Botanical Gardens Landscapes

Joy Conditioning
    after Wendy Suzuki
The next time you lie in bed thinking of 
the one thing you said wrong, remember 
also everything else you said right. 
Remember the burst of a fresh strawberry 
at the edge of summer's beginning. Feel 
the red juice coat your mouth. You might 
even remember last week's call with your 
mother when she said I'm so proud of you, 
or the one friend who said I love your poem. 
We are malleable, impacted, trained by the 
terrible recurring thought just as we are by 
the repetition of kindness. So do this in 
your next joyful moment—        take pause
pay attention to the constellation of light 
shining singularly into your life. Let this 
memory embed itself into your body as a 
fiber of truth you return to when all alone 
and full of self-doubt, even if the voices 
won’t quiet entirely, even if all you have 
to hold on to is this one twitch of joy 
announcing itself as a reminder of your 
inherent goodness. 

—Moudi Sbeity

Thank you to my friend, Jan Falls, for introducing me to this poem. The one I needed today. 

Contentment

As the season begins to shift, I wander around my favorite places with a deep sense of contentment. Even with the nagging pain of my left leg (spinal nerve compression), and even with the many things that could go wrong, I have a deep sense of belonging to this place and of being loved by a very special handful of people.

Stop and Turn Around

A lesson from famed photographer Jay Maisel—stop and turn around immediately when you see a photograph. He had an interesting theory on how the percentages of you turning around and going back drop the further you drive. I passed this shiny red Thunderbird sitting back from the side of the road and immediately saw the picture. But, as so often happens, the road was busy with traffic and we were on our way to someplace else. I made a mental note to return to the scene and try to take a picture. On the return trip, the skies were cloudy and overcast, and I'm not sure the magic was still there. But I tried anyway. There's something romantic about the way people hold onto old classic cars, even if they don't run. 

Keepers

I never get tired of roaming these gardens. Today, I tried to take landscape views with my 50mm lens. I didn’t exactly fail, but I did find lots of ways that did not work. About half way through my walk, I started asking myself, What even is a landscape photograph? Does the word landscape belong only to photographs of nature in broad sweeping vistas? Honestly, I don’t know. I thought about doing a deep research dive into the topic, but then reconsidered the idea. Really, does this matter?

No. I see the world in fragments and vignettes. It’s just my way, I think.