On the first day of teaching photography at University of West Bohemia’s ArtCamp, I always look over five photographs from each student and discuss them.  We go over the basics of photographic creative decision making, and we hear from each photographer why it is that they created the samples they are showing.  Why always precedes how.  This exercise helps to set the framework for the week-long course.  At this year’s class, on the very first day, within the first hour, came a lesson from a student that explains a lot more than her photography:  it explains all creative expression.

When it came time for Taia to explain her five images, she began quietly and she struggled with her English.  There is often a beautiful precision in word selection when someone chooses from a limited vocabulary.  After she completed her presentation of ideas and thoughts that motivated the images on the desk, I said, “You used four words that are very important.  What you said is for your photography, and all of our photography.  They are for all of our creative expressions.”

In her descriptions, she used “magic,” “moment,” “connection,” and “understanding.”  There is magic in the seeing, and in the sharing; life comprises moments to be seen, savored and shared; the courage to express connects us as people; and, in the sharing, comes understanding.  Many great writers have tried to express in chapters and books what Taia addressed when explaining her work and why she created it.

Taia explained more than her photography, more than creative expression…she explained living.  And that is the beauty of artistic endeavors.

I just returned from teaching photography for a week at University of West Bohemia in Plzen, Czech Republic. This is my third year to do so, and it is always enjoyable. It also always challenges my thinking, seeing and understanding of the world and myself.

During the stay, I enjoyed a presentation by Richard Drury titled Art in the Shifting Sands of Czech Public Space. It was fascinating, as it charted art in public space over the years that included Russian rule, Communist transition, Communist crackdown/normalization, democratic changes and more. Enlightening and scary, entertaining and challenging, he provided interesting perspectives on art, government, artists and the Czech culture. Then he said that because of the conditions of the area for decades, if not centuries, time matters less to Czechs than space, and the most important space to them is personal space, and the most important personal space is mental space. Through all the conflicts and changes, suppression and repression, the Czechs have come to protect and preserve their freedom of thought and ideas.

I don’t believe it is fair or appropriate for this foreigner to take one man’s statement as the sacred truth about a culture that he has studied and lived in, but did not originate from. I have asked a few friends there what their thoughts are regarding Drury’s premise. Whether his belief is actually fact for a culture and a people is somewhat moot to the point of this column though. The point is that we must protect and preserve our freedom of personal thought and ideas. It is from this that our other freedoms can emanate: expression, religion, etc. It is from this that our daily freedoms can survive the suppression and repression that comes in other forms: roles, relationships, abuse, guilt, fear and so on. Our thoughts are the building blocks of our creativity, self-awareness, self-respect, growth, change, and future.

There are numerous threats, real and imagined, to our thinking. And to our way of thinking. The safety of our own mental space where we think, imagine, contemplate, ruminate, wonder and examine is critical to all of us, yet too often we sacrifice it to forces, real and imagined.

The sign is plain:  triangular and bright red with white numerals.  It stands in Galveston Bay alongsid the ship channel, marking the way opposite its green counterpart.  I had to visit it; decades have passed since I last lingered around marker 44.

When my dad and I fished out of April Fool Point marina in San Leon, Texas in the late ’60s and ’70s, two places were common stops for us:  Dollar Reef and marker 44.  The former usually brought us a good chance at croaker, gulf trout, sand trout, gafftop and pesky hardheads while the latter was often cited in fishing reports for the speckled trout moving up and down the channel.  While I don’t remember us catching a lot of speckled trout near marker 44, I do remember it being a beacon, a friendly “face” in the bay, and I recall feeling anxious as we approached it for fishing.  Near it we caught various types of fish and watched large ships going to port or returning to the gulf.  We noted the flags, guessed about the cargo the ships contained and rode the large wakes of the ships.  There were times that boats lined up along the channel, all participating in the catching of fish that moved along the underwater highway.  Yesterday, when I visited marker 44, there were no fishing boats nearby, but a bright orange ship headed into port to be loaded (it rode high in the water), a tug pushed two barges toward toward the port, and two shrimpers plodded along with nets out.

