Margaret Bourke-White’s memoir “Portrait of Myself”

“Nothing attracts me like a closed door. I cannot let my camera rest until I have pried it open, and I wanted to be first.”

Margaret Bourke-White’s memoir is both inspirational and familiar. As a woman, an adventurer, and photojournalist her stories gripped me, and her anecdotes and private thoughts made me feel as if she would have been my friend. Although her career began in a different world nearly a hundred years ago (memoir was published in 1963), her voice is modern. I can’t help thinking that had she been alive today, she would have fit in with reporters at Kabul’s hotel Mustafa or had drinks with the regulars at New York’s Half King, no doubt she would have out dressed almost everyone.

Embarrassingly, having not had the foresight to go to journalism school, I had never heard of Margaret Bouke-White until about a year ago when I started helping out with the social media feed for trailblazersoflight.com , a website that remembers women photojournalists from the film era. I had heard of men; Walter Cronkite, Ernest Hemingway, David Brinkley, Edward Murrow, but something about MBW let history place her into a less famous category of journalism giants. That’s a pity because Margaret Bourke-White put the journalist in photojournalism. She was a badass before it was ok to say the word ass. She was brave and powerful and made her place in the world, beholden to no one, and she never took no for an answer when she wanted a yes.

Born in 1904, she was the kind of child that could coax birds into her hands, a skill I doubt she ever lost. Compared to other turn-of-the-century childhoods, hers was eccentric, in a home filled with animals and biological experiments. Her mother who kept her maiden name (Bourke) encouraged MBW to be bold at an early age. “Learning to do things fearlessly was considered important by both of my parents. Mother had begun when I was quite tiny to help me over my childish terrors. Encouraging me to enjoy being alone instead of dreading it.”

Originally she wanted to be a herpetologist because she thought being a snake expert would be a good way to travel. She was an early outlier and unabashedly prioritized curiosity and adventure to the more womanly arts of the time.

She swatted obstacles to her being a woman away with single sentences unless it made for a good story. Like when she wanted to rent the penthouse of the Chrysler building as her studio. The management feared “Since I was a female, young and not too plain, I would surely get married before much time went by. That would put a stop to all this photography business.” In order to secure the space, she had to apply for a job at the Chrysler building janitor as there was a law in New York that stipulated no one could live in an office except a janitor. Sadly for her, someone else got the job, but Fortune ended up co-signing for her to get the lease. It’s also worth noting that she kept two pet alligators as pets in her studio. She was not without some eccentric weirdness.

MBW photographing NYC perched on a gargoyle on the Chrysler Building.

The first cover of LIFE magazine, Ft. Peck dam in Montana

“To be a woman in a man's world’ as people often phrase it, is usually — I have found- a distinct advantage.” she noted, excepting combat situations where “men tend to overprotect, and no over protected photographer can get images by remote control.” Clearly, remotes had not been invented yet. She had to plea with the U.S. air force to let ger go on a bombing mission, weaseler extraordinaire, she succeed.

Queue of black residents of Louisville KY waiting for a distribution of relief supplies during the 1937 Ohio River flood.

While not vain, MBW flaunted her femininity, carefully matching her dress to the covering cloth that went over the back of the camera. She wore red shoes and put a red bow in her hair to ameliorate herself to Stalin when she took his portrait — it didn’t work, he wasn’t very friendly and refused to cooperate with her requests, like to sit down — she wanted him to look more comfortable. To be fair her impression of him was “What an insignificant-looking man!”

WW2, outfitted in the first war correspondent uniform designed for women.

Throughout the book, she mentions her love of fashion and clothing and style in general. When a naval ship she was reporting on in WW2 was hit by a torpedo and sank she wasn’t sad about her 5 cameras being lost “that is the hazard of war,” but rather the loss of her cosmetics case. I think she was kidding, she was probably upset about both. Remembering the ordeal, from a lifeboat she wrote “ I could think of nothing but the magnificent pictures unfolding before me which I longed to take and could not. I suppose for all photographers, their greatest pictures are their untaken ones, and i am no expectation.”

The memoir documents her career highlights from her early days as a corporate photographer, Fortune, then as a staff photographer at LIFE. The range of assignments she covered is astounding, and few photographers if any, today can compare: The New Deal in America, Civil Rights in the southern states, World War 2 in North Africa, Italy, and Germany, the Korean War, Apartheid in South Africa, Gandhi and the partition of India and Pakistan, are just a few highlights. Her portfolio of adventure is endless, but the real gems are the personal stories: Gandhi joked that she was torturing him, and Haile Selassie carried her cameras. There is also a healthy dose of photojournalism deep thinking, with some shop talk mixed in.

In her late 40’s MBW developed Parkinson’s. While she hints modestly all along, it is at this point in her story the enormity of her unstoppable, relentless grit becomes apparent. “ I had always been arrogantly proud of my health and durability. Strong men might fall by the wayside, but I was ‘Maggie the Indestructible.” She fought like a mad badger. She was selfless and spoke openly about her illness. She walked miles and miles every day and exercised continually to keep the dwindling strength she had. She even tried experimental brian surgery to buy herself more time. “ I realized only too well that I was on an escalator which was moving down while I was trying to run up.” She let her friend and fellow LIFE photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt photograph her as she went through rehab, and as she suffered. It's fitting the while the photo essay is 50 years old it means as much today and the soulful way Maggie looks at her friend is rightfully immortalized. MBW died at 67 years old in 1971.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Some of the best quotes — there are so many, I could post half the book:

“I know of nothing to equal the happy expectancy of finding something new, something unguessed in advance, something only you would find, because as well as being a photographer.”

“I can sleep on anything moving as long as it's moving in the right direction.”

