What a Day...

It has been a while since i have written anything on here...Thanksgiving.  What does it men to you?  I miss my daughter, i miss my old life that i had even if it was not good, i still miss it.  I miss my old friends that i have left over the years all over the county.

It has been a hard day for me today...

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Evening Rose 1.5

Evening Rose 1.5
Originally uploaded by RMStringer

This photo reminds me of life. We know that we have a thing of beauty that God has created but we loose sight of the total beauty and color of it. we only see in Gray, Black, and White. The color has left us and we are but a pale shade of what we were.

This happens to our relationships sometimes and no matter what we do, nothing can bring the color and warmth back into it. So, sadly, it stays cold and gray never to return to its former glory and then dies away...

A Distant Future Memory...

DSC02634
Originally uploaded by RMStringer

Through my photography i express myself. I am able to find my creative and artsy center and also my technological side. For me it is personal and i look at the world in a different way.

When people and my friends, close friends notice and make comments about my work, i get filled with emotion. Good emotions and more yearning to strive to make better photography. But i also get filled with a sadness from them as well.

All i wanted from om other half, when i had her, was for her to accept this new me and to realize the passion that i had from my creations. All i got was mocking and scorn or money comments. I just wanted her to say that i was a good photographer and that my work was good, not that it was good when she wanted and needed me to do a photo for her.

In that aspect, acceptance was what i wanted from her and that my photography, my art, my passion, could and did not have a price that she could hold in her hands. The boat on the lake that i so love and the God created sunset in the sky is a future that we could have had. A glimpse of a future that will not be for us to have for she could not see the beauty and art in my passion... Only the bottom dollar.

David Bowie - Thursdays child

I can so totally relate to this song and i always have been able to. "the song's about a guy living with a girl he doesn't love, same point from the girl, they're trying to work it out but things remain the same."

DSC00934: Sunset Rattlesnake 1.0

DSC00934: Sunset Rattlesnake 1.0
Originally uploaded by RMStringer

4th Of July!! Lake Sam Rayburn Texas: Rattlesnake Island!!!

Another in the Sunset Series.

Later on in the evening, more boats have gone...

I love how the bodies are in silhouette against the water and the deep tones i achieved using a "Center Weighted" metering mode for this photo. It lets you know that the night is just about upon the people left on the island and the wonderment of what is to come later...

Looking Into The Distance...

Looking Into The Distance...
Originally uploaded by RMStringer

I have not written here in a while. Life still goes on and i am like a leaf being blown down the road and into the water.

Looking West off into the distance standing in the middle of HWY 255 on the southern end of Lake Sam Rayburn. I wonder where it will end or where it begins...

I am just caught in confusion and strange emotions today and i do not like it. The reality of me moving home after 8 years of being away and the loss of my job and my family in the divorce is really bothering me this evening. I miss my friends in St Louis and the activities that i did there with them...

I really miss my daughter Chelsea. That is the worst part of the divorce and moving away from there. I did not know how much of an impact that it was going to have on me...

Unopened Bloom

Unopened Bloom
Originally uploaded by RMStringer

This photo reminds me of what is happening in my life. I am like this flower as i am waiting for the right time to open up and see the Sun. I am waiting to feel its warmth and bask in its glow. I have yet another life to live now. Starting over and beginning to live another life in the continuing saga that has been my time so far...

New Life(s)

In the past 20 years i have lived more than a lot of people would have ever wanted to. I have been a party person, a student, a friend, a dad, a husband, a lover, a cheat, a lair, a thief. I have lived so many lives that i care and dare not try to name them all. I am now living another life that i thought would never happen; it was in my head that it could happen. I hoped that it would not come to what it had to before this happened to me.

Many lives that we all lead, this is one i did not want to ever have to live, a divorced 37 year old with no children of my own. Now i am faced with a very hard and strange choice. DO i want to have a child of my own with someone when and if i find someone special or do i want to stay a single man or married with no children and have they type of life?

I have a friend(s) that has a 6 yer old son and just had another baby at 40. He is a Doctor in Virginia. He has the means to live like that and have another kid at 40.

Living so many lives makes it hard to settle down and try to focus on a single life to lead when the time should come for that. I wonder where this life that i have now will lead me...


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The 3 of me...Who is Who?

The 3 of me...Who is Who?
Originally uploaded by RMStringer

Who is who? Which shadow is the true me or are they just former images of my true self? Perhaps they are three different sides of my personality all trying to come out and fighting for control of me? The center shadow surly looks like the dominate one out of the bunch but is the the right one...

Asking Questions

I asked her if she loved me on Sunday. She shows no remorse to the answer but stated that she did not, not love me, just that it is life and cut your loses and move on. If it hurts her, i cannot see it...

