To find, to lose, to find and lose again - my India take vanishes into digital ether; I search, I plead

I shot only one frame all day yesterday and this is it - two ravens through my car window as seen through the drive-through line at Taco Bell and this is how I wound up there:

I had it my mind that when I could, I would sort through my India pictures and put together some sort of package on Soundarya to share with the family. I did not know where those pictures were and I dreaded the search to try to find them.

Behind and to the sides of my computer monitor, my desk was a clutter of hard drives, cables and wires - a couple of dozen hard drives, in fact - some of them plugged in, some of them not. I had once known where everything was on those hard drives, but over time, in the constant juggle and shuffle of digital information - moving images from this drive to that, then erasing from here, etc. etc. etc., it had become a tangle of confusion.

I came up with a system in my head to finally get on top of it, but to do so would require that I remove the harddrives from the enclosures they came in so that instead I could just insert and take them out of hard drive docks at will.

I checked with an expert and he said, yes, this would work - I could just remove all those drives from their enclosures and this would free them up for use in the docks.

So I did, and it took me a long time, because once I would figure out how to take one sort of enclosure apart, the next would be completely different and I did not have the right tools.

To simplify a complicated story, by the time I finished, I discovered that six of my harddrives were of an earlier design and would not seat into the docks, so I could no longer read them. Plus, two harddrives would seat and spin, but would not sign on to the computer. So I made four trips back and fourth to Machous were Bruce helped me reconstruct those that needed reconstructing and tried to help me bring the two that would not read back, but they had gone bad and could not be brought back.

During one of those trips back and forth to Machaus, I stopped at Taco Bell and picked up an order for myself and another for Margie, who was not feeling good.

In my office, I carefully searched every drive that could be read - and was horrified to discover that my India take, #2, when Melanie and I went to the wedding of Soundarya and Anil, could not be found.

Although I blogged the wedding, to this date I had not found the time to go through the big majority of the thousands of photos that I took afterward. I know there are some good pictures of Sandy in there, along with many other things from those times that Sandy and Anil were off by themselves and Melanie and I were traveling elsewhere with Vasanthi, Murthy, Buddy and Vijay.

All this now appeared to be lost, vanished into digital ether. If I could not somehow find them, then all I woud have from that trip would be the few low-res images, mostly from the wedding, that actually appeared on this blog.

I searched and searched and searched, venturing into the shadow areas. At one point, I thought that I had found a set, for I did find folders for those dates - but the folders were empty.

They are only photographs and their loss is a tiny and insignificant thing in comparison to her loss - but still, photographs are all that is left. I sank into despair. My body shook and my hands trembled.

I realize that what I am about to state is going to sound really corny to some, but it is how it happened, so I am going to state it. Not knowing what else to do, after a day-and-a-half of searching but not finding, I said aloud, "Sandy! I need your help! You've got to help me."

After I spoke the words, I suddenly noticed one of those tiny, portable, black plastic hard drives that you can buy at Wal-Mart, sitting beneath the computer tower on my desk. I always take two or three of these into the field with me, so that I can make duplicate copies of everything that I shoot as I move along. After I get home, I dump the images into my big harddrives and then erase these little ones, so that I can take them back out into the field the next time I go.

I picked up the little drive and plugged it into the computer.

The India take was all there.

Coincidence, my brain tells me. My heart wants to believe otherwise.

The truth is, I do not know. 

I now have the pictures, but Sandy is still gone.

Even as I type this, I am loading those pictures into my Lightroom editor. This is the very first image from that take - it is Melanie as we wait at Ted Stevens International Airport to board the first of the four planes that will fly us to Bangalore.

And here we are, Melanie and I together, reflected in the window of the underground train that shuttles passengers between various terminals at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Now we have left Chicago, enroute to Mumbai.

And here we are, in Mumbai.

In Mumbai, we saw a sleepy little girl.

Now we ride the shuttle that will take us from one Mumbai terminal to another.

