“Let the beauty we love be what we do.

There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” – Rumi

Oftentimes the aesthetics of a foggy morning, or a tree draped in colourful foliage, or the both together, is so blinding that I have no choice but to accept defeat and take an image. I would never give up on those mornings. But I am learning to not have an instrument on me at all those times.

Other times, nostalgia takes over. Of a land where I was born but never knew too well to another land that I am learning, and learning it well enough to be buried in it. The home of now calls out to the past, and dwelling in what could have been takes ever so much away from present work.

Then there is anthropomorphization, especially when it has no business of being there. The mountain and the lake were here before any humans, and certainly before I stood here. And yet I cannot help but see through the spectacles of my own species. And so much gets lost in translation.

Sometimes, I like to highlight issues such as climate change, or advocate a new parcel of public land as wilderness through my work. And every time I wonder about the passionate conviction, and academic ego masquerading as wisdom.

All this, I presume I do, in the hopes of finding some meaning in my creations. And by extension making my life meaningful.

But far too often- creating, or the illusion of it, gets in the way of living. And I have barely started to live.

One day I shall not carry the mountain on my shoulders. It will be in my heart.

One day I shall not cross the bridge when it comes to it. I will be standing in the water.

On that day, I shall make the right image. That day I shall find the right words. 

And they will mean nothing.