i’m going to tell you about it in three parts with some words and pictures, but first let me set this up by explaining the one thing i would never, ever recommend you try to do in london: rent a car and drive yourself around. as with all such lessons, carol and i learned this one in a series of painful steps, but only after some relatively good automotive decisions lured us into a false sense of self-confidence. on arrival at our hotel we congratulated each other for being smart enough to have not scheduled our rental pick up until the following morning because that allowed us to pain-less-ly learn the very first thing you should know before renting a car in london: there is absolutely no place to park one.

we’d chosen our hotel in part because of its proximity to things we wanted to see, which also put it inside what londoners call a “congestion zone.” that means parking anything larger than a hot wheels car is illegal without a permit and that you can get a ticket for simply driving there at the wrong time of day. it also meant that the closest and most convenient parking lot for a rental car was… in the rental car parking lot at the airport. given that we were using london city airport — a small field only about 5 miles from our hotel, what should’ve been a straightforward and quick train ride was all that would separate us from hitting the open road and the beautiful english countryside we hoped to see.

right.

of course, we didn’t find out until we got there that most of the rail lines between london city and downtown were under renovation for the 2012 olympics. our 30-minute train ride became an hour and a half of jumping from trains to buses and back to trains again. nevertheless, our memorial day jaunt to cambridge was a fairly easy drive-or at least no worse than anything else we’d done in a car in europe-and by the time we turned in that evening we were feeling no worries about the next day’s drive to stonehenge. as they say, pride goeth before the traffic jam.
the next lesson we learned is that weekday traffic volume in london is much worse than it is on a holiday, which-coming from a city like dallas-was a bit of a surprise since our freeways are always packed. immediately after that revelation we got another one: not all maps are created equal. put another way, a thick green line on a map does not necessarily indicate a four lane road with lots of signs telling you how to get to…the freeway, for example. it was thusly that we found ourselves in the middle of the following morning, creeping along a two-lane street deep in a residential section of london, completely snarled in wall to wall traffic on an avenue that i seriously doubt is much wider today than it was 500 years ago when a “wide load” was probably an ox cart.

what happened next was easily one of the most bizarre things i’ve ever seen, at least since high school. carol was at the wheel and we were at basically at a dead stop, when i noticed two guys come boiling out of the front yard of a small house next to the street. at first i thought they must just be roughhousing, but within seconds i realized that this was no simple game of grabass. before i knew it, they were in the middle of the street going full on world wrestling federation, and there were only two cars between us and a ringside seat. the difference between what was happening and the wwf was that instead of fake beating someone up with a folding metal chair, one guy was actually breaking a wooden chair leg over the other guy’s head.

at this point i discovered that i’m either a natural photojournalist or a very, very bad person, because i suddenly found myself standing in the middle of the street with a camera in my hand. no thought other than take. this. picture. now.

in the time it took to fire off a dozen frames the fight was over and the apparent victor was looking straight at me with an expression that did not look like he was going to want signed copies of the images. he started to advance towards me and i started to wonder if i was going to have to use my canon as a billy club. how would i explain that to the insurance company? the woman in the car in front of us had also gotten out and was clearly on her cell phone with the police. this apparently motivated the assailant to suddenly and inexplicably stop and pull his own phone from his pocket. nutty, but fine with me.

at any rate, i didn’t hear a lot of what got said because i was busy doing a mental calculation involving the approximate number of hours we would be spending in a london police station describing what we saw, instead of seeing stonehenge, which was our one and only mission. i handed my business card to the good citizen, told her if the london police needed to contact me for photos to use as evidence that was fine, hopped back in the car, heart pounding, and told carol to step on it. sometime after lunch we finally found the freeway we needed and made our escape from the combat zone.

it had taken us some four hours to go less than 20 miles.