What machine we become. Are we all so tainted? In the business world that all she can see is loses and gains like on a business ledger? Life is, i guess a business in some aspects, but when we depersonalize to that extent, what is left? A business deal that feel through, a contract that was broken? I like to think that i am more than a balance on a ledger sheet in this world, but i guess that i am no more than that to her...


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Wondering...

Wondering...
Originally uploaded by RMStringer

It is just a little dark at the moment...

I stopped my truck on the way home last night. Took this pic of the gauges, GPS, and the road ahead. I wondered what was ahead for me. What is ahead for me in life? I have all the tools that i need to start this new adventure in my life. I wonder where it is going to take me and when it will happen? Like the song titled "How Soon Is Now?

Give Me A Break

I just wonder if at some point in this life, i can get a break. Stuff just tries to keep holding me back down all the time. Time is a factor that i do not have a lot of at this moment. The home i am supposed to move into has work to be done at with a little over 2 weeks for em to be able to move into. Inspections and all of that mess. Permits, yadda, yadda, what a nightmare this is turning into.

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Life Coming At Cha...

We often have a picture of how our life should be. Of how we want it. perhaps we get it that way but we are not satisfied? We all have a picture of how we want it to be and if we get it that way, it tends to be destroyed by us or someone else. Perhaps we are at fault or the other party are at fault, who knows who it really is?

We can see it coming toward us in slow motion but there is nothing that we can do to prevent it from happening. though NO PART OF OUT OWN AND THROUGH ALL PARTS OF OUT OWN, We KILL THE LOVE AND COMPASSION THAT WE ONCE HAD TOGETHER. We can see it in slow motion with rose colored glasses to help, but they do not.

So now at these points in out lives we cant stand the other one. There's no love between us anymore. we just have to deal and live the best way we can. Try to remain civil and get on with our lives that have become broken...


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A Few Memories Of Mine...

When I was born, it was in Austin Texas. I was born at Seaton Memorial, which is no longer there. It has been torn down. We lived in campus housing there at UT and some apartments on North Lamar Blvd. They are still there. Soon afterward, we moved to Kirbyville Texas where I lived until my 8th grade year then I moved to Jasper to live with my mother and I graduated from Jasper High school in 1989.

Throughout my whole life I always wanted to live as far away from there as I could, I even said that I wanted to live in New Your City, I got very close to there, Massachusetts was about 5 hours from there. I also felt this incredible draw to Austin Texas. I did make it back to Austin, but it was not what I expected.

I was a big partier when I was about 18 years old until I was 29 and I decided to get my life straightened out. All the while, I always had the vision or dream if you will about if I was able to go and live in Austin that my life would be complete. I would have the friends that I wanted to have and the job that I needed, the girl, bla bla bla and so on and so forth. I can still picture that scene with me and my friends walking down a street in Austin laughing and joking with each other. I can still remember the clothes and hair that I would have as strange as that is.

Looking back on this dream, I can tell that I was part of my addiction manifesting itself at an early age. I was never really comfortable in my own skin even at an early age; I had friends and had what I wanted, but it was more than that. I was an unrest that I could never put my finger upon until later in my life after I got clean and sober. I have been clean and sober for over 5 years now. I did make it to my promise land, Austin, and the things that I sought after for so many years did not come to fruition. I was deeply in the throes of my addiction at that time and was miserable with myself and everyone around me.

Some good did come out of me moving to Austin, I did get clean and I did get married to a very special and wonderful person whom I love and admire. I have a wonderful daughter. I have a family of my own and even though at times it might be hard, I would not trade it for anything in the world. We have done more in the last 5+ years together then I could have ever have hoped for when I was out there suffering with my disease.



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Been A While...

It has been a while since my last post. It was hard for me Easter Day. Very hard. It was Easter 1 year ago that i was out in this area looking for a new home with my soon to be EX-Wife and daughter. It is funny how things can change in 1 years time. I know that it has taken more than 1 year for things to get like they are but that doesn't make it any easier.

I want to tell my ex how i feel about all of this and how she acts as if nothing can hurt her. Like she does not even care that i am leaving. I wonder if i could have done more than what i did or didn't do to make whit work. But in the end, it really does not matter. It is over and i accept it. She seems to be moving on with her life and making plans, why should i not do the same?

As my good friend told me, "This is the Summer of my life" about to begin...


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Tulip Memories..

Three In A Row...
Originally uploaded by RMStringer

I guess that i have always loved nature and flowers. I had 2 Grandmothers that love to plant flower gardens and an Aunt that also fostered that love in me.

Going out and shooting Flowers and Blooms kind of brings bback the memories of the one that have pass on to the other side of life and helps me remember the one that is still with us, but not the same as she was before the cancer. I will always love and cherish the moments that i spent with all of them and will love to be reunited with them in the next one...

Love...

I found my wedding ring in the metal heart on what used to be my side of the bed. Is it a message?

