“to so much of the world, solitude is strange.” (anna quindlen)

i always thought i was an extrovert. i enjoy people and social gatherings of all sorts. back a ways had someone asked me if i was an introvert or an extrovert (or the middle-of-the-road-ish ambivert), i likely would have answered “extrovert”. but then…

then i realized that the true way i rejuvenate, the actual place i go to in order to find calm, is inside, into my own space. it hadn’t occurred to me in all my extroversion that i always sought quiet, calm, peaceful in order to re-enter the fray.

in recent times i have been digging through the basement and the attic, opening bins and boxes with journals and composition books, finding diaries and poems, reflections and no-melody-song-lyrics. some of these were written in a tree just outside my growing-up bedroom window. some of these were written in a tiny basement apartment with wallpaper that looked like red brick. some of these were written in a converted garage and some in a new home in the sun. they are decades old. and they make it clear that i have always sorted to a place of quiet to recharge, to reflect, to express.

this photograph is one of my recent favorites. its bare minimalism speaks to me. one leaf, alone.

artists, sensitive to the ambient, the nuance, the emotional, resonate with everything around them, vibrations conscious and unconscious. individually, in the context of our medium, we ask and answer the questions that pummel our hearts, a call and response to beauty and understanding. and then, the leaf.

the one leaf, alone, stood out. red against the camel-taupe-tan of the trail. i stopped.

if there is no other photograph in all my photographs that speaks to the uniqueness, the singularity, identity, the one-ness of humankind, then this might be the one.

though none of us exist in a vacuum – and the spectrum of introvert and extrovert stretches like a red rock canyon – each of us is – at our core – one leaf, alone. there is a distinct simplicity in that.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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