if you don’t know, this blog was never supposed to be anything more than a marketing tool for my photography business. in august of 2008 carol and i made a decision to send the following spring in europe so she could finish her mba, and i could do the starving artist thing. we knew we’d be moving someplace besides dallas after her graduation, and that i’d be picking up and starting all over again in a new market.  i needed a marketing plan! i felt like a new website would certainly be in order and that i wanted to finally start a blog. i couldn’t just show up in new town, usa, and say, “here i am! come give me money to take your pictures.” i figured a blog would be a good way to build some background, showcase some of my photography, and as a bonus, have a cool diary of our excellent adventure in europe. once we got back, and i got established, the blog would transition to being strictly business. instead, it’s gotten much, much more personal.

six months after getting hurt i declared that the blog would continue to be more about photography than the trials and tribulations of recovery from a spinal cord injury. i said that in part because i still believed that six months from then, i would be fully functional again. so here i am now another six months in, and while i’m certainly much better than i was, i’m no where close to fully recovered. i also still haven’t finished journaling that trip to europe. i need to do that.

hurt or not, i am still a photographer, and i’m also compelled to finish things. so for at least a little while i have to continue to torture my few loyal readers with pictures and stories about europe. but, as i think about what i’ve written and what i should write…i struggle with the question of how to be relevant. in a world where, according to blogpulse, there are over 144 million blogs – fifty-some thousand new ones in the last 24 hours – how do i write something that’s really worth reading?

regardless of what i’ve written about, i’ve really been amazed at and grateful for the number of people who have continued to read this thing. it seems that either intentionally or by accident i managed to occasionally entertain you, and sometimes even inspire. i think that i have pretty thoroughly delivered at least two messages in the last six months; one being that you should never take your life for granted, and that i will never quit in my struggle to recover my own life as it was before i was injured. but…maybe there should be more to it than that. what inspires me? why don’t i quit? how do i not quit? what do i do to keep myself from quitting? i’ve been inspired by other people, and those are all questions that i’ve looked for answers to as i go down this road.

maybe the answers i find for myself can be helpful to someone else. i’m certainly not the only one struggling in life. if i can make this blog worth something more than a little bit of photographic eye candy, it would certainly be worth the effort to get it done a few times every month. it’s a little scary, putting myself out there like that. after all, what makes me so arrogant as to think i have better answers than anyone else? i guess i’ll just have to let you be the judge. if you think i’m nuts tell me.  if you have an inspiring story that you want to share, let me know. if you have questions or ideas, tell me.  maybe i can make this blog about something bigger.

speaking of that trip to europe, i guess this is a good place to quickly pick up where i left off at my father’s day post, when i wrote about our arrival in london. our second day there happened to be memorial day 2009, and we decided to spend the day at the american cemetery near cambridge and then visit the aircraft museum at duxford. i think i mentioned a few times that i sort of like airplanes. anyhow, i think it’s good to occasionally be reminded of the hardships and sacrifices endured by others, especially in the service of defeating the kind of true evil faced during world war ii, and in other situations since. visiting the american cemetery on memorial day certainly did that. i watched the faces of the many veterans in attendance as they played taps, and the recollection still gives me a chill.  the museum also had a monument to the approximately 50,000 airmen who lost their lives in the skies of europe during world war ii, and that was pretty sobering as well.  there’s an airplane silhouette etched in glass for each one of them.  here are a few pictures to tell the story.

there’ve been a few comments about the image that cause me to feel it bears some explanation; one of which is why i say, “made a photograph” instead of just saying “i took a picture”. there’s no artist pretense at work here… i’m not even sure i am an artist, and i think the people who know me understand that i’m not going to try and talk a photograph into being something it isn’t. it’s simply a matter of intent. “taking” a picture, or a snapshot, is exactly that…taking advantage of technology to capture a moment in time that would otherwise be lost. there is absolutely nothing wrong with that; in fact some of history’s most iconic images were never anything more than snapshots. joe rosenthal’s photograph of four marines raising the american flag on iwo jima is a perfect example. he just happened to be there, and his film very nearly didn’t even make it into the darkroom. no posing, no retakes, just one frame fired at the decisive moment.

