The flowers here seem to be coming earlier than usual, but leaving more quickly as well. It’s as though as soon as I notice one, perfect and beautiful, it begins to fade. But when I look closely, pay enough attention, I can see there are buds too. Something new and lovely, always on the way.
a good day
It’s been quite a while since I’ve shared anything here on my blog. If you keep up with my newsletter than you know it’s been a rough six months or so. But I’m ready to get back to it. I need it, really.
Hard as things have been I firmly believe that the good moments are worth marking, noting, remembering, holding onto in whatever way you can. This one came on a warm February day on the Georgia coast. Except for my cold toes, I could have stood there forever.
Fishing Lessons
If there is one memory I have with my dad from my childhood, it’s playing baseball in the big front yard of the tiny, pre Civil War era house I grew up in. But if there is another, it’s fishing.
My dad has always loved to fish, for as long as I can remember. He would take me down to the dock at the lake when I was very little, then out in his jon boat when I was bigger, teaching me how to bait my line and cast. As a little girl I was obsessed with his tackle box, all the pretty lures tucked inside: iridescent greens and blues, bright pinks and oranges, all tasseled and feathered. He would tell me stories about my grandfather - an expert fisherman - teaching him to fish as a boy, while doing the same for me.
It was probably the first time that I recognized that there was knowledge there being passed down from one generation to the next; but also the first time I understood that there is some knowledge that can't be learned any other way.
Write here...
When I sit down to put a blog post together I almost always start by laying out the photographs first. Once they’re situated in the way that I want them I add a text box. “Write here…,” it says, as a place holder. But lately I just sort of stare at the box without knowing what to put in it. My head feels full, but I find myself unable to empty any of my thoughts out into cohesive sentences.
There is a handwritten note I keep tucked in my desk with some lovely words, including these: When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence. - Ansel Adams
And so for the time being, a quiet summer walk will do.