Far enough, far enough wasn't far enough.

His snores are so tiny, but keep me awake, still. My blue breasted bird, the smaller of two parakeets, mimics his sound; makes small grunting breathing sighs of his own. I look to my wall where there was a corner filled of film prints, each vibrant in their color, their own memory splendor. But they are gone, hiding face down in a closet where I won’t be tempted to look. Where I won’t be tempted to travel into the page, into the gelatin print of happiness; into the corners of mouths, upturned and opened; into the strands of hair, breezing over shoulders and across noses, reflecting every ray of summer sun in a grand shade of gold. Where I won’t be tempted to allow myself to remember what it was like to love a boy and a friend.

I sit here; “be strong,” I tell myself over and over.

It's Like I Let Her Down.

She only ever asked me for one thing. Twenty-three years, and she only had one request. Twenty-three years, and I only had excuses: a dying camera battery, a sudden rainstorm, no more film.

"If there is one thing I love," she said to me, "its the way one of those tiny, tiny, shells look like under the water. You know... when the wave has receded, and the saltwater left the shell looking bright orange; all shiny under the sun." She was laying on her back in her living room, in a bed recently purchased to keep her comfortable. "Will you take a picture of one? For me? I will keep it next to my bed, here."

She lifted her hand to pat the table next to her, the one cleared of family portraits to make room for the tissue box, the intercom to call her husband for help; the table filled with bottles and a sheet of paper- a time list for administration. I didn't know what hurt me more, knowing we had at best a month, or seeing such a soul confined to one horrific bed, in one restricting room, far from the sun, the grass, the animals, everything wild that kept her alive.

I promised to bring her a photograph of a stone, shining in the summer sand along the coast; orange, wet from her friend, the ocean.

But it was one obstacle after another. Loss of daylight, camera shake, dying battery, shortage of film. "In the morning," I told myself. I bought a new battery, four rolls of film - I was determined for her. And at six o'clock I woke, to hail stones and thunder rocking the tiny beach house I slept in. I had to be on my way home in an hour - and it stormed the entire way. It's like I let her down. Her one request, her simple wish, I couldn't fulfill.

Well, here. It's not like it matters now, but I have hundreds of photographs. Collections of the ocean, of the stones and shells and afternoon sand. I'm too late, I know. But I want it to count. I want her to know, I want her to see it matter to me.

Southbound.

I needed this more than I've needed anything for a long time. And now that I have returned, settled, and adjusted back to the norm, I can see much clearer. I finally know what I was trying to know for along time.

I'm working on a few pieces. I hope to have them completed soon. Nothing feels good anymore, unless I am writing, or, unless I am writing about it. Either way, I am more determined than ever to master this craft.