BirchLane.net
May 2006
Wednesday 31
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
by Marianne Williamson
from A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles, Harper Collins, 1992. From Chapter 7, Section 3Tuesday 30
Prom Night.
Monday 29
New York City.
Sunday 28
Walks on The Manhan Trail. This word, an excerpt from a poem(?), I have walked past so many times during the past year. Today, I decided to photograph it.
Saturday 27
Dee's Wedding. It was so hot today the Wedding Cake started to melt. We called it The Leaning Cake. "Quick, Bruce," someone said. "Photograph it before it falls over!"
I arrived at the church
Friday 26
Rehearsal. Attending the wedding rehearsal makes me think I need to
Thursday 25
Back in New Jersey. Daryl and I drove to Fort Lee, New Jersey today to
The bedroom remains mostly unchanged and I plan to
Wednesday 24
Solitariness.
Tuesday 23
Photo Session. What a great session I had today with a graduating senior from Mt. Holyoke College.
Monday 22
If Only It Were Warm. May feels more like March than May--cold and damp.
Philosophy in Warm Weather
Now all the doors and windows
are open, and we move so easily
through the rooms. Cats roll
on the sunny rugs, and a clumsy wasp
climbs the pane, pausing
to rub a leg over her head.
All around physical life reconvenes.
The molecules of our bodies must love
to exist: they whirl in circles
and seem to begrudge us nothing.
Heat, Horatio, heat makes them
put this antic disposition on!
This year's brown spider
sways over the door as I come
and go. A single poppy shouts
from the far field, and the crow,
beyond alarm, goes right on
pulling up the corn.
~Jane KenyonA friend writes to me today:
My Dad passed away a few years ago and I talk to him every day. I share what I'm doing and I know he approves. I seem to do the things that I know he would approve of. I talk to my Son and Daughter as often as I can and spend time doing things with them as often as I can. It helps living. Thinking of memory-based narrative photos:
Sunday 21
Dinner with Daryl. Tonight I made Chicken Cajun Pasta. Today I photographed a High School Senior in her Prom Dress, which got me thinking I should add Seniors to my business plan as another Strategic Business Unit. I wanted to photograph her down at the pond; it would have been a beautiful photo--but just as we were about to leave the studio the sky turned black, thunder roared, lightening cracked and rail and hail fell from the sky. We did, however, create some beautiful images together in the studio. Later, of course, after she had left, the sky turned blue and I went down to The Lower Mill Pond to see what it looked like.
And a new portrait:
Saturday 20
Kids America Day. I spent four hours today photographing children at Kids Day America at Pace here in Easthampton, an event designed to raise awareness about children's health and safety. The photographs will be used for their ID fingerprint Cards. The day's events were organized and sponsored by friend and fellow BNI member, Dr. Mindi Fried. Kid's Day, although not an official holiday, is celebrated in many parts of the country and around the world. Conceived by two Pennsylvania chiropractors 12 years ago, the popular mission of the event has since spread.
Friday 19
Votes of Confidence. We are the membership committee. We are four people and we are sitting on a late Friday afternoon in Amy's in Easthampton, Massachusetts. "You are my first choice," one person says to me. His first choice, I am, for president of BNI. The other three say:
"Bruce, you have amazing leadership skills. And your enthusiasm is contagious."
I accept the six-month term which starts in October.
Thursday 18
Twenty-One Days. I went back to my Dad's apartment today. Twenty-one days after my Dad passed away I went back. I went back to pack the china and glassware, measure the dining room table and hutch, dust and sweep.
The apartment was stale, lifeless and the Jade plant in my Dad's bedroom sagged from forty years of growth, dry in the sun. I stood there and I stared out the window at The George Washington Bridge and the Jade plant stood there, too; stories I knew she would share with me when she was ready to speak--family stories.Last night I cried. Last night I told my neighbor Paula about my Dad and I cried when I said, "I keep thinking I can talk with him." And she cried, too.
This morning I woke at 5 to the sounds of birds outside my window, already awake and going about their day-long business. I sent e-mails to a few friends in New York City in an effort to help my friend, Olga, find a summer sublet. Olga. If it wasn't for her, I don't know how I would have survived the past twenty-one days. Constant in her friendship, she has been a pillar of strength and support for me.
