The latest photo from my father: An F-15 from the nearby Air Force base leaves its mark across both sky and water. I grew up in this area. On one side of the river -- teepee rings lingered from the 1800s, and on the other side, fighter jets experimented with sonic booms in the 1960s.
When something moves through something else -- a boat through water, a jet through air -- waves are created. If the speed and power of something gets to be so fast and strong, the waves created by said passage start to pile up against one another. It gets to where they can't get out of the way of one another. That's when the sonic booms, so to speak with poetic license.
Across the kitchen table from me, my daughter was working on lesson plans for her first grade students at a school designed for kids with emotional and social issues. We can, at times, act like an old married couple where when one says "Are there any more plums left in the fridge?" the other might reply, "I forgot to tell you the neighbors brought us a pumpkin."
I told my daughter about the lastest photo from her grandfather and what I was learning when I googled sonic boom. She talked about math centers, parent permission slips, and a locket found on the playground. What did I suppose was inside the locket? she asked.
Perhaps what was inside the locket would help locate its owner. Maybe it was a photo of the little girl once found miles away from home at the fishing bridge, at 3 AM. Maybe it was the girl who often sits on a neighbor's doorstep at night, waiting for someone to let her in. Maybe, my daughter thought, it belonged to one of the students who wears a whistle on her backpack.Whistle on a backpack? Yes, for in case her father shows up again -- she and her brothers are instructed to grab their whistles and blow as loud and long as they can, summoning help. Apparently there is a lifelong restraining order to keep him away from his kids. A photo of him is taped inside each teacher's desk drawer. Just in case he storms in.
I put aside my Mach 1 research, closing up my laptop with its bookmarked page filled with talk of boom carpets and overpressure profiles. We picked out pretty papers and spread them on top of my laptop, set the locket down. When my daughter opened the locket, I expected to see a photo of a mother, a father, maybe someone's happy dog - but not this: a dull black pebble, carefully glued inside.
Hi Sherry, I love reading your posts. They always take me to places I never expected to go, and they are worth the trip. You say so much in few words- you know when to let the story speak for itself. The child's locket, within the context you've presented it, and the stories you've chosen to share about the children- it gets to me, brings tears to my eyes, like no extra words could.
ReplyDeleteHi Sherri,
ReplyDeleteI want you to know I actually turned my laptop over so I could look at your father's picture upside down. A couple of my children are into photography too. I can't figure out how to work these new digital cameras and can never seem to get one to focus for me. Perhaps it's in the stance, or perhaps it's in the lack of patience trying to capture a moving thing (like a fuzzy neon spotted caterpillar) with an on moving thing (lens). Supposed to be unmoving anyway...There was some point to that moving/unmoving that relates back to your earlier post about photography and also to this post...waves which gather and fall into chaos and yet in the chaos, in the moment of the breaking of sound, something occurs in the silence after doesn't it?
The pebble kept in a heart locket instead of tossed out into the water to ripple?
Not sure where that metaphor might take me further, but thank you, as always for sharing these journeys with me. (us.)
Tell your Dad his picture is absolutely stunning (bottomside and topside) I love how your pictures and your words blend, always such an amazing experience when I come here. How do you do it?
No, seriously. How?
I so agree with Annie. You definitely have a gift. I love your writing. The picture is wonderful. The black pebble in the locket still has me thinking...
ReplyDeleteA father's picture, a 'couple' of related friends, a sonic boom, a restrained father, a whistle on a backpack, a mysterious rock-locket -
ReplyDeleteit's like a Dali painting. So rich.
Feel like I arrived just in time for the gathering of (some of) your fans. Your writing has a feel of home for me as you segue from thought, image, situation to others which you've connected without seams. I think this is a synaptical process, or is as I experience it. All things are connected, if we keep the thread from breaking. I am scarcely able and completely unwilling to explain how I get from A to B and your work moves so easily, no explaining would ever be asked. I can imagine my younger sister finding enough magic in a black pebble that she glued it into a locket.
ReplyDeletehi annie,
ReplyDeleteoh man, it tickles me when someone else takes the "leap" with me from sonic boom to lost lockets (for example). how can we get old if our minds can play like that?
when i work on writing poetry, it feels like shadow writing. what is the least amount of information we can hand out and yet still have another person sense what is causing the shadow?
hi mel,
gosh, i am intrigued with the ripples and the waves you've offered in your comments.. and with you flipping over your laptop - my dad would get a kick out of that.
i'm pleased that you enjoy these seemingly random connections - it makes for such a deeper experience to share these mach 1/locket connections with others.
sometimes i think growing up in a remote power camp with so little to do but play with the landscape and my mind might have had an effect on me. also, my family is the sort to sit around and talk like this. among my siblings (3 brothers and 1 sister) and various cousins (59 or so) and parents with playful inquiring minds- we've all encouraged each other with these "did you ever think about how mushrooms and parking spots are related?"
hi donna!
i was once married to a man who would remind me that no one could understand what went through my head. he meant it lovingly....but still, when i write i wonder if my words are too sparse, if the leaps are too harsh. it helps me to hear your words. i wish i had taken that photo of the sky and water - i'll pass the compliment on to my father. he wrote this morning to remind me that the shot requires as many pixels as you can get and to remember to keep the formatting on Large. (as if that's all it took!) regarding the pebble in the locket...i think about that little girl with time and glue on her hands. at first my daughter and i wanted to know who she was so she could return the locket to her and now we wonder why she is....
hi kass-
you have such an artist's view, it's as though you take my words and show me yet another view. thank you for that. so many textures, so many layers, so much richness - right at our kitchen tables.
hi marylinn-
oh, yes! keeping the thread from breaking. that is it. and i think if our spirits are dialed to "wide open", the possibilities of connections, of keeping that thread unbroken increases.
sounds to me your younger sister and mine could be related.
I like the contrasts here today...old teepee rings and sonic boom...pretty, pink, shiny locket and dull grey pebble. The world is full of juxtaposition.
ReplyDeleteYes, Sherry, I love how your mind slips from one ripple to the next.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post, coming from many directions and always meeting somewhere with understanding. Ripples... washing the shores of our life.
ReplyDeleteWe live in a Wabi Sabi world but you, my dear, seem to be able to bring it all together and make some amazing connections.
kerry- i agree. whenever i find such contrast, it seems to me the world rings true.
ReplyDeletejohn- that's always good to hear because i am never sure if i'm one ripple short of a brick dropped in the pond...or something like that....
farmlady- oh i love what you wrote here: "we live in a wabi sabi world"...and as i said to john, it's always great to share these connections/ripples with others.