Snowstones

Same place. Same day. Same stones. Same snow. Slightly different perspectives. The top photo in the series is the key to looking at the other photos. So which question is the one to ask: Do all stones look alike? Or what difference does it make anyway? Or is everything just a matter of how you look at it? If you look carefully, what do you see in these photos? The safe answer is snow and stones. There are other answers. (Click a photo to enlarge them in slideshow format if you wish to compare the photos more carefully.

Another answer is that I had build a cairn here some months ago. It was well enough constructed and in the middle of a slope of large limestone boulders that it still stood. I knew that it was mine in part because I had topped it with a broken piece of red brick. The snowfall had changed everything, but I still knew where to look. And the snow had changed the look of everything. That I think is the answer that I was thinking of.

This is how it seems to me: What can be seen is a matter of perception - and of giving attention to a place over time so that what we look at becomes familiar enough that the changes over time reveal something of the soul of the place.

In this case, the cairn became a focal point. And the photos have been taken of the same subject from different angles. Otherwise the patterns of snow and stone seem random. And beautiful.

Somehow, all of this matters to me.

Morning walk in the snow

Reflected light made the predawn bright.

I pointed and clicked.

Who knew what pictures I would get?

 

The cold had finally sapped the battery when I had gotten to the levee trail, but no matter. Just to be in a place, so familiar and so magically changed on such a morning, was more than enough. 

I walked through the wet snow and then down the side of the levee to the river. I took my gloves off to feel the bark of an old cottonwood tree. I tasted a few mouthfuls of the fresh snow.

And then I simply stood for a long time at the river's edge - listening, watching. Except for the flowing water and an occasional hushed train whistle, the world around me was silent. There were seagulls circling. Clouds of small birds I did not recognize swirled over and beyond the snow-lined branches of the trees behind me. And a bald eagle, flying towards me from downriver, paused on a branch high over my head for a few minutes.

And now these words, too, only begin to capture my experience. And so finally, after some time, unmeasured, I turned back to a world of snowplows and cars driving to and fro.

On my way home, I stopped at Aimee's for a hot chocolate and whipped cream in my mustache - and to recharge my camera. And then, by daylight, there were so many more photos still to take in South Park - most of them I would leave on my hard drive. 

At some point, I simply had to leave my wonder at the astonishing black and white world behind me and go home.

One benefit of taking pictures and writing words is the heightened awareness these acts give me that the world simply cannot be captured. Being in the world is the thing. This walk to the river and back was indeed extraordinary. But again and again, the natural world surprises me with unexpected beauty.

I encourage you to walk with your senses open. Take a camera if you wish. Or not. Get to know a place and just be there now and then.

Be human

A personal note:

I began posting to my blog, ‘Walk to the river,’ more than seven year ago. I began using Facebook to link to my blog and to post other thoughts and photos about five years ago.

My primary intention has been to pay attention to the world within my reach – especially the Kaw River and its environs - and then to share my experience in words and pictures. But I have also branched out in other various directions.  And this too: I enjoy just having a little fun now and then. I try to follow the advice of Wendell Berry: ‘Expect the end of the world. Laugh. / Laughter is immeasurable.’

But now I must lament.

Original content on Facebook is increasingly being drowned out by advertising and ‘shares’. Where have all the faces gone? And where are the words in your own words? All the ‘sponsored’ posts are bad enough. And then it seems that there comes just one more shared post after another. If you like cats, I’d rather see yours. And I do sometimes read a shared article - if you have told me why it was important to you.  And yes, I’m interested in thoughtful political discourse, but will the raging never end?

Oh my – my dear Facebook friends! Sometimes I can’t scroll fast enough.  

What to do?  What to do?

My intention has been to share with you what I personally  think and how I see the world around me. I have tried to do what I can within the limits that Facebook and Blogspot present. After all, waddya expect for nothing, rubber biscuit?

And yet, among all the superfluity and clatter, my posts have indeed reached you now and then. I hope that you have found some of them to have been worth your time and attention. I hope that you have occasionally laughed. And I especially hope that I have encouraged you to walk out into the natural world within your own reach for yourself. 

The river awaits.

And so now this this personal post makes me chuckle just a little bit to myself. Most of ‘you’ will not even have seen this ‘note’ as it sails out onto an endless sea of posts. And in that incessant stream of posts which is Facebook, many personal posts simply swirl down the ever swirling Facebook drain.

This will hardly be news to you, but it should never be forgotten: Facebook is a faceless, unfeeling, behemoth that plays by its own rules for its own ends. Only individuals can care. Only people can be human. And if we aren’t careful, parts of our individual humanity can be stolen or submerged – not just by Facebook – but by various technologies and a culture that is increasingly dehumanizing.

