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.
Hello, My Name Is…
A painting colors your mood, your mood colors the art. The strokes and dabs pull you into their swirls. As do the last lines that lay a story bare. Or a chord is struck and reverbs around the lyrics glimpsing the singer's life and binding them to your own. Does it matter who the artist is and the life they've led to be moved by their work?
No, I want to say. I say it. No. But then, I don't quite believe myself.
Puerto Vallarta
…we found each other, and that led to the annual three or four night adventures in Puerto Vallarta overlooking Banderas Bay. A six-thousand foot deep Banderas Bay, waves breaking white over blue and shimmering to the horizon, where oceanside meals are easily found and trinkets constantly sold, where a beach-combing vendor dropped his rather large and alive iguana on my shoulder, then asked me for money. Where too much tequila can be easily drunk…
Bomb in an Orchard
I read a fabulous book about William Blake by John Higgs titled, William Blake Vs The World. Why did I read this? I can’t remember specifically, but it came to be in my hands through the gods of literature, my favorite gods, while I was in one of their churches otherwise known as my local library…
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…
Coming To Shore
It was almost two years ago at a Christmas Eve party in 2022. I'm not the antisocial type, but I found myself looking for a breather from friendly chatter with the people I had just met, nice and welcoming as they were. My thumb was flicking through world events in that desensitized scan so many of us experience. 'Honey, I'll be back; I'm going for an evening scroll...'
That's when some article mentioning ChatGPT and the concept of a large language model caused my eyes to widen. The little man that lives behind my retinas, his day job working the refrigerator when its door shuts, scurried to grab his padded mallet, and hit the rusted tin thing that happens to be my gong-like brain. 'Hey dummy! Yeah, you, pay attention to this!”