Through the shuttle window. What you don't see is the heat. Despite the late hour, it was stifling hot. We are about to board the flight to Bangalore.

Now we are at Murthy and Vasanthi's in Bangalore, where I fell asleep. It was Sandy who woke me up - Soundarya Ravichandran. After I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, I took a picture of her and this is it. The next day, she would wed and would become Soundarya Anil Kumar.

I now have many pictures to sort through and edit. This barely begins it. It is going to take some time and I do not know where I am going to find that time.

I know that I promised that I would not let this blog dwell where it seems to be dwelling, but one does not just turn away from an experience such as this and suddenly find that it is over.

Still, it is my commitment to now get back on track and to blog about other things. After I have a picture package ready to share with the family, perhaps I will put up a few more up here.

I suspect that this will take me about one year.

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Hello - and goodbye

Christian hymns have been playing in my head continuously for the past several days. I believe this is because I was unable to travel to Soundarya's funeral and so my subconscious mind had to create a funeral for me. The only way it knew how to do this was to pull up the hymns that it has heard at so many funerals - none of them Hindu. I just don't know any Hindu funeral hymns.

Within the past few hours, the hymns have gone away. They have been replaced by two Beatles songs, which come and go as they please: To Know Her is to Love Her and "I don't know why you say goodbye I say hello." So my personal funeral for Soundarya must be over. I did not see her body or the beautiful saree and flowers that would have adorned her. I did not witness her cremation. I did not observe or participate in the rituals. I did not get to embrace her mother and father, her brother and sister or any of her large family of relatives - my relatives now.

I did not get to weep with them.

Even so, my brain provided what it could by way of a personal funeral and now that funeral is over and I must move on.

Before I do, I thought that I would put up one last picture of Soundarya and I thought that it should be from when we first met - either from the wedding feast for Vivek and Khena or from the walk Sandy and I took afterward.

So I typed "Sandy" into my computer's internal search engine and then chose several candidates from the many thumbnails that appeared upon my screen. I narrowed these down to the three pictured here on my monitor and then finally chose the one to the left, desaturated of most of its color.

Then I realized that I could not just put a picture from the past up in the context of the past, but that my "hello-goodbye" picture had to be as I saw it today - looking out at me from my computer screen in my dimly lit office.

The two model airplanes on the wall to the right, as some of you know, were made by my deceased brother, Ron, before he broke his neck and became tetraplegic. 

Ganesh Facebooked a link to me of a song, Kabhi Kabhie Mere Dil Mein, performed by professionals. He and she once sang it together and ended it with a big laugh fest. I listened to the song several times, but each time I closed my eyes so that I would not see the actors in the video, but only her and I saw her strongly. She once told me online that she had visited a seer who had told her that we had been close in lives past and would be close in lives future.

This life is the only life that I know and am certain is real, but it is a nice thought and would explain many things.

Now I will let her go. I will not stop thinking of her, my tears for her will not altogether dry, but I will let her go and I will deal with the things that I must deal with everyday and I won't be blogging about her anymore.

At least not for now, not for awhile. Someday, when I find the money to return to India and capture the time to find a way to better tell her story, then I will blog about her again. How can a storyteller have a muse and not tell her story?

I will tell it, Muse. I will tell your story. The world will know about you - your sweet, gentle, caring soul that could bestow kindness not only upon a kitten but even upon a bug - or a cobra... the fierce defense that you would throw up to protect those you loved against those more powerful than you... the dreams, passions, ambitions and desires that filled you... the bitter disappointments that you pushed through again and again right up until this last one... the beautiful even if painful memory that you have now become.

I will tell this story - but not now. For now, I must pull back and do other things.

As for these two on their snowmachine, I saw them yesterday afternoon off Church Road as I was cruising and drinking a Metro coffee that I had bought from Shoshana.

