William Moore
“There were a lot of tears those few years. A lot of pain & suffering in so many layers. ”
❤️WILLIAM MOORE
🧡LOCATION: DAY 1- PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART DAY 2- WISSAHICKON VALLEY PARK, PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
💛PHOTO BY: DAY 1- EVELYN MOORE DAY 2- DECLAN MOORE
💜BLACK ”TEARS” ITEM: SHIRT/SHORTS/TATTOOS
💙CAPE BY @INDIE_TRUE_
💚FOLLOW @TEARSANDTAFFETA
🎤IN WILLIAM’S WORDS...
Day 1
I chose both this iconic location & my hat with definite purpose. I first came to Philadelphia in the early 90s to visit my father, who had surprisingly & suddenly left the Chicagoland area while I was at military school. This was around my freshman year of high school & just before I would meet Gina :) Coming to Philadelphia over the next several years for holidays or over the summer was always bittersweet. It held some adventure; it was, after all, a new city to explore, but I was never close with my dad.
After graduating high school, I finally settled on coming back to Philadelphia to go to Temple University & some deep hope that maybe my father & I could have a better relationship. That, unfortunately, never did happen. As I was getting ready to finally finish college & figure out what to do with the rest of my life, the good Lord blessed me with a beautiful baby girl, Kyra. My father would leave Philadelphia for Phoenix, AZ, about a month before she was born & later passed away, having never met his granddaughter.
As a single father, I shared a big brownstone apartment with a few of my fraternity brothers just blocks from this art museum when my oldest daughter was about 4 or 5 years old. Her elementary & high schools are both just behind me there in downtown "Center City" Philadelphia. To this day, I still love the neighborhood around the Art Museum. (It's the one made even more famous by the first Rocky movie & Sly Stallone running up the iconic steps)
Being a father kept me in Philadelphia. It pretty much defined who I was for a long time. I tried to be a Super Dad, or at least whatever notion I had of what that meant. In reality, I just spent years making sure I wasn't my dad.
Today, about 30 years after I first came to this city, I'm still here in Philadelphia. I've been married for a little over 10 years to my amazing wife & a stay-at-home dad for over 9 years. I'm coming up on 13 years of sobriety. Through it all, I still don't quite feel Super. I struggle a lot with my place in life. What I "should" be doing. Wearing this Taffeta Cape for a while & being silly with my younger daughter was a special moment I'll never forget! I definitely could have used a cape just like it many times along this journey to make myself feel stronger & more sure of what I was doing or had to do.
Day 2
This is at one of my very favorite places in the city. Philly is home to one of the largest & oldest municipal parks in the country. It's well over 2000 acres of woods, river, creek, hiking trails & several cool statues.
This statue is from 1902. It's kind of got a shitty story be it(https://hiddencityphila.org/2013/01/a-monument-to-ignorance ), but it depicts a Native American high up on a cliff looking west out over the creek & woods, which is still pretty dope even if complete bastardized Americana.
Between 2006-2009 my life REALLY spiraled out of control. My addiction and alcoholism was BAD. I was essentially doing everything I could to kill myself, even though I pretended most things were good. I had a job with a start-up company & a guy that would end up doing 7 years in federal prison for fraud & theft (I had to sit down with the FBI & surrender computers, evidence, it was NUTS!).
I was in & out of a couple not so great relationships, largely because I was an alcoholic & not doing anything about it. I finally saw my dad for the first time in several years (he moved to Phoenix, AZ, right before my oldest daughter was born in 2000) & soon after learned he had fallen really ill, was mistreated in the hospital & would die on May 31, 2008. One good thing that crook of a boss did was fly me out to AZ when my dad was in the hospital & I got to see him while conscious & he told me he loved me. His last words to me. We never had a great relationship, but that was a moment I'll cherish forever.
About a year after he died, & just before my last drink & subsequent DUI/night in jail, I purchased a bicycle & had begun riding the trails through this park as a means to clear my head & soul. I think maybe I knew my bottom was near? It was riding my bike that I noticed the statue up on the hill. I would come to this park a lot over the next few years. When my wife & I started dating later that fall, as I was getting sober, we went on a date walking through the park. I've brought my kids & dog up to see this statue. It's a nice climb & better reward when you get up there & look out over the park. It still cleanses me!
Coming to this place with my son & him taking pictures of me in the Taffeta Cape is a pretty good capture of how & when my life was reborn. There were a lot of tears those few years. A lot of pain & suffering in so many layers. You can't really see it, but my shirt says, "Superdad." My cousin told me I needed to get one! As I mentioned in my other story, so much of my life as a dad was making sure I didn't do it like my father. I don't think I could soar with a cape & be the man I am today were it not for those few years of tearing myself apart & climbing out of it to appreciate the highest moments ahead.