Bread Bag
On the way to the garbage can, pass the fresh pile of wood for the stove, I find a Western Family white bread bag. Forlorn. Trash that didn’t make it or stay in one of the cans across the street.

There aren’t many bread wrappers in our garbage. I use a bread machine, eat whole grains and live across from low cost housing. The place is called Paxton Manor. The name sounds regal, well tended, as if someone from the ownership or ruling class would live or go on holiday there. I like where we live, close to town, not surrounded by trophy houses or in a simulation of a suburban neighborhood (after all Sitka has a population of 8,500). But the daily garbage on the ground, the smokers puffing on the hour are kind of sad. These smokers have names; I know them for the most part. I hear their voices, sometimes shrill, raised at their kids who might not have gotten in the door fast enough or have wandered down the road. I can’t help but read a bit of anger, disappointment and exhaustion into those voices. Perhaps there is a lot of joy behind the row of front doors that face us (when the “manor” was demolished and rebuilt several years ago, the new units lost their second doors and all the front doors now face us. See the film clip for “Demolished” on this site.)

As I look across the street, think about the voices, the garbage, white bread and nicotine addiction, a car drives up and out comes a man carrying several pizza boxes. More potential trash. For the kids who will eat the pizza, whose voices I love to hear when they play together or cross the street to show us their bikes, throw a snowball and smile-- I hope there is hope, joy and a glimmer of a calm future. Besides, then when they grow up the woman across the street won’t be saddened by the sound of their parents’ voices, and maybe won’t be picking up bread bags and other garbage.

12.23.05 @ 13:59PST Wednesday, December 21st

Season's Greetings
It is solstice. 7:30 A.M. Dark and quiet on the street outside.
At the post office over the last days the pre-Christmas tension increases daily as I look forward to the light doing soon. I wait in line to mail some tapes and DVDs at the P.O. where we get our mail. As yet another customer asks for tape to close a parcel, I wonder what is in all the envelopes and boxes in the piles behind the counter and in the hands of other people in line. I’m feeling slightly grinchy as I do when the generic letters or cards documenting peoples’ lives come in the mail. At least the cards and letters do come in the mail and don’t add another e-mail to delete, file or deal with later.

Besides the letters, we now have a row of photo cards among the holiday greetings we put up every season. There are few words like “Peace” and “Joy” on these cards and an image of a single child. The kids look alone and almost stoic. Orphans in front of the camera. The family is not in the frame. There is no visual sense these solitary children have parents. I pause, stare at the faces. I can almost hear my friends, in their parental voices asking their offspring to stand still, to stand somewhere so they can snap a photo. Maybe there is a discussion about hair, clothing, maybe some stress, maybe not. I grinch, but I’m content too, to hear from friends and families knowing their lives are filled and appreciating that we are still in touch despite the chaos and details of our lives. Then I check my e-mail and there is one from a friend, with one child. In a p.s. he asks for my spouse’s Spencer’s last name (a common request for invites and cards since Frankenstein kind of overshadows Severson) so he can correctly address the holiday card he and his wife are sending. I look forward to seeing what their daughter looks like this year, where she will be posed and I suspect I won't see the parents on the card.

12.21.05 @ 11:30PST