the canoe launch

These days my creative process is mostly about the experience of what I come upon accidentally; conjured together with hope and the willingness to turn down a road I have not driven before.  Often it is a whim that takes me off my path, an urge that just maybe I will discover something…

I had just that experience today.  Less than a mile off a route I travel frequently I found a little turn off that, I discovered, gave access to a canoe launch in the river.  A short drive opened to a small pad of no more than five parking spots and a lovely, lightly wooded parcel of land connecting it to the river’s edge.  I stopped my car and got out in the rain.  

The rain was part of what made this place so inviting, water falling into water, quieting the landscape, replenishing it. 

I stop frequently to take a few quick pictures of the landscape or something in it; I see them as opportunities to step into the natural world, to feel something of it, to glean something from it; to be part of it.

The rain was light and I did not hurry too much.  I walked almost to the launch, stopped and then took pictures in numerous directions from that spot; the water, the land, the trees, the ground.  And then I walked back, satisfied, satisfied, satisfied, that I had followed my urging. 

I do not know for sure if it is my experiencing or my recording, in photographs or words, that is more consequential, but I know that they cannot exist without each other.  And I know that I cannot exist in full without all of it.

With gratitude,

Joanna