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
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