The tomato offers its gift of fiery color and cool completeness.
~ Pablo Neruda
It is the best tomato season in years, and I eat them at every meal. Sliced on toast in the morning, pizza one night, and a tomato and corn galette the next. But they are best eaten warmed by the sun, out of my hand, in the garden.
“There is no explaining this simple truth about life: you will forget much of it.”
― Ann Patchett, Tom Lake
I have traveled to the four corners or our beautiful state this summer. Dipping down to the Oregon coast for a few days and even into Idaho for a bit. In these travels I have reconnected with family and old friends, bringing them back into the fold of my tiny world.
In each of these places I have also found bits and pieces of myself. Bits and pieces that I had forgotten, or buried deep because the pain was too hard to bear. Some I had just given up on, or simply lost somewhere along the way. Memories of every age I have been, along with every stage of my life, float around now in my soul.
These photos were taken on our last trip of the summer as we drove home from Eastern Washington where we both grew up. Some were taken out the passenger window as the car traveled 70 MPH. Some were taken at a rest stop along the Columbia River, where I was too “rattled” by the snake sign to meander through the paths. I am okay with that, as I have learned, with no apology, that I am not a snake person.
“Look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time: Thus is your time on earth filled with glory.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
I turn 69 and decide it is time to really start paying attention.
I want to become acutely aware of all I’ve taken for granted.
~ Sylvia Plath
Lately I have let gratitude slip through my fingers, turning my focus instead on things I can’t control. During times like this, my camera becomes my saving grace.
Keep a little fire burning; however small, however hidden.
- "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy
Even when I don’t know what I am after I keep at it. I keep at it when I don’t feel like it, or realize that all I am doing is shooting the same things over and over. Truth is I can’t seem to get out of my backyard, or my house, or my garden right now. I get lost in the light as it hits my morning coffee, the dog, or the birds.
But mostly I keep at it because I am afraid. Afraid if I allow that tiny little fire to die out, a portion of myself will die along with it, and I might not find my way back.
"The first week of August hangs at the very top of the summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning.”
— Natalie Babbitt (Tuck Everlasting)
the flowers of August
in a corner of the garden
leftovers
Bits and pieces of my week.
vine ripened
the goldfinch
“Never be so focused on what you are looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find.”
― Ann Patchett, State of Wonder
July slips away just as the first slicing tomatoes ripen.
August arrives and I swear I can smell, and feel, fall in the air.
I bail on the little writing class I started, and pick up my camera instead.