Looking for the positive

I am sitting on my bed, with the bedroom door shut, hiding from, but also listening to, the Insurance Adjuster Outside talking to my husband about the damage I caused to the garage and most of its contents. I sit ignoring the glorious honey rays of sun as it gently slips away and instead I...

Flowering a death

I missed Jill's funeral yesterday. Not that I had had much enthusiasm for a third flight back across the Atlantic for a funeral in less than 6 months. But I did want to be there to share the grief. To say goodbye. But in the end, as many expats find, the cost, distance and organization...

Guiding the Eyes

What makes see things the way we do? Can I push my vision of the world on you? Let's see. First I'll go easy on you.   What is it? A single image resting in the frame. No tricks. The apple is the apple. The dog a dog. The sign a sign. The fungus an...

Light and Dark

I struggled with this. My task this week: look for high contrast settings to over or under expose. To create joyful high key photographs flooded with light and dark photographs of mystery and tension. What I got was something slightly different. But it has been hard to over expose in the muddy greys that have...

Musical moments

Another School of Rock weekend whiled away at the North Door club in East Austin watching my son play bass this time. It was awesome. Here are a few frozen moments of music, my son's serious concentration and the interplay of audience and band as the guitars serenaded and the singers held the stage.  

Wood Walking

Its supposed to be restorative wood walking. Natures antidepressant.  So I took my son into the healing calm of green leaf and brown bark, out of the bustle of the city and the stress of school. It was for a while, till the world reasserted itself - sending warning noises through the branches: dog barking,...

Genetic Bypass

Grief has eased its stranglehold and memory reasserted its right to travel through time and bring us back to those we love.

Organizing my kitchen

Amazon Alexa is playing 'music to clean by' and our kitchen island is covered in boxes. My niece holds up container after container of  rice and I look skeptically at HEB ginger cookies in a clear plastic container. When did I buy these? Surely ages ago? I bite one tentatively - urgh - soft almost damp...

Natural Bridge Caverns

Today we visited Natural Bridge Caverns. I have visited caves in Wales France and Italy but these were by far the best in terms of rock formation that I have ever seen. I felt in a completely different dimension as we walked ever lower 180 foot below the surface in the darkness with pools of light...

Austin Airport

I used to visit Heathrow Airport in London just for fun as a child. I still like Airports. Austin with its live music and statues is cool. Small enough to be friendly large enough to be interesting. Today Austin Airport was even better. Because today my beloved niece arrived their on the one daily flight...