Blog Post

Tunnels of Life

Vincent J. Fortunato • Mar 18, 2019

"For my brothers and I, the neighborhood park was merely an extension of our backyard..."

Here is Vincent's Profound Photo for this month. There are so many ways to talk about family, loss, the trials involved, and the path that follows. Here, through photography and narration, Vincent captures not only the ordinary special-ness of all our backyards, but also the profound experience of living and learning with our families.

You can learn more about Vincent on our Profound Pictures Contributor's tab. He is a regular contributor to this series, where the artist/photographer selects a photo they consider profound and then describes why, or simply lets the image speak for itself.

Tunnels Of Life, Profound Living, Michael Kroth

The Tunnels of Life
by
Vincent J. Fortunato

I grew up in Freeport, Long Island (NY) in a house right next door to a neighborhood park in the days when it was acceptable and the norm for parents to send their kids outside to play without supervision.There was a little league/softball field, outdoor basketball courts (which they used to flood to make an ice skating rink in winter), and handball/paddleball courts, as well as a children’s playground that included a merry-go-round, swings, monkey bars, a see-saw, and these tunnels. For many years, there were recreational and arts and crafts programs every day in the summer when the town used to hire teachers to run the programs.

For my brothers and I, the neighborhood park was merely an extension of our backyard and we used to spend just about all of our time there after school and during summer vacations. When it was time for dinner, mom would stand out the back door and ring a little fire engine style bell that must have belonged at one time to one of our children’s wagons or carts. Then she would wait by the dining room window and watch as the three of us would run home for dinner. After dinner, we were often back in the park.

This photo is one of the earliest I had ever taken with my first SLR camera, a Pentax K1000. It was taken in the winter of 1976 when I was 19 years old. Little did I realize at the time how things would soon morph into some of the most painfully emotional times for my brothers and myself.

During the year in which this photo was taking I would end up dropping out of college after a really bad acid trip; my parents would go through a not so amicable divorce, and my maternal grandmother with whom I was very close would die of lung cancer. And to top it all off, my father would shortly die of a coronary at the age of 44.

The anniversary of his death was on March 11th. It is amazing to think that I have been alive more than twice as many years since his death than before his death.

To this day, a canvas print of this photo hangs in my home as well as the homes of my two brothers. It is a great reminder of our formative years and the innocence of childhood and adolescence. It is a reminder of the emotional trauma and pain we each experienced that still is deeply felt and which had both deeply divided us and formed an enduring bond of love for each other. And it is a reminder of how we each have suffered, grown, and thrived over the 42 years since my father’s death. But most important, it is a reminder of the importance of maintaining a humorous and irreverent outlook on life, no matter how difficult current circumstances might be.

So, I close with my version of Four Noble Truths of Buddhism

Shit happens.

We suffer when we believe there is a ‘me’ in the middle of this shit.

We continue to suffer when we take this shit personally.

Suffering comes to an end when we stop taking this shit so seriously and just irreverently accept that shit happens, whether you like it or not!

In memory of Vincent Jimmy Fortunato, Jr. (September 25, 1932 to March 11th, 1977)