“Later, when I had time to think about it, I marveled at the change in me the instant thought of work gave way to thoughts of survival. With the possibility of work, nothing seemed too dreadful to face.”

“Harry Luce carried my cameras as we photographed factories. They were something in those days. My mainstay was a 5 x Corona View (and still a great camera) with extra bellows extension accommodate convertible Bausch & Lomb lenses, a sturdy wooden tripod with a massive tilt-top head. And a weighty box of 1100 watt Johnson Vent Lites strung up with masses or reinforced heavy rubber”

“Photographing anything so perishable as ice cream in color in the early 30s, was an heroic undertaking because of the interminably long exposures, which involved making three separate color plates to be matched up later.”

“I knew I would never run out of subjects that interested me while on this earth.”

“I have never known anything since to compare in sheer difficulty with my assignments in Russia: the baffling postponements, the mysterious absence of reasons. It was a valuable experience, and I am glad to have had it so early in my work. Russia was a lesson in patience.”

“Right here in my own country, there were worlds about which I knew almost nothing.”

“I remember one occasion when we went to photograph a Negro woman (her words) ….She had thick glossy air and I had decided to take her picture as she combed it. She had a bureau made of a wooden box with a curtain tacked to it and lots of little homemade things. I rearranged everything. After we left Erskine (Caldwell) spoke to me about it. How neat her bureau had been. How she must have valued all her little possessions and how she had them tidily arranged her way, which was not my way. This was a new point of view to me. I felt I had done violence.”

“Usually I was the only woman photographer and the technique I followed was to literally crawl between the legs of my competitors and pop my head and camera up for part of a second before the competition slapped me down again. At least, the point of view was different from that of most of the others whose pictures were, perforce, almost identical, and, anyway, I’ve always liked the caterpillar view.”

“I wanted no conflict of loyalties — that would be too painful. My first loyalty was to Life. There was no secret about it. My professional work came first.”

“I go to every important portrait appointment with a conviction that my cameras are going to cease functioning — a dread that never leaves me even after years of experience.”

Of Haile Selassie, “To have a king admire my hair and emperor carry my cameras was more than I had been accustomed to.”

“Then I began to notice myself, “Why is my mouth so dry?” I wondered. “Never in my life have a felt such dryness. This must be fear.” (while on sinking ship in WW2).”

“The impersonality of modern war has become stupendous, grotesque. Even in the heart of battle, one human being's ray of vision lights only a narrow slice of the whole, and all the rest is remote — so incredible remote.”

“I saw and photographed the piles of naked, lifeless bodies, the human skeletons in furnaces, the living skeletons who would die the next day because they had to wait too long for deliverance, the pieces of tattooed skin used for lampshades. Using the camera was almost a relief. It interposed a slight barrier between myself and the horror in front of me.” - on reaching Buchenwald at the end of WW2 1945

“War makes its own morals. Looting has its own code of ethics. First of all, you don't call it looting, or stealing or appropriating, or requestioning or scrounging — but liberating.”

“As photographers, we live through thoughts so swiftly. All our experiences and training is focused toward snatching off the highlights — and necessarily so. That all-significant perfect moment, so essential to capture, is often highly perishable. There may be little opportunity to probe deeper.”

“But a woman who lives a roving life must be able to stand alone. She must have emotional security, which is more important than financial security. There is a richness in life where you stand on your own two feet, although it imposes a certain creed.”

“In Korea 1952 “ I fell back on the pair of miniature cameras which I had strung around my neck. These focused easily and gave me a total of 72 shots, which sounds like a lot, but melts fast in a riot.”

“Before leaving New York, managing Ed Thompson had said, “Maggie take three months if you need it, roaming around Korea, and when you’ve found a new story you think is your story, cable us.”

“I marveled that the same world that could contain a hydrogen bomb and a hand grenade made out of a beer can.”

Breast Milk Banking in Utah

Thanks to my friend Robyn Beck, who knows that I want to do more writing, I got to write this piece about breast milk banks in Utah for AFP

In a world where sharing is so popular it has its own economy, women in Utah have a new item to contribute: breast milk.

The Mountain West Mother's Milk Bank had its grand opening in Salt Lake City this month with a mission to provide nourishing, human milk to babies whose mothers are unable. It is the first of its kind in Utah, the US state with the highest birth rate -- and therefore the greatest need, as well as a wealth of lactating potential donors.

Annette Thompson began donating in March after she had her third child, spending 10-15 minutes every three hours to pump. "This is my little piece of helping someone else. My body can do it, so I will do it," she said. Thompson had realized she was a prolific milk producer when she had her first two children -- she used to pump excess milk and save it in her freezer, before ultimately throwing it out as she ran out of space to store food. 

A few years later, when her niece was in the hospital and needed milk, she learnt that donating was possible.

So when she had her daughter in March, she posted on Facebook to inquire if anyone needed extra. She was connected to the milk bank and after undergoing a health screening, including a blood test, Thompson became a donor.

Nearly 10 percent of babies born in the United States are premature, and the bulk of the milk collected by the bank goes to nourish infants in neonatal intensive care. Often when a baby is born early the mother's body is unable to produce milk, or not able to produce enough, so donor milk is sought.

Breast milk is valued above formula because it contains a range of vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, immune factors, antibodies and stem cells. "It primes the gastro-intestinal tract, so those babies get protections from infections from the get-go," said neonatologist Mariana Baserga, who runs the University of Utah's neonatal intensive care unit. Since the bank began operating in October 2019, more than 550 local women have volunteered to donate their extra milk.

Once the bank receives milk from donors, it is pooled, pasteurized and then packaged in doll-sized three ounce containers to be shipped out to hospitals across Utah and neighboring southern Idaho.

