Distance

Writer Barry Lane describes writing process as a fluid dance between the Mountain of Perception (on which we create and organize patterns of meaning) and the Sea of Experience (in which we engage with the world through minute-by-minute sensory living).  It's a clever metaphor that proves useful in teaching and learning composition, especially when coupled with his other terms -- thoughtshot and snapshot. 

My blogging practice dances, too, between sensing and understanding, in the taking of photographs during the day and in the posting of one or a few and in discovering something to say.  Sometimes I let pictures speak for themselves.  Sometimes I find a picture to complement what I mean to say.

At the beginning of a long walk today, I heard loosened, leaning trees creak and squeak, groan and grind, balanced precariously on neighbors.  Scattered along the trail were others that had finally uprooted, making me nervous.  I started thinking about the laws of physics and probability.  The trees would give up the ghost at some point, but probably not with me under them.  Nevertheless, my pace quickened each time I approached a leaner.

At the end of my walk, I sat on a rock to look through my snaps and then took two final ones -- at a distance and at a greater distance still.  Even I had trouble finding the true subject within the frame -- the circus-striped purple-and-white crocus -- until I narrowed my focus.  Closer, and closer, and closer till I could see grains of pollen dusting one petal and a tiny bug resting on another.

Later still, at home, writing this post, I am at an ever greater distance from the groaning trees and crocus blossoms, finding that there is no mountain I want to climb today.  I want only to revel in the sea.  May it continue its profligate rolling.