Marker 44 was one of the places that dad and I shared and I remember it more for the memories than its productivity; I prefer to remember things on that basis.

It has been a bit bumpy for my three boys these past few days.  I have been in full-on dad mode with text messages and calls coming to me regarding their challenging times of striking out on a new path with full passion only to find that the desired outcome does not come to be as expected or hoped.  I could not be more proud of their courage and their ability to deal with setbacks because they do not, have not, and clearly will not shy away from the bumpy road of trying.

For each, they reached beyond themselves regarding their passions.  For each, they did not get the success and the changes for which they hoped, worked and dreamed.  Beautiful and blessed is the sight of watching these young men pursue life fully.  They continue to inspire me.

I am reminded by their experiences that pursuit of one’s passion requires commitment to one’s dreams and to one’s self; it requires risk; and, it means being ready to deal with setbacks and backfires.  The highway to success sometimes includes bumpy rides of growth.  No matter what drives us, we must commit to the trek and believe in ourselves along the way.

When confronted with my own lame excuse for not writing a Listen to Life today—“I was not inspired”—I coped with the guilt and figured it didn’t make a difference anyway. I guess I was waiting for thunder-and-lightning-and-quaking inspiration, or even that subtle kind that is moving. Nothing. Oh well.

Then I recalled a quote by Jack London. Something about chasing inspiration with a club. The quotation is actually, ““You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” So, I sought out my club (couldn’t find one), and then settled back to the keyboard. Inspiration is that way, sometimes. Even when you know what to do, you can’t find the tools to get it done; however, the process of trying can lead to something valuable. For me, it was more Jack London.

“I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

I enjoyed Jack London as a kid (reading Call of the Wild and White Fang), and then re-found him with short stories and his autobiographical fiction Martin Eden when I was a midlife adult. His was a life of struggles and sacrifices, but he certainly did not merely exist.

In the search for the club with which to pursue inspiration, I found the reminder that the answer is in living the brilliant blaze. The way you live life provides you access to inspiration; the club is actually the way in which you live…no matter what inspiration you seek.

Father’s Day provides wonderful reminders of touch points that make cross-generational connections of bonds and kindredness.

Thoughts drift forward and back in time, to times when my sons were youngsters, toddlers and infants; to times when I was a youngster; to recollections of stories told to me by my dad about his life as a youngster, young adult, young man and my own memories of the man I knew as dad.  My thoughts drift forward, looking with pride as my sons’ live their lives well and fully and how that will serve them well over the decades to come; forward to the next phases and stages as a grandfather, having just had the pleasure of babysitting granddaughter for a few days, which gives me pause as to time passing.

I had the chance to babysit because my oldest and his wife were on a trip that brought them through Yazoo City, Mississippi, the locale of many of my dad’s growing-up stories that my sons have heard over the years.  His interest in dad’s city came from stories told about experiences.  These stories are touch points.  And then the stories that my son shared about what he saw, the accents he heard, and the welcome he received as a stranger have re-energized me to complete a few trips to Yazoo, Meridian, Vimville, and the Yazoo and Pearl rivers to create the images and writings I have always longed to develop as part of my curiosity about my dad’s region of origin.  I want to have a book of that experience completed by April 2013, the centennial of dad’s birth.

I grew up hearing stories and shared them; I lived out my own stories and shared them; my boys heard stories and lived out their lives making their own stories; and all those stories are touch points that we can refer to with each other.  The stories create a common understanding, a bond, a kindredness.

I am blessed to have had the father I had; I am blessed to have the sons I have; I am blessed to have the granddaughter I have and the grandchildren yet to come.  As different human beings, we will have common connections through stories that unite us a mini-tribe, a clan…a family. Sharing our stories and sharing of ourselves create touch points, and on days like Father’s Day, we can connect many generations.  We are connecting to the future.

Happy Father’s Day to all dads past, present and future; to my son who is now a dad, to my sons who have the joy of fatherhood in their future; and to my dad whose gravestone declares “He has left for us a most noble pattern.”  A son could not ask for more.

A friend shared a story with me this evening.

