What the Heck is This Words | Pictures Thing?
It’s a blog. Beyond that, no promises as to what exactly it will be.
I’m a creative writer and picture taker since the age of having hair and braces. Now, I focus mostly on nature and our fraught place in it. Rather than morning pages or journalling, which are productive habits for many writers, I like to walk with my camera, see what catches my eye, and snap the image. And pretty soon I’m lost in the cadence of walking and looking, and then a line or a fragment comes from the ether. I’ve learned to follow. The line might be part of a novel I’m working on. It might be short and unto itself. Whichever it is, this routine is the one dependable thing that awakens my muse and sets me to my writing for the day, and I hope it brings a moment of reflection or inspiration to yours.
I call some of what I’ll do here, these short pieces, One Thing, but they are really two; a picture paired with short prose. The subject could be anything. Like poems or stray thoughts but inspired by the photography. Rather than talk about process, I’d rather just do it. And I’ll share other creative work, both brief and long. A story, a poem, an essay. Whatever these posts are, their intent is to both sharpen my blade and hopefully carve out some quiet space for you in the middle of our chaotic days.
Another World
The coffee grows cold again this morning. I've forgotten it exists, lost in the brief escape where thoughts and words are colliding in a tenuous weave. The computer screen glows in the coming light. One moment words are a failed lift off, the next its outer space. Into the wormhole and time is bent into a different realm. What I am left with, the words assembled on the screen, is a mystery as to how they appeared and where time went.
Bridge Over the Ravine
Not far from the house I live in is the house where I spent much of my childhood. Down the street, a road dead-ends at an old bridge, still open for pedestrians and cyclists. It crosses an ancient ravine—wide for suburban Chicago—with a narrow ribbon of creek winding through woods at its bottom until it meets the open waters of Lake Michigan.
Wintering
…Dry leaves rattle. Something scurries in the browned reeds. The camera raises, but that 'something' is no more. Late again. Not that it matters. If I've mastered any art in digital photography, it's the art of being late. A second is all it takes and I'm left with what I usually see, which isn't what I could have sworn I saw…