“making” a photograph on the other hand requires that you see the image in your mind before you produce it, just as if it were canvas and oil or pencil and a sketchpad. which gets to the other comments. “dude, it’s all blurry” and “it’s kind of eerie,” were other things noticed about the picture. the blurriness wasn’t about the drugs – or at least not a direct result of them – and the dark nature of the image was exactly how i had been visualizing it for at least a week before shooting it. it is dark. but, just like the rest of the photograph, that’s what makes it a true portrait. it reveals things about the subject beyond what is actually recorded on the digital sensor. i knew using the light and focus in the way i did would produce the strongest statement about how i feel and have felt for 365 days.

the other part of the picture is just as important though, and that’s the part where i am stepping out of those shadows, into the light, and leaving the wheelchair behind.

self portrait, july 2010

new mexico, june 2009

france, february 2009

france, february 2009

texas, may 2008

texas, october 2008

366 days ago i weighed 185 pounds and even though my fortieth birthday was just over the horizon, i was in the best shape of my life.  i had twenty-five years of riding and racing dirtbikes under my belt and had been a seasonal snow skier for even longer.  i was finally finding the athletic discipline that eluded me as a younger guy, usually making it to the gym four days a week either to play racquetball or grind out an hour-long routine that involved lifting weights and doing enough work with a jump rope to earn more than a few strange looks.

i certainly wasn’t the best player on the racquetball court or even close to being the biggest guy in the gym, but i was solid.  i wasn’t the best or the bravest skier on the hill but i could ski the hard runs for three days and still walk back on the airplane for the flight home.  i wasn’t the fastest or the boldest guy at the motocross track, but i don’t think i embarrassed myself either.  and even on a 95 degree texas summer saturday it was still never too hot to ride.  my athletic goals were more about turning myself into something like a gnarly oak tree than a giant redwood.  i just wanted to be fit, slim, and strong.

it was going well.  my size 34 jeans were still a little big and my cholesterol was pretty low.  there was a little more of a bubble in my middle than i might have liked, but none of it was hanging over my belt.  my beautiful girlfriend and i had just returned from living in europe for five months and even though i wasn’t shy about drinking beligium’s finest beers, the fact that we went everywhere on foot or by bicycle and had to negotiate four flights of stairs between our tiny apartment and the street hadn’t bothered me in the least.  i was eating right, living well, and happy with my view of the future.

then 365 days ago fate stepped in and threw me to the ground like a lawn dart.  in a split second and a blinding flash of light i became a floating head, paralyzed from the shoulders down and completely disconnected from a body that had, up to that point, felt foolishly invincible.

that, of course is the cliff notes version.  if you want the unabridged details, go here.

they told me i was fortunate and that my neck was not broken – my spinal cord only bruised – and that i could make a full recovery in 6-12 months.  four of those six months would pass in the hospital and by christmas i was indeed no longer bound to a wheelchair.  nevertheless, what few tentative, shuffling steps i could take on my own were only enough to guarantee i could sit on the couch instead.  i was attempting to learn to walk with crutches but as i had suspected for some time, my virtually worthless arms and hands made them tools of little use to me.  by the middle of january my therapist and i had met my goal of being able to walk one thousand feet without sitting down.  but really, to call it “walking” is like calling the model t a high performance car.  shuffling that thousand feet took half an hour and required one person to hover behind me with my wheel chair as a safety net and another to maintain a steady grip on my belt.  it wouldn’t even have taken a stiff breeze to knock me over.  i was barely strong enough to lift the remote control for the tv.  but i was moving.

there are something like 12,000 spinal cord injuries annually in the united states and from what i could tell by observation during my hospital stay, only about ten percent stand much chance of walking again.  so, even in my meager condition i figured i was still pretty far ahead of the game.  besides, i still had six months to make that full recovery.

