it never fails to amaze me. even the familiar turn in the trail. even the familiar trees. even the angle of the sun which has shone on us so many, many times here. even the sky, this midwest sky, sometimes ornery, sometimes brilliant. still. still, i love this curve of path. still, i love these tall pines. still, i love the tease of sun through the highest branches of needles. still, all of it.
in a world that presents unexpecteds every day – some of which are more difficult than others of which are tiny or enormous gifts – there is this. there is the still-all-of-it.
and so we go here. and we process life here. we are silent and we talk-talk-talk. this woods has kept us company through it all. this path has led us when our feet didn’t know where to go. these trees have wrapped us in scent and held us in strength, towering over us. this sky has graced us with all weather.
and we have always arrived back at the trailhead, safe. we have been freezing and sweltering. we have been covered with snow and sopping wet. we have been exhilarated and bone-achy tired. but we have always been safe.
so it shouldn’t really surprise me. this place is a haven, a sanctuary, shelter for our hearts and minds. i imagine one day – if we might live elsewhere and no longer hike in this place – we will look back, remembering and reminiscing. and we will nod our heads and agree – yes…it was all of it, all of that place. every single time.
there is this corner in our lakefront neighborhood. we take walks around the ‘hood, looking forward to this particular spot.
in the middle of every other nod to autumn, this corner glows. the maples there are in soft focus – all golden and pink. it is like seeing through a filter, stepping under a fresnel spot with a lighting gel. we make room to stop and take it in…each and every time we pass by.
some things are like that. we know them well and, yet, we anticipate them, knowing how they make us feel, knowing that we will be better for them. these trees.
there are spots on our favorite trails like this…when we enter the pine stands or when the trail curves through the forest…when we walk high above the river below us…when we turn into the afternoon sun with the meadow to our right. there is a spot as we come out of the tunnel on the highway and i can see the high rockies stretching out in front of us. there is a spot on the ditch trail in aspen – at the end – deep in the woods where there are rocks you can sit on as the stream breaks around you. there is a fallen log in breckenridge, up a ways on the path, next to the brook. there is another higher, in the meadow that opens to the sky.
someday, i will go stand again where my daughter and i stood, in canyonlands, and i will satisfy the anticipation of being there – in that spot of unspeakable emotion – once again.
someday, i will go stand on crab meadow beach again and – with anticipation and all-that-has-been-since washing over me – maybe i will feel what i used to feel there, way way earlier, the freedom of being, the anticipation of future.
the knowing of these places doesn’t take them off the list of places-to-go. rather, it’s the sheer knowing that keeps them on the list. it’s the recognition, the familiarity, the unbridled comfort.
as we turn the corner and look ahead, we can see the trees down at the next intersection. so much beauty. we both look forward to getting closer.
we are not on a luxurious vacation nor are we rambling much away from our careful budget. we are recognizing the we-are-here-ness and that is what we have right now – we have right now. if we can remember to anticipate each moment this way, we will truly be living.
and then, there is the feeling when we see our driveway, when we walk in the door. the spotlight pulls back and bathes our home in gratitude.
though we haven’t heard from him – on his youtube channel – for a long time now, joey coconato has a thing about meadows. he was in the presence of superb forests, the most majestic of mountains, rushing water and red rock canyons, but you could feel his reaction when he came across a meadow. it was like a breath of fresh air. a deep breath. i see a meadow and, now, consequently, think of joey.
the meadows we pass on our trail are revitalizing. post-invasive-species-eradication, they are greening and the vegetation is multiplying, more quickly than we can keep up. like breck – our aspen tree out back – we notice new shoots of growth every day, new tiny blooms of color. and then – there are the daisies.
this daisy caught my attention. even more than the others. mostly, maybe, because it wasn’t facing us. instead, the daisy had its back to us. and it seemed to have turned its face to the sun, soaking up energy and warmth, in a full-on beach-towel-on-the-summer-sand kind of invitation.
there have been days when face-to-the-sun is the best we can do. our meadows, sometimes fraught with invasive species and problematic drought, need us to just stop a moment and look up. turn our faces to the sun, let the shadows drop, soak it in.
when i think about our hiking and the moments that stay with me in the bank of yearning, they are the ones in pine forests, in and amongst quaking aspen, alongside quiet streams. they are on mountains with views between branches out to other mountains, ranges in the distance.
but the moments that are really prevalent – really impactful, even in their familiarity – are also these – the ones we know best, the turn in the trail, the scent passing a certain stand of pine, and the new beginnings – rebirth – in the meadows.