When I opened the door to my Dad's apartment the photograph I gave him for Father's Day was the first thing I saw--not one of mine but one I bought from a photographer on a street corner in New York City; a photo of Lower Manhattan taken from the Jersey side of the Hudson River, the Twin Towers still standing. When I finally reached my Dad that day on the phone I was never sure if he was crying but he said he stood and he stared out the window and saw the Twin Towers crumble to dust and fall, and he heard the sirens and he waited, waited, and waited for another skyscraper in New York City to be attacked and crumble and fall. We talked everyday for days afterward--a few times every day. I wish I could call him now. "Dad. Hi. It's me."
First I walked from room to room in my Dad's apartment. Bathroom. Bedroom. Guest Room. Living Room. Dining Room. Kitchen. Bedroom. Guest Room. Living Room. Kitchen. Balcony. The apartment was eerily empty of life: much of the furniture had already been taken by relatives, the hundreds of family photographs gone, the kitchen cabinets bare; strangely, the only room with some sense of normality, of life, was my Dad's bedroom (My nephew Craig had not yet come for the bedroom furniture.). I had not yet begun to pack but I was already feeling emotionally drained. I called Olga.
The first thing I packed were the Martini glasses and Red Wine goblets. My Dad appreciated a good drink and a fine wine and I think this was where I should have started and I did. Of course, I would have poured a drink then and there but it was not yet noon and all the wine and liquor had already been divided up among my siblings and I three short weeks ago. Next I packed the china. Place-settings for twelve. White and perfect. Dinner Plates. Soup Bowls. Salad Plates. Coffee cups and saucers. Platters. Bowls. And then I packed the silverware, and the vases, and the candlestick holders. I packed three boxes of glasses, dishes and silverware for Danielle as she will be living in Rochester, NY next year working on her Master's and PhD.
And then I packed the car and I had room for one or two more items. I went back to my Dad's apartment; 15J in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Funny: six or seven years ago when I was selling printing and commuting to NYC from Western Massachusetts and spending one or two nights a week with my Dad, I went the 17th Floor, Apartment J, opened the door and thought "Oh My God. Dad has totally remodeled his apartment!" One or two seconds later, I realized I was in the wrong apartment, quietly closed the door, and went to Apartment 15J. "Bruce," my Dad said. "You look tired. Put your briefcase and camera down. I'll make you a drink."
And that's the way it was--always. I would arrive at his apartment around seven at night after a day in the city (or he would pick me up at the Ferry Terminal), we would have drinks, watch FoodTV (usually Mario Batali or Sara Moulton), and then go to The Big Red Tomato for dinner (where we were treated like kings; the brother and sister owners, Vincent and Carmella, and the waitstaff knew us very well--we had been eating there at least once a week for five or six years; ah the stories we shared). We would bring a bottle of red and unwind. Father and Son. Sometimes, I would ask a waitress to come outside with me so I could photograph her. Sometimes, I photographed people at their tables. Sometimes. Sometimes. Sometimes.I went back for the Jade plant. She had I knew stories to share with me.
Wednesday 17
Twenty Days. Today's quote in my planner reads:
We inherit from our ancestors gifts so often taken for granted — our names, the color of our eyes and the texture of our hair, the unfolding of varied abilities and interests in different subjects...
Each of us contains within our fragile vessels of skin and bones and cells this inheritance of soul. We are links between the ages, containing past and present expectations, sacred memories and future promise. Only when we recognize that we are heirs can we truly be pioneers.
My Dad has been (insert poem here)
More, she said. More of these.
Tuesday 16
Rain and Sun. I felt trapped inside my loft. The rain fell all morning. I do not have a raincoat.
Mid-afternoon the rain stopped and the mist lifted from Mt. Tom.
A man was fishing with his son down at The Lower Mill Pond.
"You taking pictures of those!" he said.
"Yes," I said.
Ithaca, New York. "Look," I said. Danielle, Daryl and Kiley, and I were pulling out of a parking lot. "Hand me the camera." Daryl said, "Dad, do you have to?" Kiley handed me the camera and click.
Experimenting (I have been very sad these past few days.) A friend and favorite photographer, Smith Eliot, writes:
Bruce- this is awesome too....have you seen the kelly wise image of the old guy lying face down on the dock? your image doesn't look exactly like that, but i thought of it when i saw this. i LOVE the light. and i LOVE the soft focus and i think it goes with the balloons image PERFECTLY. they have the same vast and empty feel. the balloons seem more hopeful somehow...but both have an element of the irretrievable to them...and both seem sort of memory-based.
Monday 15
Orecchiette Con Broccoli Di Raba. The menu was not in Italian. But I love the sounds of the words in Italian. My Dad's favorite meal. The meal he ate almost every time we had dinner at The Big Red Tomato in Fort Lee, New Jersey.
