Bryan Farley Photography Educator

The Evolution Will Not Be Instagrammed

So, today is the 10 year anniversary of the day my father committed suicide. I was going to write a very dramatic blog post about how tragedy has visited my life too often and my life was unfair, but a funny thing happened on the way to this ten year anniversary. I started to see my life differently.

If life is unfair, I have the advantage, at least for today.

Since I met Brad Paisley two weeks ago, Robin Williams committed suicide. Williams was 63, the same age that my father was when he committed suicide. On August 14, 2014, Paul McCartney played the last concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.  Tonight I danced with a kind woman from the Havin’ Fun Bunch. I returned from photographing roller derby just in time to hear the song, “When I’m 64.” The Havin’ Fun Bunch had a Disney themed party this year. Every year their mission is to have fun. I just started it.

You can read more about the direction I was going to take by reading my Notes on a Blog post. I needed to go through all of those steps before I could decide to be grateful and have fun.

I visited my farmers’ market friends from Fresno County. I visited a high school friend (a FriendInCheeses indeed!) who also happened to be in San Francisco’s Mission District today. Later I drove to Sacramento and photographed a really cute baby. I would have taken more baby pictures, but roller derby teams from Santa Cruz and Sacred (Sacramento)  interfered with the Roller Derby photo shoot .

I met some of the most beautiful people I have ever seen today. They all look so similar, and yet very different.

A year ago today I started working at a high school. I loved teaching photography, yearbook and journalism.  I do not know why I am no longer there, but I trust that something will work out. One year ago, I titled my post, “On Track – Nine Years Later.”  Paisley mentioned Mark Twain during our discussion. I do not know much about Twain, but I remember the quote, “even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there.” I guess I needed to move.

I only have a few more minutes left on August 16, 2014. I am probably going to leave my amazing DoubleTree by Hilton suite (thanks Mario!) and go out for a little bit. I will upload photos later and edit this post. I will also add more to my new “Notes on a Blog.” I am truly thankful to all the people who have helped me the last 10 years, 20 years, 30 years and 40 years and 46 years. Again, it seems unfair how much I have been able to do, because of the changes I have been forced to make.

As I was talking with two different high school friends, I was reminded how I signed my old high school yearbooks. (Danny, I think I took the salutation from Brian with an “i”). When I was in high school, I wrote, “Take Care and Risks.” It sounded cool, but now that I have experienced a little more tragedy, I would change my salutation to

Take Risks and Take Care….

Take care of yourself, take care of each other, take care to appreciate the little things.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 16th, 2014 at 11:57 pm. It is filed under Roller Derby and tagged with Sacramento, San Francisco, Suicide. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.