Ken Richardson, medical director at the milk bank compares donating mothers to first responders and the military. "That's what they are doing, saving lives," he said. "It's an act of selfless service to pump and to provide breast milk and to do it for hours and days and months. "They do it without any payment. It's an act of pure love."

In the 1980s when the AIDS epidemic hit, it had a devastating impact on milk banks in North America and around the globe. At the time there were 50-60 milk banks in the USA and Canada. Within a very short time there there were only a half dozen left, “They closed overnight because people were worried,” says Naomi Bar-Yam, Ph.D., formerly on the Board of Directors of Human Milk Banking Association of North America (HMBANA). It was the catalyst that inspired the founding of HMBANA, which is the professional organisation for non-profit milk banking that sets the guidelines for protocol and procedures involved collecting and dispensing human milk. The epidemic highlighted the need to make sure that milk banking procedures were safe and would not transmit HIV or AIDS.

Bar-Yam says that HMBANA’s rigorous standards are used across the globe, making the United States and Canada leaders in the field. 

Other countries with growing milk banking networks include India, South Africa and Brazil, where there are more than 200 human milk banks. The Brazilian milk banking model is being exported to other lusophone countries like Cape Verde and Mozambique and Angola.

Milk banking is growing in popularity in terms of the volume of milk dispensed as well as the number of recipients. More than half of the HMBANA affiliated banks have opened in the past 6 years.

While the protocols of milk banking are designed for the fragile babies in the NICU, more mothers are starting to request donor milk, those who are taking medication, have had mastectomies, and others who for various physiological reasons cannot breastfeed. Bar-Yam, attributes this growing success to research pointing to the power of human milk and the risks of not using it, ”It’s not only that breastfeeding and human milk are good idea, but also that formula can be harmful. That message has been received loud and clear.”

A three ounce serving of breast milk is ready to be shipped out to nearby hospitals from the Mountain West Mother’s Milk Bank.

Lab tech, Daniel Smith prepares three ounce servings of breast milk is ready to be shipped out to nearby hospitals from the Mountain West Mother’s Milk Bank Thursday Dec. 12, 2019 in Salt Lake City. For a baby in the NICU, there is nothing as nourishing as breast milk, which contains vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, immune factors, complex oligosaccharides (complex sugar molecules), antibodies and stem cells; it is effectively medicine.

Human milk donor Annette Thompson with her baby, Millie, the inspiration for her milk production at their home Friday Dec. 13, 2019 in Payson, Utah. Thompson, says she is “Blessed with a lot a lot of milk.” She has donated more than 40 gallons since she began donating in April 2019.

Hayes Collins born two weeks early, in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the Intermountain Healthcare's American Fork Hospital Monday Dec. 16, 2019 in American Fork, Utah. Hayes’s Mother, Jenny Collins had difficulty producing milk due to stress of being in the NICU as well as since he arrived early, so he was fed with milk from the Mountain West Mother’s Milk Bank.

Dogs on Sofas

Working dogs, once strictly outdoor animals are climbing the ladder of luxury. Not only are they visiting chiropractors and massage therapists, they are also usurping prime spots on the furniture. Some outliers are even weaseling their way in to farmers’ beds. At the Uinta Basin Cattle Dog Classic in Duchesne, Utah, Maggie, a border collie with two fox ears and an expression somewhere between wired and vigilant, maneuvered three cows into a pen after a cozy night’s sleep spooning her food lady Doreen McCourt of Wellington, Utah.

Breck Hunsaker’s dog Max focuses on a cow at the Duchesne County Centennial Event Center, Uinta basin Classic Cattle dog trial Saturday December 7, 2019 in Duchesne, Utah.

As the trajectory of how much humans love dogs increases, so has the popularity of dog related sports. Stock dog trials are experiencing a surge of newcomers as more dogs find themselves employed at ranches or farms, and as the sport becomes more accessible to hobbyists and newbies. To compete in the trials, canines and their humans must work together to drive cattle through a course, acquiring points for completing tasks as the clock ticks. The human whistles and barks instructions to their dog, who zips through the course, occasionally nipping a cow in the face, as they try to keep the clunky bovine gang moving in the right direction.

Steve Wight, owner of Mill Iron S Ranch in Bancroft, Idaho is the president of the Mountain States Stockdog Association that organized the trial. Wight is credited with adding a “novice” class to the competition, creating an inviting climate for neophytes to take part. “We created the novice division to encourage the true beginner. We want you and your dog to succeed so you will get better, and compete against people on the same skill level,” Wight said, adding, “We have a lot of people who are getting into the hobby of it. You can compete and have fun, make friends, do things with your dog, and your dog can have an outlet for what he is bred to do.” At this trial alone there were about half a dozen new handlers and dogs that had never competed before.

Zeke Mendenhall’s charge, Skye races to get ahead of a cow.

Officially a physical therapist, Utah native, Zeke Mendenhall’s side hustle is training dogs as the market for cattle dogs has ballooned. Mendenhall, who speaks with a slightly twangy voice made made for narrating audiobooks, speculates a tendency to romanticize the West is one of the reasons stock dogs are gaining popularity. Pointing to people who have moved to western states or have holiday cabins and ranches he says, “Horsemanship is something that takes a really long time to develop, to bond with a dog, the thrill of working the stock and getting the job done, that doesn’t take nearly as long,“ and it’s not nearly as costly. Another reason Mendenhall says is that Americans’ relationships with dogs have changed, “dogs have almost become almost human.” People are no longer masters, they are now ‘dog moms and dads.’ Other handlers echo this tender sentiment. McCourt says dogs help humans emotionally with the stress in our lives. She jokes that when she comes home from work, her dog greets her with joy and love, while her husband sits on the couch.

