Visual Journey Photography: Being Ourselves

I want to thank everyone for the wonderful encouragement.

Today my son, Allan, and I played racquetball. We normally play a couple of times a week. Well...using the word normal really doesn't fit, because I've come to realize that we are not normal. This bit of information doesn't bother me, mind you, but it seems to be an undeniable fact. When we play a game of any sort, the rules seem to become somewhat...obscure. Our game of racquetball first morphs into a race to see who can get to the ball and hit it first. Then a second ball joins the action. Then we start playing in different directions - either one playing front to back and one back to front, or one playing back to front and one playing left to right. Dodge ball soon enters the action. Sword fighting with our rackets is a frequent occurrence. The game involves a generous helping of silly voices, victory dances, singing, and best of all, zombie racquetball. We don't bother to keep score.

That's how most activities end up. A game of Monopoly grows from one board of Star Wars Monopoly to two boards, to three, then four - the fourth one being original Monopoly. My Darth Maul playing piece moves from board to board collecting Park Place, Watto's junk shop, and a moisture evaporator, while Allan's Obi Wan quickly hoards all the pod racers, Boardwalk and Naboo. We end up with developments that cost so much to land on that we use our Jedi mind tricks to keep each other from noticing that we've landed on the opponent's high priced real estate. Anakin and the thimble spend most of the game in jail. We've had games last for days but have never finished one.

Luckily Allan's girlfriend is a good sport. She can throw around internet memes and fight Nerf battles right along with us. We haven't scared her off yet! She even joined us on one of our late night photography treks around town.

We do know how to act and can follow rules when necessary. Really! But it's more fun being ourselves.