Still waiting...
I’ve been waiting to have something brilliant to say - as if anything I say right now would make any sense at all. The world doesn’t seem to make much sense. Even the sunrise is off.
Typically we have a good sunrise to photograph - where the clouds light up with colors and the sun is not completely blocked at the horizon - about 10 days in every month. I know because I’ve counted my photo archives. The rest of the days are typically split between completely cloudy or mostly clear skies. For 7 years this has consistently been true - but not right now. In eight weeks we’ve had only one sunrise with good color - August 30th, the photo I used at the top of my first blog post.
It’s weirdly unsettling, this string of clear or hazy morning skies, sometimes colored by western smoke, sometimes by fog and sometimes just clear. It’s like being in the movie “Groundhog Day” where every day seems almost like the next - and maybe that’s the gift of it all. While the rest of my life seems filled with one crazy (or terrifying) thing after another, my mornings at the lake have been strangely quiet and consistent.
Many people are facing fires, smoke, hurricanes, derechos and the devastation of Covid. It’s funny how I have failed to take this quiet consistency as a gift and rather end up wondering if it’s the calm before the storm. It’s so easy to look for the color and the action and to miss the sweetness of the mundane and ordinary.
Our cold front was pushed back by a reprise of summer weather and what felt “behind” before feels really late in coming now. Even so, the migrants are slowly coming, the leaves are slowly turning and even the warm days are ever so slightly cooler. Flocks of blue jays and robins get larger by the day. The change is almost imperceptible day to day and yet it is changing.
Migrating Franklin’s Gulls - October 6th, 2020, Kansas City, MO
I hope for the world that the same thing is happening in all the ways that matter. That things are changing, however imperceptible it seems. I will do what I can in the human world and then sit here and watch the little marsh wrens dart back and forth in the reeds. I will try to wait with a little more faith and a little less fear - some days I succeed more than others.
Marsh wren - Oct 8, 2020, Kansas City, MO
(PS - for my American friends - PLEASE VOTE! If you don’t have a plan, go to IWillVote.com. I voted this week!)
Beautifully and honestly said! Maybe nature, like humans, is just very tired, depressed, and unable to be spectacular right now. 2020 has been such a beatdown in so many ways. Right now, we can't even think about a sprint; it's all marathon, pushing through, one step at a time. But I have faith that we WILL eventually cross the finishing line and will slowly, gently return to some semblance of joy and sanity. I think it was your photos of those dear little wrens, isolating and yet still so peaceful, that gave me a much-needed shot of quiet hope and reminded me, I can do this. And Karen, you never take a photo that is wasted or doesn't tell a valuable story! You write eternal wisdom with your camera. Stay safe; be well.
And you have succeeded in that endeavor very well I will say😊thank you Karen.