dear me… i am rolling in the doe!

 

Picture this…

after a long hard day of work, I come home like a old wet dishrag, slump into a Lazy Boy, and ponder how in the world my years of experience have not made me some kind of an authority on anything. everywhere I look, some super genius has a technologically superior website that makes me feel like a third grader at a talent show. sure, I can still write like I have at least half a brain, but the real world has forced me into making a living with somewhat lower level critical thinking skills. And always…there is someone above me making decisions on a level comparable to my dog’s IQ (if I had a dog, but I don’t have time for one). You would have thought Momma would have told me there’d be days like this….

So, every day, I do the same old thing…get dressed, eat some dippy eggs and buttery bread, go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, open the door, close the door, go back and open the door, go back and put down the seat down…and finally, get my gear and head for the car…

now, my neighbor has a dog…Raymie…who never shuts up. He barks at mashed potatoes, he barks at running water, he barks at street lights, he barks at car doors. when I climb into my Wreck to go to work, he runs away from the fence and into the house and back out the front door to say good-bye. I appreciate it, because at least someone thinks I am a little more outstanding than a car door. But it shouldn’t be this way. I have talent. I have skill. And I have a longer attention span than a poodle…

But you wouldn’t know it, if I sat in the same room as these profiles you see online. no, you surely wouldn’t. so what if i am trilingual…they are the feckin’ easter bunny. and don’t you forget it. they will charge you $297 to show you how you can take photos that no longer look like Mister Potato Head in a friggin’ snowstorm. Color palettes of shades you never dreamed of because you were born in a hovel somewhere and your education never gave you a pallet, except one to lay on the ground. and your likes? right, they have enough likes from over 1.7 million subscribers, you will never be in their league. so how can I compete against these know-it-alls with mysterious acronyms behind their names?

sure, it may take me awhile…but after awhile, the reality beyond our temporal reality will kick in, and I will see things more clearly. I will remember again that I am certainly as valuable as that narcissistic eejit hawking earth-shattering photography lessons for hundreds of dollars online. No, I am not idiot. If I was, I might be spending thousands of dollars on a course of photography from a business-savy technophile making hundreds of thousands of dollars off of foggy-headed consumers. But I am not. I am not going to have any delusions of being the next Ansel Adams. I understand there are gifted people out there with thousands of dollars of equipment, while I am a simple gardener, happy to get a few crops in that produce a winner…

So I may never be a grand photographer, even outside my current career, but at least I know that, and do not present myself as something I am not. I sincerely hope that you do as I do, and be content to be you, the unique one God created you to be. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Red-PandaFest

lunch time….

bamboo…for two…

 

unless you can carry it away with your teeth…

and “hide” in the trees….

.

Yer Random Stones

out in the forest…here in an out of the way part of America..

sure now there probably was a building here at one time, but what were they doing organizing these large stones in such a way. Were they fans of Stonehenge? Or, was there a barn here?

what do you think?

Peace…and Quiet

between a rock and a hard place

how does…a series…well, maybe it was three, no four…times of nightly trips to the cupboard to eat peanut butter….only by the spoonful…effect a wee walk on the wild side?

throaty breathing and slight dizziness….have I walked too far for the state of my body type?

• should I phone the doctor after I get back to the land of network service?
• is that a pain in my side, or a sadistic side of pain?
• should my fundamental plan of action blame it on “old age?”
• didn’t my grandmother suffer from the same thing at this age?

if you go too far into the woods, you have gone too far.

I know. I went too far. ever have a washing machine in your stomach?  the agitator is active…your innards swirling around. but the worst sensation in middle age is build-up in the muffin gut. I have heard of this malady…and it sounds terrifying. almost as frightening as eating the wrong kind of moss, succumbing to a vegetative breakdown, while armed with a “Foraging In The Wild” Guidebook in the deep, dark woods, too far from the parking lot.

they say there is nothing like vacating your colon in the woods. it is part science, and about 3/4 art. one must be careful not to fall into the….

…butt first. green leaves work better than spotted ones. or ones with that burnt-toast look. and, in light of certain Quranic references, small pebbles are really not a good idea…

but…a clean colon is a happy colon. and a happy colon abruptly ends prolonged sentences…of…

so forget about the body type…you can morph after a simple vacation. a walk in the woods can expand into a session long enough for a youtube series on “survival in the wilderness within two miles of your vehicle.” just carry plenty of hand sanitizer, soap and water, or other essentials necessary for your vacation…

back out on the trail…the weight that so easily pulled me down was gone. the trail ahead opened to new possibilities. the topography that once seemed so strenuous became a joy, and I danced up the trail like a young buck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

looking up…not down

when the mud is so thick

and the world is so cold

look to the heavens

to that city of Gold,

your reward awaits you

for all those long nights

you prayed for a miracle

for wrongs to become rights,

for all those long seasons

when hope kept you from fear

and you walked in the grey-light

your angels were there near,

for God has been watching,

indeed, God has been true,

so keep your eyes to the heavens

until God sees you through.

 

 

 

 

 

 

a time for every season under heaven

autumn is settling in…

the edge of something greater

He asked me if i was taking pictures of the backpack trail…

“Yes,” i said, scanning the map.

He studied something inside the posting board…where maps, rules and regulations, and various other government printed fodder suffocated, unable to breathe the moderate breeze skipping across the dock parking lot.

“I was looking for a trail map,” I admitted, though not in chronological, nor priority, order.

“Nice day.”

“You could say that.”

Quickly in the car, quickly down the drive, and out again to a table- picnic table- sitting at the edge of the lake. No trail here. No signs here. Only the feel of something greater…pulling at the tides of my heart. I sat. Alone with the sound of the waves, the wind, and a pounding in my head..

As when spring arrives suddenly, so the hardwoods faded across the water. The chill would come, and fires at this side would light the night with warmth. But none would ever be this warm again.

Looking behind me, my inquisitor saddled up like a pack animal, herding with four or five others, as they made their way for the far parking lot edge where the backpack trail resumed northward toward the lake’s end. They filed into the thicket, but like a run on sentence.

They vanished, just as a boat outfitted with senior citizens veered south, entering my camera view…

and like college students out for a weekend party, they squealed and exclaimed in the unintelligible language only a suddenly-going-senile crowd might understand.

timelessness washed over the shore, and over me, and I bathed in it, washed in it, and dried off in the wind. memory etched in my soul, it was time to move on. time to get back to work. more time to pursue the sweat of your brow, longing for another moment of timelessness, on the edge of something greater.

sneaking a glimpse

where the yellow tipped goldenrod take over the fields, and crickets invade where grasshoppers play, this hidden-from-the-road pond offers a respite from the late summer sun for many a creature. i do not venture so closely, since the cattail mud is not far from my boots. but when the white of winter freezes over the remains of fall, i will be there, curious and equally impressed, sneaking a glimpse…before it changes again.