiosity and desire to learn more. To experience more. To see what the world was all about.
My mother.
God is so very fortunate to have her with him. I miss her every day. I will for the rest of my life.
Her leaving this world for the next also would come to inspire me to write this book, pursue my dreams, and share my photos and experiences. In some ways, I hope, for her to speak through me and thus share with others the joy and beauty of the birds, and of nature, and the love for them she instilled in me.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
My Refuge.
I've been writing furiously over the last couple days. (40 pages worth) I'm working first on what will be for lack of a better word, a preface and a prequel to the photographs and stories and anecdotes that will accompany them. It's a story about the last few years of my life. I wanted to tell it to allow the reader to not only understand me and who the author is, but to perhaps have a chance to relate to the kinds of hardships and disappointments we all face in our lives. Admittedly, mine have been excruciating, but they have also been the very reason this means so much to me, and directly responsible for the effort, time, love and passion I have put into it. For the reader to then perhaps be able to feel the thrill along with me at the joy that has come into my life by virtue of the birds, my photography, and that refuge. My refuge.
A short excerpt:
During the last year and a half, I have been making trips out with my cameras to the refuge. I call it my refuge, because in reality it became exactly that. The only place I go could go to feel alive. To feel safe. To see and appreciate the beauty of nature.
When I am there, I forget everything else. I have my cameras, and I am looking for wonderful, funny, beautiful and amazing things to capture. Today when I go there, and ever since she left us, I feel my mother’s presence. I feel closer to her somehow.
To be honest, by the time my mother died, and after I started my hellish job shortly thereafter, I had all but lost hope. I was so close to giving up. To throwing in the towel.
I saw nothing left to live for. I had resigned myself to a life where I’d work at something I hated, live completely alone. Be loved by no one, and pay everything I had to the woman who started this descent into hell, now almost 10 years ago. I was floundering. I had stood up every time, given it my all. I’d tried to find love again and lost. I’d lost every job I held, and now I was being abused by someone on top of it all.
I couldn’t stand it anymore.
The refuge became an obsession for me. I wanted to be there whenever I could. I would make the over 90 mile drive after work to get there while there was still enough light, and enough time to spend an hour or two looking for things to photograph, and to just take in the sights.
Every time I pulled around that corner and saw the marshes come into view, my heart rate slowed and I felt a peace come over me. I’d take a deep breath.
I was home.
In 2009, I would make over 150 trips to this place. I would take tens of thousands of photographs. It became the only place I could go to find joy and peace in my life. I needed this. More than I have ever needed anything in my life.
It saved me. It gave me purpose. It allowed me to develop my skills, use my creativity, and see such amazing things. It let me become closer to God’s incredible creation. I was learning. Enjoying. Developing. I was finding myself, maybe for the first time in my life. I knew what joy felt like again.
What I wasn’t expecting was how my journey and time there would end up allowing me to find new and wonderful friends who shared my passion. One thing would lead to another. By the time 2009 had ended I had a half-dozen new and wonderful friends. We’ go there together and meet up. We’d get incredible shots, together. We’d spend an entire day, laughing, joking, taking wonderful pictures of the birds, and feeling truly ALIVE.
I had come full circle in my life.
When I was a boy I marveled at the wonders of nature and the world around me. My parents stoked that curiosity. I was so privileged to grow up with so much to explore right in my own back yard. An incredible lakeside cabin to visit in the summer. Nature, science, learning. Birds and Butterflies. Fish and Reptiles. Rocks and Minerals and Fossils and Arrowheads. I soaked it all in. I learned and I experienced. I explored. I collected. I read countless books and field guides. A telescope to explore the heavens. When I was 16, I bought my first real camera.
A camera.
Now I could take pictures of the things I had seen. I was in my glory.
Now, decades later, after I had worked and toiled, married and raised a family, and done all the things an adult should do, I was back to being that young child once more. To get here, I had to lose everything I had, everything I love, and watch my dreams and plans for the future… die.
But I would find new dreams to hold onto. I’d learn again what it felt like to thrill at witnessing nature in all her glory.
I’d rediscover.
Me.
A short excerpt:
During the last year and a half, I have been making trips out with my cameras to the refuge. I call it my refuge, because in reality it became exactly that. The only place I go could go to feel alive. To feel safe. To see and appreciate the beauty of nature.
When I am there, I forget everything else. I have my cameras, and I am looking for wonderful, funny, beautiful and amazing things to capture. Today when I go there, and ever since she left us, I feel my mother’s presence. I feel closer to her somehow.
To be honest, by the time my mother died, and after I started my hellish job shortly thereafter, I had all but lost hope. I was so close to giving up. To throwing in the towel.
