I can't sleep…
Notes:
A long dark curve is the poem in your body
is the river
is the loon’s throat.
Have you ever asked yourself how
the loon’s voice
opens?
~ Cheryl Hellner, from “Prayer for the Wild Voice, for Nina” (Heron Dance Journal, Feb 2006)
“Running is practice for not quitting.”
A line from Robert Andrew Powell’s Memoir titled ”Running Away.”
Unclear why the line stuck after I read it in Beth’s post titled Custodians of the Peace of Mind. But stuck it has. Who’s my Custodian?
Running is practice for not quitting.
It’s been a month. Every day. Every.Single.Day.
Out the door at ~5 am. Backpack over left shoulder, camera in right hand. Both hands occupied, smartphone tucked away, and inaccessible.
I walk.
5 mile loop. 1.5 hours. 50-70 photos. Every morning.
Followed by a photo upload to the P.C.
Then a slow page turn of the pics.
And a deletion of the misfires.
Then a creation of a Google Photo Album, “June 6 2020 Cove Island Park Walk”
Then I connect the Day’s album to the Google Nest Hub Max via my smartphone, which rotates each photo in a slide show on a 10 sec delay.
And, we have a new performance each day.
I’ve moved the Hub Max next to my PC, and there it sits with me, from 7am to 7pm, my entire work day.
Photo’s on the slide show, click, click, click, click. And for that second, I’m swept back to that moment when I took the shot.
During conference calls. During Zoom meetings. During email replies. During text exchanges. Those pictures, that I took, that I made, that captured some beauty in my eye, causing me to stop, and pause, and see…and then snap. They draw me gently away from Work, to the Moment.
Louise’s blog post this morning lands softly. “We call home through everything I do. Everything I create. Everything I am.”
Running is practice for not quitting. I believed this in my bones.
But I’ve quit.
And I like it.
Photo: 6:07 a.m. this foggy morning. 67° F. Wind: 5 mph. Cloud Cover: 68%. Long Island Sound from Weed Ave, Stamford, CT.
Got up on a cool morning. Leaned out a window.
No cloud, no wind. Air that flowers held
for awhile. Some dove somewhere…
these moments
count for a lot–peace, you know.
Let the bucket of memory down into the well,
bring it up. Cool, cool minutes. No one
stirring, no plans. Just being there.
This is what the whole thing is about.
— William Stafford, from “Just Thinking” in “Ask Me: 100 Essential Poems of William Stafford”
Photo: Mine. 5:46 a.m. May 24, 2020. 50° F, feels like 46° F. Wind 12 mph, gusts up to 23 mph. Weed Ave/Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.
Everything is better in the quiet car.
In the quiet car, everyone is calm.
~ Jenny Offill, Weather: A Novel (Knopf, February 11, 2020)
Photo: Matthew Jones