We are already one
and we imagine we are not.
And what we have to recover
is our original unity.
Whatever we have to be is what we are.~Thomas Merton
A friend writes about me in her journal today:
You have shown me to see the world with a completely different set of eyes. Every single day you bring beauty, joy, depth, and new perspective into my life. I cannot thank you enough for being the beautiful, kind, loving, gentle, and soulful man you are.
Sunday 14
Mom, Dad, and Danielle. Where would he have sat, I wondered, as I sat waiting for the commencement to start. It is Mother's Day and it is Graduation Day for Danielle.
I am blessed with great children.
Saturday 13
The Road to Ithaca. I pick up Daryl and Kiley, and Mike, at Betsy's house at 8:30. We stop to get gas--and coffee at Dunkin Donuts.
The phone rang. I was sleeping. She was crying. "Bruce, I am so sorry." I knew. I screamed "No." And this is what I thought over and over on the drive to Ithaca this morning for it was on this highway I drove that morning.
Some photos from Ithaca.
Friday 12
Rain and Diet. A nutritionist says to me, "Bruce, you feel sick to your stomach because of the stress."
Thursday 11
Diet. I can't eat without getting sick. This has been happening for one week. Lunch. Dinner. Soon after eating my stomach is in a knot and I am sick.
Wednesday 10
Train Trips. Olga went to New York City today to interview for an internship at a start-up financial firm. While I waited for her at the train station, I saw this:
Tuesday 09
Self Discovery.
I will make it to New York because it is important for more than just myself to do so. Unless I decide to stop at the New York state border, seven miles short of Times Square, and then just go home having failed to reach my goal. Either way I still win because I will be a happier and healthier person because of the experience. Incredibly, so will all of you, because everyone who encourages a person to face down their fears and freely walk into the firestorm of their own personal demons, has helped more than just that person. They have helped all of us, because there is one more happier person in the world.
What you do by building up instead of tearing down does more for our future generations than most people have ever imagined that they would do.
Monday 08
I want to believe I am looking
into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing-
that the light is everything-that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.
~Mary Oliver
Ask Me
Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.
I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.
~William Stafford
Little Night Music
Of neighbors' voices and dishes
Being cleared away
On long summer evenings
With the windows open
As we sat on the back stairs,
Smoking and sipping beer.
The memory of that moment,
So sweet at first,
The two of us chatting away,
Till the stars made us quiet.
We drew close
And held fast to each other
As if in sudden danger.
That one time, I didn't recognize
Your voice, or dare turn
To look at your face
As you spoke of us being born
With so little apparent cause.
I could think of nothing to say.
The music over, the night cold.
~Charles Smic
Sunday 07
More of Yesterday.
and then tonight:
Saturday 06
Writing. I should be writing but I can't seem to find the words.
So I keep photographing what I see.
Friday 05
Photos As Words.
Thursday 04
Nothing. I did nothing today. It has been one week. I made pasta and lentils.
Wednesday 03
Recipes. They fall from the cookbooks:
I was just thinking of meatballs; I was
looking through a cookbook of my dad's
and clipped recipes marked recipes in
the book and he had marked "meatballs."
And this his favorite ("Dad," I said, "How
come you never order something else?")
Orecchiette Con Broccoli Di Raba. Or
Broccoli Di Rapa Affogati. They are both
clearly marked in "Naples At Table," a book
he was happy to share one night with me:
"Look," he said, "Arthur Schwartz wrote
this book." Tomorrow I will make
Pasta E Lenticchie. I wonder which of
these he may have made (knowing how
difficult it can be to cook for one--yet
I can hear him say "Tonight
I am making Meatloaf. Tonight I am
making Salmon. Tonight I am making
Meatballs.") Baked Onions & Garlic;
Asparagus & Toasted Pine Nuts with Lemon Vinaigrette;
Tuesday 02
A Few Words About My Dad.
Fort Lee, New Jersey. I am in my father's apartment. I am alone. I am all alone--except for the photographs of his beloved family; his grandchildren. So many photographs. So many memories. It is late Thursday evening. He has been dead for twelve or thirteen hours. I am not sure of the time. Only the time of death. He was alive and well at three in the morning. He was dead at four. We are waiting for the results from the autopsy; there are many unanswered questions.
