With a weekend upon us, I had everyone fed upstairs and fed and released downstairs by 5 or so. So, I looked at myself and asked what did I want to do.
At that time in the morning I could drive almost anywhere and still be in time for a sunrise. It hasn’t been a great week, so I was a little emotionally low and physically a bit sore, so it would have been an easier choice to stay at home and get back to my book.
But it was obviously a clear sky overhead (I could see some stars up there), and even though we get a lot of those in Florida, I didn’t feel comfortable wasting one.
So, I guess it was fair to say I pushed myself out the door, cup of coffee in hand and decided to head off to Ballast Point on the south side of Tampa Bay.
Ever since I broke the wrist down there the day after Christmas, I feel it owes me one. So, maybe today would be the day to collect.
It was quite dark when I got there, but there was still a surprising number of cars in the parking lot. it wasn’t quite six and an hour before sunrise and the parking lot was half full.
The bigger surprise was that I was the only one with a camera at that time, so the others must have been there for a different reason than I.
Later on there must have been a half-dozen of us camera people and then twice as many using their phones for the same purpose. But, for now at least, I was on my own and I enjoyed the unobstructed views and the silence afforded by my subject.
It was a beautiful twilight and sunrise and I have put a number of the images at the end of the blog for you to check out.
Hope you enjoy.
While photographically it was a very joy filled start to the day, emotionally it wasn’t quite. I had been low already so it was easy for the day to pull me into sad mode.
And the very first action of the morning pulled hardest.
Like I said, the parking lot was half full but there was an empty spot facing the water about half way in, so that is where I parked. I realized I was parking next to someone who was sleeping in their car.
I soon became aware based on all the stuff in there with them, that they were actually living in their car. And from the back seat, a sad little cat face was looking out at me.
I could hear my soul cry a little and I was struck by the contrast between the beautiful place I was in, surrounded by some of the most expensive of homes in Tampa, and the poor soul that was reduced to this as their life.
The cat’s eyes followed me as I walked past, camera in hand, and I felt a lump in my throat as I could make out a shape sleeping across the front seats.
By the time I got to where I took the first pics, I passed by three of that exact same scenario (minus the cat) and I was genuinely so sad.
Whatever it is that causes a person to fall so, it is a sad reflection on us as a rich society that we can’t catch them.
I tried not to dwell on it as I got into my shoot mode, but I don’t think it really left my thoughts.
As I settled into the final viewpoint that I took the last eight of those shots from, I found myself a few feet away from a young lady with her dog by her side. You’ll see her in some of the last shots.
She and I engaged in conversation and she shared with me that her dog was 15 and had lost all hearing and almost all his sight. She likes to bring him to the same spot that they have been coming to for much of his life, as she feels perhaps the smells will help remind him of a time he could see.
It was a lovely thought of hers and he seemed genuinely peaceful. I rubbed him behind the ears (even though I am not a dog person) and he seemed happy with the contact.
This is where the term “Paradise Lost” came into my head, which I will talk about in a moment. But as much as the beauty here was heavenly, it was indeed mostly lost to him.
As I went to get back in the car, I saw that my neighbor was awake and sitting up in the driver seat. He was an old man, my own age, and somehow that struck home even moreso.
The cat was watching me with interest as I threw my stuff into the car. And before I got in, I tapped on the window and gave the man a can of Fancy Feast for his best friend behind him.
By the way, I always carry a can of cat food with me these days in case I see a stray that is in need. There is a lovely little guy in the Walmart parking lot that I have fed a couple of times with one, so I try not to miss those moments.
Anyway, as I drove away, my mind went back to the dog and that poem Paradise Lost and I extended the thought to the people sleeping in their cars, the poor little cat in the back seat and the cat(s) that sleeps rough at my local Walmart.
When John Milton wrote the poem 350 years ago (it was the first epic poem every written in English), he had lost his sight. And in his mind he found an equivalence in the loss that the fallen angels must have experienced as they lost the war with god and took up their place in hell.
Before you ask … no I don’t believe any of that stuff but it is still a good story.
Anyway, the point he was really making, I believe, is that while heaven exists for some, it does not for all and therefore the magnitude of the loss is huge.
He lived the last 20 years of his life as a blind man and I think we all understand that to have had sight and lose it, is likely much worse than never having had sight.
Hence, Patton (that was the dog’s name) is brought to the same place and lives as much of the same life as he can, but without either sight or sound. The loss must be greater than a loss of any heaven.
And I think it is fair to assume that this man and his cat once had a place to live but now find themselves in a parking lot in a crowded car. At some stage he must have had a family, even if it was just a parent or two. But whether through his own device or fate now is alone.
This story no doubt repeats everywhere … every city and in every country. So, I am not trying to pretend anything here is remarkable or unusual.
And maybe that makes the point I am trying to make even worse.
There is a paradise here. There is a life that plays out every moment of every day.
There is beauty everywhere and there is peace and fun and laughter.
But the problem is, not everyone has access to paradise. Some people are born with silver spoons in their mouths and want for nothing until they die of extended old age. Some cats are born into a Fancy Feast home and showered with love and care until their days finally come to a soft ending.
But some people and some creatures live awful lives, struggling from birth to an abject and unnoticed death.
We humans, as supposed guardians of the planet, live in a world where disparities exist all around us and we are ok with that. We are ok with excesses for some while others have nothing.
We accept disparity as being life.
We don’t even look to add balance. If someone proposes anything that tends for the poor, the indigent, the hungry, at the expense of the rich, they are labeled a socialist as if that is actually an insult.
There will indeed always be some imbalance in life. Some creatures will always have a rough one.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t seek to mitigate that with kindness.
Life is not a good thing for most people or most creatures. It may encompass some happy moments along the way, but life is generally a struggle that eventually results in death.
I look at people and creatures for whom life is a struggle and I try to help make it less so, even if just in a tiny way.
If I were a god, I could make some grand changes that gave sight to blind dogs, but in the absence of being able to fashion a paradise for anyone at least I keep a cat of cat food near by.
Kindness … costs so little and could mean to much.
… just a thought.
