A Dose of Reality

With commencement this weekend, families are arriving, parties are starting, and visitors are wandering the campus. I can only hope that none of them visits any of the campus lakes. Should they do so, the reality may be a shock. Unlike the shiny brochures, webpages, and videos, the Domain is at times more like a dump than a beloved preserve.

Irony abounds within feet of a dorm and at the edge of a pond.

Another Record!

When KZ of the Sewanee Biology Department challenged me to create a list of odonates on the Domain, I had no idea I'd still be at it five years later. With pleasure, I sent him an updated list last night, having discovered and photographed a new species for the Domain and county at the Day Lake Road large pond.

The Aurora Damsel is a true beauty: so different from bluets -- no shoulder stripes, somehow seemingly broader and longer. I saw it for less than a minute, just long enough for two snaps, and then it disappeared.

It's a comfort to learn that the Aurora prefers "spring-fed streams, clean lakes, and ponds," according to Ed Lam's Damselflies of the Northeast. I supposed that Lake Dimmick is relatively clear, but I never thought the nearby ponds were.

In any case, I have now photographed 36 species of Anisoptera (dragonfly) and 27 of Anisoptera (damselfly), and given that I thought there was one thing called dragonfly when I started, I'd say it's an accomplishment.

Wondering Why

Yesterday, a friend asked, "How did you come to be such a wonderful dragonfly photographer?  Were you always interested in them?"

I answered her, easily and quickly: "Two years' interest.  I'm trying to identify all the species here on the Domain.  They're really hard to photograph, so it's fun to try to snap them."

This is true, but I don't think it's the whole truth or the deepest truth.  Why, I have been wondering all day, do I spend so much time each day looking at and photographing dragonflies? 

If I don't hunt and snap, I am unhappy, grow physically restless, feel my energy sap and zap.  There is something about being outside, alone, looking at creatures that I used not to see, finding them everywhere.  Sunday, I drove with a friend almost an hour away to an orchard.  Three times or four, I exclaimed as we started to leave a spot, "Look!  There's a dragonfly!"  They are always with me.

So much surrounds us every day, outside of ourselves and in.  Choosing what to attend to is what I do.  Creative focus itself alleviates loneliness, disappointment, anxiety, listlessness, . . . .  You name the ailment and I respond, Look!  There!

I hope you will see what I think I have found.