My Dad went into the hospital for knee replacement surgery and nine days later (last Thursday morning) a complication caused his death. We are waiting for the autopsy report. What can I say? One never thinks something like this will happen: the totally unexpected; my Dad was healthy; a great tennis player and dancer (As a child, he tap-danced on Vaudeville! As an adult, he was an accomplished ballroom dancer.). And he continued to work in real estate--at age 83!
The obituary (see below) will read, in part: "Alfred was known as the epitome of a gentleman who loved his realtor job and being a mentor for the new comers. He shared a yearning for dance and tennis and will be sorely missed by those friends. However, Alfred's biggest joy in life came from loving his family and grandchildren."
On my family's saddest days, the final four days in April and the first day in May, we were blessed with a bright blue sky and nature in bloom: red azaleas (The Royalty of The Garden) and pink flowering dogwoods. I knew what I wanted to say at the Monday Memorial Service--a very short comment: how when I made a new friend I always said to that friend, I can't wait for you to meet my Dad--you are going to love him; and when she/he did meet my Dad, they did love him--and he them.
One day after your Dad's death you start to think that you can't possibly cry again--ever; your eyes red and tired, dry, painful, filled with memory; you believe this to be true but you doubt this, today's truth, which is filled with scenes from a life story, like a movie which keeps forever dissolving untill there is but fire, then cold and then blackness: and then a get-well card from your daughter (mailed the day before his death) arrives and although you do not read it upon its opening you promise to do so--later; but a photograph falls from the envelope to the kitchen table--a photograph from four short weeks ago; your son, daughter, you, Kiley and your Dad ("Where's Olga," Dad said. I had told him about my best friend; he had spoken with her on the phone; she was to join us us that weekend but it didn't work out. He said, "Where's Olga?") sitting and smiling at a table in the restaurant, The Big Red Tomato (his favorite) in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and as it falls you see yourself and your dad and your son and your daughter and Kiley and the tears they fall, too, your cheeks wet, flush; there is the sound of sobbing and running water, sobbing and running water, the coi pond you think, wind chimes, voices, you wonder now where is your Dad.
My sister Michelle spoke of The Perfect Child. I think in my father's heart, in his soul and spirit, Michelle, Darlene, Dennis and I are all The Perfect Child as you, too, his family and friends are The Perfect People. Darlene spoke of The Lucky Ones. Yes, we four are lucky to blessed with a father filled with such unconditional love, a man who never spoke an ill word of anyone, his heart always filled with love for his neighbor. And Dennis spoke of our Dad as The Greatest and certainly he was for who could say what I want to say to you now, who could say this of their Dad, how many children could say that when they made a new friend, when I made a new friend, I always said to this friend, I can't wait for you to meet my Dad, you are going to love him, and invariably, she or he did love him, and my Dad them and he would then always inquire about them, their day, their joys, sorrows, dreams. Thank You for joining my brother and sisters, thank you for joining us today.
I am sure there will be more words to follow. And pictures. I am okay, yet devastated. Tired--emotionally, mentally, physically. I am home. Olga took care of my cat, Nadine and loft-sat for me--and had a great meal waiting for me when I returned home last night. Daryl and Danielle both said, "He loved us so much." Yes, he did.
BARONE - Alfred D., age 83, on April 27, 2006 of Fort Lee. Beloved husband of the late Shirley (nee Lawson) (1978). Cherished father of Michelle and her husband Stuart Heinzinger of River Edge, Darlene and her husband Paul Lipp of New Hampshire, Bruce Barone and his wife Betsy of MA, and Dr. Dennis Barone and his wife Dr. Deborah Barone of CT. Dear brother of Myron Barone of MD. Alfred is pre-deceased by his sister Victoria Derow in 1970. Adored grandfather of Christopher, Scott, Nina, Craig, Sara, Danielle, and Daryl. Alfred was also a proud great-grandfather of Jay, Brad and Nicholas. Alfred was known epitome of a gentleman who loved his realtor job and being a mentor for the new comers. He shared a yearning for dance and tennis and will be sorely missed by those friends. However, Alfred's biggest joy in life came from loving his family and grandchildren. Family will receive friends at The Beaugard Funeral Home, 869 Kinderkamack Rd., River Edge, Sunday 2-4 and 7-9 PM. Church Services will be held at The First Congregational Church in River Edge on Monday at 10 AM. Interment is at George Washington Memorial Park Cemetery in Paramus. In lieu of floral tributes, donations are requested in Alfred's memory to the Memorial Fund at The First Congregational Church in River Edge. Published in The Record and Herald News on 4/28/2006 and 4/29/2006
