NIKON D200-SIGMA 17-70@70mm-F6.3-1/60th-Bounce Flash-ISO400
NIKON D200-SIGMA 17-70@17mm-F6.3-1/60th-Bounce Flash-ISO400
NIKON D200-SIGMA 17-70@70mm-F6.3-1/60th-Bounce Flash-ISO400
NIKON D200-SIGMA 17-70@70mm-F6.3-1/60th-Bounce Flash-ISO400
... my friend, robert, asked me to come over to the lawrence library yesterday evening to take some pictures while he served as santa for the kids ... this morning, cooling down from my daily exercise, i noticed on my newsfeed that there had been "a shooting at a school in connecticut" ... it caught my attention just enough for me to say to myself, "how sad," then i took my shower and headed out to run errands ...
... it was a bit later, while waiting for the house of pizza to finish preparing our lunches, that i watched in horror as the details of the terrible tragedy unfolded on the restaurant's big screen tv ... after that the walk back to the shop with the food, much of the rest of this day, it's all a tired blur ...
... i remember when i was a kid living in alaska, and one of my pals died in an accident, that the minister gave a sermon about "plans" which we "couldn't understand" ... on the ride home i asked ma, but, now looking back from what was then her side of life, i realize that she was too upset to console me ... it was pa, when we got back to the house, who said, "don't go in just yet" ...
... after mike and sue and ma had gone inside, he told me to get into the front seat, then took me for a drive ... he remained silent, even after he had pulled the car into one of his favorite places, a little turn-out at the spot where the lofty chugach mountains squeezed the tarmac to within a few feet of the wave battered edge of turnagain arm's frigid waters ... it was only after we'd sat for awhile that he turned to me and said, "some things make sense, pat, and some things make sense in time, but some things, some things will never make any sense" ...
... i thought on it for a minute ... "but, pa," i asked, "which one of them was this" ...
... "i don't know, pat, i don't know" ...
... then we drove home ... as i sat close to him he let me put my hand on the wheel, and i pretended that i was steering the car ... for that afternoon, at least, the illusion of control comforted me ...
... today, in this moment of absolute senselessness, i so wish my pa was here to take me for a drive ...