Walking with a camera, even a not very good one, heightens my sensory awareness.
Today, a sweet odor and a sawing of bees pulled me off track to a tree, with leaves suspiciously like a holly, sporting waxy white and yellow blossoms and berries. All at once, I wanted only one thing: to bring that smell home and keep it with me all year.
At another spot, the wax-paper crinkle of dragonfly wings (Blue Corporal) made me look down, and there on a bridge plank, a spectacular beetle -- colored like a fellow costumed in a zoot suit for a Broadway musical -- relaxed, alert but calm. An Eastern Eyed Click Beetle, I discovered when I came home, but I heard no click. However, he sure did race when he opened his wings, flew to a tree, and ran up, out of sight.
At the beach, I watched Calico Pennants mating, three or four pairs. On the plash of breached water, I saw a fish -- a big one -- gulp down two of those dragonflies. Horror mixed with wonder before I wandered on to lose myself in the deepening red of a teneral male Calico's eyes.
Every day, so many sounds, sights, colors, shapes assault me, but when I wander away from work and home, by myself, everything sharpens and I lose a bit of myself. If even for an hour.
But oh, what an hour.
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