Day 39: Another Day That Changed My Life

Another blogger mentioned "photoblogging." 

550,000 Google hits 1 second ago. 

And here I thought I was odd, walking each day with a camera, sometimes aimlessly, sometimes not (witness the summer Odonate explosion).

Today: Photodriving instead.

I can't help myself.

Day 38: Another Day That Changed My Life

He took one look at my niece, said "I'm going to marry her." (Ask his mother.)

I've saved one message on my answering machine: he says, "Hello Aunt Robley! I'm just calling to say I love you." 

O's a keeper. 

Day 37: Another Day That Changed My Life

At their rehearsal dinner, my nephew said, "I love J because she makes me a better person."  

J knows how to fix anything, find the bargain, sew a costume, mother her girls, and make a small family large with love.

Day 36: Another Day That Changed My Life

A day without words: that's what I hunger for. Silence, absence of commentary, even of thought in suspended consciousness, like that before or after major surgery, lost in the drugged space between nothing and everything now. I'm ravenous. Like these.

Day 35: Another Day That Changed My Life

First cousins long removed by time and space, I still like E and she still likes me. Shared memories of a grandmother's egg cup or an uncle's eccentricities bring the joy of belonging to a tribe, not just a self.  

Day 34: Another Day That Changed My Life

Fog opens and closes like a muslin curtain, revealing barn or child or field, but without a follow spot. Even a lone bird perched on a seesaw of wire tethered to the tower waits for the show to begin.

Now!

Day 33: Another Day That Changed My Life

As a child, she swung hard, cross-barred and smiling, side-banded pigtails flying, a streak of joy, and at night, her cat curled and nursing her tail, she slept hard.

A lover of life, ECH beautifies it for others.

Day 32: Another Day That Changed My Life

That day I watched him spin and laugh, his hair flying like hay off his head, so big his mother slit his shirt necks and still we struggled to pull them on and off, I knew I'd love him forever.

Day 31: Another Day That Changed My Life

Gray Lake Dimmick offered up jewels today: a male Eastern Pondhawk perched on red against green, mating Double-ringed Pennants, and Southern Sprites, teeny-tiny damsels just within reach of a telephoto.

Obsessive compulsion?

Please sir, I want some more.

Day 30: Another Day That Changed My Life

After waking me, the cats lingered at the back door.

Then they napped.

Next they book-browsed and mouse-hunted.

Then they napped.

Next they washed and folded the laundry.

Then they napped.

All before 11 AM.

These two are highly satisfactory cats.

Day 29: Another Day That Changed My Life

As I stumbled on the root-riddled trail, a newly emerged damselfly fluttered in before my face. "Oops. Sorry, little one!" I said.

Tonight, after I tutored a student, she wrote, "Thank you, dear!"

Common courtesies do us all good.

Day 28: Another Day That Changed My Life

I've acted in many plays, but only rehearsal excited me, repetition, words, action, camaraderie, working into otherness. 

As I walk with a camera, only the doing matters. 

Life is all rehearsal, culminating in no final performance.

Zoom in on now.

Day 27: Another Day That Changed My Life

Great Fun: Playing with a large macro lens at Cheekwood.

Wise Advice: Our instructor said, "It's best to learn to shoot with what you have. Experiment."

Delicious Irony: In a macro workshop, my best shot was the giant preying mantis.

Day 26: Another Day That Changed My Life

There is strange comfort sleeping in my friends' home where love and loss commingle, one coming into focus, then another, like the lace across my bedroom window, while downstairs one cares for the other, and upstairs I think on both.

Day 25: Another Day That Changed My Life

Restlessness, I understand: gray days, winter's cold, the isolation. But boredom? How can anyone with eyes and feet be bored? The smallest space offers such surprising riches. Witness: the nymph crowd shining like Christmas tree balls on a spiky stem.

Day 24: Another Day That Changed My Life

632 bad photos, but then who's counting? I am. Today I remembered something I used to tell students: If you're not frustrated, you're not learning. I'm frustrated. But just what is it I'm learning? At least the bluets were plentiful.

Day 23: Another Day That Changed My Life

Waking naturally today as I did in childhood, I slept a good sleep, a drug-free sleep for the first time in over a week (toothache), and soundly.

Now if only I could sleep with the abandon my cats enjoy.

Day 22: Another Day That Changed My Life

Almost any Saturday in my childhood: one brother painting in oil; one brother working on a motorcycle; Mother sewing vestments; Daddy on the lathe or table saw or drill; me playing the piano -- all of us tinkering. 

Creating things matters.

Day 21: Another Day That Changed My Life

Once I thought experts knew everything about their subject. When I earned a Ph.D., I learned the limits of exertise. Today, an expert confirmed what I already thought: "Female bluet. Unfortunately, there are a lot of look-alikes." I laughed.

Day 20: Another Day That Changed My Life

The woman behind the counter asked, "What're you doing this morning? Taking pictures?"

"Yes. Everyday," I answered.

And could have said because being alone, outside, with flowers and bugs makes me feel whole, like a child again, alive right now.