Daily Rituals

1.
A fresh morning pot of black tea.

2.
A favorite mug, dolloped with milk first before tea.

3.
Checking in (throughout the day): email, Facebook (and posting -- as a former student said, "You're still teaching," but I think of it as a kind of "book" club in which everyone shares), The New York Times, Feedly.

4.
Reading and commenting on compositions.

5.
Walking.
















6.
Taking pictures.

7.
Looking at, deleting, working on pictures.

8.
Blogging.

9.
A little something before dinner.

10.
Dinner (and sometimes work).

11.
Netflix.

12.
Litter box duties.

13.
Reading.

14.
Bed.

Of these, six are for me for the necessary actions of my creative life, something of which I was reminded today when my friend Jane posted to FB an article from The Washington Post about Mason Currey's book, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work.

His ideas aren't new, and I'm no artist.

But this much is true: "crafting . . . routine[s has] minimize[d] the distractions in [my] life and maximize[d my] ability to think creatively."

Especially the bold ones.

In the Here and Now

In today's New York Times, Perry Garfinkel describes opening a writing workshop with this direction:

At the top of a page, write the words ‘Here and now I am’ followed by an ellipsis. In the next five minutes write as many sentences as you can, each sentence beginning with ‘Here and now I am.’ The rules: no questions, no stopping, no thinking, no worries about logic or syntax and no cheating off your neighbor.

If you go blank, draw from your senses — what you see, smell, taste, hear, feel.

Here goes:

Here and now I am writing my 2,120th post for My Daily Snap, a ritual that lifts me like a swing, higher and higher, head back, laughing. 

Here and now I remember swinging as a child, and I love blogging like that, an infectious addiction, even though my feet hurt. 

Here and now, my feet hurt as they have since morning when, over my head a green heron ack-ack-acking across the pond, I slid part-way into the black loam, water soaking my socks, my camera aimed at another new species -- the Southern Spreadwing. 

Here and now, I smile, knowing that a famous person, Dennis Paulson, author of a major field guide to Odonates in America, verified my photo on Facebook. 

Here and now, I heard the heron's acking as applause, but it's the rush of wings, the gust of air brushing my cheek as a Slaty Skimmer races by, that makes my skin pucker. 

Here and now I feel dehydrated, not literally, but metaphorically: spent, I suppose. 

Here and now, still tired from looking for bugs, in wet shoes and socks, two cameras slung across my chest and back, I know I'll do it again tomorrow. 

Here and now, when I write have nothing to say of consequence other than noting the way the Southern Spreadwing turned a moment toward me as I reached in for a photograph or the way the second lizard, the one on the Lake Dimmick sign, waited and waited and waited as I approached, as if it knew I am no predator. 

Here and now, I have nothing to write, I think, but then when I sit at the computer and place my fingers on the keyboard, something happens and text appears. 

In the here and now of photowalking and writing I am part of the elements, and I feel whole.

Sending Up Sporophytes

I
I started the day as I usually do: checked email; read the New York Times; reviewed my Feedly list of blog posts.

One of those posts ran up a flag, and I did something I have rarely done before. I commented.

Julie Zickefoose pondered "spirit lights," a term suggested by a reader. Unlike most of the other commenters, and perhaps Zickefoose herself, I don't believe in paranormal "anythings," but I do believe in spirit.


II
Abbo's Alley's snow-melt opened little pockets of green: an inch-worth of daffodil here, a twisted vining shoot there, and everywhere mosses and lichen preening in first sun. 

One stump hosted a party of soft green things, dotted here and there with red caps and yellow tendrils and auburn sporophytes. 


III
"What day is it?" asked Pooh.

"It's today," squeaked Piglet.

"My favorite day," said Pooh.


IV
This is why I walk every day: to let go of my anxieties, aches, memories, -- all the clutter that clogs the spirit of thought.

This is why I blog every day: to put down some small, distilled inklings and send up little flags.


V
Maybe someone listens.

Eleven Favorites without Explanation and One Bad Picture

Time to look back and remember eleven favorites of 2013.

January 20: What I Wished For Today

February 27: My Twelve-step Program

March 28: Another Kind of Blooming

April 25: Rooting

May 14: A Overdue Thank-you Note

June 23: Sunday Morning

July 10: Another Author in the Family

August 25: Summer Evenings Long Ago

September 26: Roosting

October 12: Improvising

November 16: Biscuits and Honey

One bad picture that shows why I like blogging: I enjoy looking and then altering to suit some purpose. 

In this case, a rescue.

Here Are Two Answers

Many people ask, "Why do you blog?"

Here is today's two-part answer.

First, writer and poet James Still said, "Discover something new every day."

Second, friend David Haskell spoke with Diane Rehm about his book The Forest Unseen.  Listen carefully to what he says about the apps built into each of us.

Consider this: I walk to wonder, I photograph to discover, and I write to uncover.

Thinking about Blogging, Blogs, and the Internet

Thursday, I will give a blogging workshop for university students.  I have worked on my PowerPoint presentation to accompany the online workshop for a couple of weeks, first off and on and then in a concentrated manner on the weekend.  My head is filled with information, and my eyes are dizzy with the array of blogs and bloggers.

In the middle of my research, a friend and I talked about photography and dragonflies and the Web.  He commented that the Internet allowed others to see private pursuits and obsessions in a way never allowed before.  He's right.  Before the popular version of the Internet introduced in the 1990s, only serious birders would meet other birders, for example.  Now anyone can take a peek, and sometime the peek is fascinating.

Here are a few of my favorites:

1. Clouds 365 Project Blog posted by photograph Kelly DeLay
2. I Love Charts curated by Jason and Cody (this blog has become a book)
3. NeverSeconds published by a British schoolgirl
4. Paper and Salt combines author portraits and anecdotes with recipes
5. A Lady in London provides delightful armchair traveling
6. The Everywhereist written by a young traveler who recently had brain surgery

It's a comfort, oddly, to know that thousands of strangers out there are as driven as I by some quirky topic that they write to unknown audiences every day.  Perhaps we aren't so strange, and perhaps we aren't strangers.

Thanks to the Internet.

And now I add my photo of a Great Blue Skimmer to the 133 others published online in the last week, and with it and this photo I join the strange conversation!