Love, what a strange feeling and emotion. Perhaps in the beginning, we had Love. After many years and injustices, love had died. Love is gone. Perhaps this is a metaphor for our love, Cold and Hard, like the metal heart that the symbol of love is in . The ring is placed in a cold, metal heart; like mine and hers has become in this relationship. Shiny, silver, stainless, white gold, but cold like our hears towards each other.

Perhaps, we did love each when we took the vows of marriage, but we do not or did not know how to love each other or what kind of love the other one needed. Or if we did try to love, it was spurned by the other and we thought that it was an injustice and a personal affront. We could not deal with how the other loved us and we wanted more than they could give. Even if we tried to do something about it, it was killed and the cycle would start again.

What one person needed as love the other could no give and they could not be happy with it; each needing it they way they wanted it, never giving to the others demands of how LOVE should be.

Perhaps this, in the end, is what and how our love died; with two cold metal hearts to one another. Not meaning that we can never love again, just never love each other again. Perhaps if we can take one thing with us in this ending, perhaps we can learn from our mistakes, perhaps our hearts can love again somewhere down the long road that is our life. Perhaps somewhere down that road, we can try to forgive the other person of their injustices against one another and make peace in the soul and spirit...

Like Dr Strange Said, "It is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all." I guess that we tried to love and we all lost in the miserable end, killing what we once had, if only for a little while, that strange and wondrous thing called love...

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Last Snow 1.6

Last Snow 1.6
Originally uploaded by RMStringer

This is sometimes how Love and Life get. We feel that love takes a final stand and sometimes get buried under a lot of crap. We hope that it will pop back up and begin anew but alas, sometimes, it is so damaged that it cannot continue.

Sometime, it takes a lot of crap for us to see what is really going on in our life and that we have been buried under the snow, all frigid and cold. And that now it is time for a new love of life to grow and blossom with the changing season. This photo reminds me of this when i look at it.

I hope that you live if springing back up and will take bloom and become green with happiness with the changing season, that the cold and snow can be shed off and will melt away...

Thought For The Day...

"Which is more difficult, to awaken one who sleeps or to awaken one who, awake, dreams that he is awake - Søren Kierkegaard



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How Do You Feel...
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D.I.V.O.R.C.E.

Well, the big D work has hit me. I filed yesterday. I feel better than i have in a long time. A great weight has been lifted from me. I want to be amicable in this whole deal but a sleeping beast has been awoke...

Crazyness...

Things in life get all crazy and people get hurt!! Life gets in the way when you try to communicate and it does not work. Communication is the key to lots of issues and when you loose that, you have lost a lot more...

Hurt?

We have been through a lot and there is a lot of water under our bridge; perhaps the flood has come and the footings are gone for good without any chance of recovery or repair this time.

Why do we always hurt the ones we love? Why do we continue to repeat the same cycle of hurt that happens over and over again? When we hurt them, they hurt us and we cant break the cycle. It continues and continues till any and all love is gone from the heart.

Who is totally to blame? I know i am a hard person to live with but so is she. Why does this cycle feed off of itself? We all see injustices in our little world that we perceive to be done to us that hurt and then we retaliate against that hurt; thus beginning the cycle over again.

I was told that only a miracle will ever make her love me again...

I do not look for one of those to ever occur in this instance of the word.

Perhaps we have grown apart and this is the end of that growth; where we really do not care what is going on with eachother or in the others world...

Level 42 - Leaving Me Now

I have always loved this song and i have felt like it for the last few weeks...

Busted Wall

Busted Wall
Originally uploaded by RMStringer

Sometimes this is how i feel. All busted and getting torn down from the ravages of time. The feeling of not being wanted or useful anymore, like i have not life left in me and the only thing left to do is "Tear Down The Wall!"

Do i not have any more value left in me?

Broken Sight...

Broken Sight...
Originally uploaded by RMStringer

This photo reminds me of how we look at life sometimes. It gets all shattered and broken up like a window that has been hit. Every know and then, we get a piece that falls out and gives us a clear, unobstructed view of how life really is. It would be nice to always have a clear view; But for the most part, we go through life looking through a broken window...

I love how the picture of what is outside of the window is all broken up from the glass. It has a tint to it and makes it look much darker than it really is. It was a cold overcast day around the 30 degree mark with a strong North wind blowing.

New Life...

New Life...
Originally uploaded by RMStringer

Looks like spring is finally starting to arrive for us. It is if these plants just jumped out of the ground in a matter of 2-3 days. It looks like they have a some type of bloom that is forming on the top of the stalk. I wonder what they will be?

Good Music?

What happened to the day when an artist made an album that was good? I MEAN REALLY GOOD!! Peter Gabriel - "So" had like 5 number 1 hits on it and the rest was good! Not one damm song that sold a million copies. So much crap out today...

Hello and Welcome...

This blog has changed directions and now will be about my thoughts, personal and otherwise, about life, love, and death.