so…here i am on july 11, 2010, 365 days after being instantaneously transported into a life that i never actually considered could be mine.  to say i am “weak as a cat” – a phrase that should be familiar to any readers of louis l’amour – is seriously offensive to cats.  i am not 100% recovered or anything like it.  most of my days involve a level of pain i can’t even begin to explain because i can barely comprehend it myself.  i weigh barely 160 pounds and i still require help with most of the things none of us ever want to imagine asking for assistance with.  i am, quite simply, a shadow of my former self.

but here’s the thing…when i stand still and look at my shadow it no longer feels strange to have my eyeballs nearly six feet from the floor the way it did when i first started learning to stand up again.  and that shadow is a bit thicker than it was six months ago. last friday i walked 700 feet while having a conversation with my therapist as he strolled beside me.  it was a short conversation, about six minutes.  it was exhausting, but there were no crutches, wheelchairs, or safety belts.  a few days ago i ate a sandwich by myself without having to disassemble it into individual components.  i cleaned the mustard off my own fingers when i was finished.  i do physical therapy five days a week, and mondays and fridays are actually starting to look like a gym routine.  sure…i can only bench press ten pounds for three sets of eight reps but that’s twenty-one more reps than i could do three months ago.  bench pressing twenty pounds literally requires the same amount of effort that benching a hundred and twenty should, but i figure in three months i’ll own it.  maybe i’ll be up to 40 pounds by christmas.  i used to think nothing of walking all day with a twenty pound pack of camera gear on my back and someday i will again.  for now my goal is just to walk an unassisted, non-stop quarter mile by september 1st.  it doesn’t really matter to me if it takes six minutes or sixty, what matters is not quitting.  ever.

oh…and i’m finally strong enough to pick up a “real” camera again, but for the image below, carol did put it on the tripod for me. thank you, baby for this and so much more.

self portrait, july 2010

the trip basically went exactly as we expected. the doctors have no revelations… there are no miracle cures that will cause a spinal cord to repair itself overnight. stem cells might, but that’s something years of research and a political lifetime away from now. the physical therapists spent hours poking me with pins, touching me with feathers, and testing the strength of every single muscle they could get their hands on. that’s where the good news is. they score these things on scales, with strength being measured from 1 to 5, and virtually all my muscles are at least one grade stronger than they were when i checked out of the hospital. that’s where physical therapy is paying off. however, it’s not the conversations with medical staff that’s spurred me on to spur myself on. it was my conversations with some of the patients. i couldn’t help but feel, after talking to someone who had been in a wheelchair for the last 20 years, or to someone who might be in one for the next 20 years, that because of the fortunate opportunity i have to make a full recovery i should work even harder in that direction. regardless of how much it hurts or how long it takes.

what also came as no surprise was the psychological toll exacted by a return to craig. i managed to avoid most of the places where i spent the majority of my time in the hospital, but there were certain situations where there was simply no way around. i found on the one day i passed the open door of my old room, number 321, that i couldn’t bring myself to look inside. the reality is that the four months i spent in the hospital have left an emotional bruise that may take longer to heal than the one on my spinal cord.

it could’ve been worse, though. the difference between a bad hospital stay and a really bad hospital stay is always the people. no one can fight something like a spinal cord injury or a debilitating illness all alone. it takes help from a lot of good people, and it’s been my good luck that so many of them have hiked along on what has been and will continue to be a very arduous climb. between dallas and denver carol and i got to see many old friends, and lots of friends that we’ve made since my injury, but regardless of the circumstances we’re glad to know all of them. everyone should be so lucky to know so many wonderful people.

gym rat: revisiting a machine at craig to see if i'm stronger.

kneel in pain: lifting myself up from one knee for the first time.

dallas: just a few of our friends from d-f-dub.

girls, girls, girls: some of carol's posse from smu.

lucky me: my long-time friend kirsten lives in denver and has been a wealth of support.

