Walking. 1,299 times.

Posted on by Live & Learn

6:00 a.m. Two days after Thanksgiving, feeling heavy. I skip the morning weigh-in, and elect not to share with you all the carnage, the humiliation is just too much even for me, and no point adding to the World’s disappointments these days, there’s enough of that.

Weather App: feels like 22° F. Too damn cold. My body instinctively leans South to Miami (75° F). We miss Miami, and we’ll miss it more in January.

I pull on my double lined snow pants, which feel tighter from last winter. Has to be the fabric shrinkage from the washings. Has to be. Can’t have let myself go that far.

I turn left off Post Road onto Weed Avenue, 1.5 miles from Cove Island Park. This will be my 1,299 consecutive (almost) turn onto this street, on my daybreak walk at Cove Island Park. Like in a row.

I pull off the road onto the shoulder, leaving the car running. I jump out to take the shot, careful to crop out the highway and the street lights on the right, and the homes lining the cove on the left — doing my best to remove all human constructed scars from the view.

I tuck my bare hands into my pockets to take in the view. I’m breathing like I’ve run a mile or two, this photography business being heavy, aerobic work. Or these damn pants are constricting my air flow.

And yet even with acute oxygen deprivation, this 1299th view seems Best.

Sara Stridsberg from “The Antarctica of Love“: We see everything we didn’t see before; whenever we return, we hear new things, we see the fall of light a little more clearly and it has always shifted slightly since the last time we looked.

Antarctica of Love. About right.

And then Helen Garner (again): “I used to think that if I’d said something once I could never say it again, but…I see how rich a simple thing can be when you turn it this way and that and show it again and again in different contexts.“

1,299 times on this walk. I turn it this way, and turn it that way, and show it again and again, How rich a simple thing can be.

I stand looking out for a few more seconds, and wonder, what’s that I feel?

Awe.

I’m awestruck by the same scene 1,299 times.

Now that’s Something.

Notes:

  • DK Photo @ Daybreak. 6:20 a.m. 28° F feels like 22° F. November 25, 2023. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.
  • More photos from this morning’s walk here.

37 thoughts on “Walking. 1,299 times.”

  1. You described being truly in the moment! That’s the way to be fully present. Thank you for the inspiration…

  2. It is something indeed David. I have that same feeling EVERY morning irrespective of weather, when I see the church tower and the hills beyond. A wonderful thing to know that something you love is never going to change, despite what may be going on around. Comforting. And as you say, awe-inspiring.

    1. That’s exactly IT Michael. Thank you for sharing. Your thoughts (which I couldn’t put into words) reminds me of:

      It was the aforesaid angel that unlocked the world for me. Every time it beats its wing inside me, by some topsy-turvy law of nature I fall upwards, against gravity, with the birds and the light… How can I explain that there is something greater than all the rest, something greater than our life.

      — Sara Stridsberg, The Antarctica of Love: A Novel. Translated by Deborah Bragan-Turner. (Farrar, Straus and Girous, January 18, 2022)

  3. Your determination to chronicle each morning’s magic coupled with your delightful ability to capture the capricious in these daily jaunts…something special, pal. All of it.

  7. Best…Something indeed…. I heard someone once say…”Let no man put asunder, man’s first word…wonder…wonder. “

    Thank you.  

    MA

    <

    div>

    Sent from my iPhone

    <

    div dir=”ltr”>

    <

    blockquote type=”cite”>

    2. Or this: The quote “Let no man put asunder, man’s first word…wonder…wonder” is often attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, and poet who was a leader of the Transcendentalist movement in the 19th century. However, the exact source of the quote is uncertain. It does not appear in any of Emerson’s published works, and there is no record of him ever saying or writing it.

      The quote is similar in sentiment to some of Emerson’s other writings about the importance of wonder and curiosity. For example, in his essay “Nature,” he wrote: “Wonder is the first step to knowledge.” He also said: “The lover of wonder never grows old.”

      It is possible that the quote is a paraphrase or misquote of something that Emerson said or wrote. It is also possible that it is a quote from a different source that has been mistakenly attributed to Emerson.

      Regardless of its origin, the quote is a powerful expression of the importance of wonder and curiosity in our lives. Wonder is the spark that ignites our imagination and leads us to explore the world around us. It is the source of creativity, innovation, and discovery.

  10. This reminds me of the years I visited the same spot every dawn here on Lake Michigan. The Loyola dunes by Loyola campus in Rogers Park. Not every single morning, but most mornings. It started in 2009, and stopped in 2021. What pulled me out of bed every morning was an addiction, a craving for a feeling I got at the first sight of a light shimmer off the lake surface. Some times it was the feeling I got from the sounds of the waves. If the waves were high, I could hear them a block away. Some mornings, it was the color, especially the warm taupe and warm grey. Does warm grey exist? It sure does, with a hint of apricot light wash. Everything is beautiful that time of the day.
    The first breath when I stepped my foot out of the car…
    I stopped in early 2021. I’m not sure I’m up to sharing the reasons. But coincidentally, that was around the same time you started your daily, almost, visits to The Cove at dawn.
    Looking at the photos you share brings back the same feelings.
    I can almost feel the cold air as I breathe it in, just looking at your photos.

    I understand!

    1. Beautiful. Thanks for sharing Sawsan. THIS: “What pulled me out of bed every morning was an addiction, a craving for a feeling I got at the first sight of a light shimmer off the lake surface”. YES!

  11. Whenever I return to one of my favourite ‘near the water’ special places, I feel this same wonderment, that happiness, that thankfulness.
    Beautifully described as usual. Thank you

  12. Same. Just same. Always in awe of the same spots, the way the sun greets us and the fact that even though I too have something if a consecutive streak…. I find “new” spots each morning that I have never seen before. “Now that’s something”

  15. There are nuances in every photo – and no two are ever the same. Keep visiting the cove, it is always showing a distinct beauty – distinct from the 1200+ photos you have taken

      1. It’s astounding! And truly, each of the 64,950. Is different. Pretty amazing talent and perseverance.. And factor inn the quotes, poems, op-eds, for they warrant inclusion as well…

Leave a Reply to Val BoykoCancel reply