I like to call it The Summer Of Tom. People attach different names or titles to it, and for most it happens more than once. The details really aren't important - though I do have some friendly memories and some well earned scars to go with them - but instead the fact that one never seems to appreciate the fleeting moments that drift past with the ease of the sun. It is only after it goes down that we appreciate the warmth and goodness we had. It is in the contrast of the deepest darkness and doom and gloom strewn carelessly about, the stars blotched out by a life so clouded and foggy in comparison, that we realize it was a good time to be alive, with good people, and if not for the memories, we would have missed it altogether.

I question whether or not I can live in the moment a realize that I am having the time of my life, here, now. I do remember telling myself that it probably wouldn't get better than it was, and it never does. Not unless it's already long past, buried in the past, far out of reach. I feel that many people experience this phenomenon, so I am not alone. I do feel that there is a way to live in the moment, the now, and I have done it before. I long for that peace again, but it has slipped beyond my reach for the time being. Getting to that place requires a strength and focus that many lack. I know I am in that group of individuals.

Tommy, and the chaotic summer that went with it, was a sheep in wool event. I never knew out of such turmoil, amidst such stress and worries for the future, I could five months of stupid fun. Hangovers, scars, barbeque's, rivers, the mountains, camping, avoiding buis, headlamps with beer strapped to our bicycles. As this stage in my life came to close, I was ready for the next, or what I thought to be the next. That stage never happened. I ask myself what else I could have done. I wonder, where on earth did I go wrong.

Life simply does not work that way-- it's not all about wrong and right decisions, but making the best with them, and using those memories to spur on one more step. Looking at this photo of a summer that I will always remember as The Summer Of Tom, I realize there could be many more Summer Ofs, and while they might not get better, the will be there. At least I can hope.

version one point zero

This is me. I am among the anonymous millions who are born, live, and die, and whose life, work, passions and loves will probably slip into the garbage disposal of time. My energies, my works, my life -- all of it-- will be recycled to a new form to be used by the future masses like a nameless step stool. All my effort, all my will, all my dreams. I am just another stitch in the global fabric of our era, not to be noticed at all in this composition. I do not belong to myself, but a collage of individuals. What I achieve will, in the end, be irrelevant.

Then why do this at all? Why make a new attempt at reaching out to those around me? Why share what is otherwise not going to matter? Why would I put time and effort into something that will matter to few, impact even less, and inevitably become a just some tangled mess of words and photographs at the basement of time that nobody will look at? I ask myself the same thing of physicians. Why treat the already doomed to die? Maybe being human is making the best of the slow decay of ourselves and the world we grew up. Perhaps we all know we are destined for nothingness, but we might as well paint a picture on the cave walls. We might as well extend our hand out, to save or be saved, for what else is the point?

I find myself descending into a constant form of cynicism. The truth is, as a cynic, I see the underlining good. There is in fact a reason for good work, whatever that might be. We are all connected somehow, so that is why I will smile in the face of anonymity. Someone is drivin' this bus straight for a cliff, so I might as well capture it.

They say a photo is worth a thousand words. Why not attach a couple thousand more? Granted, I will probably get lazy or distracted, and write just a few words here and there. But who's counting?