January 10, 2016

finding beauty

Pack up all those phantoms
Shoulder that invisible load
Keep on riding North and West
Haunting that wilderness road
Like a ghost rider

Carry all those phantoms
Through bitter wind and stormy skies
From the desert to the mountain
From the lowest low to the highest high
Like a ghost rider
Keep on riding North and West
Then circle South and East
Show me beauty but there is no peace
For the ghost rider

- n. peart 


During a dark night of the soul, pleasurable things often drop to the wayside. Slowly, one begins to touch those old parts to see how they feel. First, with hesitancy and a quick withdrawal. With time, one grabs the thing, flips it over in one's hands, gets the weight of it, the texture, the smell. Photography is one of those things I recently started exploring. At a time, I could capture beautiful scenes while backpacking. But as backpacking fell off, so did photography. Now, by chance I've noticed my new iPhone has quite phenomenal optics. I still could do more with my old SLR camera but I'm learning to find find beauty in that around me. Sure the framing is off, the composition and lighting could be better. But it's early on. Here is a water wall of the McGovern Center for Humanities (proud alumnus) which I pass on the way home from the hospital. 

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