They were dubbed by my siblings and I as “The Dukes” (Mother) and “The King” (Father).  When and why the names were adopted I can’t remember anymore, but it seems fitting.  Fitting here b/c they are the two most difficult subjects for me to photograph (hitherto).  It is not b/c of tortured baggage – I would not pretend anything that compelling – but it is b/c with ones parents there is something fundamental and unaffected, and something also myriad and unutterable.  They’re our kings and queens, our cardinal gateway.  Naturally one’s ideas or proclivities are not bowed to by one’s king or queen.  Generally it’s the other way around.  I’m sure you can understand what I’m getting at, how a Duke and a King aren’t easy subjects.

photo: Maureen Mitchell, Canby, OR., Sept 2008. © Graeme Mitchell.

I was taking these immediately after looking through some photo albums with my mom, snaps from child-hood of us in gondolas, of us petting odd animals, of us dressed up.  Upon realizing my early childhood is at best scattered, illusive fragments as far as my memory goes, I commented to my mom, it’s amazing how little we remember, you know, how forgetting it so natural…  She offered in response (with not a trace of irony), that’s a good thing.

Dark, Dukes, for God’s sake, dark.

photo: David Mitchell, Canby, OR., Sept 2008. © Graeme Mitchell.

Also, a poem the author, Haven Kimmel had sent me:

OCEANS

     I have a feeling that my boat
has struck, down there in the depths,
against a great thing.
                  And nothing  happens!
Nothing . . . Silence . . . Waves. . . .

--Nothing happens? Or has everything happened,
and we are standing now, quietly, in the new life?

Juan Ramon Jimenez
tr. Robert Bly

Which for some reason I think makes sense perfectly here.