I took a long walk around the Denver Botanic Gardens today, and spent most of my time (as I often do) in the Western, alpine, and steppe gardens. I looked at seedpods and tiny dried flowers and the subtle gradations of color among the winter grasses. I listened to the running water and at one point I went down a narrow path to the center of a bamboo forest, sat down on the ground, and just breathed long deep breaths until I felt the tension drain out of my body.
This time of year has always been reflective time for me. Even before John died, October/November has always been the time when I slow down and take stock of my life, figure out where I am and where I’m going. After the kids go back to school, before the ramp-up to the holidays. Now my life is less defined by those rhythms, and more defined by others.
The first half of November is the hardest, and I usually go on a road trip to clear my head and claim some solitude. This year I was supposed to be toodling around the wine country and castles and beaches of northern Spain. Then when that trip was cancelled I made alternate plans for some solo camping in New Mexico, and when New Mexico went on lockdown, I didn’t have the heart to re-work that trip for somewhere in-state, so I embraced the staycation.
Which is appropriate, I suppose, for the season of my life that I’m coming into. I have spent so many years hustling, busting ass to improve myself, improve my life, get a little bit ahead – and I could keep doing that, but I no longer have to, and frankly, I’m at an age where I don’t really want to. I want to enjoy the things I’ve worked for. I want to buy a house and put some time and work into making it mine. I want a garden. I have a really clear idea of where I want to go with my art, and I want to do art. I want to write. I want to go down whatever random rabbithole of curiosity pleases me. I want to spend some time being really present in my job, which is a dream job with an amazing team of people, doing good work in the world without worrying about looking for the next raise, the next advancement, because I am actually making a living wage now and can just stop and be where I am for a minute.
So this week I’m thinking about how I want that to work in the life I’ve got, and what changes I need to make to make space for it. But I’m also taking the week to, you know, actually do it. To model, and take note of, what that life might look like day-to-day – how I would spend my time if I embraced the radical notion that my time is mine to spend how I see fit. And part of that is kicking off this blog, which has been sitting on a back burner for a month or so, waiting until I’m ready. “Ready,” I realize, is… not really the point.
My venerable Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT – not only the first SLR camera I ever owned, but the first camera I ever owned – was a solid little workhorse of a camera that churned out great pictures for fifteen years, and finally gave up about a year ago when I flipped a kayak in Key West and dumped it in the ocean.
I’d been meaning to replace it for a while anyway; I’ve desperately missed not having a good camera this summer; I’m hoping to make a trip down to the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness next month; and I had a mess of credit card cash-back points that I’m not using to rent a car in Spain (the Bisti trip is the consolation prize – thanks, COVID!) so it was time.
The new camera, a T7, was delivered on Wednesday and I took a walk around the lake after work on Thursday to break it in. Unfortunately my telephoto lens picked up some connector corrosion from that aforementioned dip in the ocean, so I didn’t get any good water bird pictures, but I got a couple of perfectly serviceable sunset photos and wildflower macro shots. (I did get the connectors cleaned up and the lens working again, later, so I’ll try again for wildlife pictures.) I’m happy with it. Canon hasn’t changed the basic camera body layout since 2004, so the buttons are all where I expect them to be and it feels familiar in my hand; but there are of course a slew of new features and a lot more power. It will be fun to play around with it and learn what it can do.
Back in 2006 I wrote a journal entry that became the touchstone of my writing life, and for almost fifteen years my central metaphor and the basis of my online identity. It was about movement at the fringes, the interplay of light and shadow, about being the perpetual outsider, the stranger even in a group of intimates.
That metaphor no longer benefits me. I’m letting it go. I no longer want to hang back half-hidden in the shadows, waiting to be invited closer to the fire. I can no longer afford to believe that’s where I belong.