Zeke Mendenhall whistles using a traditional herding whistle while giving a dog hand signals during the competition

Wight pushes back a bit on the idea of dogs sleeping on the bed, “This country is absolutely dog crazy. The sad thing is that they are missing out on the purpose of a dog. What is that dog bred to do? The border collie was 100% bred to work, I’m not saying they are not great pets, but people are getting a little bit overboard dog crazy.“ Handlers are quick to point out that full time, blue-collar working dogs are no strangers to dirt and one of the main ingredients of the dirt is cow poop, which is a reasonable reason to deny a dog a leisurely nap on any sofa or bed. McCourt admits that while her dog gets to cuddle up with her, there is no way her husband’s dog, Spud will ever bask in such opulence, “He’s such a filthy dog, the minute he sees a cowpie or mud, he’s in it.”

While its possible to buy a dog from a breeder for a few hundred dollars, the price tag for a border collie with designer genetics and exemplary training can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Gurdy, a milk chocolate colored pup with laser focus was bought for a record breaking $30K. One handler said she’s well worth the price since she can do everything except close a gate.

Gurdy, who sold for $30,000, drives a cow at the Duchesne County Centennial Event Center, Uinta basin Classic Cattle dog trial Saturday December 7, 2019 in Duchesne, Utah

Considering that the annual salary for a cowboy is about $40K, those prices may look reasonable. Wight says his dog, Levi, is a loyal, devoted employee, “ I have never had to get him out of bed. He never called in sick for work. If I had to go do something on Christmas or New Year’s Eve he didn’t ask for overtime.”

Broken Circle Ranch run by Robin Nuffer, is where Gurdy was born to decorated border collie parents. Nuffer says, “In the good old days, cowboys treated their dogs one way, but its different now, because dogs are worth so much money.” As a dog trainer, she cautions its necessary to create boundaries, or there can be problems. Left unchecked, a dog could end up dominating a family. Its ok for a dog to be on the furniture, but she suggests the dog should first ask, in the universal language of cute facial expressions, “Hey, can I sit on the sofa?” The owner can say yes and later tell the dog to get off the furniture. “You still have to be the dominant figure in that dog’s life,” she advises, “It’s true of all dogs; little house dogs, herding dogs, dogs that are pets, and dogs that are tools – there always has to be trust and respect, and then you’ll have the perfect dog”

Children cuddle border collie puppies.

Lily-Rygh Glen, Wingwoman

It’s impossible to walk into Lily-Rygh Glen’s Flexible Fitness studio without your eyes widening, mouth dropping open and inside voice saying some version of “wow.” The word “Badass” is prominently featured in wooden letters on the back wall which is painted a soothing shade of minty green, and there is witty, snarky design-y eye candy everywhere to keep your mind busy as Glen makes you do crunches, planks, and lunges. Clients can bring their own music to their work-out, but a Prince playlist is always handy in case they forget. The mirrors and front windows have curtains, so clients can have privacy from their own eyes and other’s as Glen “Kicks your ass, but cradles you heart,” as her gym motto reads.

Lily Rygh-Glen, owner of Flexible fitness in her gym in Portland. Rygh-Glen is a beneficiary of Mercy Corps NW small business programs.Personal trainer Lily-Rygh Glen in her studio, Flexible Fitness in Portland. Glen is a beneficiary of the Mercy Corps NW small business program.

Glen is a self-described burnt out academic, from her first career she as an English Literature professor. She was raised in a family that prioritized books over sports, which “were for people who weren’t smart enough to read.” In 2010, when her mother was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, it forced her to examine her family medical history which was peppered with cancer, heart disease, alcoholism, drug addiction, diabetes, and early deaths. She had an epiphany of sorts and emerged from the sorrow of losing her mother with determination to break the unhealthy cycle. She started working out with a personal trainer, and eventually became one herself. She’s the kind of trainer who goes to trampoline parks with her clients when they are too shy to go on their own.

Later this year Glen plans to add a certification as a nutrition counselor so she can help clients improve their relationships with food. She emphasizes food is morally neutral, there is no such thing as good or bad food, “Some food is more nutritionally dense, but that there is no moral value in food and there is no moral value in ​you​ based on what food you eat.” Her goal is to help people remove the stigma around eating, “Especially for people in fat bodies. It doesn’t matter what you eat, if you are in public and you are a fat person and you are eating, there is a risk there, so I’m hoping to eliminate some of that through the training”

Glen points out that the success of diets is a measly three percent. The diet industry is built on a failure rate of 97%. She asks, “Why would I want to take part in that? If I was a doctor, I would never dream of prescribing a pill that only worked three percent of the time. Especially if the side effects of that pill were worse than the disease the pill was designed to cure.” Research has shown that when someone loses weight on a diet, they are likely to gain it all back, and then some. The diet industry thrives because it doesn’t work “it's specifically designed to create repeat customers off of products that fail almost universally.” If the products worked, the diet industry would crumble.

The 600 ft gym in Southeast Portland has personal touches aimed at making clients feel safe in the space. Her clients come to the gym with trauma, “you can’t be fat in this culture and not have trauma. My job is to help people feel safe, not to tell them they need to change” There is a debate about calling something a “safe space” or a “brave space” and Glen wants her gym to function as both.

Lily-Rygh Glen training a client

Glen faces challenges, even criticism daily for her body positive work. She jokes, “If I had a dollar for every time I was told I was glorifying obesity, I could buy a 24 hour fitness.” When she meets people and tells them she is a personal trainer she often feels scrutinised, “There is a sense that in this industry, you are supposed to look like Gillian Michaels, and if you don’t you’re a fraud. When to my thinking, Gillian Michaels is the fraud. She’s the one who is not treating people’s bodies with respect.”

