Everest

   The picture below is taken from an article I read in The New York Times about the retrieval of three mountain climbers bodies from Mount Everest. The three climbers had died the year earlier, and an expedition was sent to retrieve them for burial.

   Disturbing and sad, I also found the picture strange, the elements in it difficult to decipher. At first, I thought that I was looking at the climber's left arm and upper torso, thinking that perhaps his jacket had ridden up as he lay dying. I continued to see the body in this way, even though the article described a body being bent like a horseshoe.  I just wasn't convinced that it was this one.

   As I continued to look at it, I began to see it differently, and as the accompanying article had described it. I was able to visualize the area with the letters on it (I later looked it up to see the brand is called "Millet") as the right lower leg, the left side as the arched torso, and the head as being submerged in the snow or facing left, away from the photographer's aim.

   To see such a familiar thing as a body in a way that it is nearly unrecognizable as such is a fascinating thing, and I imagine that people that find mutilated or decomposed bodies sometimes experience similar sensations. 

   I am reminded that the safety of the familiar also tempers my ability to see more freely.

Wildifres

   Below is a picture I culled from what I thought was The New York Times, but as I searched for it there, I could not find it. Anyway, I don't care about where it's from or who took it, because for me it's importance is that it exists and moves me in the world I inhabit. I view the things that I may create in the same way.

   I recently wrote in this same blog about fires burning in southern France, and feel like I understand better now that it is the hazy light that fires create in the distance that I find so beautiful. At once frighteningly definite and murky, fire and smoke both seem to announce and obscure, and it is this obscuring that especially appeals to me. Like pictures of the Loch Ness monster or Bigfoot, the 'evidence' is eclipsed by the doubt over its' very existence. 

   Perhaps, there in the smoke, I am searching for and hoping to find God.

Water

   I recently read a story in The New York Times about the efforts of a helicopter pilot in Texas to drive some of the cattle in the state away from areas flooded by Hurricane Harvey. The picture below, showing an animal that was not saved, was one that accompanied the article.
   Not too long ago, I wrote about a picture of another flood scene (in that case, of a cemetery in Oroville, California). So, it would seem that the thought of being overcome by water has some importance for me. And while I'm not aware of being overly fearful of drowning, it's hard to imagine that these images of things submerged have affected me so powerfully without terror being somewhere in the midst of it.
   Although I generally feel saddened by seeing animals of all kinds suffer, it's a bit of a surprise to me that I should feel it so strongly for the huge animal in the picture, as it's size and presumed power are quite frightening to me. I liken it in some ways to the bullies that I feared growing up, but understand now better that all people, however they behave, have the potential to be suffering like me.
   Perhaps I also see in this photograph some of my father, who I idealized as a child to be in possession of great power, even though he readily displayed to me his doubts and insecurities. Maybe the water washing over this animal has captured metaphorically the overwhelming anxiety and fear which seemed to so cripple him later in his life, or the sense I must have had as a young boy that my own feelings were a flood which would destroy me if not contained.
   Although water can feel so wonderful, providing a means for relaxation and cleansing (and for some, purification), it can also overwhelm and suffocate.
   As is sometimes the case in my own life, the very thing that can apparently mend my pain can also cause it.

To stand out and fall apart

   I had seen this shoe on the ground next to Stow Lake Drive for close to a month, watching it slowly deteriorate over the weeks I would pass it during my morning walks. Although I wouldn't always choose to walk in the area where it had come to rest, when I did, I'd look over my shoulder to the right at the appropriate time in hopes of seeing it again. Unfortunately for me, it is now no longer there.

   Below are two pictures that I took of it. The top one was taken perhaps four or five days after I had first spotted it, the second about a week later. 

   Apparently missing its' mate, the shoe seems to have been tossed off by someone. I imagine that it may have been thrown from a car (it laid next to a path used by both pedestrians and automobiles) or more likely, discarded by one of the homeless people that sometimes camp on the hill below. 

