I just wanted to share a quick thing with you that just happened to me.
My father and I took the dog for a walk on the beach in Cape May where my parents live.
This was a brilliant idea because it is brisk and super windy... I wore three fleece coats!
I took the camera, because taking a camera with me EVERYwhere these days, just makes it all better.
(see how much better this letter is with photos!)
We were on the beach with the dog- there is no better place to be with a giant dog, or two giant dogs as the case was last weekend- and I was trying to take some pictures of the rocks in the sand. I found one little scene that fit inside my camera frame, in the top right corner there was a feather.
I wanted to make the individual rocks appear as a sort of haze, their colors were bold compared to the slate grey of what I can only assume to be a seagull feather. I wanted the details of the feather to be all that we intact, considering the feather itself had been detached from its original vessel. While I was in the middle of fiddling with the settings a HUGE gust of wind shot sand directly into my face and eyeballs. My head jerked up but I tried to keep my camera pointing to the same shot. Unfortunately, when I looked down through the viewfinder, after the wind was done blowing sand in my face, the feather had blown away.
Are you wondering why this is significant? I'll tell you, because for some reason afterI thought about what I was thinking about, I thought that I really wanted to tell you. Also, I am compelled to write this to you on my yoga blog because it falls in line with my attitude/state/feelings as I move into my yogi-self.
When I looked back down and the feather had blown away I did not mouth the word "fuck" or twist my face in anger, nor did a tidal wave of sadness come over me. I did not think, "this wil never happen again," or "that was about to be the best picture of my life." Instead I felt like I was a million airwaves outside myself watching this happen. From there I was identifying all of these things that could be happening to the me that I was watching.
Still holding my camera, face down in the sand, framing the spot where the feather had once been, I was brought back to my body and felt glad that you exist, for to tell this whole thing to, and glad that Brandon exists, because without his camera none of this would be happening, and most of all glad that I exist to have feelings of contentment and satisfaction with those feelings.
Oh Mary how your existence inspires me. Oh feather, could it be, the ultimate metaphor:
I can imagine you either loving or hating this movie.
Your student forever,
Sincerely,
Mary
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Wow! I just saw your note to me in facebook world. I'm still not very good at fielding messages that way. E-mail (that old-fashioned thing) seems much more direct, and even a place to take refuge in from facebook. Imagine that! What does this suggest about letters one gets through the mail mail?
ReplyDeleteI loved reading your account of being on the beach at Cape May and having that aesthetic encounter, rife with desire and taking aim and composition and vision, and the feather being plucked away by a force of nature, and that leading you to view the whole experience from a higher plane rather than feel compelled to break the camera or scream. Would love to hear more about your evolving yogi self and its relation to making art.
Ah, Forest Gump: hate vs. like, but how did you know it was one or the other?
Cape May: you bring me back with these photos, but you don't know it: to my 13 year old self and trips to the beaches of Cape May from Darby, PA with a friend and her grandmother. She had a little bungalow and would take my friend and me to the "shore" for a few days. I'll have to find some of my photos from those days and share them with you. Maybe that feather had fallen from my 70s fringed vest, complete with peace sign.
with a hug from
Mary