Emerging

[vaneramos]

Now that the tale of Dad's ordeal has been told, hopefully finished for a while, I feel averse to public expression. This is an old, disturbing pattern. Fortunately this particular coil of life's spiral is not accompanied by any considerable depression or general withdrawal from social life.

Solitude is my comfort zone. It shouldn't surprise me. Let this passage take me wherever and teach whatever it will. I try not to worry, try to remember to allow myself time, but never allow as much as I need.

This week, Edmund Blair Bolles at Babel's Dawn addresses the chicken-or-egg paradox about whether individual minds or social groups evolve first.

When groups don’t form laws, it is impossible for group members to follow them or benefit from them. Similarly it is the language-speaking group that makes the individual poet or story-teller possible.

Someone once said: if you write poetry and have an audience, you are a poet. I surmise the converse: without an audience no one is a poet. Or a photographer, for that matter.

During these periods, I lose interest in taking photographs. I don't want to show, only to see. The vision must sometimes turn inward for a spell.

On the other hand, it must not stay there. So I nudge my expressions outward, without bullying.

And the camera is back from vacation. These images were taken February 8, the first time I took Dad home from the hospital. An exquisite dusk drew me outdoors, down to the beach. I went to watch the sunset, then noticed moonrise at the other end. These images were taken a few steps and moments apart. They seem to have everything to do with what's happening here, but I can't explain it.