An exercise in distortion. (A photo of Krystyna)
If photographs are messages, then the message is transparent and mysterious. Dressed in black, with black hair (black like the night) and a black bra, and black eyes, she introduced herself to my bleakness and told me to have a seat in the kitchen. There she prepared soup from scratch and I watched in amazement as the steam rose from the bubbling pot.
“You make me want to take photographs of everything.”
I said to myself in a dream.
“Why?” the woman in black asked,
“Because I am inspired, by the dreamy quality of life when someone cares about you and you care about them, and you could listen to their stories forever, of their mother and father, the cows, chickens, the artwork and an innocent stroll through a museum filled with yellow buckets of sunshine. Then waking up on a bed filled with yellow buckets of sunshine. My own snoring wakes me up and you are gone. The white dog remains sleeping by my side but I cannot dream consistently without your body next to mine. Buried under the warmth of quilts (because the Spring is still Winters mistress and Summer takes forever to boil over –like your soup, hot steaming fresh. We waited in long lines speaking and thinking Polish, smelling the smoked meats, picking up odds and ends for the Easter feast) Even better than being cared for is caring for. When those two work together then sometimes (mostimes) there seems to be a magical spark within yourself that says “All things are flowing”
When we all woke up from what had to be the worse Winter ever, it is not a coincidence that the tulips are singing, the trees are popping SIX weeks early and Spring has arrived on the express train. The floods in North Jersey have subsided. The snow has all melted and maybe the wind has whistled its last dangerous song. It is days like this when you say, “I’m gonna hold my heart up to the light and see if there is more to it then just muscles and blood. I’m gonna give it all I got to touch you, and hold you, and keep you from the Winters of life. These things I promise, in the Spring of this new decade, a new time to be hoping.” (Yes, I love you)
