Walking. The Day After.

~ Live & Learn

4:14 a.m. Dark Sky app: 60° F.

Out the door.  Morning walk @ Daybreak @ Cove Island Park. 402 consecutive days. Like in a row.

Man Fishing. GIANT man. Long, LONG fishing pole. Ex defensive lineman type. He lumbers towards his bike, dwarfing his two wheeler. Eyes closed, it’s his third attempt to swing his leg up and over, and he’s successful. He pauses, composing himself, letting the pain subside.

Man. Senior citizen. Walking a senior dog on a long leash. Both laboring to advance. That’s me in 20 years. Without a Dog. Sigh.

Woman. Cargo shorts. Long dark hair. Neatly kept. Shoes off. Sitting cross-legged on rocks. Hands in her lap. Meditating.

Egret, snow, snowy white, lands a few feet away.

Flock of geese quietly pass overhead.

The shimmer of pink reflects on the stones and water. Nice. I snap a shot. That shot up top.

And all of This, somehow, isn’t enough today.

After the Ring of Fire yesterday, that Big Show, this was too quiet, too normal, too SAME.

And to think, that I was what, seconds away from taking a left turn home, to rush back to work, worried I would be late? Late for what? Miss what?

I was there.

I took the time.

I waited. I never wait. For anything.

But this Waiting-Thing, is a most uncomfortable act. I shoo away gnats. This waiting thing. Not easy.

I’m usually alone on these Daybreak walks.

But today, the park is full.

The street is lined with cars.

Humans, standing, in solidarity.  No COVID. No Washington. No lies. No cheating. No talking heads spewing crap.

And there it was.

My shot didn’t catch it, it didn’t come close.

But my eyes did.

My Mind clamped down on it, and won’t let go.

Miracle, all of it.

Photo: DK @ Daybreak. 5:18 am, June 11, 2021. 60° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.

40 thoughts on “Walking. The Day After.”

  2. Isn’t enough today. Proof that our mindset determines so many things. And yet, you fought it back, reminding yourself that you were in the moment, taking it all in, trying to slow down. I know for some people the waiting-thing is hard. Give yourself some credit for even realising that. And shut up about your “not even close” shot. MINE wasn’t even close!

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  3. I’m learning that each moment holds its own magic. I walked out the door this morning with the dogs, glanced up at the blue sky and thought, ‘Eh, a bit pedestrian.’ And then I turned around and my eyes landed on the most beautiful cloud rising above our rooftop, unfurling in voluminous rolls before me. Ya just never know….

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      2. THAT’S what made my days of ever changing weather last weeks. Those magnificent, stunning, surprising cloud towers, sofas, banks, playgrounds for sky sheep…..

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  4. David, thank you. As you probably know, the word “miracle” is close to the Spanish “to look” (mirar) and that’s the beauty of what your lens does for us: you look and we see; you snap and we gawk; you muse and we marvel. Thank you for letting us “gnat” you about (you know I was itching to say that, right?)!

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    1. That’s it. Your thought reminds me of a passage I just read:

      “Everything is broken and messed up and completely fine. That is what life is. It’s only the ratios that change. Usually on their own. As soon as you think that’s it, it’s going to be like this forever, they change again.” That is what life was, and how it continued for three years after that. The ratios changing on their own, broken, completely fine, a holiday, a leaking pipe, new sheets, happy birthday, a technician between nine and three, a bird flew into the window, I want to die, please, I can’t breathe, I think it’s a lunch thing, I love you, I can’t do this anymore, both of us thinking it would be like that forever.

      — Meg Mason, Sorrow and Bliss: A Novel (Harper, February 9, 2021)

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  15. Holding onto nothing, he saw everything.
    Seeing everything, he held onto the nothing
    of all he witnessed letting go of everything.

    Ok. So … those words popped into my head as I read your beautiful words and gazed into your photo — … they appeared, like a cloud rolling across the sky, and so, I wrote them out for you in gratitude for how you wake up my day with such beauty.

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  16. I wonder if your discontent is bred of tremendous creativity. Most creatives do possess this, to one degree or another. I could literally leave my skin some days, so I get my hands in dirt. Plant something. It grounds me. Though I do know the suffering, David. ❤

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