Black and White Photography

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. -Albert Einstein

Let’s go

 “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”
― Mark Twain

11/22/20 Southern Maine.

Evolve

I’m not proud of everything that I’ve done
but I am everything I’ve done.

-M. Taggart

Evolve Little Drop

It’s raining this morning
and dark outside from the cloud cover.
Making me feel calm and comfortable.
I want to climb into one drop
and sleep. Maybe I’d awaken just
below the surface ready to view the
world differently and possibly I’d learn
what I’ve been waiting to know. Why
some view life with a malevolent eye
as others approach children with
sincere adoration and caring; how
is it that these two constantly carry on
generation after generation of sameness.

-M. Taggart

Evolved

Some of you may know that for the first three years of Gavin’s life, I was his primary care giver. Never have I hit Gavin. I don’t believe in hitting as a form of discipline. I couldn’t imagine inflicting that mental and physical distress on a child.

Now, he has fun, three days a week at daycare and is enrolled for Pre-K. However! Every morning I keep him 🙂 I play with him, I read to him and I make his breakfast. I ask him, “Gavin, what would you like for breakfast?” Lately his reply has been, “I’d like an english-muffin with peanut butter and chocolate, big-big strawberries, raspberries, apple juice, and a water. Paleaseeeee.” I drink coffee while preparing his breakfast and watch as my little Gavin plays with his dinosaurs or sea creatures. Or, a puzzle. Or anything. I love spending this time with him. When I was his age, I had no father. I made it very clear to myself and anyone listening that I was determined to be there for Gavin. Always. To be his primary care giver for the first three years of his life was a blessing.

And now, when I pick him up from daycare (we call it school because it’s much like a school) he smiles SOO big and yells, “That’s my Dad!” And man…..man does that feel good. It’s simple. I’m here to be a loving, supportive, husband and father. Writing is a bonus that I am ragingly thankful for.

Often I think of children who have been tortured, abused, and manipulated. I was that child. I broke the cycle. We all can break the cycle, if we are aware and want to. Mental illness is a subject I take very seriously. I believe that we, as humanity, have barely begun to truly understand how deep, or to understand how many levels concerning mental illness there are. I believe there are forms of mental illness that have evolved our human race. I also believe there are forms that are evil. I think it’s important for the broken children who have been abused to understand they are not the evil ones.

They are the evolved.

 

Matt