The Road That Lays Ahead...or is it Roads?

We, the Fiske-Phillips and Sforzas, spent the past weekend celebrating Jacob's 18th birthday. We left everything behind, well almost everything, and headed out to a cabin in the nearby mountain community of Wrightwood. As I watched our children, the collective children of two families, I realized they had grown and were ready to be out on their own. Ready to choose their own path, thier own road in life.

Sitting there in a cabin, surrounded by the snow and cold, fueled by coffee and introspect...I was evaluating the road we'd taken to get here and wondering about the roads the lay ahead for our children. I couldn't help but think of the Robert Frost poem, The Road Not Taken. It's exciting to imagine what lays ahead for each of them.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

It's Like Deja Vu All Over Again!

We've spent the last 20 years, or close to that, (pick up last year's thread) sharing Thanksgiving with Georgia's uncle and his wife (Don and Terry Green) in San Luis Obispo.

I'm not share how it started, and I suppose it doesn't really matter at this point. It has become a great tradition. Our children have grown up with wonderful memories of Thanksgiving. As a matter of fact, it is the only memory of Thanksgiving they have...sharing that week with Don and Terry.

I asked them for some of their favorite memories. Here they are in no particular order, along with photos, in no particular order.

Walking on the beach and playing in the tide pools.

Hanging out and looking out the back windows from Don and Terry's.

Eating.

Visiting Montana De Oro State Park and watching the Monarch butterflies.

Shopping and walking around downtown San Luis Obispo.
Eating.

Thanksgiving dinner.

Playing in and cutting down the reeds.

Walking on the beach.

Visiting the Children's Museum downtown San Luis Obispo.

Riding ATVs.
Oh yeah...and eating!

Thank you Don and Terry for being such a rich part of the tapestry of our lives! See you next year.

Learning How to Be Forever Young

Oops, I forgot all about this posting.

I had the photos loaded and ready to go and then...oh, I suppose I could spin a good yarn, maybe something about being abducted by aliens, my dog (you know my ever (faithful companion Cooper?) ate my computer or I didn't get the memo. But, truth be told, I put the photos up and completely forgot to write the story. So I will do my best to recapture the moment or moments.

The first weekend in November, I spent the weekend with a group of young people from our church, the Redlands United Church of Christ. It was a retreat, of sorts, where in two days we were to recap a year of instruction, learning and sharing about faith, Spirituality, and Christianity. The kids and some of the adults were returning to the same camp (see Forever Young) in the San Bernardino mountains to finish what they had begun.

We confronted a high ropes course, walked and meditated on the path of a labyrinth, laughed and shared. I found it to be one of the most profound experiences of my life. At a certain point, we adults, seem to forget how to listen to the young. This is amazing since we, presumably, were young ourselves. I counted myself among the forgetful. I suppose we could blame a lifetime of filters, walls and barriers contributing to the difficulty of really hearing what the young are saying. And perhaps, remembering my own youth, the young sense this and perceive it simple as too much work to get through our filters, walls and barriers. But the onus is on us, adults, to learn how to listen and speak the same language.

What I heard from our young people amazed me. Their messages brought tears to my eyes and joy to my heart. These are the people who will inherit tomorrow, who will watch after us and hold us close as we age. They will look to us and say, "I remember when..."

I felt honored to be young again, to challenge the ropes, walk the labyrinth and share their laughter.

I think we, humankind, is going to be okay.

Listen to the young. It will be amazing what you will hear.

The Great Pumpkin

Following on the string of my last post...this is our favorite time of year.

We spent Saturday hosting a pumpkin carving party with neighbors, friends and family. We served hot apple cider, fresh carrot soup, and beer. Well we had soft drinks too...for the kids.

We put candles in the pumpkins, placed them on the porch and passed candy out to neighborhood children.

All in all it was a great day.

Wandering Our Own Path

We spent Saturday fawning over pumpkins and corn mazes. As a family, this is one of our favorite times of year. The weather turns cooler. The fires are lighted. And as Halloween approaches, we celebrate a variety of birthdays and anniversaries. But on this Saturday. we combined our ever expanding and widening schedules into one for a family outing.

Mazes date back 4000 years. Throughout antiquity mazes have been discovered in art, homes, pubic buildings and streets. In modern terms we tend to think of mazes as puzzles, but for the ancients mazes were used in ritual and processional ceremonies.

As we wandered through the maze none of wanted to exit the other side. Exiting the maze was not nearly as much fun as continuing on through it. We started out together. Each of us took different paths and at times would bump into each other, laughing as we'd surprise each other coming around a corner. There were one way paths, two paths, exits and paths that led back to paths we'd already crossed. And eventually we exited together.

As our children grow and have their own schedules, and continue down their own paths, it's nice that we can still come together for a seasonal ritual and share time as a family. And for a time...wander through the maze together.

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

Once is a while, we (photojournalists) are asked to or volunteer for, a shoot for a photo illustration. We attempt to illustrate an idea or concept. The idea here was to shoot a photo for a story on the H1N1 or Swine Flu and what schools are doing to plan for the possible outbreak in our public school system.

After a variety of masks, poses and staged looks of terror, we came down to these two photos and eventually went with the top photo. I was going to light it with a softbox from the front and pop a red gel from the back. Though I went for simplicity and used basic window light.

One of the problems with photo illustrations is finding the right model. The default model for most photographers is a reporter or editor sitting around the newsroom who's usually surfing the internet and looking as though they have nothing better to do. Or, hapless family, usually one of our children who have no choice in the matter. In this case it was my son who got orders to, "Put on this mask, stand right here and look scared. And stop fidgeting." He performed admirably and his only request for compensation was a copy of the paper in ran in. Alas, the story run without a photo and thus the illustration ends up as fodder for my blog.

Maybe I should have found a pig to put the mask on.

Fire in the Sky

A few images of the Pendleton and Oak Glen Fires burning around Yucaipa, California. Fortunately no one has been injured or lost their home.