Ghost Signs

My elementary school days were filled with riding my pony, reading in my treehouse, swimming in the neighbors' pool and playing in the woods. But once I hit middle school, and my dad had a life-changing accident with a table saw, there was no time for play. A lot of the household responsibility fell on me, including helping care for my younger brother.  Being a first-born, guilt and responsibility are attached to me like a heavy ball and chain. So taking a day and wandering in the city with my camera, which definitely falls into the category of play, is something that is extremely hard for me.

It is Monday morning, I should be at the grocery store wandering the aisles, trying to figure out what to feed myself and my family for the week. I should be loading the washing machine with the weekend's exercise clothes and Sunday best. I should be waiting for the grass to dry so I can fill the lawn mower with gas and walk behind it for two hours, listening to my book, and sweating through another set of exercise clothes.

But instead I am sitting at a little cafe table in the city, chai latte in front of me and camera beside me. It is the last week of ArtPrize. ArtPrize is an independently organized international art competition that takes place each fall, it is free and open to the public. This is the ninth year of this heavily visited art extravaganza. It has been a few years since I have attended, the years of my daughter being away at college and visits to her for her birthday seemed to take the place of ArtPrize. Last Friday though, my husband and I had a date day and we came to ArtPrize. With over a thousand entries, we didn't even come close to seeing it all.  My husband is out of town for a couple of days, with nobody needing me, the guilt and "shoulds" have been displaced until tomorrow.

ArtPrize is the justification to come back and play, but what I really came back for was to stalk this building with my camera.

At the top is the ugly glass exterior that was on the building, put on by some misguided souls in the name of modernization, probably in the 1970's. Underneath is the original and glorious brick. I was enthralled by this find on Friday, but didn't have the time or the right light to grab more than a few quick shots. Today, I am back in time for morning light. Fortified by my chai latte and gluten free bar, I walk the entire perimeter of the building, documenting every perfectly preserved ghost sign.

Buoyed by my stalking and capturing of treasures, I set off to find more art. I will revisit a few favorites from Friday, seek new favorites from the previously unseen, cast my vote for my favorite from the pool of top twenty, enjoy lunch in a rooftop restaurant, and eventually go home and mow the grass.

Old guilt is hard to shed, but I am slowly learning to play again.

Needs More Feeling

Guilt hung over me like a pregnant rain cloud as I backed my car out of the garage. Three pair of sad eyes followed the car's progress down the driveway, one hand and one little paw raised forlornly in a wave, the third set of eyes sat in silence, staring at me from his spot at the living room window.

If only they would understand that I am a better wife and mother when I take this time for solo adventures. I am a better photographer and writer when I push myself to explore unfamiliar places. There is comfort in the familiar, but growth happens when I push into the unknown.

This spring, whether I wrote pieces for a writing class I was taking, or posts for my blog, after I wrote the first, bits and pieces draft, and then the second, some semblance of order draft, I always made the same note after re-reading them the following morning - Needs More Feeling - written in red ink.

By noting this I didn't just mean add more feeling to my writing, I also meant add more feeling to my life. I am so busy moving from one event to the next, that I don't allow myself to feel, only observe, note details and move on. It is alright to be an observer, but I have to be aware of how things make me feel, that is the only way to bring people into the story or into the photograph.

I set off that rain cloud morning, to explore and photograph something I remember visiting as a child and then again in the very early years of our marriage, when I was only a slightly more grown-up child; a pair of hydroelectric dams, located on unexplored back roads in a northern county. When I mentioned to my husband where I was going that morning, he didn't like the idea, saying "people get killed at those dams". Now I have not heard of any murders there in recent years, and the rebel in me wanted to go even more, just to prove him wrong. I trust my intuition and if something seems off, I tend to play it safe and avoid the place.

As I drove down the road, my rain cloud of guilt trailed along behind me, I knew the only way to make that cloud dissipate was to get that first photograph taken, somehow then the joy of creativity takes over and guilt is banished. The fruit orchards in this northern place were in full bloom, and blooms were on my photo bucket list for the spring. Orchard found, photograph taken, the sun came out and the oppressive rain cloud was gone.

Reaching the town closest to the dams, I decided to stop at the local McDonald's for a bathroom break and a snack. Snack in bag, I drove to a small park located in the heart of downtown. I remembered the park from camping weekends with the in-laws in those early married years.

The park was quiet, and the picnic tables were clean. I settled in with my snack and a book. When finished with my hash brown and caramel latte, I closed my book, a few more chapters read in my book for the upcoming book club. I lifted my head and took in the view around me. I was surrounded by detail rich, old brick buildings. There was a tan brick church directly across the street from me with a beckoning door waiting to be photographed. Just past the church was a set of mysterious metal stairs leading upwards toward an even more mysterious looking building. I brought my trash to the receptacle, returned my book to the car, grabbed my camera and set off to explore the town.

I hadn't forgotten the dams, but I was learning to slow myself down, and trust my intuition. I was curious to see where the mysterious stairs led and how I would feel about my discovery.