Uncategorized – Page 3 – Kathleen Gill

WEEK THIRTY-SIX: INSPIRATION

Clyde Butcher first visited Florida several decades ago. Enchanted by its singular beauty, he stayed and began taking pictures, offering them for sale on the Florida art show circuit. His reputation grew quickly. Butcher is known mostly for his large black and white images of the Everglades, where he made his home for many years and where he still has a gallery. But his portfolio includes unique and stunning images made in many other areas of the state and across the US.

This week I reacquainted myself with Butcher’s work and found myself inspired – inspired to make more black and white images, inspired to plan a week exploring the Everglades, and inspired to drive out to the end of our own Ozello Road, where the Gulf of Mexico meets salt marsh, in search of iconic summer cloud formations.

I do subscribe to the idea that part of one’s purpose in life is to inspire others. But it is just so much fun to be inspired. It is truly one of life’s guilty pleasures. Thank you, Mr. Butcher (www.clydebutcher.com).

WEEK THIRTY-FIVE: BEATING THE HEAT

It is suddenly summer here in Florida. Mornings have turned sultry. There’s a warm heaviness to the air, threaded with the mild scent of jasmine, and even before dawn one can feel the low rumble of thunderstorms building far out in the Gulf. By noon, the searing heat is unbearable. A loud chorus of crickets sings its tribute to the season – a throbbing one-note chant. By late afternoon, all that energy has been captured in onshore thunderheads and is released in a torrent of rain, followed by near-sauna conditions.

There are precious few options for beating the heat. One can simply stay inside, of course – an option that was not available before air conditioning came, none-too-soon, to the southern states. Minimizing clothing helps a bit, and old-timers advise against any type of physical activity while the sun is high. Of course, the very best way to forget about temperature is to simply get wet.

When I was young, my sister and I and the neighborhood kids played a brilliant guessing game. We sat cross-legged in a circle. One child announced that she was thinking of something, a color for instance. Each child then, in circular order, had a chance to guess what that color might be. If you guessed it correctly, a thimble full of ice-cold water was abruptly delivered to your face. It was exhilarating, we dissolved into giggles and the heat was forgotten in no time.

WEEK THIRTY-FOUR: SACRED GROUND

A kayak is the best way to get up close to the low-lying cedar and palm forest that is defined by our river, the Homosassa. This wood is unlike any other I’ve seen and brings to my mind an ancient and untended graveyard. It feels like sacred ground to me.

I’m drawn to these cedar carcasses, each with its own character, and each looking as if it had been struck down prematurely and instantly preserved, like a doomed citizen of Pompeii. A.E. Hausman’s poem, To an Athlete Dying Young, springs to mind:

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s.

WEEK THIRTY-THREE: CARPE DIEM

For the most part, flowers strike me as happily receptive. They are open to the universe and ready to meet the day regardless of what it brings. I do get that carpe diem is advice that most of us need from time to time. But you have to admit that it is a stressful and aggressive way to exist. “Seize” is not a relaxing word.

What about simply meeting the day, being completely receptive to it? “Meet the day” has more appeal to me. It’s so Zen, so without stress or expectations, so natural. And so full of the potential for pleasant surprise. One can simply sit quietly, without pretense or plan, and either deal with or delightedly soak in whatever happens.

I suspect this means I’m approaching retirement or at least a career change.

WEEK THIRTY-TWO: MY LEFT BRAIN

I found a dewy spider’s web, hidden and protected under the boughs of a tree and softly back-lit by the rising sun. I was surprised – captivated by the pageantry.

Here’s the thing, though. I often struggle with what I know, the science of things. Science has its purpose, of course, and I’ve made my living in that world, but it tends to take the wonder away, shining a harsh light, callously dissecting and categorizing nature. Looking at this fresh dew, I try to focus on its clean sparkle, its wetness, its perfect roundness. Dew is visually stunning and any thoughts of dew point or surface tension kill the joy. The same goes for the cypress tree that protects this spider’s web and that is clothed in the morning dew. It is delicate, lushly green and stately. The tree has a scientific name – Taxodium distichum. With all due respect to Linnaeus and his nomenclature, how about something more poetic or memorable, or perhaps no name at all?

I suppose it matters very little what we call the tree, as long we are able to fully experience it. In the words of Romeo’s Juliet – “that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

WEEK THIRTY-ONE: FEAR

As I peered through my viewfinder and telephoto lens to make this image, I felt my pulse quicken. I was looking into this gator’s eyes. He is massive and from this perspective looks ready to lunge forward, legs tense and eyes alert. In fact, though, this gator is behind a fence in a wildlife park. He and his fellow pond-mates are overweight and pretty lazy. One rarely sees them move at all. So any real fear was in my mind and was about expecting the unlikely.

