Found Cathedral

The cottonwoods are blooming on Sauvie Island. They utter a sweet, wild, musky fragrance like nothing else in all the world. Little puffs of cotton float through the air and collect in white rows along the waterline. All is lush and wet, fecund, unfurling, bursting its buds and swelling with life. I spent several hours strolling, quiet and slow, full of gratitude. A few more images are here.

I'm studying work recommended by Ceridwen, The Edge of the Land, by Fay Godwin: black and white pictures of coastline all around the UK. Godwin says she particularly loves the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path, but she includes no pictures of it in this book. Fortunately I've seen it often in Ceridwen's blips. Godwin writes, "When I can go to sleep to the sound of the waves, when I can look out and watch the moon tracking across the sea, or the sun rising over it, how could I leave?" She wakes old longings in me.

I'm two and a half hours from the sea, so I made do with a trip to the river. When I left home it was misting rain, and soon after I got to the island it started pouring, so I sat in my car for a while and studied Godwin's pictures. Then the sun came out and the later afternoon was splendid, so I walked on the long sandy river bank, thinking about the ways I get caught up in pushing rivers. I am retired, completely free to do as I like, and yet without any coercion or pressure from outside, I take on too many projects, do too much, wear myself out, sleep too little, and begin doing everything badly. I begin to notice I'm not 100% where I am. I'm a little behind and ahead of myself, a little fractured and spacey.

My cure for this is to stop. Go off by myself for a few hours with the camera. Be still. Smell the air. Listen. Let time come to me, and when it does, see what there is to love.