january 1, 2021

posted in: photography | 0

“May we say good-bye to the things that do not serve us – the selfishness, the fear, the illusions of control, the bitterness, the doomscrolling… and say hello to wisdom, to kindness, to justice, curiosity, wonder, goodness, generosity, possibility, peace making.” ~ Unknown

bff

One of the things I’ve been doing over the holiday break is organizing photos. I’m usually more organized than this, but the last 18 months have been extraordinary times for me and some things – a lot of things – have had to wait. In this organizing I came to realize that I had never processed the photos from Gary Thurman’s memorial service in the fall of 2019. I posted only two photos from that trip, but there were tons more that I just plain forgot about in my busy-ness. Today, I went back through them, and while I will likely post more in coming days, it seems only right that I should start the new year with my best friend Angie Bliss Fanning. There was a period throughout the 1990’s when we spent every New Year’s Eve together, either at a gig or at her ranch. She tired of the tradition eventually, but for me, with no New Year’s Eve gigs and no trip to the ranch, the holiday has never been the same for me. One of my favorite trips was in 1995/6 when John Hicks came down from Massachusetts and hitched a ride out to OK with me. On the way back, he and I became stranded in Memphis. Kentucky borders were closed because of a huge snow storm. It was my birthday. We spent it at B.B. King’s bar on Beale Street. You see, so many people I love like John and Gary are connected through Angie. When Angie’s husband Jerry died in 2014, Gary’s wife Pam and Barb made sure I got to his funeral. So it felt right that Angie should chauffeur us to Gary’s memorial service in 2019. None of us want to be together under these circumstances, but I would rather suffer the pain of loss than to have never loved any of my people. I owe so many of these connections to Angie Bliss Fanning. Some people in this world are a conduit, connecting us, making sure we find one another. A lot of us owe our friendships to Angie and I can’t imagine my life without her, even if we can’t be together on New Year’s Eve. Bet we are next year!

4evR

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