She points out “You’d be hard pressed to find a community that needs a place to work their bodies more than fat people. They want to feel strong in their bodies just like thin people do.” Some of the strongest people Glen has trained have been the heaviest people, if you weigh 450 pounds, your muscles are carrying 450 pounds every day. “You are going to have quads of steel just from moving around your own body. “

Destigmatising the word “fat” is part of combating fat phobia. “Its so weird, ‘fat’ is just a descriptor, but we have a concept that ‘fat’ is automatically pejorative, its assumed your insulting someone,” Glen references other instances where communities have reclaimed traditionally derogatory terms, like “dyke” or “bitch” and says ‘fat’ could share the same fate. “It's just a state of physical being there's nothing more to it than that. People have always been fat. People will always be fat. I just don't see the point in creating a hierarchy of bodies, especially when being fat is largely something that people cannot control.” She acknowledges each person has their own relationship with the word but it’s important to destigmatize it for all the fat-phobic people who would use it as a weapon.

As a business woman Glen says that it’s been a bumpy road. Her best advice would be to do as much homework as possible. “For me that meant taking classes through Mercy Corps NW and really making sure I had my ducks in a row”

Through the classes she learned obscure yet critical details about running a business such as getting a permit for a sandwich board, and budgeting for a fire inspector. “I was so busy meantally decorating my space, I never would have thought of any of those things had I not done those classes.”

“I learned the most important thing was being able to look in the mirror and see someone whose politics and social values aligned with her paycheck” she adds “I realized that I could never go back to working jobs that didn’t mean anything to mean to me and didn’t do anything to support what I think is important culturally.”

Glen points to a ridiculously large “Feminist” wall hanging that dominates the wall opposite the “Badass” lettering. She says she didn’t realize it was that massive when she bought it, but it seemed appropriate. She kept it, reasoning “If there’s any question about what I’m doing. That question is answered. I train cis men, I train trans men and trans women. But at the end of the day, I am here for other women, that’s the group I’m here to serve, it’s what my heart tells me, what my consciousness tells me, what my political leanings tell me, I’m here to serve other women, however I can do that — that’s success to me.”

Profile and photos for Mercy Corps NW in Portland, Oregon June, 2019.

Selenite in a Haystack: an amateur's beginning guide to rockhounding

Visitors to the northern area of the Great Salt Lake

Armchair rock-hounder no more! After years of perusing geological articles and books, I have finally actually found a rock that I was looking for on purpose. In other words, I have hounded. When I try new things, like fixing my car or baking baked goods, I consult YouTube, and this was no exception. I found a few short videos instructing viewers how to dig for selenite crystals in the Great Salt Lake salt pan. The videos bolstered my confidence and I soon found myself rattling down a long washboardy dirt road, armed with a shovel, gloves and a bucket to the Spiral Jetty north of Salt Lake. 

There was a lot of evidence that other selenite searchers had been there with the same idea as me; dozens of shallow holes were dug out in the area down the hill from the parking lot. Randomly, I picked a spot amongst the holes, and started digging, and digging and digging. I tossed the dirt near the hole and ran my foot over the sand to check there were no hard objects lurking. Soon I had a hole the size of a small grave, considerably bigger than the other holes nearby. Perhaps it was not a good spot. I filled in the hole, collected my stuff and marched, still determined, towards the water line.

Hole number two was not a success either. This time, I went for more of a trench shape, but the sandy hole quickly filled with water. My dog, who had been circling the area sniffing little bird bones sauntered by, gingerly examined the the hole and gave me a skeptical look. Hole number three was too rocky. I picked a drier spot, but kept hitting rocks that were just boring clumps.

The word Selenite comes from Latin meaning “moon,” as the muted luster is thought to resemble moonlight. These crystals, known formally as selenite gypsum (CaSO4 · 2H2O) are also known by the street name “Utah Mud Diamond,” or “Dirty Diamonds.” New age enthusiasts claim it can be used to cure headaches; one could rub it on one’s head near the ache. Other supernatural uses are said to include dissolving pain; spiritual, mental or physical and cleansing auras.

Feeling discouraged, I walked away from the lake towards terrafirma. The earth was covered in small dried out pools a couple meters in diameter, separated by white, muddy barriers. My boots sank into the mud, which was punctuated with crystals sticking out of the ground. It looked promising. I told my dog that this would be the last hole, and stabbed the mud with my shovel. 

Clay is the secret. The first heavy wad of muddy clay made a moist sucking sound as I pulled the shovel down and back. It was dense, heavy and smelled of sulphur. I broke the chunk apart with my hands and instantly saw the glistening crystals in and inky brown paste. It took about a minute for my knees, gloves and shovel handle to be coated in a thick layer of sticky clay, not unlike bread dough. It was extremely messy.

The scoops the shovel took out were best removed by peeling the clay off the blade, then kneading with all my might, searching the blob for the hard chunks. Even the back side of the shovel was hopelessly caked in clay. I found a rock and used it to scrape the goop off so I could continue to dig. 

After about 20 minutes of work, I had nearly 40 crystals. The biggest about the size of my palm and the smallest, about the size of a guitar pick.

freshly harvested selenite crystals

At home I washed them off in room temperature water, scrubbing them gently with an old toothbrush. Many broke despite my gentle handling, but the breaks formed a long glassy edge that served as a platform to stand them on. As the clay was removed the crystals revealed themselves to indeed be crystals, hexagonal lenticular blades with clusters of black scattered throughout. 