Still, here we are. 

I am glad to see your faces on Facebook and to hear what you are up to now and then. Those personal posts of yours are like the prize at bottom of a box of Cracker Jacks - except that instead of caramel popcorn and peanuts, the Facebox has been filled with rocks and rabbit pellets. Please do not share this if you agree.

And I do wish to thank you for your likes and comments over the years. Especially the comments.

So, now, for those of you who have gotten all the to the bottom of this barrel, here are a few of the human faces of the man himself behind the ‘Walk to the river’ blog - more or less in his natural habitat.

And as they say: see you in the funny papers.

The ordinary and extraordinary

To my good friend,

It was a fine winter afternoon. As I crossed the bridge, I saw the Kaw River running very high for this time of year. The lowly island of limestone boulders just beyond the dam was completely submerged under the rushing water. But as I looked again, I saw a handful of white seagulls standing up to their ankles on the summit. 

Now, you and I have walked to the river frequently and we often remark on the changing river current.  But this seemed somewhat beyond remarkable.

I had my device camera along and I have taken countless photos in this place. Still, I thought to myself, why not take just a few more so that you could see what I saw. The day was entirely its own, after all, and not any other.

As I wandered, I saw the familiar and the unexpected woven together. In front of me, the same old river was running in quite a hurry between its banks. I was taking my time. The cold air was biting my exposed fingers, but I was bundled and warm. The sun, nearing the winter solstice and heading downward to the gray fringe of bare branches on the far side of the river, shone with an extraordinarily fine light. And yet, as it often is, it was just me and the river just rolling along.

I took shots from every angle, but not that many. I knew my subject quite well and with very little editing, I think this series of photos came out quite well.

So, Mike, I began by taking these river pictures for you, but I’m sure you won’t mind if I share them with a few other folks.  After all, but we don’t own any of this, but we are indeed most fortunate to be part of it.

bert

P.S. Click on first photo to see all of them as full-sized slideshow.

Circular nonsense Or Ice water is future tea

I walked into a coffee shop and found myself sitting on a bar stool at the counter. I mean, the man at the counter looked as if he might have been me.

‘Weren’t you here yesterday? I said to the older man with a big red nose and a ruddy complexion sitting on a bar stool at the end of the counter. He was drinking iced tea.

‘I think that might have been your former self,’ he said.

‘Well, who are you now? I said.

‘Actually, to tell the truth, I’m not quite sure,’ he replied.  ‘I was wondering almost the very same thing when you walked in.’

‘Well, how about if I join you?’ I said.

‘Why not?’ he said.

I sat down with my glass of iced tea on a bar stool at the counter. As I sat thinking, I slowly and quietly drank my iced tea. I mean, how else would a man drink iced tea? But who was I, after all? I mean, who am I?

Eventually I raised my empty glass and asked the barista for a refill of my regular currant iced tea.

‘Weren’t you in here yesterday?’ the barista asked.

‘Anything’s possible. Are you the barista who was working here then?’ I said.

‘That’s just what you asked me yesterday.’ The young woman set a full glass of iced tea on the counter in front of me.

‘Was I with anyone else?’ I said.

‘Well, it looked to me as if you might be talking to yourself.’

She smiled.

That smile!

Suddenly I remembered that barista. It was her smile. Some things are indeed unforgettable, after all. And she was simply herself.

And that’s when I realized just exactly where I was. I was sitting on a bar stool at the counter at my regular coffee shop drinking my regular iced tea. I mean, I should say that I was drinking the current currant iced tea. I mean, the currant tea tastes just a tad sweeter than the regular pekoe tea. And, of course, yesterday’s water has always been today’s tea. Or it will be. I think. And therefore I am. Or am I?

Iced tea is iced time. Currant or regular, you just add ice. And I was indeed drinking iced tea. But still and nevertheless, who was I? I mean, me?

The bell over the front door dinged. I looked up from where I was slowly and quietly drinking my iced tea to see who it might be.

I had to laugh.

A man with a big red nose and a ruddy complexion was coming through the door. He looked familiar. I wondered if he might know who I am.

A quiet story from a soft, blue chair in a used bookstore

I wandered into The Dusty Bookshelf with my book bag of books to sell. Holly was working behind the counter and she smiled as she looked up at me. “I’ve got these this time,” I said. “It’ll be just a few minutes,” she replied. We had done this before.

Tall shelves of books stood all around me. I circled around a large wooden table that held small piles of books arranged like daisy petals on a stationary wheel. I quickly glanced at the covers on the top of each pile. None of them quite tempted me to pick them up. Then I took a turn through the children’s books in the back corner nook. Often interesting illustrations and a simple story would draw me in.

