Category Archives: weekly photo challenge

Wish No More

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12

puzzle1

it's a puzzle how
the picture comes together
one piece at a time

I used to have a lot of wishes.

I wished to be independently wealthy, to be a published author or a renowned artist (or both!). I wished for perfect health, for spiritual enlightenment. I wished for a simple life, free from stressors and from having to compromise my values for the sake of “getting along” or being a “team player.”

And a lot of my wishes have come true, maybe not in the ways I imagined, but in ways that have left me pretty satisfied with how my life looks today. And those wishes that didn’t come true… the funny thing is, I don’t really wish for them anymore.

puzzle

My life falls into place one piece at a time. Like a puzzle. I don’t know where the next piece will come from, or what it will look like, or where it will fit. Often I don’t even recognize that some experience is a part of the puzzle. I try to trust the process. I don’t always succeed, but I try.

Beyond myself, I have fears for the future of humanity and of the Earth. But no amount of wishing will help that. Determination, action, self-discipline, clarity of values, patience, education, hope, selflessness… perhaps my wish is that we all develop those traits which will help us piece together a saner, sustainable future.

Let’s piece together peace. Together.

Peace.

The Daily Post photo challenge: Wish

Getting There

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8

hole-in-the-ground

They say you can’t
get There from Here,

and yet Here
is the only place from which
you can begin.

The most assured way to not
get There from Here
is to not set out at all.

However, There
may not turn out to be
quite as it appeared from Here.

The most assured way to not
be disappointed with There
is to not define it

until There has become Here.

The Daily Post weekly photo challenge: The Road Taken

Body Dump

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6

rock-garden3

After multiple seasons of chipping my lawnmower blade on a chunk of concrete protruding from the grass at the very edge of my property, I decided one day to dig the offending obstruction out of the ground.

I grabbed a shovel and set to it. The more I dug, however, the more I found. Ultimately, I discovered I had come upon the burial site of a heavy concrete birdbath — pedestal and all – chunked into several pieces. Kind of like a victim in a creepy ax murder movie, only with cement dust instead of blood. More than I had bargained for, at any rate.

rock-garden2

I loaded the pieces into my wheelbarrow and dumped them next to my driveway until I could figure out a way to get rid of the body – er, I mean birdbath. After a few months of staring at the rubble, I came up with a plan. I would hide the body in plain sight!

I had dug up a circular section of turf in the middle of my yard several months previously, admittedly with no clue as to how I was going to incorporate it into my landscape theme (or lack thereof). Keep the neighbors guessing, I always say.

So here I had this garden-like circular space and these rock-like concrete chunks. What better way to kill two birds with one birdbath, than to combine the garden and the rocks to build a rock garden!

rock-garden

Of course, I don’t really know how to make a rock garden, but I lined the circle area with the concrete chunks, and then planted a shrub in the middle for good measure. Maybe shrubs don’t belong in rock gardens, and maybe the rock garden will morph into something else over time. Apparently it’s not just the neighbors whom I confound with my actions; I have no clue either as to what I’m doing.

I think I’ve pulled off disguising the birdbath corpse, though. At least there haven’t been any robins or sparrows in long black overcoats and fedora hats pulled low over their eyes knocking at my door.

I wonder what else I will uncover as I continue my random landscape projects. I’m thinking of tearing down the old shed behind my house… what do you suppose lies hidden beneath that?

The Daily Post weekly photo challenge: Repurpose

The Ambiance of Campfire Smoke

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2

camping2

While the focus (pun intended, sort of) of the weekly photo challenge is – go figure – photos, this week’s theme of “ambiance” reminded me of a post I wrote 3½ years ago for one of my prior blogs. I’m posting a portion of it here. With photos, of course.

From July 2012:

… As we approached our camping destination, my daughter and I began to see signs on the road advertising campfire wood for sale. We stopped at one location, where a trailer was parked next to the road, holding wood that had been packaged into bundles.

A lock box for collecting money was secured to the trailer, and a sign listed the price per bundle and also advised us that we were “on camera” (apparently in case we intended to defy the honor system). We paid for two bundles of wood, loaded them into our car and continued on our way.

camping1

After pitching our tent, we wandered around the camp for a while and as it grew cool in the late afternoon, the mosquitoes began feeding. It was time to build a fire. I set about the task, scrunching up some newspaper we had brought, loosely placing scraps of kindling wood over the top of that, and selecting a few of the most promising pieces of firewood to set on top.

I touched a match to it and watched as little flames consumed the paper and made their way onto the kindling. Most of the flames burned out within a couple of minutes, but one tenacious little flicker remained at the base of one log. I sent it good vibes, willing it to spread.

My daughter watched me standing there staring at the flame and asked, “Have you done this before?” I realized that I hadn’t. “Aren’t you supposed to do something more to it?” I assured her that it just needed a little time to get going, and I continued to watch as the flicker dwindled into a wisp of smoke.

camping3

More paper, more kindling, a lot of rearrangement for best combination of air circulation and proper wood contact. More matches. More attentive scrutiny, and finally we had a fire. Mission accomplished.

Throughout the evening, as we sat watching the mesmerizing flames and talking, we would pause to consult as to whether the logs needed to be pushed together, whether it was time to add a log to the fire and if so, what the proper placement should be. What had begun as an initial chore to get this whole campfire thing rolling was turning into a continually evolving process of the ebb and flow of flames, the balance and timing in feeding the fire… a delicate dance with nature’s elements.

And, lest we begin waxing too poetic, a lot of smoke in our eyes. It was absorbing, in a good way. And fun.

camping4

After returning home from our trip, I conducted a Google search on campfire building which yielded over 7 million results. Techniques, tips, step by step instructions, words of wisdom from scoutmasters and even from Smokey the Bear (I had a crush on him when I was a kid).

I had not thought to look up any of this information before setting out on our trip because it never dawned on me that I didn’t really know how to build a campfire. Had we been on some sort of survivalist outing in the Alaskan wilderness in the dead of winter, this oversight wouldn’t have been a good thing. But as it was, it was refreshing to figure something out on our own, with a little trial and error, a little contemplation, a cooperative effort, and yeah, probably some sheer luck thrown in.

Maybe I need to learn to trust myself a little more, to savor the process in activities rather than only focusing on the outcome, to stop and smell the… smoke?

I’m looking forward to the next time. Maybe we’ll discover something else we didn’t know we couldn’t do.

The Daily Post weekly photo challenge: Ambience