starting over: this is the first new photo i've taken in nearly a year. i used auto mode, but i'm still stoked!

actually, i read anything i could get my hands on when it came to airplanes and the men who flew them. i was just captivated by stories of flight. but then one christmas santa gave me a model airplane kit and i found a whole new reason to read about them. that first plastic model was a catastrophe of paint and glue, and i probably uttered many of my first youthful curse words while trying to assemble it, but eventually i learned to make them look even better than they did on the lid of the box they came in, and the library was one of my most important tools. my favorite planes were the aircraft of world war two. they were at the pinnacle of piston-engine technology and some of them were beautiful even in their deadly purpose. in studying those machines i discovered the mysterious hawker typhoon, a british design, and much less famous than sexier models like the spitfire and the mustang. regardless, to my eye the typhoon was shapely but in a burly, powerful fashion…sort of like a grey and olive drab warhorse that could go 450 mph. and the engine! the typhoon was powered by an enormous 24-cylinder monster of a power plant producing an absurd 2200-horsepower. what boy could fail to be enraptured by daydreams of donning a sheepskin jacket, leather helmet, and goggles, then flying off into combat on the back of such a brute?

the reality of the typhoon was of course much less romantic. while successful, it was notoriously hard to fly and difficult to maintain so very few were produced before the jet-age took over by the end of the war. the “tiffy” as it’s pilots knew it, was destined for the scrapheap of history. almost.

i left model airplanes behind long ago, but never lost interest in the real thing. as carol and i were planning our multi-country exit from europe it occurred to me that it might be possible to visit an aviation museum along the way. i soon learned that the sole surviving hawker typhoon was on display at the raf museum in london, and it was on! by the time carol and i arrived at our hotel that sunday afternoon last may we were exhausted, but i had a mission to accomplish and the two hour window available was my only shot. with my maps in my hand and my ipod on my head, i left carol taking a nap and headed for the london underground. several lines, many stations, and a half-mile of walking later i found the museum, a scant half-hour before closing time.

knowing you’ve looked for and found something that is the last of its kind, especially something you’ve had a relationship with for thirty years, is an experience i would wish for everyone. it doesn’t really matter what it is. if you like airplanes, that’s cool, but if it’s something else, it’s all good, just go find it. stand there with a stupid grin just like i did, and just soak it up. and, if your father happens to be in any way responsible for or connected to that thing, or for the spirit that causes you to go in search of it, then thank him for it, especially today.

happy father’s day, pop.

blunt instrument: the only remaining example of this ww2 aircraft.

this is similar to the event you may have seen on tv where large redheaded men in kilts throw telephone poles and play rugby with boulders. unfortunately that was on the next day’s schedule about when we would be on a plane to london. the day we were there however, was an experience i will always treasure. the blair atholl highlanders are an all-volunteer regiment of bagpipers, drummers, and riflemen. they are, in effect, a ceremonial highlands color guard, and a fine looking bunch of lads they are. they have played the world over, including several visits to the white house, but knowing that still failed to prepare me for the thump of the drums and the haunting strain of the bagpipes as they marched onto the parade grounds of blair castle. i still get a chill down my spine thinking about it. i know the pattison clan – at least my branch of it – began its american history with the arrival in 1740 of two brothers from ireland, but somehow, hearing those pipes made me feel like i was home.

as carol and i were leaving the castle in our rental ford fiesta we noticed four of the highlanders making what looked to be a long walk back to town, and without thinking about how many highlanders one can fit into a ford fiesta, we stopped to chat them up and see if we could offer a ride. after some picture taking, grunting, and contorting, we made our bumper-dragging way to the nearest pub to share some pints with our new friends. i have to say it was the first time in our entire european experience that we were made to feel truly welcome by total strangers. carol and i have agreed many times since that scotland was our favorite country. i liked it so much that after a few pints i even let the locals talk me into trying haggis. for the uninitiated, haggis is a traditional scottish…dish…made by chopping up the innards of a sheep, mixing them with oatmeal, stuffing them into the same sheep’s intestine, and boiling the whole thing. it’s one of those culinary mysteries that makes me scratch my head. nevertheless, i manned up for the self-styled “gourmet” haggis – perfect for an amateur like me – which was fried in slices and came complete with a nice mustard sauce. i’ll allow it was quite good but it was an effort to ignore the contents.