Holly had finished looking through my books when I got back to the counter. “I’ll take these,” she said. She had taken most of them this time. I took the store credit as I always did and Holly added my credit to my total on a slip of paper and tucked it back into the credit box. I put the remainder of my books along with one I had found into my bag.

I turned around and then settled into a soft, blue chair that was tucked into the literature section where the M’s begin. Out of the corner of my eye I could still see the central counter piled high with used books on either side. It was an island in a sea of books. Holly stood behind it, cleaning up books, putting fresh plastic dust jackets on the hardbacks. It was just another day in The Dusty Bookshelf.

I looked over at the shelves next to my shoulder and then I pulled out Carson McCullers’ book, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and began to read. The book began easily with the simple life of two mutes, Singer and Anatopoulis, in their southern town. They talked silently back and forth to each other with their hands. As I read to myself I looked up from my book from time to time. Dinah, the sleek, black, bookstore cat was meandering around the store. I watched her sniff at a man’s tennis shoes where he stood looking at a picture book over near the front window.

A mother and a son came in through the near door. They simply had to be that. Then without a word, they separated, each going their own way. The young man looked to be in his twenties. He had a soft, round face. His mother quickly found a book and then sat waiting for her son in a wooden chair. With her book resting unopened on her lap, she searched the faded carpet at her feet. Her face looked worn. The young man was taking a considerable amount of time. He looked up and down through the tall shelves of used books, disappearing occasionally from my sight. Then, eventually, he returned and approached his mother with a large handful of books. “I may have found too many,” he said. And then her face turned suddenly bright as she smiled up at him. “You always pick good ones,” she said.

I looked away. I was not part of their world, after all. I spotted Dinah on the other side of the store and then I went back to my book..

A few pages later, a younger man and his daughter - again I made my presumptions - came in through the far door. They approached Holly and said that that were looking for a particular book. I didn’t quite hear the title. Holly walked them back towards the young adult books. In only a few minutes, they had returned to the counter without finding the book they had wanted, but the girl had found another book instead. “I’ll take this one.” She held it out to Holly. I watched from behind the pages of my book as the father watched his young daughter, a slight smile in his eyes. She reached into a small purse and handed some money to Holly. Then the girl stepped over to where Dinah sat near the audio books shelf. She carefully offered her fingers for Dinah to smell, and then petted the cat’s shiny black back. Dinah stretched appreciatively.

The store had nearly emptied. I read, glancing up from time to time. A young man in a ball cap, who had seemed to have been looking somewhat aimlessly for books behind the far shelves, approached the counter. He appeared to be trying to find some kind of an opening with Holly. I perked up my ears. I couldn’t help myself. After a few words, I could just hear him say, “I like the streaks in your hair.” Holly laughed and gave him another minute or so of small talk before gently letting him go.

The Dusty Bookshelf was quiet. Holly had gone off somewhere in the back. I sat thinking. I had finished the first chapter of my book. Singer was alone. His friend, Antonopaulos, had been sent off to an insane asylum. I knew how the story would end, but I couldn’t remember the middle. Maybe I would read more of the story some other day.

I put the book back where I had found it and sat for a minute longer, looking out at all of the waiting books.

Then I looked down. Dinah must have slipped silently over to where I was sitting while I had been reading - and watching other people looking for whatever they had been looking for. After a careful look into my eyes, Dinah jumped up into my lap. She kneaded a bed for herself and then quickly fell asleep in the crook of my arm.

I thought for a moment that perhaps I should not have put the McCullers book back onto the shelf. I couldn’t quite reach the book again with a sleeping cat in my lap. Bu it didn’t matter. I had my own thoughts. I listened to the music playing faintly out of a speaker somewhere over my head.

By the clock on the wall, it was only a little after three. I really had no place I would rather be. A few more customers came and went. Among the few, a young boy with his younger sister trailing behind him had passed by my chair. I was full of suppositions. Dinah catnapped in my lap.

And then it was only ten minutes or so before Dinah woke up from her nap. She nimbly jumped down to resume her unappointed rounds.

I had myself come into The Dusty bookshelf only a little less than an hour ago. I had exchanged a handful of old books for fourteen dollars in store credit. Bought one off the bargain shelf for a buck. Read part of another book for free. I was well ahead of the game.

I got up from my soft, blue chair, picked up my nearly empty book bag, and walked the few steps back to where I found Holly sitting cross legged on the floor among the piles of unsorted recent arrivals. I asked about the music. It turned out to be a random Pandora compilation of the different musical tastes of The Dusty Bookshelf clerks over time. I told her that the music had suited me and then I wished Holly a good day. In turn she smiled back at me and wished me the same. And then I walked out of the near door of The Dusty Bookshelf into a nearly perfect early fall day.

