On the Beach...

Okay, so I'm on vacation. Sort of.

First of all, with two small children, as Ronald Reagan said about the presidency, it's not a vacation, it's just a change of scenery. They're a full-time job ... as they should be. And this isn't a complaint, just a statement of fact. Just as, as when you get out of college, get a job, get older, get married, the concept of "vacation" changes, so it does when you have kids. Now it's as much about their vacation as yours...

Secondly, our modern age has made my obsessive personality even more out of control. I just finished an article for NPPA on Robert Capa's Death of a Spanish Solider picture, because a series of articles have recently called its authenticity into question. Again. (This is a whole separate posting, as I had been working on a piece about this for a while, only to have it lost in a hard drive crash. I reconstructed it in less than a week after the new controversy began, finally sending the finished piece last night after two days of solid writing ... in between trips to the beach.) The internet just makes it too easy to do stuff like that (and update a blog) from a place where one is supposed to be getting away from it all.

And so I come across this: On Vacation, Leave the Photo Gear at Home and Take the iPhone Instead. Uh, no. Or rather, I understand, but vacation is for me more the time to overpack the photo bag. I decide what I haven't had the chance to really play with, or what I've really been enjoying playing with lately, and load 'er up! Last year, I took my Leica Ms and Kiev (a Russian -- or to be specific, Ukrainian -- version of the Hasselblad) to the beach along with 400 B&W film. This year I brought the Leicas and my trusty twin-lens Rollei, veteran of trips to China and Haiti. Why? Because that's the packet I wish people would want to pay me to use. That right now would really entertain me, to be contracted to go out with my Leica Ms and Rollei to spend some time somewhere to capture it. So I've made my own gig...

ADDENDUM: The Capa piece is live now on the NPPA web site.

The Rule of Joseph...

I think I'm beginning to figure out what to do with this.  Forgive me as I find my voice -- a voice I wish sounded more like P.G. Wodehouse, or at least Bertie Wooster.

It has occurred to me that this is a useful place for those ideas that occur to you suddenly, wholly formed, but have no particular use or outlet.  At least, they occur to me ... especially after a couple of glasses of wine.

Tonight, I suddenly thought of something that could be called "The Rule of Joseph," after St. Joseph.  Yep, you know, Jesus' father -- or rather the guy who took on the father role for a couple of decades.  

You know, he's not quoted in the Bible.  At all.  Not one word from the guy who had to take care of Jesus -- provide income, teach him a trade, be a Dad.  Yeah, I know it was a different time, and frankly who could beat Mary in the Mom role, but still not one word?

My Dad pointed out one day, when I was still fairly young and it was still unusual to be on TV, that people often waved at the camera and said, "Hi, Mom!"  It became a bit of a joke, it happened so often.  I remember a pro football player noticing the camera, waving and mouthing the words, "Hi, mom," and my Dad asked, "Why don't they ever say, 'Hi, Dad?''

It did strike me as an interesting thought at the time, but it means ever so much more now.  Now I'm Dad, to two girls, 6 and 2, and they're in a Mommy period.  Me?  I'm chopped liver.

It's the Rule of Joseph.  It's my place.  I have to be Dad: available, dependable, solid, stolid, and strong.  They're not coming for me for long talks or soft hugs, but I have to be there.  There's not a lot of payoff, especially not if you had some vision, say when you decided to get married, of how life was going to be.

You were probably in your twenties, when you're looking at options, and this marriage and kids option has begun to look like a good idea.  Believe it or not girls, to guys that does seem a good idea at some point, and you are a big part of that vision.  But what I'm getting at is this: As with everything, you don't really end up where you thought you would.

Perhaps that should be carved over the exit of the birthing center: You won't end up where you expect.  At any rate, I digress, because it's not just where you end up; it's where you need to be.

As I enter the power dive down toward 50, I gotta' tell you twenty-somethings that no one is going to appreciate your efforts.  You'll stay up late helping, you'll be the Dad you wish you had (or in my case, was lucky enough to have), you'll keep trying to do "the right thing" and that will keep you up at nights (when you desperately need sleep).  And for that, your two-year-old will only want Mommy.  It's your place.  You're Joseph.  You do everything you can, raise a family, and what will happen?  Mary gets a cult.  You get to help sell real estate...