carol proved her travel prowess yet again when we returned to craig hospital for my six-month evaluation the week before last. going to dallas to see jon kolbensvik, who is the best dentist in the world, along with a lot of other dallas friends, then going to colorado a day later for a week of poking, prodding, and testing, took a tremendous amount of effort to plan and execute. it was exhausting. to put things in perspective, let me tell you that one day i spent an entire hour pulling a pair of shorts up from my knees to my waist. i did it five times, and felt like i had just spent an hour at the gym. there will be more about that later, but i can say this much, i managed to board and exit every airplane on my own feet and i managed to get through the entire week without eating any hospital food, which even at craig is no where near as good as haggis.

form up: the highlanders march in.

pipe and drum: one of my all-europe favorite photos.

a pint of stout: these lads are a proud lot and they do it up right.

concealed carry: if he reaches down to scratch his leg, run!

on the pipe: there is nothing on this earth that sounds as eerily beautiful.

highlander games: how far do you think they could throw her?

subcompact car: excuse me, laddie, but is that yer hand?

on the road again: me and my best friend, rollin' down the a9.

it probably falls under the category of things that could go without saying, but i’m angry about this oil spill in the gulf of mexico. i’m sure to some degree everyone is, but just how angry are we? who’s responsible? how will it ultimately play out? i have other questions. is this disaster going to be another exxon valdez? in 21 years, will the louisiana gulf coast be like prince william sound is today, haunted with the specters of a dead fishing industry that has yet to recover? will bp – like exxon – ultimately pay only a fraction of the damages – and an even smaller fraction of their profits – to compensate for losses? the most important question is this: will this disaster awaken us from our oil-drunken stupor, or will the profligacy of american petroleum consumption continue unabated?

i don’t have any photographs of baby sea birds covered in tar, or portraits of the wrecked lives and livelihoods of fishermen, but i do have an image i took in texas several years ago that tells part of this story in its own thousand words.

rude and crude: bright potential future towering over the dirty present somewhere in texas.

i’m not there yet. and, like a soldier returning too soon to the battlefield while the scars are still pink and fresh, i find myself with very mixed emotions about my return visit to craig hospital next week. going back for my six-month evaluation is important for many reasons, but it’s not going to match the vision i had of the event. i will be hobbling in, not strolling. i will have to take a wheelchair…to use, not to donate.

regardless of condition or intent, i doubt craig is a place i will ever be happy to visit. that battlefield will always be haunted, and i fear that when i return, its ghosts will rise to meet me with their empty eyes and icy touch.

as yet i have no photographs of ghosts, so i’ll just show you some more from a place i would definitely like to go back to…scotland.

the castle picture: what ghosts haunt these walls?

more ghosts: an old memorial in a tiny highland village.

sheep crossing: you always have to be on the lookout for pedestrians in the scottish highlands.

ghost crossing: what feet have trod here?

clean slate: a sturdy scottish roof, as you'd expect.

leftist agenda: this takes some getting used to, but they're very helpful.

joy-ful countenance: she wears her experience gracefully, don't you think?

for the last two weeks carol and i have had the pleasure of a very special houseguest: my mom. it’s been nice because she’s taken so much of the load off carol and giving her a bit of a break, but it’s also been good because we haven’t seen each other in nearly 6 months. i know it’s good for her to see firsthand how much better i’m doing since she last saw me, and i’m hoping that makes a good mother’s day gift. however, having her around has made it difficult for me to work on the mother’s day blog post i promised myself i would do last year when i made my 2009 father’s day post. i have to sneak into the bathroom to dictate into my iphone, and then when i’m working on the photographs make sure she’s not looking over my shoulder. it’s all been very clandestine.

