89.

     My family went on a boat ride along a beautiful river that I never knew existed! There were no houses on it, the water was clear - it was really lovely. It was very shallow most of it and the part we rode in was between two dams. The light was SO beautiful and I only had my phone - that is not to day I would have preferred my camera over my phone for, as I have stated, I prefer the wide angle to a fault and my phone can do that for me. I cannot get over the light - It is days and places like these that make me want to stay for a bit longer. When the light hits New York City, it does not bring it to life as it does the trees and the river.

88.

     I went camping up north with my family. We drove around a lot so I did not take many pictures. Even when I had my camera out not many were taken - I only have one lens and i need a wider lens, it is actually why I have been using my phone but all of these are my camera. There were so many beautiful things up there, the mountains alone are unbelievable and most of it cannot be photograph digitally, I couldn't get everything I wanted to be exposed properly. It was a fun trip in an enchanted place and I do not believe that these photos do the place any justice.

43.

     This weekend, I took a trip the Berkshire Mountains with my mom to do a retreat at the Kripalu Center. These are image from my stroll around the grounds. I far too distracted to actually get into the program - I have so much work to do here at school. I just wasn't in the mindset. Actually, I don't know that I am ready to do Kripalu right now. I feel, for lack of a better word, guilty when I'm not working. If I accomplish nothing in a day I feel like it was waste - hours, days, weeks: they go by so quickly there is no time for me to stop right now, I'm young so I do not see the problem with it but, one day in the distant future I would like to go back to Kripalu and actually be there. It was nice to spend my time with my mom and it gave me an excuse to do so - just us. I wouldn't have just gone home because of the work load but the fact that we paid and the ever-alluring thought of Kripalu made my go. I love Kripalu, I do but just not now. Every one in program was there, all of them. Physically, I was there but mentally, spiritual - I was not. I feel as though I have deprived my mom of something but she got something out of the program and for that, I am thankful. It was not a waste of time. I think she would have liked it more if I had gotten something out of it, well - I figured some stuff indirectly from the program - I was enlightened to certain things but not that which was intended to brought about. 

42.

     My mother wanted to go back to the God's Wisdom cross. John Harty, the man who made the cross is, I'm guessing, in his late 80's. He comes out to greet any car that pulls into his yard and tells his story with the same inflections - every time. In 1989, he says that God came to him and told him to finish the pond (as he was building a pond in his yard), level the field, make a cross, plant rye to grow four feet tall all around it, on the cross - put the ten commandments. His says that his daughter Noreen was the chosen one to do the art work. Then he was to cut down the rye and reveal the cross. Later, God came to him again and told him to write GOD'S WISDOM at the foot of the cross, on either sides of the God's Wisdom, he was to put the two flat stones from the field. There was only one problem with this: there were no flat stones. The men leveling the field said there was one big rock from the center of the field - which they tried to break in half, to no avail. One day one of them though he would give the rock one more try and tapped it with the machine. At the moment, the rock broke, against the grain (which is very uncommon, nearly impossible naturally) with a sound louder than dynamite. He then had his two flat stones, on which he wrote bible quotes. In the field there is a spring, over which he made a well & pump - there is a story about that too, I think something about Mary but I am not sure. 

     People come from all over to see the cross and John. And some times, he remembers them. My mom and I are known as the lady that plucks hairs from people's face and daughter from Gorfstown. "You're in my black book," he told my mom with a wink, holding her hands - as he did much of the time. He took us around the field and told us of the story we'd both heard a couple of times now, of the updates since last time and future plans. 

     Whether he is delusional or a prophet, he is the nicest old man and he is very proud of his cross - he keeps it up with adding adornments, decorative plants and benches. He is not very healthy and I fear for the fate of the cross in coming years. He still is very involved in keeping it up but after he passes, I don't know who will keep it up - it's sad, really. It is just as legitimate as any other shrine/place of miracles (as he claims people have been healed there) and I hope that if no one else, God will not allow it to fall into disrepair. He loves it so much - that field and he are one and it would sadden me very much to see anything bad happen to it. 

     I think that, considering some other Catholic saints, he should at least become blessed - and I'm not just saying that because I want to be able to say I have met a saint. He just lives so humbly and seems quite content to do so - he lives for God. 

     I am still very skeptical about the whole thing, but considering other things that people accept as truth, this seems just as legitimate. Meeting and speaking with him adds validity. He said, "It's all for Jesus. It's all for him. He proved to me that God is real...God is real. And God is spirit."   

15.

     More pictures of my mom...these are all from my camping trip. They're quite spastic and all over the place but I think they appropriately display what I see of my mother during our trips to Maine. She really loves it, I wish I could say that I did too. 

14.

     I do not often photograph my father and when I do I decidedly make him out to be this big woodsman. It's not very hard, seeing as he is this big woodsman but I know that I exaggerate it a bit.   He is so in his element in the woods that photographing him in it is quite easy and he doesn't seem to mind. I have come to find myself quite miserable in such places for long periods of time, don't get me wrong - I love the woods but I love the woods in the fall and in the spring and for no longer than a matter of hours. That being said, I find it odd that my father would be so comfortable. I know how to be in the woods, I have experienced it and I grew up with it, it is just that I would prefer to be elsewhere. Maybe it's a generational thing.... 

13.

      But the old man always thought of her as feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favors, and if she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help them.  The moon affects her as it does a woman, he thought. 

The Old Man and the Sea

12.

     Camping is quite a barbaric practice. Why, if we have the technology to do otherwise, do people choose to go live as if they were lost in the wilderness? I mean, it was fun when I was young child, but now I really can't find the appeal in sleeping in the muggy woods, going to bed dirty and smelling of lobster (not exactly complaining about that) and smoke. I LOVE the smell of campfire but not on me as sleep - not when smelling of it was the easier/cheaper/potentially cleaner option for the night. I understand the monetary motivations but I would prefer to just go up to Maine for a day trip or to stay at an inn for less time and a highly nightly charge. I love Ogunquit, but no one in Ogunquit love those who aren't properly groomed and how is supposed to properly groom themselves in a campground? She's not. That's the point. 

      We always go camping for my mother's birthday, that is why I go. She calls it vacation. I call it that time when I have to bathe in public restrooms for $0.25 a 7 minutes of a shower - the temperature of which is constantly fluctuating from very hot to very cold. It's fun for the three or four day spouts that I am allotted from work, anything more would woefully unamusing. I'm glad my mother enjoys it, I'm glad that I'm home. 

      This trip was strange in other ways too. I kept feeling like I shouldn't be there - like I should be doing something productive, but I can't think of what I would have been doing....

      Oh, and this camping trip broke my iPhone. -___-