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I sneak Margie out on a date, eat raw fish, drift with ravens and spot a cop and a driver-less car on the Wasilla highway

As you know, this past Sunday afternoon I was happily working away in my office when Jobe suddenly appeared at my door, snatched Margie away from me and took her back to Anchorage to stay with him and Kalib for the week. This was because Lavina and Jacob were each traveling during different times of the week and so they needed Margie there, to care for Kalib and Jobe.

I do good alone, don't mind it, much, because as long as I have a camera, a computer or something to write with, I am never bored. I always have something to do.

More to do than I can do, in fact.

Even so, come Wednesday afternoon, I found myself longing to see Margie - to see a movie with her. We used to go to movies every week, when I would be home, but we have fallen off.

So I jumped into the car and rushed to town.

Whoever was in this car was headed into Wasilla even as I was headed out, Anchorage bound.

I snuck her out of the house. We then went to the movie, "Hereafter" and after we went out to dinner at Samurai Sushi, where we had never eaten before.

Margie doesn't care for sushi, so she ordered Teriyaki chicken. I ordered this plate of sushi and sashimi. For a moment, I was hesitant, because our bank account is once again just about tapped out - and we have an auto-withdrawal payment coming Monday that is bigger than the combination of all the funds left in all three of our bank accounts combined.

On the other hand, I had submitted an invoice the day before, which hopefully will be paid in time to cover everything, I had not been on a date with my wife in a long time and that sushi looked really good.

Here is my sushi and sashimi, as seen through my iPhone.

Oh, damn! It was good!

How do these Japanese chefs make raw fish taste so good?

If I take a fish and cut it up and eat it raw it is not going to taste like this.

These guys really know how to cut fish.

Margie's chicken teriyaki was delicious, too.

I know, because she let me sample a chopstick full.

I then drove Margie back to drop her off Jacob and Lavina's house until Saturday night. Do you remember that feeling you sometimes had when you were young and you had taken a girl you liked out on a date or maybe you were that girl and you were with a guy you liked and then the date was over and you were pulling up to her parent's house to drop her off?

That feeling of how good it felt to be with this person, how much you had enjoyed the date and now you still had the good feeling, but a little ache, too, because this girl with her parents and then go?

That was the very feeling that I had as I pulled into Jacob and Lavina's driveway with Margie beside me, after our date.

Only I wasn't taking back home to her parents.

I was taking her home to our grandkids. 

Jacob had returned from his travels and Lavina would not leave on her's until the next day, so they were both home.

Kalib was watching Dragons - probably for the 10,000th time. I got between him and the screen to take a picture of him. He peered around me to the left so that he could continue to watch.

I shifted left, to try again. Kalib peered around me to the right.

I shifted to the right. He was getting a little disgusted with me.

It's okay, though. He has all the scenes memorized. And he's probably seen them ten times since then.

Jobe was hanging out with Muzzy.

Maybe Jobe will go to Arizona some day and be a bull rider.

I don't really want him to be, but it might just be in his blood, so you never know.

Then Jacob caught me and Jobe together. Jobe loves me. Jobe loves my beard. One day, I want to take him out in a canoe and catch fish with him.

Maybe by then I can learn how to cut them right and then we can sit on the bank and eat sushi and sashimi, as fresh as sushi and sashimi can be.

"Grandpa," he will say. "That was damn good raw fish. I sure hope that some day, I can grow a beard just like yours!"

So that was Wednesday. This was yesterday, back in Wasilla. I had to go to Wal-Mart to pick up some medications.

There were ravens there, waiting for me.

Wal-Mart raven.

Then, as I drove home, I saw ravens surfing the updraft, over the railroad tracks.

It was a windy day. Ravens love windy days.

I love ravens.

For those unclear about the difference between ravens and crows, they are related, but ravens are bigger. Much bigger. 

Ravens make a stronger impression on you than crows do.

Sometimes a raven will say, "never more."

A crow would never say that.

Never.

