Walking. With Small Details.

~ Live & Learn

Wednesday morning. 5:56 a.m. Temp, mid-70’s. Muggy.

484 consecutive days. Like in a Row. Morning walk at Daybreak @ Cove Island Park.

Now, do you see that ripple in the water, actually a number of ripples, in the bottom quarter of the photo? They’re the equivalent of Rainbow Smelt in Lake Superior. (I think.) 15 years living here, I’ve never noticed these schools of fish. And now, they’re seemingly everywhere. Water rippling, spinning, bubbling. My eyes darting left and right in search of other schools.

I can’t explain it.

They’ve become important.

Anuk Arudpragasam, from A Passage North: “Suddenly the small details that are glossed over in your usual accounting of life took on an almost cosmic significance, as though your fate could be determined by whether or not you remembered to draw water before it became dark, by whether you hurried to catch the bus or decided to take your time, by whether or not you said yes or no to any of the countless trivial decisions that come only in retrospect, once the event has occurred and nothing can be changed, to take on greater significance.”

Thursday Morning.  I’m between calls. Susan shouts out asking for me to come down stairs. Hurry!

I come barreling down the stairs.

(Sciatica and all, this body can still move when it needs to.)

She’s sobbing. Good God. What happened?

She standing on the porch, looking at the neighborhood children boarding the school bus. “First day of school,” she says with tears streaming, “Do you remember when we sent Eric off on his first day of school?” I watch. Eyes well up.  Kids continue boarding, with their little pink backpacks and lunch boxes. Oh, yes, I remember. All the intimate details.

Friday Morning. 486 consecutive days. Like in a Row. Daybreak @ Cove Island Park.

5:15 a.m.

A full one-hour and 7 minutes from sunrise.

A crescent moon hovers silently overhead.

Big Dipper. Little Dipper. And millions of other twinkling little stars.

Overnight, the temperatures have fallen from 75° F to 55° F.  Summer to Fall inside of 24 hours. Autumn has arrived.

Wind gusts, remnants from the tail end of Ida, make it feel closer to the high 40’s.

I stand looking out onto the cove. And there standing stock-still is a Black-Crowned Night-Heron.

So here we are. Two nocturnal creatures standing on this planet, the one processing the misty scene, observing her wet tail and breast feathers, and thinking…

I will remember this.

Note: Hannah Nicole, A List of Soft Things, for the closing line: I Will remember this.

43 thoughts on “Walking. With Small Details.”

  3. i love how you responded to the little details, in the present, as well as in your memory. these are the most powerful moments in your life. your private movie within your heart and streaming through your senses.

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        1. Smiling. Odd, my resistance. I’ve never been able to look backwards for more than a few days. It’s always that tug of onward, forward, more.

          “What would be “enough,” I wondered, for the likes of me?”

          — Gina Frangello, Blow Your House Down: A Story of Family, Feminism, and Treason (Counterpoint, April 6, 2021)

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          1. I just know that every time I walk by one of my David’s photos that hang around our home, I am immediately transported back to that moment, and it makes me smile or nod on appreciation. You have a gift, pal.

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  12. My tears were on my face too dear David, you are so beautiful writer, you almost give the moments of feelings, thoughts of the moments, or almost everything about life… you are one of my favorite writer. But your photographical eyes also so beautiful, you catch the prrecious and meaningful moments of life… Maybe I can’t make comment always, but be sure I am reading and waiting for what will be next… Thank you, life is beautiful with you all. Blessing and Happiness, Love, nia

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  13. When I catch up on blog posts, you help me remember why words matter in their sharing. And, the consecutive day early before daylight practice…wow, makes me think of the octopus documentary, doing something because of its pull on your soul to keep doing.

    My writing has been vacant. I sense a pull to return. Thank you for helping.

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  14. Calm and peace, wash over glancing at the photos…///My Grandma, who lived with us, for several years when I was a child… love it when the Smelt Ran in a tributary to the Mighty Columbia River, a friend would always gift her with a bucket or two…she’d dip them in corn meal and fry them -she enjoyed eating them immensely…we’d help her packed them in the milk cartons to freeze…I know that when I was sent to the basement freezer to retrieve something I checked to see if a carton with Smelt was popped open so I could look at the tiny fish frozen in the clear,frozen, iced water, suspended as if they were migrating mid-stream…/// I loved that Susan called you to witness the children catching the bus…her tears were so heartfelt…the masked, child start here in a staggered, half day schedule this week…some parents have opted to have their children continue learning online, at least to the end of this year…///We’ve been down to 42 & 43 already!!! of course the big swing of heat mid to upper 80’s and forest fire smoke settles in quickly…(a week ago the low in the state was 26, ugh) It was this weekend last year it was so, so hot and the mega fires so devastating…consuming nearby towns…the fire survivors still living in Hotels and Motels here in town…Heartbreaking…& the reinforcements of visiting traveling nurses under contract to help the overwhelmed hospital staff can’t find housing…(I assume the hospital will step in putting them up somewhere in the hospital -under the circumstances… with the University, the colleges and community college starting up later this month, the fire survivors (lucky enough to not be in a motel but in a house or apartment) -housing is just not available for the nurses….Thanks for the lovely, calming photos and for sharing the special moment with Susan…as we all move forward…into a new week…

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  18. Such a lovely post, David. Here’s to the pull that makes us stop and take notice of all those little details. Seeing all the kids waiting at their bus stops sure does pull at the heartstrings.

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