Category Archives: Winter

Being here

for tjl (1 of 1)

Katonah, New York

The trees are silent, frozen in place by last night’s winter. Sunrise creeps—truly, for so much slower does it rise than it sets—over a nearby hill. It bathes them in pseudo-warmth and they bask in it. They bend their limbs, their trunks, their stony wills to this commanding, golden goddess. It feels as if they have done this now, right before my very eyes; woken up and leaned in to this intensely beautiful morning.

Surely they were independent before: last night when their unwitting limbs wallpapered my closed eyelids, yesterday, when snow drizzled through them from a blue-white sky onto my wool coat, and later—when the new year swept me off to Manhattan to bask in my own sunshine: friends old and new, and they stood, stock still, waiting for no one—as if their naked branches lacked for nothing, not even to be clothed by their absent leaves. But now, as I study their curved, tilting trunks, their sun-dappled sway, I realize my error; everything—every one—needs something.

A tiny zephyr picks up the bottom of a single, dry-lingering leaf (One that has forgotten to fly south for the winter?) on a skinny, low-hanging branch. It was only seconds ago that the leaf was fluttering…yet it is unbelievably silent, as if the tree has shushed it; warned it not to make a fuss, not to beckon attention. It is so absent of motion now that I question whether it moved at all. I scan naked tendril after naked tendril for these holdouts. I wonder why they’ve stayed put and I didn’t.

Here I am in Katonah—twenty-eight hundred miles from home—scrunching up my eyes to determine whether what I am looking at now is a small patch of dirty snow or a gray rock plopped in the middle of the icy, brown-green grass at the base of the trees. But this isn’t what I’m wondering, not if I’m honest. I’m asking the question my husband is asking as he sits, without me, in California: Why did she go, he asks. Why am I here, I echo.

The answer hits me as if I am nineteen, as if answers have only started coming, as if I’ve never had answers before—or never asked the right questions. I am here because it is what I need. I am here, snatching at—clawing at is more accurate (yet in a somewhat dignified way, for I am blessed, not only by these stunning surroundings, but also by dazzling intellect and aesthetic perfection)—for some tiny, tentative, unexcavated, frozen piece of me.

I am refusing, with stubborn, unsentimental rights to myself, to fit snugly into my newly stable life. I am leaning, like these stalwart trees, toward this morning’s light: a sun salutation that breaks open my heart, reminds me that sometimes what we need demands no explanation.

Why am I here? Because, like these enchanting trees, I am.

Exoskeleton

It’s winter in California, and much needed rain is blanketing some parts. Wet, autumn-like leaves jumble themselves together on walkways, lawns and streets; evocative reminders, like multi-colored sticky notes, that the changes we’ve jotted down are just around a few warmer corners. Our fervent New Year’s resolves will finally thaw into a joyful, productive spring—or so we hope.

We can—at least— count on spring to warm our bodies with a fresh sun, the most perfect natural sphere ever plucked from God’s pocket. Soon, fragrant flowers will jut their heads confidently through ground we thought might stay concrete-dry for another eternal season. As they thrust their happy palette and delicate scents upon us, we will harvest these sweet promises like urgent bees gathering up powdery yellow pollen.

It’s likely, if we look closely, carefully folding back tender green blades, at the city park jungle (I’ve called it that since I was a kid—that teeming marketplace of shovel head worms, sow bugs, pincers and more—just under the grass) we will see an exoskeleton or two; a walking stick’s or perhaps, in the bushes, even a snake’s; near perfect replicas of their old selves.

Oh to have an exoskeleton; a reason to shed something we no longer need with regularity but without pomp and circumstance. Why do we humans find it so difficult to let go of that which does not serve us?

A recent conversation with a friend, one who has had the kind of hard-knock life that forges a deep, contemplative, beautiful soul, reminded me to give myself a body check. What am I carrying around that no longer serves me? Opinions, responsibilities, viewpoints, beliefs, habits, parenting styles, or even phrases I use?

It’s winter now, and I’m digesting this epiphany as fast as I can, like a ravenous tobacco worm munching leaf after leaf as she fattens herself up just before burrowing into the moist earth for her amazing transformation into a hawk moth.

What will I become? What kind of exoskeleton will I leave behind?

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Beetle Larva

 

 

Sun god

My pulse rises as I pull into a spot at the curb, grab my camera, and scan the park for a place to capture the bursting sky. Another photographer and his lady offer me a prime bench seat. I sit down gratefully and begin to shoot, wondering if a Canonite would have been so generous with the real estate. I’ve heard about the rivalry between those who, like me, shoot with a Nikon, and those who prefer Canon–but have never experienced it.

I decide to play with exposure compensation, dialing it down in an attempt to capture the way the vibrant oranges are manipulating the grayish blue sea; casting shadows on the sailboats, whose skippers must surely be preparing to sacrifice their lives for the mere chance to party with the irresistible sun god.

A wave of peaceful satisfaction washes over me. Behind the lens, with an abundance of manual settings literally at my fingertips, I am participating in the way creativity mingles with reality, enjoying the unchoreographed dance of a spontaneous life.

 

 

 

Photograph is property of the author/photographer, Britton Minor