it is most astounding to me. each and every time. it doesn’t matter the shining of the sun or the drizzle or the misty humid air or dusk falling around us. and though it is familiar – oh, so familiar – it is new when we visit, our footfalls on the path erased and lasting as we walk. i’m comforted by this trail. and it teases me – into truly wondering about thru-hikes and exquisitely ordinary days that explode into extraordinary just by entering them.
this is an easy trail. we have hiked many others. easy trails, moderate trails, difficult trails. elevation gains, a little scrambling here and there. but when – and it is often – we need an old quilt of a trail and time to be quiet, to think, to talk, to sort, to sink into astounding beauty, stillness and ever-percolating life, we hike here, close by.
my camera is ready. i try to capture it all to remember. the trail is full of linear lines now as the underbrush succumbs to the season. a bounty of astounding. even in transition.
i believe – as we enter the woods – that it greets us back.
and as we leave – filled up – it waves and whispers, “see ya.”
“have you ever tried to enter the long black branches of other lives — tried to imagine what the crisp fringes, full of honey, hanging from the branches of the young locust trees, in early morning, feel like?” (mary oliver)
just like when i take a photograph of a person i try to avoid having extraneous people in the picture, when i take photographs outside i try to avoid any messy unnecessities.
this time i did it on purpose.
on july 29th i will have lived in this house for 33 years. i have sat out back watching the sky turn orange over the garage for 33 years. i have watched the trees grow up over the rooftops in my view. i have watched squirrels on their highways-of-highwire for 33 years.
it suddenly occurred to me that there might come a day when i can’t simply walk out the old screen door onto the deck, stepping onto the patio to watch the sky in the west. there might come a day when i live somewhere else and i won’t have access to this view.
and so the messiness of wires sectioning off the sky became important. important enough to photograph. important enough to remember.
we’re surrounded by things – and views – we have taken for granted. we see them every day – though we don’t really see them.
they seem unimportant.
yet, these familiar sights are the very things that help ground us. in a world that is politically volatile, climate that is destroying mother earth, bombastic leaders itching to reduce freedoms, disrespect and aggression out of control, it would seem that we need grab onto that which grounds us, centers us, slows down our breathing.
because i’m thready, i notice – and try to memorize – things like how the old wood floor creaks in the hallway, what it sounds like when the glass doorknob falls off, the feel of the small chain on the basement door and the decades-rubbed indent it has made, the sound of a double-hung window with ropes and weights opening, the deck cracking in cold weather, the cool painted-cement floor under bare feet in the basement, the places where the plaster has cracked. they all spell home.
and, with a world in turmoil, everything in flux, so much anxiety and grief and worry, things that are solidly familiar help.
in these times, we often hike the same trail. there is not enough time for long-distance travel right now. but we are comforted, nevertheless, by this same place, again and again. it has become an old friend and there is nothing better than someone or something you know really well and love in all its moods and through all its seasons.
it was easter sunday and, for only the second time in decades, i had no obligations. it was cold – almost miracle-mitten cold – and we were trying to choose between meandering through the early spring flowers at the botanic garden or hiking “our” trail. we suspected that the botanic garden would be crowded; we believed the trail would be almost empty. we chose the trail.
you might think we would tire of this trail. you might think we would choose something else, somewhere else. you might think there would be nothing new to see. on the contrary.
i am reminded, as ever – again – now that i am, finally, just the tiniest bit wiser – of marcel proust’s words, “the real voyage of discovery consists not of seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
there was lots of trailside vegetation coming alive, tiny buds, green sprouts. the familiar turns in the path led us past busy squirrels, chipmunks we could hear but not see scurrying in the underbrush, birds and geese and ducks.
after a couple hours, we set up our pop-up bistro table and chairs in the middle of the woods. surrounded by tall pines in a spot that would be underbrush-inaccessible in the summer, we sat, in the cold, snacking on cheese and crackers, quinoa tabouli and a few sips of wine in small yeti tumblers with lids, springtime napkins reminding us of the season. we took our gloves off, had a few schnibbles, put our gloves on, chatted and repeated. we pulled up our hoods and turned our backs to the wind picking up. mostly, we sat in the quiet.
and we looked up.
and there, that which we could have easily missed, was this magnificent view of the blue sky and the towering tops of pine trees that had endured the same forest for a very long time.
there is nothing ordinary about a view like that.
an idiosyncrasy, a quirk, a hallmark, a side you hadn’t yet noticed. such is the complexity of an old friend. such is the charm of discovery.
