Stiff Person (Stiffman) Syndrome

"The firmest friendships have been formed in mutual adversity, as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame."
~Charles Caleb Colton~

Friendship is precious. Stephen enriched my life with his friendship. I was blessed by his humor, wit, intelligence, and strength. We also shared life with Stiffman/Stiff Person Syndrome. Stephen's involvement in syndrome research and outreach to others will leave a deep void with his passing. He captured the essence of living with the syndrome in this photograph and perspective. In dedication to Stephen's life, with loving appreciation from those he touched and to his legacy that still keeps giving.

The inline photo below -- 'Maybe.jpg' -- is my take of a camelia bush in front of our house one wet spring ago. It's between the carport slab and the driveway, and I digitized it with my Olympus D520Z camera in May of 2003, as a see-what-I-mean visual aid now put to use.

One nearly expiring blossom seemed to be escaping through the surrounding fence trap, and that appealed to a sensibility of mine. Call it sympathy.

I would never see it just that way again. In a few days I could come back and rig it close to being that way; but to me that would match the documentary integrity of Matthew Brady, Civil War photographer and Lincoln portraitist. For composition and effect, he rearranged the warm bodies of blue & grey in sundry recent battlefields. Life ain't perfect, and that's just the way it should stay. I did use Photoshop, though, to nuke a few errant pixels. Call me hopeful.

For physical scale, the top of the focal wooden pole supporting the fence is 4 inches wide and two feet off the ground. Let me know if there's no pole there... 8-O

Photo copyright © 2003 by Stephen Hyde
Camelia japonic

(Feel what I meant?)

All the best,

Stephen

"The Buddha rests quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower. To think otherwise is to demean the Buddha -- which is to demean oneself."
-- Robert Pursig, from "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an inquiry into values" (1974)

Frank Sinatra

And now, the end is here
And so I face the final curtain
My friend, I'll say it clear
I'll state my case, of which I'm certain
I've lived a life that's full
I traveled each and ev'ry highway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way

Regrets, I've had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption
I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way

Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew
But through it all, when there was doubt
I ate it up and spit it out
I faced it all and I stood tall and did it my way

I've loved, I've laughed and cried
I've had my fill, my share of losing
And now, as tears subside, I find it all so amusing
To think I did all that
And may I say, not in a shy way,
"Oh, no, oh, no, not me, I did it my way"

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels
The record shows I took the blows and did it my way!

I cannot but remember such things were
That were most precious to me.
~ Shakespeare ~

Thanks to Les Gorven and the Midi Studio Consortium
for this arrangement of "My Way" Seq. by: Don Carroll