What the Heck is This Words | Pictures Thing?
It’s a blog. Beyond that, no promises as to what exactly it will be.
I’m a creative writer and picture taker since the age of having hair and braces. Now, I focus mostly on nature and our fraught place in it. Rather than morning pages or journalling, which are productive habits for many writers, I like to walk with my camera, see what catches my eye, and snap the image. And pretty soon I’m lost in the cadence of walking and looking, and then a line or a fragment comes from the ether. I’ve learned to follow. The line might be part of a novel I’m working on. It might be short and unto itself. Whichever it is, this routine is the one dependable thing that awakens my muse and sets me to my writing for the day, and I hope it brings a moment of reflection or inspiration to yours.
I call some of what I’ll do here, these short pieces, One Thing, but they are really two; a picture paired with short prose. The subject could be anything. Like poems or stray thoughts but inspired by the photography. Rather than talk about process, I’d rather just do it. And I’ll share other creative work, both brief and long. A story, a poem, an essay. Whatever these posts are, their intent is to both sharpen my blade and hopefully carve out some quiet space for you in the middle of our chaotic days.
Bridge Over the Ravine
Not far from the house I live in is the house where I spent much of my childhood. Down the street, a road dead-ends at an old bridge, still open for pedestrians and cyclists. It crosses an ancient ravine—wide for suburban Chicago—with a narrow ribbon of creek winding through woods at its bottom until it meets the open waters of Lake Michigan.
Wintering
…Dry leaves rattle. Something scurries in the browned reeds. The camera raises, but that 'something' is no more. Late again. Not that it matters. If I've mastered any art in digital photography, it's the art of being late. A second is all it takes and I'm left with what I usually see, which isn't what I could have sworn I saw…
Coming To Shore
It was almost two years ago at a Christmas Eve party in 2022. I'm not the antisocial type, but I found myself looking for a breather from friendly chatter with the people I had just met, nice and welcoming as they were. My thumb was flicking through world events in that desensitized scan so many of us experience. 'Honey, I'll be back; I'm going for an evening scroll...'
That's when some article mentioning ChatGPT and the concept of a large language model caused my eyes to widen. The little man that lives behind my retinas, his day job working the refrigerator when its door shuts, scurried to grab his padded mallet, and hit the rusted tin thing that happens to be my gong-like brain. 'Hey dummy! Yeah, you, pay attention to this!”
Creativity After 50
In my head there should be a factory
Unfortunately it may be closing
It’s more like a dying pet store
animals abandoned
shelled seeds strewn on cage floors
birds flutter around the bars
searching to fly free
peck for seeds but live on
stray chaff
