Fragments From Floyd

In usual fashion after I have made a major purchase (a rare and usually long-contemplated crisis in our household), it seems that a combination of curiosity and angst makes me go looking to see what kind of damage I’ve done. (the “you coulda had a V8 reflex, I suppose.)

And, as I imagined, the reviews of the telephoto lens I’ve purchased are all over the map. I think the consensus among those people that are not absolute purists on the Nikon Forums is that the 18-200mm lens will do exactly what I expect it will do, provided my expectations are realistic for a consumer grade lens with an 11 factor zoom.

I have, however, decided for the time being to keep the D70 body and the lenses I have, as the three lenses and two camera bodies will be interchangeable. It would be a luxury, granted, to have a backup camera (as opposed to selling it and making a little bit to replace the cash outlay about which I feel some small degree of guilt) but I have in the past done without a camera for more than a month while my mine went back to Nikon for repair, and I never want to do that again. Funny: it was the $1200-1500 I expected to make in the sales of my present equiptment that tipped me toward this purchase, and now I’m waffling on that. Oh fickle man that I am.

However, says the devil on my left shoulder, remember that since you have gone to digital as-needed printing for Slow Road Home, there won’t be the big outlay for a thousand books like there was last year. This year, you can move your focus (no pun intended he assures me) to photography, and this camera is a lifetime investment that may in turn bring you income! (I like the way that Rascal Rationalizer thinks!)

Frankly, part of my decision was ergonomic: especially the 80-200 lens is heavy and difficult for my hands to hold, and I’m not able to very quickly (or comfortably) change lenses when the need arises suddenly. Having a single lens that will in most cases cover from wide-angle to telephoto will be a real joy, while the quality may not be 100% of what it would be with a professional lens. I am, after all, more interested in getting the shot than in a shot being perfect; it is more about making a memory money.

Heck, nothing I have written is perfect by a longshot, and yet it has often been satisfying to have said it. I have similarly-realistic expectations for the photography, and perhaps both imperfect expressions taken together will come close to saying what it is that I want to say. I think that’s an obtainable objective for any future marriage between images in words and pixels.

“There is nothing ordinary” I said in the author’s note to the book. And yet, I realize I’ve let our close-at-hand human habitat become just that: nothing but the background canvas on which the more immediate and seemingly-relevant events (most of them indoors and by way of a computer monitor) take place.

One of my New Year’s goals is to reverse this relative numbness and indifference to those fragments of ordinary life here that, four years ago, became new to me because they were new to you, the readers of this blog. Of course, that readership has been replaced by fresh batches of visitors several times over, and so I hope to recover a sense of newness in this new year, see the familiar through new eyes as if waking from a long sleep. And I’ll take the risk of showing or telling you something I’ve shown or told before.

Here’s an example: in all my archives of images, until yesterday, I had never taken one from just off the back porch facing the pasture, the barn and the valley of Nameless Creek. I guess I just thought since it was not ten feet from the house, it wasn’t image-worthy. It is the view we see when we put the dog’s bowl out on the back porch in the mornings.

And yet, it is the still-life tableau before us far more often than quick glimpses of the back reaches of the creek in the gorge at the far end of our property. This is a look out our window, so to speak–the beauty we can touch with our eyes. This is the light that comes to us in early January facing south as the sun rises over a frosty field while we are still in our slippers.

There is the barn–again, and I will stop apologizing for showing you yet another image of it. And the little bridge over the branch flows under the bridge, still babbling with the rains of New Year’s Day. You can see the mailbox–the one near the right margin of the cover of the book, and the maple tree, also on the book cover and seen again up closer, backlit on the blog a few days back. The road and creek pass just front and back of the tree.

And look: the tiny HeresHome sign that faces the road. I remember what a wonderful day it was in November, 1999, to plant that aluminum “flag” and claim this place for our family. And–I didn’t know it then–to share our ordinary with readers and viewers all over the world.

I think I heard somewhere that the winery building at Chateau Morrisette was the largest timberframe structure east of the Mississippi. I do know the timbers were dredged from the bottom of Puget Sound after being submerged in cold waters for a hundred years–massively large and long. It would take more camera than I went with or own to do it justice. The upstairs room where the winetastings take place for this year’s Wine Club Open House was still rough when I first saw it back in the summer.

I had stopped by in June with low expectations that the gift shop folk would consent to putting Slow Road Home on their limited shelving for books. They consented and bought 12. Emboldened, I told the store manager I’d be happy to do a reading and signing, should they ever have an event where such was suitable. She brightened at the idea, envisioning this double weekend of crowds upstairs, and took me up to show it to me. Impressive, I thought, and tried to imagine my little book table in such a grand castle of a building. Today will be my fourth and final day, and it has been most interesting and rewarding, and I am most appreciative of the opportunity!

I spoke with so many interesting people. The situation is somewhat like blogging: nobody forces a visitor to stop by the table, examine the book, and know from what they see that we might have something to say to each other. There either is or there is not a connection between the book browser and author. For those who stopped to chat, there were interesting stories.

One poor gal choked up after reading the back cover. “I loved it here. My husband made me leave. I’ve never quit hurting or missing the mountains. They are a part of me, and I see that same connection from what little I’ve seen of your book.”

Another book-buyer said he was convinced that the mountains (of Patrick County along the parkway) was where they belonged. His wife was not convinced. He hollered at me from the cash-register line: “Fred, does your wife like living here?” I told me that, if anything, she was more attached to this place than I was. And he called his wife over to hear our testimonial of how well this lifestyle fits our needs and preferences. “But it’s not for everybody” I told her. You’ll know it if it fits you.

Others stopped to say hello, book readers already, or blog visitors, or appreciative of the radio pieces or newspaper column–people I would never have had opportunity to meet. One lady said “I loved your book, but there was one part, after I read the first paragraph, I couldn’t go any farther. I was already crying.” And of course it was the sad account of putting Buster down.

Another book reader, of all the little mundane details, delighted in the tale of walking with a “spider stick” down our loop through the woods. “We do that too! It was so powerfully connecting with the little rituals of our daily lives in the mountains to find common ground with you on Goose Creek. And when we’re away (so many have weekend places here) we enjoy picking up Slow Road to remind us of how the season is changing back up here in the mountains.”

There were people from Giles County, Pulaski County, Patrick County, and over in the Roanoke area who felt the same connection to place that Ann and I do here in Floyd. Yes, there are unique qualities here, but it is the larger connection and attachment to the southern mountains that we all love and seem to need. One fella, in conversation of “where are you from” told me about a T-shirt he’d seen in another nearby county. I’ll just adapt it to here. It said…

It has been gratifying to find out that others have the same sense as we do, that we have arrived at a place we’ve been moving toward all our lives.

Thanks to kind reader Missy for jogging my “remembery” (as the one of our kids used to say) that I had mentioned offering a Christmas Package Deal from Goose Creek Press. And I’m prepared to do just that. So listen and listen tight, pilgrim. (Who used to say that? Hmmm?)

Usual arrangement: book $16, notecards pack of five $10 and shipping $3.

For you, a special deal (but no Ginsu knives, no matter when you order)…

One copy of Slow Road Home (first edition signed by author and inscribed upon request) plus one pack of Fragments notecards (more or less as seen in the sidebar of the blog) for only $25 delivered. What a great gift idea!

Sorry, not available by PayPal, only by check per instructions here. (Note one image in packet is different from original five images seen in sidebar.)