"Hey Son, It's Dad Calling. Collect."

       I’ve been thinking of my dad recently, wishing I had just one more magical day with him. This is an exerpt from a letter I wrote to him in 2004.

“In any moment, when emotions run high, maybe you don’t always know how I truly feel about you. But in  private, when you have the time and the space and the luxury of personal reflection, I hope that you will know, without any doubt, in the deepest recesses of your giant heart, how much I love you, how grateful I am for the life you blessed me with, and how fortunate I am to be your son. I love you dad.”

A Place Outside of Time

There is a place outside of time
Where there is no
Past or Future
There is no
Right or Wrong
Win or Lose
There is just
You and Me
And Love

That's My Boyz

    Three years apart, but a million miles away from each other.
    The kid I see on top has a twinkle in his eye. A genuine smile. A lightness. A glow about him.
    All of which are missing in the kid below. His smile, if you can call it that, looks forced. His eyes have lost something. His physical weight mirrors an internal heaviness.
    I carry both inside of me. It’s my relationship with them that matters. The boy on top is the one I identify with when I am playful, light, fun, joyous, and silly. The boy on the bottom is the one I heal with. And when I do either, I’m helping the other one too. I’m integrating all of me into each moment.
    What matters most is the energy I bring to my present moment. When I bring an integrated self along with that energy, I am whole, I am powerful, I am more fully Myself.
    And I do dig that blue and white reindeer sweater.....

Mine

       As a kid spending his summers in Nyes Neck on Cape Cod, I spent an awful lot of time on this dock, looking out at Buzzard’s Bay. There was something magic about this view at sunset. Even when I lived up the street, in my waterfront Purple House, I missed this view.
       I don’t want to sentimentalize, because that gets in my way of moving forward and creating my life in the present. Yet through a series of shifts and openings in my life recently, I have been able to once again experience the magic of this view. And although this view is linked to my past, it means something bigger than just that now.
       When I took this picture, I brought so much more of me to the experience. I made it mine. Not my kid’s.

Triple Glow

    This photo was taken on Christmas Eve, 2010, from my hotel room. You can see residual snow on some of the rooftops.
     I love Christmas, and Christmas Eve is one of my favorite nights of the year. This particular Christmas Eve turned out to be extra special, and one that I will never forget. A precious event happened in that hotel room that night, or more accurately, the next morning. Christmas morning.
     It made the city glow.
     It made me glow.

©2011 Clint Piatelli. All Rights Reserved.