first glance would suggest this is a black and white photograph. an image taken through the window over our kitchen sink, a view i have seen first thing in the morning about 12,000 times and the last minutes at night just before turning out the kitchen light and moving into a time for sleep, about 12,000 times. and any time inbetween, in the day as morning marched into noon and noon glimmered into midday and midday waned into evening. each time, gazing out, about 12,000 times.
that is likely paralleling how well ansel adams knew the american west, images of wild and rugged yosemite etched into his heart. how many times this maestro of his art must have studied those vistas, photographing morsels and overviews, contrast and shading in all seasons. striking focus, his work inspires adventure-out-there-juju and, more importantly, an environmental awareness in these times of climate crisis. without color, the attention of the aperture pivots to grandeur, is not distracted, but is challenged by shape and line and form and composition.
taking a photograph through a window is different than taking it without some kind of membrane between photographer and subject. it gives space for other kinds of interaction. the play of reflection, the underside of raindrops, never-minding the swipe of window-cleaner-rags. opportunity to see, a unique peek into the familiar, wherever you might be.
this is not a black and white photograph. it is the stuff of october days heading full-steam toward november. it is the drear of rainy and damp and cold. it’s wishing 65 degrees was not vanishing into the calendar.
and yet, having looked out of that window maybe over 100,000 times all told, i know that the view, framed by a painted cornice, kitchen cabinets and our old porcelain sink, is different each day, that the days are not identical and never really the same, that change is always a constant. and that some days, when i point the camera out the window it will capture intense color, vibrant sun, blue sky, leaves the colors of fire and rust and squirrels running on the wire.
i didn’t mean to take this picture. somehow my phone camera snapped it and i was unaware. later, when i looked at my photo stream of the day i was surprised to see this. it took a few minutes to figure out what the picture was of, the way you feel when you look at an ink-blot picture, your eyes focusing on the dark, the light, the foreground, the background, searching-searching for an image to emerge.
i always had trouble with those. i must have been concentrating too hard to find something there. i suppose relaxing into it would have produced an image sooner.
the feathers gave it away. the feathers made it recognizable. a piece of familiar, the feathers gave it perspective. the dream-catcher hangs on the switch of the lamp on our kitchen table so it wasn’t as hard as the inkblots after all.
i wonder how many times i have not recognized the ‘real’ image. how many times i have given little attention to the everyday, glossing over it. how many times i have passed by light, my eyes focusing on the dark, my attention to the background instead of the inkblot or vice versa, trying too hard to find ‘it’. passing by the familiar, looking to the distance. or staring at the familiar with no eye to the distance, the horizon out-there attention-less. what might i have missed? what more might i have seen?
i am finding comfort in the familiar right now. i am recognizing more-and-more that which is basic is that which is familiar is that which is comforting. like chicken soup and pasta sauce, i find basic and simple consoling, the familiar i see heartening.
might we have different eyes post-this-crisis? might we all hold simple closer? might we ford the great-chasms-of-divide in this country with horizontal -not vertical- ladders of understanding like the ladders that traverse deep crevasses in high mountain climbs? might we be more willing to see economic, educational, opportunity differences? might we truly address them? might we see the landscape-that-has-always-been-there differently? might we realize that which is comforting, familiar to us is the inkblot that so many cannot even begin to see, that so many cannot even imagine? might we believe that every one is worthy? might we see universal needs, universal struggles in a more united, focused-energies way? might we come together, support different perspectives, talk about what is essential, strive for something different?
our universe camera is snapping pictures left and right of this pandemic crisis. what will we see when we look through the photo stream? what we will recognize about ourselves, this country? will we embrace an image of care, of concern, of responsibility for each other, of unity, of equality? or will we remain blind to the obvious differences we experience as this divisible ‘indivisible one-nation-under-God’ and will the dark inkblot prevail over the light? we can look for the feathers as clues.
we packed it. this painting. i will need things that are familiar around me and this is one of those things. familiar paintings, peace signs taken off the wall from home, comfort-comforters and quilts, the dog and the cat and their paraphernalia, favorite kitchen items, and so much more; all will keep me surrounded by the familiar in the unfamiliar.
we are going on an adventure and i will need the touches of home…to keep me centered, grounded, feeling forward movement.
this painting now hangs in that living room, its horizon gazing out on a horizon also of water, of expanse. its solace echoing the solace we will bring for each other, two together in a strange land.
NAP ON THE BEACH will hold court over that living room, that different home, and remind us that this new adventure is indeed together – absolutely, positively together and we need not worry or fear. in the familiar there is comfort.
reverse threading 