March 9th 2026

It's six months to the day since I turned over the keys to our family home of 30 years to a couple eager to make this gracious house their own. Back then I imagined myself on some footloose adventure- all my possessions in storage with no strings to tie me down. Turns out a lack of responsibility confused me. I'm used to attending to the varied demands of family, work and of a nearly 100 year old house and garden so predictably I decided I needed to buy another house to keep me grounded and sane.

Six weeks of house shopping back in the east side suburbs of Cleveland where I grew up led me to buy the house where I sit poised in front of this keyboard to share this update. I am no longer in Sleepy Hollow although somewhere Sleepy Hollow and 3 decades of memories reside deeply within me.

It's hard to imagine how this effort can morph and expand to this new location. For now, without the clarity of how to end 15 plus years of sharing the daily trials and tribulations of life along the Hudson I  keep myself occupied with transforming another old house into the home that will sustain us. Wish me luck and good fortune as I wish the same of all of you with appreciation for your caring and attention over the years to this modest effort of mine.

The end and a beginning

Without oversharing, I've made a huge change in my living situation. I sold my home of many years to a couple who wanted the house very much for themselves and their kids (understandable given how much I enjoyed raising my family there) and as a result, everything is in storage as I explore where I want to live next. I'm currently bunking with friends near where I grew up in Ohio and the local housing stock is surprisingly nice and affordable compared to the New York City metro area. I might be staying here a while (well the plan is 2 years) unless it's just too hard to imagine living anywhere else except near the Hudson River. 

Hard to put in to words how it feels to have severed my connection to my home of 3 decades, the garden I loved and the many friends and memories made. Looking forward is the only option and one I hope will fuel me through this new chapter.

Update (it's been a while)

It's been nearly 30 years to the day that I embarked on the adventure of homeownership (I had already been bestowed upon in the parental department with the birth of my first child Max) so I was not a novice at 42 to adulthood and responsibility. By 40 I had worked for many years as a photographer trying to deliver a sufficiently compelling and believable result such that I got paid for my effort and expenses regularly- so I understood what it meant to be reliable. Still, the 360 months spent as steward of this house in this pleasant suburban development along the Hudson River has been the longest ongoing relationship of my life and given that one day soon I intend to sell the house and depart the neighborhood- this chapter will be a part of my history and no longer my present. A very sobering thought!

I am excited at how that will feel. No longer sleeping in a room where two of my kids were conceived, no longer washing dishes at a sink where they took their first baths or when I sit at the kitchen table I remember the countless meals the five of us once took routinely as a family. All of these memories percolate at will and randomly and without the house itself to act as an incubator of the past who knows what will bubble up next.

I can only express gratitude for all the good there was and that we had the inner fortitude to muster what life gives, takes and expects. Sleepy Hollow has allowed me to create, parent, garden, work, recreate and love in ways I could never had imagined when I moved here.

Update and Anxiety

I've stopped contributing much of anything here except to notice if anyone is looking, reading. Given that this entity exists in the virtual realm with neither paywalls or advertising, whatever I thought in the beginning, whatever I thought might or might not happen in doing it, I realized somewhere along the way that I didn't necessarily know why I was combining words with pictures, at times on a regular basis about my life. (Author's note: With this addition, I have posted 948 times.) 

What I was watching, what I was reading, places, entertainments, exhibits I made my way to, what lovely or dark moment transpired in the familial realm. I guess I felt some urgency to put it down in the world of x's, o's and pixels. So much has happened in the years since I began in 2010. My three kids grown and flown, where once every one of their habits and behaviors seemed subject matter for parental concern, now I get mostly breezy text exchanges that require few syllables. I'm okay (well not totally) with that. I'm glad that we are all so independent and cherish that I can keep myself upright mostly on my own steam. Self reliance isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Lately I'm looking for grace in every corner and forgiving others and myself as much as possible. I dread the upcoming election and the ugly words propelled by the orange haired man and his minions. My fervent hope is that Kamala and the Dems win big. That's all that seems to matter right now.

Purpose and Purposelessness

(please note I wrote this post in 2013 and left it in draft until today. My father took the photo of my gloved hands many years ago at my direction. Thanks Dad!)

I'm trying to overlook how boring most photographs are even as each gleams (or not) in its fashion.  There are too many images out there, and if they are not derivative or repetitive then the alternative is that they are often intent on being quirky and odd or descriptive of events extreme to which we bear witness from the security of our insular lives.

I like looking at author less images- the planets, taken from satellites, or from a microscope, or snapshots that someone threw in a drawer and forgot about for years and years. It's too much sometimes- this global relentless universe of picture making and even poignant images can sometimes bore me to tears. I  can't stop wrestling with the endless commodification of life through photography and all that entails.