What this photo does not show you

What this photo does not show you:

A blue-tailed dragonfly with whirring wings, hovering, darting – actually, there are two dragonflies, one chasing the other one in flight together, making curlicues and rapid ascents into the sky. Sometimes one lone dragonfly rests so very lightly on the tip of a thin green blade and that blade arcs yet ever so slightly closer to the surface of the water.

The soft summer breeze itself has just barely enough breath to move those very thin blades of the green bending plant growing up from the muck on the bottom of my pond. And the surface of the water itself is not quite still.

There are water spiders skating and then resting on nearly invisible outstretched legs. Each leg bends the surface of the water into a tiny circle.

And then as I sit quietly watching the pond, I feel the lightest whispers of a variable wind against my own skin.

And there’s more. I see wasps – blue-blackish - brown and yellowish – wasps here and there on the limestone rocks edging the small pond. The wasps with their flickering wings seem to appear and disappear like magic.

And I in the clear water, I can see goldfish. Very orange. Shining orange. Glittering like scaly, fish-shaped oranges swimming slowly in the pond. They too come and they go. They hover in the water like dragonflies in the summer air. Except that the fish are not really like dragonflies at all. They’re fish. With just a wave of a tail, one or another goldfish simply slips from my sight beneath the lily pads floating on the surface of the water. Who could even tell which fish is which except perhaps another fish?

And if you look carefully again at the photo, you might perhaps see two pale yellow water lily blossoms. You might see those pale yellow petals so very carefully arrayed on each blossom. And then you might wish to lean over the edge of the pond for a closer look. I have declared to you that the water lilies were a pale yellow, but those are merely words - hardly the very true colors of the water lily petals, after all. But for now, ‘pale yellow’ will have to do.

And in the next moment a single white butterfly flutters by, settling for a moment on a tiny white flower with an even tinier yellow center. It is only a miniscule blossom poking barely a half inch or so above the water - an itty bitty bloom arising from a curling strand of anacharis, an underwater plant that tangles in profusion beneath the surface of the pond. Perhaps you might even see, if you would look again at the photo that I took, a small portion of anacharis  strand along the surface of the pond near where the thin green blades arc. But I would like to encourage you to scoop up a dripping handful of those anacharis strands from the riotous tangle of this slithering, slimy underwater water plant so that you might gain more complete sense of a picture that only shows a much simpler surface of things.

And then I would ask you to look still closer, over at one side of the pond. There’s a spider’s web, woven from the finest spider’s silk and strung between some of those thin green blades of the bending plant and the limestone rocks that line the edge of the small garden pond. I have sometimes seen a long-legged spider waiting near her web - but not on this day.

And there might be a yellow swallowtail over by the border phlox. And perhaps a monarch sailing by somewhere beyond the corner of the frame of the picture and then dropping down over the fence into the neighbor’s yard.  And perhaps I should at least mention, that on a not so very long ago summer morning, as I sat on my patio in the summer shade, I heard a mourning dove calling.

Who could ever see and hear and touch it all?

But now and finally we come to where all of these wandering words that I have written for this post began:

It was the reflections of the thin green blades –

the curving

crossing

sometimes nearly straight

thin dark lines

against the reflected white-blue sky –

the blackness of blades that I noticed as I looked into my pond,

truly insubstantial lines

that I could never, ever touch,

real and unreal lines

living within a nether world immeasurably beyond my grasp.

And so from where I sat near my pond on a particular summer day, I thought I might try to take a photo of those curving, crossing, sometimes nearly straight thin dark lines. Of course it would be no more than a picture of a kind of illusion. An image only of thin dark lines wavering somehow, somewhere between me and the far side of the known world.

And then, on that summer morning not so long ago, I leaned back in my patio chair to look for what else I might have missed seeing around me. And I realized that I had missed seeing nearly everything. I couldn’t see everything. Or in truth, I could only begin to see everything.

And then I thought to try to tell you something about it.

And so this post is to remind myself and also to remind you of a simple reality: for so very, very  much less time than it took for me just to write these many words that you are now reading – in those few seconds as I sat watching the world by my little garden pond, I saw what I saw and then for a moment I imagined that I saw it all. The world not of many parts, but whole.

And then, just as suddenly, in the very next moment, with the splish-splash of my bare foot splashing into the water, everything vanished – all of it - everything. And then, there I was once again, just sitting by my garden pond. The world was before me as it had always been.

Dragonflies rested on thin green blades over the water.

And the water reflected everything.