Spring Comes
Getting lost and found again in the simple, the profound and whatever this is in between.
The deluge of spring activities pulls me apart. Gone are the quiet uncomplicated days of winter. here, a flurry of yard-work. brown finger-tips and rich, dank loam falling out out of every seam when I walk.
It’s beautiful and horrific together.
I’ve expanded my garden two fold. learnt the value of mushroom substrate. started a compost which is doing well. have 21 planters of flowers and herbs strewn about.
Daily lists of chores have taken over everything. weed here. move this or that, buy a this or that. so much buying. So little energy remains for photography, or agonizing over photography it’s almost as though it has nothing to do with me.
still, i sneak breaks here and there. pray on cloud formations like they have souls. like they have dreams. like they are beautiful women not quite kept and messily moving through the world beside their beauty.
still. i sneak out and rail against the ever present wall of cloud which steals my sunset from the tops of the rocky mountains. which steals my light, but only, always only, after i’m far enough from home to have to think about it the entire way back.
routines are all that matter right now. children need structure. my little plant friends need regimes. care. attention. they have, you know, demands. lots of them. I surrender my angst and get golden brown arms in trade.
my body works in glorious, unexpected and definitely not to be trusted ways. it bends, it turns. it labours. and as often as not it does not erupt into pain. this is so new. so precious. i want to count the days of hard work, others call normal and i might again call normal, one after another like raking fingers over soft, then hard, then soft, ribs. undulating textures passing like spring days. furious and confusing. wonderful and exhausting.
i bring then, some photos. just some random images that have felt good to see. most photos don’t anymore.
For some context, I found this utility road that leads me into a stand of trees in the middle of some farms, and in fall it’s magical and I had dreams of using it for portrait shoots. However, some good ol’ boy around here is killing everything he can and leaving remains piled everywhere. the rotting and decay smell so awful you can only stay a short amount of time.
I find this upsetting and fitting. a magical place littered with the trophies of a man made by, and of, my province.
The farmer, straight-faced and thin lipped, said “you’ll not want to go too far down that road” and I laughed and made a hand gesture to the jeep. I’ve been down it several times already. I find the only place I fit out here is between the fences, on unmaintained roads. The farmer’s swallow them eventually into the blurred lines of their land but before that happens I get to see a lot.
No recommended reading this issue. Too busy to really engage with anything.
See you again, hopefully sooner.
Keep doing whatever it is you’re doing for these images. So good.
Your photos are great. The mood they convey. The stories they tell. The tones. The quiet. All speaks very much to me. I am just glad, I can‘t smell the decay of those poor creatures...