I saw nothing left to live for. I had resigned myself to a life where I’d work at something I hated, live completely alone. Be loved by no one, and pay everything I had to the woman who started this descent into hell, now almost 10 years ago. I was floundering. I had stood up every time, given it my all. I’d tried to find love again and lost. I’d lost every job I held, and now I was being abused by someone on top of it all.
I couldn’t stand it anymore.
The refuge became an obsession for me. I wanted to be there whenever I could. I would make the over 90 mile drive after work to get there while there was still enough light, and enough time to spend an hour or two looking for things to photograph, and to just take in the sights.
Every time I pulled around that corner and saw the marshes come into view, my heart rate slowed and I felt a peace come over me. I’d take a deep breath.
I was home.
In 2009, I would make over 150 trips to this place. I would take tens of thousands of photographs. It became the only place I could go to find joy and peace in my life. I needed this. More than I have ever needed anything in my life.
It saved me. It gave me purpose. It allowed me to develop my skills, use my creativity, and see such amazing things. It let me become closer to God’s incredible creation. I was learning. Enjoying. Developing. I was finding myself, maybe for the first time in my life. I knew what joy felt like again.
What I wasn’t expecting was how my journey and time there would end up allowing me to find new and wonderful friends who shared my passion. One thing would lead to another. By the time 2009 had ended I had a half-dozen new and wonderful friends. We’ go there together and meet up. We’d get incredible shots, together. We’d spend an entire day, laughing, joking, taking wonderful pictures of the birds, and feeling truly ALIVE.
I had come full circle in my life.
When I was a boy I marveled at the wonders of nature and the world around me. My parents stoked that curiosity. I was so privileged to grow up with so much to explore right in my own back yard. An incredible lakeside cabin to visit in the summer. Nature, science, learning. Birds and Butterflies. Fish and Reptiles. Rocks and Minerals and Fossils and Arrowheads. I soaked it all in. I learned and I experienced. I explored. I collected. I read countless books and field guides. A telescope to explore the heavens. When I was 16, I bought my first real camera.
A camera.
Now I could take pictures of the things I had seen. I was in my glory.
Now, decades later, after I had worked and toiled, married and raised a family, and done all the things an adult should do, I was back to being that young child once more. To get here, I had to lose everything I had, everything I love, and watch my dreams and plans for the future… die.
But I would find new dreams to hold onto. I’d learn again what it felt like to thrill at witnessing nature in all her glory.
I’d rediscover.
Me.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
How it all began...
I round the corner past the visitor’s center, and there it is. Stretching out as far as the eye can see. Water and grasses and marshland, that from this vantage point appears for all the world to be a surreal landscape from another planet. It’s vast and flat and the sun reflects in a hundred different ways from all the pools of water contained within. There are no trees. Just grasses and marsh and water. Everywhere. I’ve lived in New Jersey all but the first 2 years of my life. I’ve never seen anything like this before.
As I sit there for a moment just enjoying the view, a Great Egret flies into view and I’m startled and taken by the huge size, the gracefulness, and the gleaming white against the deep green grasses. I’ve seen them many times before, but not like this. Soon after that, there comes another, and then another….and I realize. This is where the birds live. This is where I belong.
As I get closer to making the turn onto Wildlife drive, I see a gorgeous blue bird perching on the sign that says “One way traffic, next 8 miles”. It’s a Blue Grosbeak. I’ve never seen one before. I’m not here 5 minutes, I have barely started my day, and I am stopping to take photographs of this gorgeous bird, proudly proclaiming this sign as his territory.
In that moment, I forget my life and all the pain. I am transfixed on the beautiful creation, and all I want to do is see if I can get some nice close shots, in good light. It was not to be. This time, the sun is mostly behind him, and I can’t find a good angle. The shots are nice, but it will have to wait for another time to get the view I really want of him. Luckily, there will be other times. Many other times.
Wildlife drive and it’s signs could serve as a good moniker for where my life is about to head. It’s one way. It’s a long drive. But it will be filled with revelations. Incredible sights. Beautiful scenery, and an inexorable pull and force that will reshape my life.
I didn’t know it on that day, but I was about to begin a journey that would save my life. That would give me reason to live, to go on, and to recapture what it means to be truly alive.
I would come to call this place home. The only place on Earth where I felt as if I had a chance. I had lost all hope. I had lost everything in my life. Everything I held dear. After almost a decade of turmoil, tumult, loss and destruction, I had nothing left. My life had been obliterated. I watched my dreams die. But here, in this place, I found my soul once more. I found a reason to keep on going, and the determination to do what I love, after losing all that I loved.
