Where ya been?

It’s been over five weeks. Where have I been? I’ve been thinking of a new direction for this blog. I’ve been thinking that maybe I have little drive to write as much as I thought. I’ve been taking care of other business, frankly. However….

At least there will be photos. My portfolio grew by dozens with our trip recently to visit my brother in Santa Fe, NM. (Our cabdriver from the airport made it very clear there were more than one Santa Fe.)

Sunset near Agua Fria, a small location on the edge of Santa Fe, NM. September 2022.

Making sorghum syrup

Sorghum Mill near Greenup, KY– my Grandmother is on left. Oct 7, 1966

I have published this photo before to social media, but not in this edited format. (The shadows have been lightened to the point where my grandmother is recognizably her. The barrels stand out.) My grandmother was raised primarily in Greenup, KY, on the Ohio River, though she also lived in the nearby cities/towns of Ironton and Cincinnati, OH, before she moved with her mother and brother to San Francisco, CA. At that point she was a young woman and soon met her husband-to-be, my grandfather. When this photo was taken, she had not lived in this area (KY/OH) for 40 to 50 years. I am uncertain, but I know my grandparents married in the mid-1920s and were living in Seattle, WA, by 1929 when my mother was born. Greenup, KY is on the edge of the Appalachians. Though northerly (near West Virginia and western Pennsylvania), the so-called hillbilly influence was large. My grandmother told a story of her grandmother (her mother’s mother) coming out of the hills to visit, complete with logging boots and corncob pipe. It likely affected my grandmother–she put on airs all her life. But that is another story….

My first American sentence*

Raven-black part of my consciousness

Why are you there?

Oh, yeah. You’re me.

American crow, Wendell, NC. January 2010.

I was reminded today of Allen Ginsberg’s definition of an American sentence as English’s answer to the haiku. I’m stealing most of this from another blogger. And here is another bit of definition. Ginsberg felt English needed more freedom to achieve what the haiku accomplishes with its 5/7/5 structure. To write one, use 17 syllables in a grammatically correct sentence (or sentences). One full line, arranged if you like (as I’ve done above). In my opinion, one should attempt the juxtaposed twist in meaning at the end as one reads in a traditional haiku. (Is my photograph a visual twist? “Raven” becomes “crow”?)