Let the memory of you fall free like a dry leaf off the tree of my being – leave me stripped bare like a winter tree. Leave while the rain is falling and the earth is waiting. Leave, it’s the season.
(Autumn really is the season of nostalgia.)
I recently saw a Northern Flicker for the first time. A pair was foraging on the ground with a flock of Starlings. One perched on the fence for a brief photographic moment before flying off.
Dear readers,
I started this blog as a space to express my feelings at a time I was down and isolated. As I explored my passions through this blog I realized my interest in photography. After a while I wanted it to be more than a documentation of an ordinary human exploring an ordinary life. I wanted to document all the bird photos I have made, all the good shots, I became obsessed with quality and technicality of what I shared. This kind of attitude often left me frustrated. I also lost my voice and presence. Photos had become just photos with an identification of a species and few bits of information.
Truth is I do have a huge passion for photography. After finishing university with high grades in Psychology, I felt completely lost. I traveled for 9 months yet I did not share a lot of my journey here. I fell quiet and I fell into despair as I could not see where my passions and my life would meet. Moreover, after returning from my travel I worked at a coffee chain to pay off a small percentage of my student debt and to live. The routine did not leave me too much time for introspection and in a way I was grateful for that, for every time I was left to myself I would dig deep into the feeling of being lost.
I feel ready again to go back to the basics. To enjoy life and to share what moves me. To write and to feel. To simply do things without expectation for return. Without ambition. In two weeks I will quit the job and travel to see my family before starting at university to study social and political thought. I do not know if it’s the right path, but it is a path that does not offend my soul too much. It is better than taking no action at all.
This is an acknowledgement of my own struggles in the past two years and a promise that I will go back to finding beauty in life (meeting-soul).
“In spite of everything, I shall rise again; I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing. – Vincent van Gogh
I will pick up my camera, I will sit with my thoughts. Thanks for being with me.
Love, Timali.
Pink blotched clear blue lake,
now turning a deep green,
Two mosquitoes circling each other
rise in the air
A creature jumps in
leaving ripples dancing
growing outward
to nothingness
Mink, muskrat or otter
does it matter?
Moments pass by
the geese are still making their calls
Ripples form again
as the breeze sweeps in
Bare trees still shaking off winter
double themselves on water
a deeper reflection
their skeletons the blackest of blacks
No pinks no blues no more;
hints of orange fade
between real and shadow.