Trying to break a leg — If life is like a stage play, I am in the last scene of the final act. Hey, I’m almost 83! But unlike drama, there is no denouement. The lights will simply go down, the audience go home, and the actor fade away. In Which Me is Me, my About…

Will he repent his transgressions? Will I? — “Daniel was my gift from the dead.” That’s what Daniel heard his mother Mati tell her sister Celeste. Or what he thinks he heard: he had written it in his journal when he was a boy. Now, as an old man, he says his memory is like “The wilted weeds…

A Six Word Photo Story: Freestyle — Through nature we penetrate the sky The agave takes so long to flower that it is often called “the century plant” in English. It is an apt metaphor, I believe, for all life. It really doesn’t take a century — although it can. Its lifespan depends on the soil, the weather, the conditions around it. When…

Among the prettiness of pumarosa — I know. I know. I am addicted to alliteration. And why not! It’s hard to describe a surprise — such as the one that stopped me in my tracks today in the garden while returning from the compost pile. (I hope you didn’t expect sustained lyricism: into each gardener’s life…

My Final 1,000 Days — “I’m starting a countdown to the day of my death,” I said to Paul, my oldest friend. “You’re being morbid,” he said. “No, I’m being realistic. I will soon be 83 years old, none of my direct male ancestors (since the first one I know of, Johan Conrad Flores, who…

Returning to the scene 60 years later — How far do you have to trot to be a globetrotter? I live in the mountains of Puerto Rico, an island 35 miles wide and 100 miles long. To travel anywhere remotely remote I need to take a plane or a boat. My wife and I did both recently to…

Finding fine photos while afloat — For me, capturing memorable moments with love-ones while on vacation is easy. But, at the same time, creating the kind of photographs I can proudly place in my collection is not. My usual solution is to find a different point of view (see Perspectives of Paris). …

Six Word Photo Story: Freestyle — A wilderness of water, gathering gold The view from the ship had been dramatically dull. It reminded me of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner: “Water water everywhere,/nor any drop to drink.” But there was plenty a drop to think! We had been sailing for days with no land in sight. I had captured…

At play with light — I really didn’t want to take more pretty pictures of flowers — although I often do. And I had no patience this morning for butterflies — although many were flitting about or waiting for their closeup. I wanted a new challenge, something different. …