II took my loot to the Simple Elegance Rock Shop, a veritable geological museum in Orem, to learn more. Proprietress, Vickie Clements Hatton looked at a one of the crystals and said “Let me play with it a bit” taking it back to a lapidary grinding machine. Meanwhile, Jack Clements, her brother consulted a map detailing the different rockhounding sites in Utah indicating the area near the Spiral Getty was gypsum territory. He took one of the crystals and scraped it with a knife, easily making a mark, “you can always tell gypsum, because you can cut it with a knife.” Vickie, discovered that the crystals do indeed dissolve in water, also a tell-tale characteristic of Selenite. She took me down a shop aisle, the shelves groaning with all different shapes and colors of rocks, geodes, fossils and minerals, to the selenite section. The sizable chunks, gleaming snow white blocks looked like the sophisticated cousin of what I pulled up from the mud flats. A crystal enthusiast, Vickie said she wouldn’t use the "Dirty Diamonds” that for clearing her aura because of the presence of other embedded minerals might conflict with the purifying process. The Simple Elegance shop takes people, free of charge on rockhounding field trips every other week throughout the summer, some of the groups number up to 75 people. They announce their upcoming plans on their facebook page.

The whole exercise was fun, as successes generally are. I have been rock-hounding on other occasions which ended in mild disappointment, with one or two tiny specimens of whatever rock. After hours of looking for geodes, I felt like I had been looking for a needle in a haystack, whereas digging for selenite was as easy as finding hay in a haystack. Victory is pretty much a sure thing as long as you look in the mud.

A crystal after mud removal.

My Migratory Father

In grade school I was horrified to learn that my dad was the same age as my classmates’ grandfathers. I began to obsess about about his imminent death. Grandfathers die, ergo, he would die, probably soon. I started coming home from school, expecting to find the worst. I stood motionless in doorways, monitoring his ribcage when he was sleeping. It was easy to imagine that he was’t breathing. Sometimes I would sneak in to the room to get a better look and examine his face, the deep wrinkles on his cheeks, the slightly angled incisors, visible confirmation I was his daughter.

Fred Behring in Ashton, Idaho May 2019. After a botched surgery he lost vision in his right eye.

When I moved out of my childhood home to my own life, every call that went to a voicemail-that-was-not-set-up-yet, inspired an image of him lifeless, ashen, splayed in awkward position on his kitchen floor. More than once I have braced myself, “Ok, this is finally really happening,” and called the police in his small town to go check if he was still alive.

There is a photo of him and me from 1972 laying on a bed covered in a mustard colored bedspread with pompom fringe. I was a few months old. Laying on my side, his head is next to me in profile gazing in to my eyes and the look between us is pure love. It’s a pity my undeveloped synapses didn’t leave me with the memory of that time, it is buried under complicated geological epochs. In he years that followed our relationship was hard, a few sweet memories might have been a salve for teenage angst. There was chasm of nearly half a century between us. I struggled to win his approval but couldn’t bend myself to his elusive ideal of an obedient preacher’s daughter in the 1930’s. 

Photo by Eva Behring, San Francisco, 1972

In the decades that followed, there have been countless arguments and reconciliations. But, the nebulous biological tether that connected us was more forgiving than we were. One Christmas I gave my dad a photo of myself with President Clinton. I knew he was not a fan, but I figured when your kid gets to meet a president, that’s a good thing. He was apoplectic and kicked my husband and I out of his house on Christmas eve. We didn’t speak for a year. One day he called me out of the blue as if nothing had happened. It was implied that if I went along with it, we could act as if everything was normal. I was so relieved and emotional, my chin trembled but I managed to keep my voice mostly steady. I got my dad back, and the price was pretending he hadn’t been a jerk.

Thankfully, decades of worrying have been for nothing. Today, my dad is 91 and fueled by a rage that cannot be extinguished; rage at his atrophying body, at Obama, but including all democrats, at the cost of living, at his ex-wife my mother, at me for my liberal views. Rage and isolation have made him strong. He lives alone with one eye and a twice healed shattered pelvis that has rendered him the most stereotypical of shufflers.

In the winter, my dad lives on the third floor walk-up of modest condo in sunny Arizona. He believes the stairs keep him fit. He gets coffee every morning at an affluent grocery store in Scottsdale. He brings his own mug and gets a deep discount. He likes to sit and socialize with the other seniors taking advantage of the bargain. They camp out around terracotta tables with a mismatched mugs and talk about recent medical procedures, their families, and politics. Later in the afternoon he takes a nap, listens to Rush Limbaugh, then goes to the VFW for a beer. Dinner is a handful of raw almonds from Costco. I often encourage healthier eating and the reply is “I’ve eaten healthy my whole damn life, from now on I’m going to eat whatever I want.”

My dad in his Scottsdale condo. Most of his artifacts have been collected at thrift stores and garage sales.

In the summer he lives in Ashton, Idaho, near his farms. He built his house himself with the help of my brother one summer in the 1990’s. Neither of them are expert craftsmen. Yellow mesh dry wall tape can be seen under badly applied plaster in the corners, the porch can only support the weight of one human or risk collapse, the hot water is where the cold water should be. All the furniture has been bought at the DI, which is a cute nickname for the Mormon thrift store in the neighboring town. Everything functions marginally, but nothing works perfectly, not unlike our relationship.

My dad was once a good driver. Family holidays of my childhood consisted mostly of driving hundreds of miles to stay at a destination one night before a the return journey home. In the last decade, however his skills have declined. The drivers of Arizona have been generous and explicit with their feedback. My dad is oblivious to crude gestures, and not worried about the anxiety his driving may cause others. A man who never tips more than a dollar, is not terribly concerned with what others may think of him. He once told me “ A tip is a gift and you never have to give a gift.” 

This year he agreed to let me take him to Idaho. I called him the night before I flew in to confirm he’d pick me up. “Oh, are you coming tomorrow?” he joked. “Saturday is a big day. It’s steak night at the VFW.” He says “doubleya” just like George Bush.

