Mostly because I like them; they are among my favorite images, they capture my long lived sense of ghosts in the aftermath of activity – the moment when a favorite place is out of season. Where all the guests go home.

Shortly after I got out of treatment, I arranged through a friend to get Jacques the money I owed him. I never heard from him although my friend said that Jacques had smiled when he took the money and asked if I was doing okay, and when she said I was, he shrugged as if to say I’m glad it worked.

Not enough sleep and some bad juju brought me to this tarmac meditation on my long road to here. It took me a very long time to realize that where my father was concerned, most of what was wrong between us was on me. He was a good man, reserved, thoughtful and wryly funny, disciplined and thorough.

I needed to get outside and breathe. When I came back I wrote the post, and as you can see it had less to do with walking and my physical improvements and more to do with the grinding reality of Tarmac Meditations in my life.

Every now and then I take my camera and shoot what’s around me; the images that follow are what I have seen with a camera in my hands. The other day I shot a local race event in progress. These images are markers of recovery, small celebrations of renewal – I think. What do you think?

There is something out there.
It is more than nothing.
It has come to matter to me.

Here are several, both color and black and white, of a morning in my life not too long ago. After all the whining and losing are done, and the relentless, useless calculations of loss finished with, all that is left is the doing what there is to do. I said that.

The irritation is useful if somewhat indulgent. The “I Used-to-was” phrase has been mostly replaced with the more accurate and ultimately more useful “I am.”

These days, all of that stuff falls under the heading of mileage, at least it does for me. It’s easier that way. And more useful as shorthand, hence Tarmac Meditations.

But “hope is a thing with feathers” as the poet said (although I am sure she was not referring to the new duster I bought the other day and placed prominently on a corner of my desk); I am closing in on the work that needs doing. Trust me.