While I was stopped at the light on the corner of the Parks and Palmer-Wasilla highways, I noticed a cop car pull into the left turn to my right with lights flashing. Then the cop stopped, right there in the left turn lane and got out of the car.

This seemed to me to be a very curious place to make a traffic stop. Then, as my light turned green and I had to go, I noticed that the car the cop had stopped behind did not have a driver.

It was empty - just sitting there unmanned in the left turn lane. Nor I could I see anyone just standing around, who might have once been the driver.

Just another of the usual strange sights that one gets to see just about everyday, right here in Wasilla, Alaska.

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I walk past a dog, a raven flies by, a jet soars overhead; I wander down "Moose Alley"

I hadn't gone walking about my neighborhood for a long time - either because I had been traveling, riding my bike, or because I was so busy doing other things or maybe I was just being lazy.

Yesterday, I decided it was time to start walking again - to see what I could see - to be a street photographer in Wasilla, Alaska.

I hadn't been walking long before I spotted this dog. It was a wary dog.

It did not know that I am every dog's best friend - even if I am cat person.

This dog had nothing to fear from me.

Yet, it feared me.

I spotted a raven up ahead. It spotted me, then flew over to check me out.

"Hey!" it exclaimed as it swept by, "I recognize you from last winter."

"Yes," I agreed. "I recognize you, too. How you been? I've been meaning to ask your name?"

I never got an answer.

The raven had already flown on.

A jet passed overhead.

I wondered if there were people inside eating pretzels, consuming soft drinks and beer, looking down upon Alaska, marveling at the snow mountains.

I came to the corner of Tamar and Seldon.

I looked both ways, to see if bears might be coming.

I saw no bears.

Not grizzly, not polar, not black.

No bears of any kind

Just a truck.

I decided that it was safe to cross the road and I did.

Then I was in the marsh, which is pretty dry these days and doesn't even seem like a marsh anymore. 

I walked down "Moose Alley," peering into the bushes for moose. I did not want to find myself with a mama cow on one side of me and a calf or two on the other.

I did not see any moose all.

But, late at night, I took a walk in the dark - too dark to take a picture. Suddenly, there was a moose - a cow, about ten feet to my right. I quickly looked to my left.

I saw no calves to my left.

I couldn't be sure. It was pretty dark. The cow was placid, though, so it was okay.

This morning, during the early part of dusk, I cooked myself some oatmeal and then sat down on the couch to eat it. It was then that I looked out through the back door window and saw this moose and two others in the yard.

There wasn't much light, and I did not want my oatmeal to get cold, plus I was wearing slippers and did not want to get snow in my socks, but I picked up my camera, stepped outside and shot a few underexposed frames. They looked like nothing but black in my camera, but I was able to scrape much of the blackness away in Lightroom and Photoshop and so was left with this noisy image.

I don't care if its noisy. That was the situation. Better a noisy photo than no photo.

I then came back in and ate my oatmeal.

It was still hot.

The coffee was still hot.

My day had begun.

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A lonely Wasilla Democrat; the raven who would not fly; the dog who didn't get run over; two moose who grazed in the yard; the tax-preparer who drinks Metro coffee

Remember how last week I came upon Dodd Shay and his new pup, Scotty, on Seldon? Remember how he stopped to chat, but then traffic came along and so he pulled over onto nearby Tamar and told me that he was planning to start showing up at Metro Cafe at 10:00 Thursday mornings and wanted to invite folks of Democratic bent to stop by and have coffee with him?

Today, as I walked on Seldon, Dodd and Scotty came driving by and stopped again. I asked if he had gone to Metro at 10:00 and yes he had. I asked if others had joined him and he said he saw another Democrat there, but they did not get together. They took their coffee separately.

Ten in the morning is not a good time for me to get together with anybody, anywhere. At 10:00, I am trying to figure out how to deal with the day, or I am walking, which is part of what I do to figure out how to deal with the day.