   It was and continued to be there amongst the leaves, and although it didn't stand out radically amongst all those browns, reds and greens, the off-white color did distinguish it from its' environs.

And even in those first days, I never was able to see it as anything resembling an entire shoe, though what was there was certainly enough to illustrate what it had once been, or was most likely, meant to be. I have enjoyed watching the remains become a bit assimilated over time, lost into the leaves and sticks during my rather brief relationship with it.

   Although I probably first noticed it because it stood out in color from the surroundings, what really interested me in it was how it seemed to illustrate how it was put together. Its' very constructiveness   fascinated me, and while I do know something about the way shoes in general are made, I am not as familiar with how they fall apart. I am glad that my knowledge is limited in this area, and wonder how many things can show themselves so well without being anything like completely visible.

Fires in France

   I saw the beautiful picture below a couple of days ago in the New York Times, accompanying an article about the wildfires that were burning in Southern France. It shows people taking refuge on a beach as the fires burned in the distance.
   As I look at the image more closely, I'm finding it difficult not to see the people in it as being at leisure, even though I am fully aware that they have been displaced against their wills. The quality of light in the foreground reminds me of the hour just before dusk, though the picture may have been taken in the middle of a sunny day darkened by smoke. Dusk often brings with it a lovely, calming light, and it is my favorite time of day at the beach.
   I am currently recalling the hot and humid summer days of my childhood, remembering when early evening would sometimes lessen the oppressiveness of the day's weather. And even though the image illustrates what I believe must be a tragedy, it is hard to convince myself that there is not something of a relief to the scene, summer weather being on my mind as it is.
   I began the second paragraph in this short blog piece stating that I looked at the picture more closely, because the first and last thing that I notice in it are the beautiful warm grey, grey-pink, and orange tones of the smoke which dominate it. Still, as I look at it for perhaps the fifteenth time, I find it difficult not to dwell on those beautiful colors.
   I have always found it remarkable how stunning destruction can sometimes be when photographed.
   I think of the color pictures on newsprint from the New York Times, the day after the September 11th attacks, and the small, beautiful bursts of fire from the plane fuel igniting. I saved those pictures for a long time.
   Similarly, the concentration of orange color in the picture below serves as a focal point, and here functions as the catalyst for all of those wonderful grey hues. And although I don't believe I can see anything without context, I think that sometimes seeing can be a great pleasure all on its' own.

Flooded

    The picture below is of the Marysville Cemetery in Marysville, California. The cemetery flooded when the nearby Feather River overflowed its banks from the heavy rains we've experienced in the state this winter.
   When I first saw the photograph, I thought that it might be a film still: it looked so strange and otherworldly, like it could exist only for entertainment purposes.
    After looking at it a while longer, I became sad, thinking about those bodies and decomposed remnants under those grave markers, helpless to alter their situations. It struck me that they were so humiliated and suffocated by all of that water.
   It occurred to me that the river cared for nothing but itself.

Seam

   As I came near the end of my morning walk a few days ago, I passed by an area where the grass seemed to be disturbed. Not unusual for the park, I didn't pay too much attention, but as I walked on a bit further, it dawned on me that there was something a bit different about this particular disturbance.
   Doubling back, I realized that it was not the usual divot that I was looking at, rather, the earth was actually pulled back. Perhaps that description points to more intent than was at play here (I don't imagine that someone or thing set out to lift the earth), but the appearance of it anyway filled me with some nice thoughts.
   When I think about something being pulled back or up, I imagine that it is to reveal something under or behind, and when a thing is perhaps only partially revealed, like the soil is in the picture below, I start to imagine what more there is. My thoughts become filled with possibilities.
   For me, all of what is unknown is filed with possibility. And although there are things that I find frightening in this idea (for example my lack of control over it), I do tend to see beauty, especially in the natural world, in what has yet to be determined.
   When things are finished, their completion does not allow me to enter emotionally, nor my mind to wander free.

What's under there? No, don't tell me!