sitting at the oyster bar at the milwaukee public market, there was a young couple around the bend of the bar. they started to take selfies and the young woman would glance at the photo, making self-deprecating comments and talking about using a filter. as a selfie-non-believer (mostly because of my age and the wrinkles that don’t lie) i offered to take a few pictures of them from across the bar, saying that photos are always a little softer from a distance. the young woman happily handed me her phone, adding she’d love if i would take a picture – if i knew how to work an iphone. wow. i guess it’s not just selfies that tell my age.
dogga loves to lay in the snow. any chance he gets he will lay down and stay there for as extended a period a time as we allow. his snow-glee is magical and i try to capture it in photos. in an effort to not disturb him, i took this photo through the back screen door. he somehow knew i was there and turned his head to look at me. i snapped his picture and here it is, sans filter.
i suppose there are many things that act as filters these days. material items like fancy cars or trendy clothing or mcmansion homes – all these things set a tone, create a reality whether or not it is reality, whether or not it is truth-telling or belies the actual. people want to be seen in certain ways and will filter themselves with whatever is available to them to be more certain that you see them in the way they wish. the car, the clothes, the house, the red-heeled shoes – they all precede the person. and our society – with its emphasis on materialism and the laddered measure it creates – reinforces and exacerbates this. we are – sometime or other – all guilty of forming opinions before having even an iota of a chance to speak to a person, to sort out a smidge of who they are, to glimpse their soul.
the young couple was lovely. they were clearly enjoying each other’s company and you could see that joy on their faces. it seemed that it might have been early on in their relationship, but they also seemed a bit smitten with each other.
i wondered later how that look – captured on film – wouldn’t be enough and why, with youth and love on their side and in their photograph, they would need a filter.
i started to take another photograph of dogga through the screen door. he got up from his spot and turned toward me. because he is a smartypants with many lessons to teach us, he repeated something he had heard me say once or twice, reminding me that any kind of filter isn’t necessary.
“wait…get my good side,” he quipped.
*****
read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY
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the nurse-log’s new life in the lake up north this year, the strawberry patch, the new herb garden we built out of re-purposed schtuff (as wendy calls it), and, speaking of wendy, the tulips on her wall (sometimes the flowers aren’t real-live-in-the-dirt-flowers). there are photos from ocean-side marshland, the sweet gift of farmer’s market sunflowers, saved pictures of susan’s porch with hanging flowerpots…just to look at…as if i were there. flowers in linda’s abundant garden, 
huge basil at jen’s, gorgeous orange impatiens that stubbornly live in our backyard, even when we don’t notice them. black-eyed susans from our walks, white-flowering hostas on an iowa farm. soybeans in the field and bamboo alongside the lake, unidentified purple flowers 
and pink and yellow flowers along a neighbor’s front walk, purple sedum buzzing with bees a few houses away. the first tree to turn in the woods we were hiking in, a lone red leaf on a maple in the ‘hood. my photo shoot of the painting 
and breathe it back in. sometime, in the middle of winter, when the days are not as fluffy or romantically snowy, i will want to look at these pictures. to remember. you know, the whole thready thing. it’s a curse.
tent, which i am well-acquainted with, it called my name. “look at that happy bag,” i said to david. usually i don’t purchase much at these shows. i am often feeling that i-don’t-need-more-stuff feeling. but, as david told someone recently, pieces of art (really, despite what medium they are) reach out and find their true owner. and, i have to tell you, this happy bag found me. and you’ll never guess what the fabric was. for this dedicated wear-blue-jeans-and-black-tops girl (ok, that term “girl” may be outdated for me, but humor me, ok?”), this flowery backpack found its way into my hands. now i am using it each day. i know i will return to other purses i own (aka pocketbooks, aka handbags), but this happy bag will bring back -with just one glance- the hot day at the festival, the flowers in my summer, the color in my life. and we all need that, don’t we?
68 miles doesn’t sound like a lot until you think about it all in flipflops. 
they have since walked with my childhood best friend, the one who knows my mom, my dad, my brother, my grandparents on both sides, my growing up dogs, my old bike, my shag rug in my bedroom, probably still my locker combinations. they have embraced the farmer’s market every saturday, with cherished company and just the two of us. they have been there as we geeked our way cheering, eating, drinking and visiting through the kingfish game. they have walked our crazy aussie-dog. with them on, i have laughed, i have argued, i have tripped on uneven sidewalks snorting my own self-disapproval, i have cried (leaving the boy and the girl always always makes me cry.)
reverse threading 