spent some time looking at old, brown photographs of my ancestors, one from a fiftieth wedding anniversary in maybe the 1890's. my grandfather sat down in front, as a kid maybe eight, looking straight ahead, waiting for the new century; his mom and grandfather, and grandmother, aunts and uncles, were all behind him. they were in council bluffs, so the photo said. names were scrawled on the photo beneath the picture, though i could not read them all; i recognized many of them, though, knowing a little about the family genealogy.

my father is down and may not last the week. he is too weak to get up, too weak to eat and swallow properly, too weak to consider getting better, though his heart is ticking away and he's not sick. things have given out. brothers and sister have arrived and are taking care of him. in free time we go through old photos and things he's managed to keep this long. in order for me to keep any of it, i'll have to smuggle it in. our cabin is very full. i am working on letting it go. the old photo, however, drew me in.

i may make a book, and include some of this stuff. it's all important to me, and in general, you don't see many yellowed old photos around these days. first thing i want to do is make a movie on it, since making it digital, in a sense, is making it real, in modern media. once it's digital, people will see it, rather than having it just be stored in a closet.

on the other hand, all of digital, is just billions of image, no substance, so in a way, throwing an old brownish photo in there, digital and all, is like throwing it in the cultural heap of endless blather. i did take a picture of that old photo, on my phone, and there's my grandpa, down there in the front row, with all the ancestors behind him. it may find its way on here eventually.

las cruces is like the city to us, from the outlying county, beyond the desert, where there are many fewer people. cars rush around here; things happen. tonight there was police action, lots of noise. we stay in the apartment, taking care of dad, of course; we feed him, change him, give him what he wants. it won't last forever. we are suspended in time, my original family: my two brothers, and sister, and a steady stream of visitors, including his girlfriend. really the girlfriend is one of us; she comes around many times a day. he asks for her; she makes him happy. he's going peacefully.

and that's all there is. we are left, going through his pictures. some will end up here.