Chasing the late light on foot, uphill, in a westerly direction may have been what got me through winter. I began walking in January in bracing, dimming afternoons. While these walks  have shifted from pre-dinner to postprandial since the onset of daylight savings, I’m still at it. What started as a pressure release valve, has morphed, with time and habit, into a kind of head clearing, life preserver.

Years ago, any walk I took was just an excuse for a photowalk, but when I started taking regular walks this winter I began in cold too cold for my cameras, and went out in snow, sleet and rain in which I wouldn’t risk one. These days it’s already gotten warm enough that the mere thought of a camera strap around on my neck makes me break out in more of a sweat.

But camera or no, I have found myself starting to look sharp again – with the expectation of seeing something good. I’ll twitch to a movement, and spy a scene straight out of Beatrix Potter:  a few bunnies and a robin congregating in a corner of a neighbor’s garden. I’ve felt an inexplicable  inner pull to turn down a block I’d never gone down before to  spot a curious garden decorated with large hunks and ingots  of colored glass, its front door flanked by fake shrubbery in planters, all spray-painted teal. I spent one late winter walk  trailing a six point stag as it strode through front yards and leapt over side fences  acting the King of the Suburb for all who watched – only me, so far as I could tell.

I have  made some pictures, but more often than not, I’ve chosen to walk unencumbered by camera and worked at fixing  the images with my retinas instead. Being at my ease out in the world, looking with sharp eyes and the expectation that I’ll see something humorous, poetic, surprising or exquisite – a good photo – that’s part of me, but these past few years of caretaking, mourning and cloistering have buried it deep. I’m content to give myself time. Baby steps. 

Keep your eyes wide open,
Debbie