Some days are pretty cut and dried, though - it's all sitting right in front of me and I don't need to figure out anything - I just need to find the the will to get to it. Today was such a day.

Dodd and I did not get to talk long, because pretty soon a car showed up coming from behind him. There was no convenient turnoff, so he said goodbye and drove on.

A bit further along, I saw this raven sitting atop the cell-phone tower. As I noted way back when, we had very weak reception here before they built this and were always suffering dropped calls. Now, we get all bars reception and if a call gets dropped, it's because it happened on the other end.

I decided that I wanted to get a picture of this raven departing the tower. With the pocket camera, you've got to be ready, because you're only going to get one chance and, unless you're already applying enough pressure to the shutter button to keep it active, there will be a little delay.

So I kept the camera focused on the raven, kept my finger lightly pressed against the shutter button and I waited.

Five minutes... ten minutes... 15...

The raven just sat there, not flying. 

The raven might not understand photography, but ravens are smart and cunning birds and very mischievous. I knew that the raven had figured me out. The raven knew that I wanted it to fly and that I did not intend to leave until it did. So the raven decided to wait me out, to stay put. 

The raven decided that it would not fly until I walked away.

This was a game to the raven and it was determined to win.

In time, another raven came flying by. Usually, when this happens, the perched raven will de-perch itself and take off flying - either to join or squabble with the newcomer, depending on what kind of relationship they share. But this raven knew that this was just what I wanted it to do, so it stayed put. It did turn to watch the other raven pass by, though.

Finally, after more than 20 minutes, I decided that I had to get going. I gave up and started to walk away. The raven flew. I quickly raised my camera and got a shot off but because I was walking I messed it up and it was blurry.

You may not believe me that the raven knew and planned it this way, but I am not joking. I am serious.

Ravens like to play these kind of games and they are hard to beat.

Do you remember this dog? The one that ran out into the middle of Seldon not so long ago and nearly got run over?*

Cars just kept coming and it just kept getting in their way, even as they honked.

I wandered how long that dog would live.

This is it. It is still alive. It had found its way into that part of the marsh that Dodd holds title to, the part where the signs on his gates tell snowmachiners and fourwheeler drivers not to enter, but many enter anyway and tear up the property regardless.

Then it was back to my office, where I tried to work until 4:00 PM, at which time I grabbed my jacket and headed to the car so that I could stop by Metro, get my brew and listen to a bit of All Things Considered in the car.

I headed straight out the door and into the car and was about to back out when I saw this adolescent moose in the front yard, right beside me.

And here is it's mom. That's Joe's house in the background. Were it not for Joe, Chicago kitty would be dead. One day, I will tell the story. On the whole, it is a terribly sad story, even though she survived.

In fact, it is a tragic story, but we are very glad Chicago survived.

It is also an amazing story.

Through the Metro Window Study, #12,682

This is Juanita. Carmen says she is her "H&R Block lady." It's that time, isn't it?

"How often do you come here for coffee?" I asked Juanita, thinking that maybe it was tax business that brought her here today. 

"How often do I come here?" she laughed, with a bemused look on her face.

"As often as you do," Carmen answered for her.

This is what the Talkeetna's looked like on the way home. The winter darkness has been defeated. Soon, dark will be but memory. We will not even want to think about the dark.

That's why I hate to go south in the time of light. Down south, it gets dark every night, even on the summer solstice. I can't bear it. I just can't.

Please. Keep me in the north, all summer long.

Do not make me go south.

But I'm already committed. Late May - Arizona. For a very special reason. I cannot miss it.

As I approached my house, I saw that the moose were just leaving.

*I was going to write, "damn near got run over," but then I remembered that one of my readers left a comment awhile back telling me that her ten-year old daughter reads my blog every morning, so I decided that I had better not swear. Thus, I did not write, "damn near got run over," but rather, "nearly got ran over."

I have really cleaned up my blogging language since I learned about this 10 year-old girl.