He was waiting for me in the exact right place at the exact right time. I saw his truck in the distance and walked towards it. My sleeping bag winter coat was rolled up and shoved in to my now bulky carry-on. It felt good to walk in the warm Phoenix air. As I got closer, I looked more carefully. Where was he? I could see the headrests outlined clearly on both sides of the car,It looked empty. After a few more steps his face began to appear through the dusty windshield. He was there, shrunken within the silhouette of where he used to be.

He got out beaming and shuffled around the hood to me. I hugged him hard to feel if he was any less solid than he was a few months ago. He felt the same. I lifted my suitcase in the back of the truck, which was full of stones and we drove off. Rocks tumbled and clattered around the back, at every turn, start and stop. “Did you see my rock collection?” he asked as an orchestra of pebbles ping-ponged over the truck bed.

Before I had a chance to reply, he started to pull out on to a five lane road in front of a stream of fast moving cars. “Dad! Wait! Don’t you see those cars?” I shouted, immediately reproaching myself to soften my tone. “We’re not in a hurry. Let’s wait until the coast is clear.” I tried out an angelic voice, twisting like a yoga pose to look out the back window. “Ok, after this guy, you can go now.” He lurched into the second and third lanes at about 20 miles an hour. A few moments later he tried to use the indicator, but missed and the windshield wipers began to squeak and jump across the dry glass. We both laughed.

Driving in Scottsdale.

We set off the next morning. He made it clear that he wanted to get to Idaho as fast as possible, no stopping for fun or sightseeing. The endless chime of his unfastened seatbelt accompanied us as we navigated from driveway to road to highway.

Getting gas in St, George Utah.

Flashing a fake smile as he carries a take-out bag from McDonald’s.

Google maps suggested the fastest way is to go north over the Grand Canyon. Incredulous, my dad insists the fastest way is through Las Vegas. “I hope you’re not planning to squander my inheritance in some casino” I say as part of an ongoing joke we have about how much he spends in casinos. He’ll often call me to report excitedly he won $50 or so, and then reveal he spent $100 to do it.

We headed west and passed through boring places with interesting names like “Surprise” or ‘Nothing.” Comfortable silence took over over but not before he tried to needle me a little about politics. He follows the Republican party like a sleepwalking lemming and gleefully mentions he supports outlawing abortion. I took the bait and told him, “As your daughter, you are telling me that you don’t support me or my choices, it’s insulting. Plus you are an atheist.” He replied “I’m a Christian atheist.” I couldn’t argue with that.

I sipped truck stop coffee out of a trough-sized reusable cup, ignored him, and watched the landscape transition from beige to red. Saguaro cacti gave us the finger for a couple hundred miles. My dad fell asleep to the drone of the wheels on the seams of the highway.

Staying at a hotel in Fillmore, Utah for the night.

The hotel offered a free breakfast at the “Garden of Eat’n.” The unsuspecting waitress only received a tip of one dollar.

A few years ago I got my dad an iPad, hoping that we could share photos and that he could enjoy the splendors of the modern age. It didn’t really work. He has two bookmarks in his browser; one for a site that publishes the daily price for alfalfa, and the obituary page of the Rock Springs Rocket, the newspaper from his hometown.

When we got to Idaho we had dinner at the local diner use their wifi. “Dead, dead, dead” he said to himself as he drew a finger down the screen. “I’ve outlived just about everyone I know, and that in itself is an achievement.” I asked him if he’s afraid of dying. He looks at me like I just asked him to teach me to tie my shoes and answer’s “Not all all, why? Do you think I should be? I’m going to die Natalie, there is not doubt about that. When, where, how, I don’t know, maybe it will happen in 10 minutes. When you get to be 90 years old, you are kind of living are borrowed time, so I am just going to live my normal life.”

Back in the Idaho house, having coffee in pajamas.

There is Nothing for you in Misrata

Last week the internet reminded me that its been eight years since Chris Hondros was killed in Libya. Here is a little essay I wrote mourning him in the weeks after his death.

As I was making my first pot of morning coffee I was interrupted by polite vibrating in the next room.  I had just moved to Portland weeks before, and there were not many people to call me yet. I skated in my slippers over the wood floor to my buzzing phone I saw the screen blinking “Unknown Caller - Palmdale Area.” That meant it was my best friend Elizabeth calling on Skype. I was days away from a trip to London to visit her and meet her new baby, so it was expected she should call to make some last minute plans. It turns out one cannot get Swiffer refills in the UK, so she was probably checking to make sure I had picked up a few industrial sized boxes for her.

 “Hi girly! What’s up?” I said in in my best I’m-so-glad-its-you-chirpy voice. Just three more sleeps! “

“Hi there” Elizabeth replied in a no nonsense voice, uncharacteristic of someone who is a great lover of nonsense. “I just wanted to let you know about something before you saw it on the internet” She said, earnestly with no segue, no small talk, diving right in. “Its just a rumor, but I’m afraid there’s something to it.” She paused a long pause that was short too, then more clearly than she had ever said anything in her life, she said “Natalie, I am so sorry to tell you this, but it seems that Chris had been killed in Misrata,.”

Chris had been my post-divorce, long-distance, other love of my life. We’d met through our work as photojournalists in hotspots and  coldspots and spent years chasing each other around the world. My sometimes boyfriend, he would arrange to meet me for holidays in places like in Paris, and Petra, usually before or after he finished an assignment in Iraq. I convinced myself that the twelve hour flight from my home in Beijing to New York was easy – It’s direct! I would visit him in Brooklyn, where I spent many jet lagged nights awake, my head on his chest, listening to the metronome of his wild heart.

