A certain slant of sun

Made this photo yesterday, I promise. Late afternoon slant of sun and the skeleton of a leaf from the genteel-ly decrepit English walnut tree in the back yard. Then a busy evening and it utterly slipped my mind to post. But here it is.

The phone camera turned the image 180 degrees from how I had it oriented in the camera. I went to correct the rotation but realized I like it better this way. A simple photo. Clean. I like the texture of the concrete pad, the sideways slanting lines in the same orientation of the sun. I will endeavor to orient myself with the sun for a moment or two today.

Further Down the Trail

Cautious optimism about this daily photo habit I've quietly started. Re-started. Re-re-restarted. But one day at a time. Today was very stressful, all day at home dealing with my Apple id getting hacked. Boy does that have lengthy, complicated tendrils into all sorts of unexpected areas of a person's life. On multiple devices -- we are an iFamily, so there were three iPhones, two iPads, two MacBooks and one iMac involved in this fun little rodeo. So, yeah, the past 24 hours have been beyond stressful, and once things were dealt with to the point where everything is hopeful damage-controlled as possible (pause for a moment of intense gratitude for my brother Kevin, who spent hours on the phone with me figuring out exactly what happened, and then what to do about it).

Once things were more or less brought under control, it was late afternoon. I got a small bit of work done, but today feels at last like the first true day of autumn. What better way to release some stress and put myself in the way of some potential photographs than a hike along the Gunpowder?  This was a new trail for me, and I liked it a great deal.

I used to have a rule, in previous photo a day projects, where I could only post one image. This being a new undertaking, I'm thinking why not show multiple images if I like them or have something to say about making them. Like, the fairly un-interesting photo of the trees across the river wasn't working, but as I turned away from that view i happened to point the phone down, and caught sight of the sky and trees reflected at the water's edge -- an image I really like and nearly selected as "the" photo for today.

And the blaze -- the first photo I took upon commencing the hike. To remind myself of my quiet vow that I will hike the Appalachian Trail. Though of course that is the iconic white blaze, not this trail's flashy yellow. But in learning to meditate, which I've been doing recently, you think a great deal about mindfulness, being in the moment. So today's trail today. Om padme mani home.

Good Pluck Cart

I am not totally in love with this image, but I do love how it got made. As in, I was driving home, hustling to get there and start work work working, and saw this cheery yellow shopping cart in the middle of a vast swath of lawn adjoining an apartment complex.  Someone had apparently just rolled it down this hill to come to rest in the middle of this wide field. Unexpected Objects misplaced in the landscape have long been a photographic fascination of mine, and I stopped immediately.  And really tried to get a good shot, despite the terrible flat midday light. After one round of pictures I was hiking back to my car, feeling like I just had not at all gotten an image that captured the absurdity of this shopping cart. And I made myself turn around and try again. Still never really got the photo I feel is there to be made, but I'm happy that I saw this, stopped, tried. Happy that I remembered at all to make a photo today. Will try again tomorrow.

I do sort of like this one. A feeling almost of the shopping cart setting off resolutely to seek its fortune in the great big world. Good luck, plucky little shopping cart!

Pidgey and the Chick

My son Cole adores his chickens. This is his bantam hen, Pidgey, sitting protectively on her two week old chick, Murkrow, in our hay-filled chicken coop. There was another chick, Hummer, who we lost last week in an especially sad and awful way, and it wrenches my heart that I hadn't taken photos of her adorable yellow fuzzball-ness in the short time we were able to enjoy having her with us. So when it occurred to me late this afternoon that I had yet to make a photo today, the thought arose to have a mama hen and chick photo shoot. Because they grow up so fast, as all mamas know.

Hammerman: Summer Persists

It was ninety degrees today, summer persisting deep into September, and the instant school let out for the day the boys and I high-tailed it to Hammerman Beach. This is the point where the Big Gunpowder Falls empties into the Chesapeake Bay, and we have been swimming there since Jack was a baby.  In recent years we'd evolved the tradition of celebrating the last day of school with a trip to Hammerman, but in the disruption of this particularly chaotic summer we missed our last day of school date with the murky waters there.

Happy to have made it there today. Happy to have made some pictures I really like. Tomorrow is another day and I aspire to make another photo and post it here. One day at a time.

The image above was actually one of the very last I made during our several hours lingering in the waves. We had gotten out of the water, dried off, eaten snacks, fed seagulls, and were getting ready to go when the boys begged suddenly to get back in the water. "Please, mam, it's the last day of summer," Jack pleaded. Go, go. When summer calls, go.

The boys spent the majority of the time not exactly swimming...it was more like nonstop wrestling in the water, punctuated by the throwing of fistfuls of silty sand from the bay bottom.

Backyard Wishing

Hello. It's been awhile.

Many things have happened.

Hard things, sad things. Also many many good things. But life has been lived in crisis mode for far too long and I am tired, and -- too often these days -- I do not lift my head, or even my eyes, from the path in front of me. The path of earning a living, keeping body and soul together for me and my boys,  while still chipping away at learning my new profession. The path I fear to lose if my attention wanders even for an instant, because my attention is always needed somewhere to be doing something, working studying tending cooking cleaning driving....

The same life as yours. Obligation and duty and work.

We are lucky to have all of these. But we are also made with a pinch of stardust. I didn't name this blog "Signs and Wonders" for nothing, long ago as that was. I still believe.

Recently I have been feeling the pressing of my load a bit less. A small sliver of space, a blessed bit of existential breathing room, has opened up. I want to put something good there, to hold the space and keep it open within me. So here I am back again, doing something I know how to do -- use my eyes, make pictures -- though I don't often do it these days.

Early this morning I was tromping back from opening up the chicken coop and scattering some cracked corn for the ladies when I saw this dandelion, somehow missed by our assiduous lawn service dudes. I had noticed the flower earlier this week, winking happy and yellow from the summer green grass even as the first autumn leaves began dropping from the pecan tree above.

The light was amazing. I scurried back to the house to retrieve my camera and tried to make the picture that resonated in my heart. The close-mown grass, the slender miracle of this dandelion puff rising above. The golden side-slant first morning sunlight quickly turned hearty and clear and the magic passed, but not before i'd spent time flat on my belly in the dew-wet grass, trying to make the feelingthoughts in my head and heart turn into a photo.

I don't think I got it. This shot, the one I like the best, is actually from my phone. But the thing is, I did it. I tried. For a long time now I haven't had that little bit of grace in me to to spare for something like this. Today I did. Tomorrow I will try again. I hesitate to peg any kind of number here, because I have never completed any 365 project I ever noisily, publicly committed to. Maybe this time we start small. I'll do it again tomorrow.

That is my simple wish on this dandelion: tomorrow. I left it standing there, by the way. Didn't puff on the puff to scatter its seeds to the wind, though that is the traditional dandelion wish technique. Instead I just said thank you, and went into the house to make breakfast.

Thank you, Lord, for this good life, and forgive us if sometimes we do not love it enough.  Making pictures is my way of remembering to pause and be grateful.