3.3.12 Looking Over the Overlooked

Here I am as I begin my morning walk on this chilly Saturday morning. I am on the northern (northwestern, technically) tip of the island, and I have set my camera down on the hill to take the picture. It came out better than expected. I like the dessicated weeds poking up in front of the lens, they sort of resemble the posture of a praying mantis. I am standing on the edge of a bluff, where one step forward would send me plummeting about 30-35 feet to the shore below. I take care to securely anchor my boots in the snow.

Here I am now at the exact opposite end of the island, where I am noticing for the first time how close this tip of the island is to the jetty, or jettylike embankment, which can be seen by looking straight out and underneath the arch of the bridge (this, by the way, is the bridge from which I took the photos for my last post, that of 3.1.12). The shot below shows the jetty in a zoom shot.


Funny, to suddenly spot something new in scenery I've gazed upon so many times. But then, isn't that a common phenomenon? We walk past the same scenery every morning for a year and then one day notice something that had been there all along, to which the control center in our brain had until then denied us access. I could easily swim from my position to the jetty, if so inclined (I doubt I ever will be).

For this shot, I lay prone on the snow, tilting the camera upwards just enough to capture the entire bridge and the Pillsbury sign in the distance, but not too tilted to capture the snow in the foreground. I'm happy with how this one came out, and love the patterns of light and ripples on the surface, while the jutting branches reach up out of the depths like long stiff arms.

As I picked my way northward along the eastern shore, this perky twiglet asserted itself, catching my eye with its frozen teardrop glinting in the sun, and its perfect shadow on the surface that makes it look as though someone has planted a divining rod (absurdly, as though there were any need to search for water here). It seems that Nature will always oblige with at least one striking image, when I venture out, camera in hand.

And here is the final striking image of my morning constitutional, a fallen tree that seems to have assumed the appearance of some saber-toothed beast, through whose frightful jaws I am able to capture a bitten-off glimpse of the Merriam Street Bridge beyond. I continued along the shoreline, at one point breaking through the brittle snow crust and plunging my booted foot into the river. No worries, I simply retrieved it and went on my way.

Life flows on, in and around us—sometimes requiring a period of adjustment before we can see and appreciate what it carries before our eyes.

D.E.S.