“You would not cry if you knew that by looking deeply into the rain you would still see the cloud.” Thich Nhat Hanh
At the end of August 2017, I moved to a river valley campground in the Western Mountains, Maine where at this writing I still live and work.
I settled into rural Maine from urban life not seeking supernatural beauty and awe. I was seeking affordable housing. I hadn’t planned to come to this part of the state about which I knew nothing, but the whole one-door-closed-thing happened at the last minute. Photography had accompanied me for the better part of my life, yet I hadn’t planned to become so fully immersed, anchored in a practice, nearly contemplative, of daily photography. I had been turning to prayer, meditation, other arts, writing, poetry translation, more often than not. Now in the wake of intimate death, I was at a loss. Franz had been gone two years. Our home, a rented apartment, still well below market rate, was edging towards 2/3rds of my monthly paycheck. Heading for parts as yet unknown, I had opened a box he prepared for me to be opened only after his death. Inside, handwritten in colored pencil, I found the chapter on clouds and impermanence from Thich Nhat Hanh’s No Death No Fear with instructions to read it every day for 90 days. It made me cry. I wailed until the impulse not to choke overrode my pain. I looked. And I must have looked deeply. What I saw led me here, to a place of obvious impermanence even as I persisted in my dread of change. This next door opened to the sky. Always there, everywhere. To see the fog lift from the river joining the clouds was how I rose at first light. As in how I got out of bed. Meanwhile I couldn’t help notice what the clouds were doing all day long, every day, in their imaginative and mercurial splendor. Never the same, ever the same. Close to home.
Like many, I take pictures to look a little while longer, later. Like some, I take pictures to look deeply enough to see. Into the rain, the fog, and the light.
September 2023.
ps
And like everyone who is at times open to anything and sees what can be seen by oneself alone, apparently, I take pictures to see things, very particular, unvalidated, not in any way at all acknowledged things, clear as day to me.