As grown-ups, our fears are no longer about monsters and bogey-men coming to get us but they are still about expecting the unlikely – getting laid off, losing one’s home in a hurricane or tornado, running out of money, succumbing to early-onset dementia, and more. Wouldn’t it be grand if we could live our lives completely free of fear?

WEEK THIRTY: THE SINGULARITY OF THREE

These three barn owls that live at a local wildlife park drew my immediate attention. I think it was their collective gesture, the familiar and comfortable contact. But it was also their “three-ness”.

To many of us, primary numbers can have meaning, sometimes many meanings. For me, though, the number three has always and only been associated with a singular magical truth: I was one of three children, all girls. Interestingly, being one of three sisters made us each feel special. There were, of course, the inevitable and tired comparisons, but even that was its own form of cherished attention. There was a general feeling of completeness, a sense of a matched set – each unique but part of the whole. Each refining her own role and identity in the set – oldest, middle, youngest.

We lost Sally, the middle sister and probably the most complex in our set of three, a year ago this week. I dearly miss her, every day, and the owls reminded me of that hole in my heart where the three-ness used to reside.

WEEK TWENTY-NINE: THE SEASON

It is Easter Weekend and here in Florida it is the peak of “the season”. That is the term for the perfect storm that happens when all of the winter residents are, indeed, in residence and when most of the other folks who live north of the Mason-Dixon Line, and who are bone-tired of winter, boogie south just as far as their vehicles will carry them.

I have been out and about today, preparing for an Easter Sunday entertaining family and friends, and predictably found myself in the thick of this frenzy. The short-term population boom was obvious, even in our little fishing village. Highways clogged with motor homes festooned with bicycles and towing automobiles behind, like little cabooses, and small sedans laden with kayaks and kids’ floats – the scene reminiscent of a certain Chevy Chase movie.

I’m not sure if there is an official “Easter season spirit” like there is for the Christmas season, but if there were such a spirit, it would surely involve empathy and gratitude. So I’m being empathetic (these people have suffered through a horrendous winter) and grateful – that apparently the US economy and Florida’s most important industry have both recovered. It’s like old times.

Happy Easter/Passover to all.

WEEK TWENTY-EIGHT: IS IT REALLY STEALING?

One of the modern markers of spring, most anywhere, is the appearance of waves and waves of flowers at one’s local garden center. They are breath-taking, and they stir in me a yen to get outside and dig. One clear bright morning this week, after a soaking rain, I stopped into my local store just to whet my appetite – I couldn’t help myself – and was handsomely rewarded. Dazzling pinks, luscious oranges, creamy whites, sunny yellows, all fresh and dewy in that morning light.

Before I knew it, out came the camera and I was happily snapping away. Something felt odd, though, and I glanced around me. Sure enough, a worker was keeping an eye on me. I wasn’t ready to stop shooting, but now I became furtive. I placed a few flats of annuals in my shopping cart and waited for him to move out of sight before continuing. Eventually I paid for my selections and left. I was happy with my photographic harvest that day, but it felt a bit like plunder. For the life of me, I can’t work out why that is. Is it stealing if the victim lost nothing?

WEEK TWENTY-SEVEN: HEDONISM

Like most everyone else, I love the beach – especially along the Atlantic Ocean. On windy days, with a wind from the east, the waves are excited, building momentum, merging, crashing, tossing spray and running frantically up the packed sand, forcing awareness. They are insistent that way, like my daughter at five, relentlessly coming at me, demanding my full attention and rewarding that attention with a raw breathless energy. But on days when there is a soft westerly breeze, all is different. The sea is meditating – breathing softly – each exhale a sigh. The waves are there but quieter and more orderly, falling forward in slow motion, creating a series of soft fading whispers that demand nothing.

We recently spent three days in Vero Beach. Photo-wise, I came away with only this quirky image I made during breakfast at the hotel, from the beach-side patio. It is an odd photo, but it captures that beachy feeling. There are sailing pelicans and palm trees and a little piece of ocean in the corner, providing context.

A beach-side breakfast is my personal definition of hedonism, for what could be better – sandy flip-flops, tee shirt and shorts, sunglasses, soft breeze and the sound of those meditating waves. And an ice-cold glass of fresh orange juice. I could sit there all morning until the lunch menu comes out, switching contentedly to a Bloody Mary. It’s all too delicious.