Just outside this window there is a friendly dog–a handsome guy who looks like a black Golden Retriever–and a passel of kids, some of them mine, tossing him a branch-ish stick to retrieve. Down the road there are three horses waiting to be ridden; one of them particularly grateful for her new job, having been recently rescued from the scorching desert heat and someone’s unimaginably cruel neglect. Misery, they named her, a sweet irony to her newly nurturing life and what I could swear looks like a smile on her face.
A toothy llama, Rodeo, stands on the corner–not to be ridden–but to be seen, buck teeth and all. Her gentle, unassuming nature reminds me that in a small town, Julian to be exact, time slows down and pays attention to details missed in larger slices of society. I wonder what I have been missing in my own suburban town – what I might ought to begin to notice.
I nearly walk right past these incredible flowers, blooming freely in a very large pot on the sidewalk next to one of the local apple pie bakeries. It’s the color that stops me in my tracks. Are they blue? Are they purple? I don’t quite decide, I just take the shot and marvel at just how much I like particular shades of blue and purple; how soulful they are.
Later, much later, as I reflect on our impromptu jaunt into Julian, I vow to defect from the rat race and enter into a sort of distracted, nirvana-like existence; to breathe deeply like a nearly-comatose yoga student. Instead, I eat pie…lots and lots of pie, which is the other great way to become comatose. It really is that simple: appreciate what is right in front of your busy nose, eat pie, become comatose, and take a little nap–unless, like me, you still have a mountain to drive back down.
Words and photographs are the creation and property of author/photographer, Britton Minor and The Jaded Lens Photography
