You try to live your life like you used to, and the “used to” isn’t there.

It’s gone.

Gulp.

This is an incredible five minute piece combining beautiful still photography, video, and audio, that in a few short minutes captures the depth of love and the tragedy of loss in the life of Tom Rose, who is struggling to cope with the loss of his wife of 63 years. It is a form of multi-media poetry, powerfully distilling decades of life and experience into a frame or a sob.

Be warned – it’s not an easy watch. It is, in the end, a scary dark patch in all of our lives, and the lives of those we love and care for; a price we pay for the joy of being together is the pain of being apart.

Big props to Maisie Crow for such a fine piece of work. Every part of it is quite something, and together the pieces pack an enormous emotional wallop. And thanks to FlakPhoto for bringing it to my attention.

And has packed his bags for Egypt.

He’s going on a UMM course “Pyramids and politics on the Nile” led by UMM Poli Sci faculty Sheri Breen and UMM librarian Jayne Blodgett, both super cool people. This is a pretty structured experience (full itinerary as a PDF) using Cairo as their primary base but with trips down the Nile to Luxor and Aswan, visits to Alexandria, and time at a desert research station.

One of their requirements is to keep a journal during the trip, and they all had to write a “Letter to Cairo” before departing as their first entry, and I thought I’d play along.

Dear Cairo,

Please take good care of our son. I really wanted to start with something more profound, but to be honest this is the first thing that I thought of. I’m genuinely not worried. His mother and I survived a number of great study abroad experiences which did so much to define who we are, and we’re sure he’ll have an amazing and glorious time. Still, it’s an exciting time to be in Egypt, and I’d greatly appreciate it if you’d play nice.

Inspire some wonderful writing. People keep telling him to take lots of pictures, but they’re really barking up the wrong tree, as he doesn’t really do that. (Here the apple fell on a slope and rolled well away and down the hill.) Tom is much more likely to digest and record his experience in words than images. It probably won’t be straightforward journaling, however, and instead be more indirectly represented in his poetry. “Vulcan’s bed”, for example, is a response to his time with me in Lava Beds National Monument two years ago; it is his version of all my photos. So while I know that he’ll have phenomenal experiences in Egypt, I hope to see them creep (or smash) into his poetry and other writings.

Open some doors; I’m sure he’ll walk through them. Morris has been a wonderful town for Tom to grow up in, but it’s a pretty small world. Thomas has had the huge advantage of living in the UK twice, and travelling in Europe on both of those trips, but it’s still been a very European life. You represent such a fascinating crossroads of history and culture: Mediterranean and Arab and African and Islamic and pharaonic and crowded and vibrant and changing and old and new. In 3.5 weeks he’ll only be able to sample such a feast, probably taking more than he realizes in some ways and less in others. When he comes back, though, I suspect he’ll never quite see things the same, sometimes in ways that may take years to fully realize.

I know that he’ll be a tiny mite on the huge organism that is Cairo, so odds are that you’ll never even notice he was there. You’ll loom huge for him, however, and we appreciate all you have to offer.

Best wishes,

    Nic aka Thomas’s Dad

Thomas qualified for the state finals last year (along with MAHS student Alex McIntosh), so we had the good fortune to attend last year’s event. The quality of the performances was really exquisite, and I highly recommend the event to any fans of poetry and literature in the area.

Tim Ostby (the other MAHS student this year) placed fifth at the regional. Congratulations to him and all the other students that performed last night! While there were fewer competitors at the regional than last year, the quality of the performances was considerably stronger, and the venue (A Center for the Arts in Fergus Falls) was vastly better than last year’s (a classroom at a regional community college).

A huge thanks to David Johnson, drama coach and english teacher at MAHS. Dave’s been a huge influence and support for Thomas in both theatre and Poetry Out Loud. It’s greatly to Dave’s credit that MAHS has had a student in the state finals of Poetry Out Loud each of the last four years (which is every year MAHS could have competed), with two in last year’s finals. Further, every MAHS student that’s gone to state has placed in the top 6: Anika Kildegaard took 2nd in 2007, Mary Hu won the state competition in 2008 and went on to the National Finals, and Alex McIntosh placed 4th and Thomas McPhee 6th in 2009. In fact Morris is the only high school in the state to place four students in the top 6 from 2007-2009, with no other school has placing more than two. Not a bad track record for a small rural high school. Thanks a ton to Dave for all his support and assistance!

The event will feature the 18 first and second places from the nine regions, each reciting one, two, or three poems depending on how far they get in the finals. Two of the 18 are from Morris: Alex McIntosh, son of Alisande Allaben (UMM Alumni Relations office) and Gordon McIntosh (UMM Physics); and Thomas McPhee. Having 11% of the finalists be from our little town is a pretty good showing, so we’ll definitely appreciate any Morris fans that are able to come out and join us.

Based on what we’ve seen getting this far, and what we’ve heard about past finals, the quality of the recitations should be really high. At the risk of being an immodest dad, I think that this should be a real artistic performance, and certainly not a painful “We’re only here for the kids” kind of experience.

The state winner goes on to the national finals next month in Washington D.C., with a chance to win a $20K scholarship!

I got a lot of very cool gifts at Xmas, but a clear stand out is the above, a wonderful, hand made art book created by my lovely wife just for me!

The text is a set of Fibonacci poems written by our good friend Athena Kildegaard. The cover paper (which you can’t really see here) is a really cool paper made from bark that another friend (Peter Whelan) got years ago in Bali (or someplace close).

I took a bunch of photos of it at Xmas, and then some more here, in part because it’s really cool and makes neat photographs, and in part because she needed a collage like this to submit to the Annual Juried Student Art Exhibit.

It’s a really wonderful book, and a really wonderful gift! Love you dear!

One of the great weirdnesses of living here in the UK is being reminded of how completely American a holiday Thanksgiving is, effectively ignored on the rest of the planet. (Much like American Football, to which it is quite closely connected!)

‘Twere it not for various on-line reminders and communications from (American) friends and family, one could easily miss the whole thing. I, to be honest, only realized quite late in the day that Thanksgiving was today – I had been thinking it was next week.

But it’s today, so happy Thanksgiving! Now go read Athena’s cool Thanksgiving poem and enjoy your feasts!