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Photographs By Rita Bernstein

In the early nineties, I left my job as a civil-rights attorney to devote my energy to photography. Having two young children at the time, I naturally began to record and investigate their lives with the camera. This quickly evolved into an exploration of the sweetness and sorrow of family life in general.

The Fox

It was hard to believe the fox was dead. It’s been frozen for a month and hasn’t decomposed at all. It seems a shame just to bury it. I want the pelt, but where can I find out how to skin it?

The Distance

As I listen, a finch flies by outside the window, its gold breast in shiny contrast to the black and white of its wings. My son rarely talks about that trip to Peru three years ago, during which he was shot and his friend Patchen was killed.

Last Chance

A maple leaf, a two-inch brook trout, an execution

Hotel Cracow, My Daughter Practices Yoga

Pinkies

Marcus and I agreed to share parenting equally, splitting our child in half like a Georgia watermelon. We flipped a coin for the first month: three out of five. I won. Tonight, my month alone with Lee is over; Marcus is scheduled to pick him up at seven.

Marriage Is Impossible

To begin with, marriage is an impossible topic of conversation. Just try to put into words what makes a friend’s marriage work — never mind your own. It’s impossible to fully describe, much less arrive at a consensus about. Marriage is a subject sure to disrupt most dinner parties. Ultimately a product of the human imagination, it appears in countless forms and varieties. For reformers and many feminists, marriage is oppression and legalized rape, while right-wing fundamentalists (Christian, Muslim, and otherwise) see heterosexual marriage as an act of salvation for civilization.

Secrets

I have been in many women’s groups: walking groups, writing groups, ritual groups, clothing-exchange groups, exercise groups, even a long-ago Tupperware group. So it wasn’t odd to hear Sarah talk, at a meeting of my oldest women’s group, about an entirely different group of women with whom she met. These women rode horses into the deepest part of the woods, and upon arrival, each told a secret.

Two Rides

Wind from passing trucks rocked the car hard. He opened the door and got in without speaking, wedged the bag and blankets under his feet. The smell rolled across to me, far worse than I’d imagined: creosote, vomit, rot.