We were drawn to one another through our occasionally overlapping careers and similar experiences. Loving him and talking with him was the easiest thing. But there was a trail of other woman’s earrings, a used packet of jasmine shampoo in the shower, a wet foreign toothbrush. So he was also an ex-boyfriend, but one with an indelible claim on my heart.

While Elizabeth was talking, I was looking at the crumbs on a brown check table cloth, the new leaves were shivering on the tree outside the window. The world was quiet, waiting for me to say something into the phone. I was waiting too, waiting, for my brain to generate some words to push out of my mouth.

Nothing. Not a thing.

My heart may have been racing, but perhaps it was calm, I don’t recall now. Elizabeth was anticipating some kind of noise to indicate that I had heard her.  All I could manage to squeak out was “I’m so shocked, I don’t know what to say” which for some reason I proceeded to repeat over and over maybe a dozen times. My voice rose at the end, making it sound more like a question. Looking back on it now, I was speechless because I couldn’t say anything like “how did it happen?” or dissolve in to a crying heap because that would have made it true. It would have been disloyal, to give up on his life so easily over a simple phone call.

She went on to tell me the information came from her husband, a TV producer for Al-Jazeera who was on assignment in Benghazi.  He was working in a hotel that had been converted into a newsroom, which often happens in war-zones. There had been a report that two photographers were killed, two wounded, but information was still sketchy. 

“Thanks for calling me, I just can’t think of anything to say” I yelped yet again. Elizabeth went on describe what she heard. It had happened when they became trapped between rebels and government fighters. As they were running for cover something happened -supposedly it was a head injury, possibly from a sniper. Would a sniper shoot a photographer? Of course they would.

My brain felt paralysed, scrambling to grasp a rapidly fraying rope of denial. I’d spent years of my career covering wars and disasters in third world countries and I knew better than to believe rumors emerging from the chaos of front lines. I was imagining the scene: Arab men, hyped up on the adrenaline of killing and shooting things, keffiyahs wrapped around their heads, yelling over one another about what happened to the foreign journalists: totally unreliable. Bullets whistling and snapping as they met their unfortunate targets under a clear blue Mediterranean sky. Reporters crouched over satellite phones, calling their editors, wearing blue bullet proof vests that say TV in gaffer tape on the back and front, repeating what the yelling Arab men said, added a thick glaring layer of inaccuracy for faulty translation. “ Don’t panic, Chris could easily just be the wounded one,” I consoled myself.

There had to be a logical answer that made this unbelievable news untrue. Maybe it was their driver who got killed. Because that happens a lot.

Chris didn’t feel dead. The email he sent me the day before scientifically proved that he was out there. We were making plans to meet up when I was in London. He knew I was visiting Elizabeth and he was going to pass through at the same time.

Intuitively, I knew I was absolutely going to see him soon.

But just like that, while I was looking at crumbs on a table cloth, tethered to the wall by a phone charger, next to an unopened electric bill, morning light pouring in to my spare apartment filling with the smell of brewing coffee. The phone rang and a man I loved went from being out there in the world to not being part of us.

For the next few hours I sat at my computer refreshing sites that seconds before had been refreshed like Twitter, and the New York Times. At 9 am he was alive. One newspaper said he suffered from “devastating brain trauma” another said he was in “grave condition.”  He was breathing on his own, his lips were still sucking in air, he had life in him still, maybe he will be ok?

By noon some one had uploaded a video to You-Tube of him and the other wounded journalists receiving treatment in a triage tent. I watched it mesmerized a dozen times times scanning the grainy video for any clue of a positive outcome. The camera zoomed in on Chris’s face, his eyelids looked bruised and swollen. A large white bandage was wrapped around his head that lay lifeless and waxy on a blood splattered pillow. His lips were the same expressionless color of his cheeks. The next scene showed a doctor’s hands in latex gloves inflating a manual breathing apparatus, the air tube hanging from Chris’s slack mouth. He looked bad. The casual body language of the doctor did not help. At least he was still getting oxygen into his blood-stream, in to his fingers that played the piano.

The video then backed up and showed the whole room, the disorder of a field hospital was apparent. In the last clip, a nurse moved forward and began to cut away his clothing, including a mustard-colored t-shirt. I recognized it as a shirt we bought together at Banana Republic after having espressos at Café Reggio, his favorite, the year before. The audio consisted of a few cavalier comments the Libyan doctors made to one another, and the erratic, urgent bleeping of unseen medical machines, which I assumed, each beep confirmed that he was still alive.

It turned out that while photographing fighting on the front lines of a war of a ridiculous country that I’m certain he didn’t care about at all, a rocket propelled grenade landed nearby and exploded. I saw photos of the spot it hit afterward and it looked familiar to me; a ragged chunk of concrete missing from the middle and hundreds of little chips in concentric circles around it. One of the little chips was where a piece of shrapnel bounced off and with great force met the back of his skull. He was obviously turned away. Maybe he was running, maybe it happened so fast he never felt a thing.

Sometime in the late afternoon, late at night in Libya, I saw a report the news agency he worked for issued confirming he had died. The word “obituary” was swirling around next to his name.  There was also photo of him taken by another photographer the evening before. The last night of his life. He was in his prime, standing in a field, a jacket pulled tight over a Kevlar vest. He’s looking back as a building erupts in flames in the distance. His turned face, catching the fading twilight is tender and curious. I wish I could have been there to wrap my arms around his neck, touch the vulnerable spot on the back of his head with my palm, rest my lips against his infrequently shaven cheek and whisper a plea, “Don’t leave your hotel room tomorrow sweet darling scoundrel, there is no glory to be had in Misrata, no front pages, no awards, there is nothing there for you.”