“A really nice lady there (one of his clients) is the office manager… her husband David is also on the payroll as a plant supervisor.  They’re both early 50s, friends since age 5, married many years.  Both in good health.  On Friday night, they went to dinner, and he had some raw oysters.  Apparently they were contaminated, spoiled, or whatever happens with raw oysters, because later that night he fell ill.  By Saturday night, in the hospital, his kidneys had shut down and he was on dialysis.  Sunday he showed some improvement with 30% kidney function.  He died on Monday.

 Over the course of a long weekend, they went from happy couple of many years, to just a grieving widow knowing not what to do next.”

We sometimes grumble after a difficult day that “It has been a long day.” But that same day is abundant, full of opportunity to enjoy, experience, grow, love, feel.  We never know when those opportunities will stop for us.  Are we living the life we want?  Are we finding joy and fulfillment with our lives?  Are we sharing, caring and loving? What would you do with this moment if you knew how few you had left?  Fill each moment and hug the people you care about.

“You’re beautiful,” the man said as he looked over my shoulder to the image of his wife that I showed him in my camera’s screen.  The images that I create are not for the men in women’s lives, but for the women and for me.  That makes the man’s comments more special.  Each comment came in a whisper as a reaction to what he saw.

Of course I am proud when I hear such things, but there is something more important about the comments of  Emily’s and Jennifer’s husbands:  they were spoken spontaneously.

The men responded to the beauty of the women they love.  The images were not glamorous, nor of the “beauty” genre, yet they clearly revealed beauty.  The men responded with “you’re beautiful” with the power of loving whispers.

We all need to be open to beauty—particularly other than that which the media defines—and we need to respond to it.  Respond to her.

Let beauty take our breath away, and allow ourselves to say so.

At the recent opening of an art exhibition titled “Body Image,” an attendee said “I have not taken enough drugs to understand this S*#!.”  I had to laugh when I heard the story about her experience.  Her first mistake was assuming that she has to understand.

Whether it is art or life, it is likely a disadvantage to assume that we have to understand.  We don’t understand the sexes or how they communicate; we don’t understand the universe; we don’t understand life; we don’t understand love; we don’t understand emotions and feelings; we don’t understand our OWN place in the universe…. so how can we ever expect to understand another’s interpretation of life through their art?

While teaching in the Czech Republic in July, I reminded the students that we create art based on the lives we’ve lived, the people we’ve encountered, and the beliefs and values that we hold; likewise, when someone views their art, that person is looking at the work based on who he or she is, i.e., life lived, people encountered, and beliefs and values held.

Art is an expression of life and all that it holds, for better or for worse.  Therefore, it can’t ever be understood by all in the same way.  So it is with life and those we encounter in it.  We’ll never fully understand, and that is okay.  I recall the closing words of the father in A River Runs Through It as he gives a sermon after his youngest son was murdered:  “You can love completely without complete understanding.”   …for art, for life, for living, for those we encounter in our lives.

“No regrets,” I said softly as both statement and question.  “No regrets,” she replied.

“Sufficient unto today are the troubles thereof.”  Why add to that with self-imposed baggage of regrets, bitterness, jealousy, vengeance or revenge?

Life is to be experienced and not all experiences turn out quite like we hoped, expected or dreamed.  So be it.  Life continues on and more experiences await us with wisdom that grows every day, making the next experience more meaningful and rich.

Recent events have given me pause to wonder and consider what enables people to “move on down the road” of life without loading up their personal suitcases with the burdens described above.  Two things, I believe:  faith and love…for self and others.  Those things enable us to make decisions, take action and accept consequences as part of the ebb and flow of life.  Perhaps one more ingredient to add to that mix of personal strength and perseverance:  perspective.  Can we look at our actions and inactions, decisions and indecisions, bravery and fears from the high-level perspective of a lifetime that is being experienced in the grandness of Creation and eternity?

So now I have a new daily mantra of sorts:  no regrets.  That is not a passport for irresponsibility, but a statement and a question I present myself after a day of making the best decisions that I could in a day of faith and love when I used the best of who I am to be the man with foibles that I am.   If I brought the best of who I am to each moment—and sometimes the “best” is admittedly not so great in some moments—then I can say…”no regrets.”