The urge to write comes in fits and starts, but lately haiku has drawn me in and I respond to its economies of length, of expression. Wonder if it is about not pressuring myself to do more. Probably.

I’ve also been working on a blog piece about cleaning my family’s place out, which was a mammoth undertaking. The importance of that piece to me lies in the loss of place and identity, the clearing out of things that don’t matter and the taking in of things that do, like relationships.

A writer I greatly respect posted recently that writing is hard work. Yes, I agree with that, having been through that process with my drawings over the years. Simply having the creative urge is all well and good ~we’d be nowhere without it~ but taking that urge and channeling it through one’s own prism is quite a process, and not done lightly.

Photography is an area where I’ve discovered that emotion cannot carry me all the way. Many times I’ll want to shoot something because I have a visceral reaction to its beauty, a color, a circumstance. It took quite a while for me to stop and think about composition, for instance. The surprise has been that the emotion remains after I stop to consider how to capture what I’m seeing.

Right now it is High Fall up here in New Hampshire. The colors are intense and still haven’t peaked, an amazing year for color. I’ve been making the rounds of favorite places to shoot, many on a daily basis. The dogs don’t quite know what to make of these last few days. We get out at Rockwood Pond, they swim, I shoot, back in the car and off to the wetland. Repeat. The other day they were ready to go home before I was!

That’s pretty much where I am too, sated, filled up with all of the color and glow and glory around me. Not that I won’t take some pictures, or feel the colors in my gut. Just going to walk, look, and enjoy. The dogs will be happy.