it’s worthwhile, though, because my mom is a special lady who has been through a lot. her men seem to have a way of coming into physical harm. no matter what happens, i know it’s hard for her to see any of her boys in pain, and i want her to know i’m fighting back with all the tools she and my dad equipped me with.

it’s also been good to hear some stories. it’s amazing what you can learn about your parents when you simply take the time to just listen. turns out… my mom is a bit of a thief. what’s worse is that she took something from the white house. yes, that white house. for some reason i’m sure was connected to new mexico politics, she and my dad went to the nation’s capital some years ago. pop was set up with an appointment to meet with a presidential aide at the white house and while they were there he offered to give them a special tour. the tour included several rooms not normally be seen by the public, and as my mom was walking into one of them she happened to stub her toe on a door threshold. the result was a gnarly splinter of wood being jammed under her big toenail. instead of issuing a stream of profanities and hopping around in pain like i would have done, my mom simply gritted her teeth, smiled, and carried on with seeing where presidents have slept. she endured the pain until she and my dad got back to their hotel, at which point she removed the offending piece of wood. mom ended up losing the toenail but she still has the splinter.

while my dad may have sprinkled lots of grit on us while we were growing up, there’s no doubt my mom baked it in. and it’s true. she’s a tough lady. if 55 years of being married to my dad and raising four children didn’t make her tough, then being a farm wife certainly did. not only did she do all those things moms do that we take for granted, but she had the added adventure of doing it in a rural setting.

when she and my dad married and he brought her to new mexico, he didn’t have a threshold t o carry her across because they didn’t even have a house to live in. mom and dad spent their first married winter in new mexico living with dad’s parents, while he and my granddad started construction on the house i grew up in. the house would have many rooms added onto it over the years until it became the sprawling farmhouse it is today but when mom first took command it was completely unfinished on the inside. dad may have built our house, but it was my mother who made it a home. it was always extremely clean and – with the exception of dad’s desk, always very tidy. so shipshape in fact, that as a teenager i almost always got busted if i had anything resembling a party while my parents were gone because my mom would know instantly upon her return if anything was out of place. anything. but that’s another story…

mom kept the house clean in spite of the mud and snow that got tracked in, and dust that tried to blow in. she kept a wonderful home in spite of all the things life on the high plains brought with it. it’s just different than living in the city. it meant she had to learn to drive in the mud and snow – and occasionally walk in it, if the driving part wasn’t successful. a round trip to the grocery store or the doctor’s office was 30 miles. it meant occasionally having to deal with having no running water because the well was misbehaving, or having a power outage that lasted until the electric company could find its way out to our part of the county.

life in the country may have been a little rough, but my mom has always done a fantastic job of smoothing it out. she taught us to chew with our mouths closed and not say “ain’t.” she fed us homemade whole wheat bread made from our own grain and refused to keep sodas in the house. if i was too sick to go to school i was too sick to go out and play, and if i made the mistake of telling her i was bored, she simply asked if i had read all the books in the house yet.

i have the same dilemma that we all have on mother’s day…there is no proper way to say thank you for the things they did to get us out of the nest and to make sure we could fly. it’s especially hard to say “happy mother’s day” right now because i’m temporarily grounded and i know it would be a much happier day if mom didn’t have to see me like this. mom, i just hope you know i’m doing as well as i am because of who you and dad made me.

it is indeed a happy mother’s day!

crank it up: it was a painful five minutes but me and mom are both happy about it.

campfire songs: our moms help us keep our traditions alive.

home cooking: my mom's warm kitchen will always be my favorite place to eat.

homemade: our moms know how to bake the love right in.

thank you: these are my mom's, and if i become an artist i will owe it to her.