The birds of Forsythe would lift me on their wings and I would have a chance to soar once again. Truly, for the first time in my life. I couldn’t have predicted the year that was to follow this. I had no idea what was in store when I started this journey. All I knew was that it was a journey I had to take.
My life had become one of an unyielding series of crushing losses. In 1998, I moved with my wife and children into a gorgeous new home that we had built. It was our dream home. It was large but not huge, with an incredible yard. That was the main attraction for me. It was set on an acre in cul-de-sac, in the nicest part of town, with woods at the back, and a chance to create incredible gardens. Gorgeous paver brick patios. A Koi pond. Ornamental trees. Decks and a pool. Of course, many bird feeders and wind chimes. It was heaven. It was going to be my refuge for me and for my family. A place to live in until the kids moved out at least, and maybe, a place to enjoy retirement. It was imbued with nature. Both inside and out. I worked tirelessly to make it so.
I built that home and poured my love and my dreams into it. It was gorgeous by anyone’s standards. By the time I was done, there were flowering trees of all kinds. Thousands of bulbs that pushed through the earth every spring to blaze with color. Over 150 different kinds of perennials graced the garden beds. Hummingbirds visited the nectar feeders. Dozens of species of birds would come to the feeders and visit. The sounds of finely made wind chimes would add peace and beautiful music to the landscape. We’d lay in the pool and my wife would say to me “I can’t believe how lucky I am”.
Those words would come to not only ring so incredibly hollow, but would stand as the most ironic words ever spoken to me in my life. For only a few years later, it would all come to an end, and I would watch helplessly as the life I had…the marriage, the family, the home, the career, would all come to an excruciating end. I would lose it all. And then I would lose even more.
By 2009, I’d find myself in a hellish job with an abusive manager. A grueling 4 hour a day commute. Bankrupt. Living alone in a townhouse, the home long gone. The marriage long over. The children no longer at home with me. Huge alimony payments to my ex-wife for life.
In 2000, I took a vacation with my kids to our lake cabin property in the Catskills. My wife didn’t want to come with us. She needed time alone. Things were tenuous in our marriage. We weren’t getting along well, and things were already tense and difficult. There was a lot of fighting. She wasn’t happy.
When I returned from that trip, my world would be rocked forever. She confessed an affair. She had been with “him” while I was away.
To say that we don’t know what infidelity feels like until we experience it, is like saying we didn’t understand what a burn feels like until we put our hands into a scalding hot frying pan. You just aren’t ready for it. You can’t imagine it. You can’t speculate about how it would be.
I was rocked. I cried for days and weeks and months to follow. The betrayal of the trust I had was overwhelming. I never imagined it could hurt this much. I couldn’t function at work. I could think of nothing else.
She was diagnosed severely Bipolar. She went on medications. I tried to be the best and most supportive husband I could be, and to work with her on reconciling. It was a long and painfully difficult time. I couldn’t get it out of my head. I was never going to be the same. But I tried. I wanted to make it work. And I was afraid. I didn’t want to lose my intact family and my home and marriage.
Fast-forward to 2005. Things are again not going well between us. The stress of the finances, the house, and issues with her bipolar condition had us back almost at square one. We fought a lot. The kids now, almost adults, were tired of it and even they wanted us to divorce.
Then it happened.
Another affair. This time, the next door neighbor who had been sweet on her forever, became the man she would throw away our entire life for. I will never forget. Labor Day weekend, 2005. She invited both he and his wife over for a celebration around our pool in the evening. I watched as she flirted openly with him. I had wondered about things before this, as the behaviors were becoming unusual. Lots of trips out at odd times. Lots of excuses about where she was. What she had been doing. Changes in habits and behavior. By the time Labor Day had come, it was all but obvious what had been going on.
I confronted her. I accused. She reacted as a wayward spouse typically does. That I was insane. That I was crazy. That I was the one with the problem, not her. “How dare I say these things!” Still, the evidence was overwhelming.
By the time it was over I had hired a private investigator. Used sophisticated surveillance equipment. Searched phone records, and learned the truth. She had a full-blown affair going with him, and it was right under my nose.
By May of 2006 things had reached a head. On the day after my birthday, she went out in the morning saying she had to do a lot of shopping, and not to expect her for a number of hours. I lay on the couch and took a mid-morning nap. I got up in early afternoon to go put on a pot of coffee. She still wasn’t home.
I looked through the living room out the windows. I saw two police officers coming up my walkway. I answered the door.
30 minutes later I was at my parent’s home with a few pairs of underwear, my laptop, wallet and briefcase.
I would never spend another night in that home. Our dream home. The one I was supposed to spend the rest of my life in. The place that was to be our sanctuary.
She filed for divorce that same day.
I counter filed about a week later.
So began my journey into hell.
It would only get worse from that point on.
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