No Picture this time … isn’t that strange for a photography website?

I need to get back to this. I need to get back to this. Ineedtogetbacktothis. I. Need. To. Get. Back. To. This. I NEED to get back to THIS.

I broke the promise I made to myself when I started this adventure. I promised myself I wouldn’t let it get away from me. I promised myself it would be sacred and a priority. That it would give me a reason to write. A place to write. It would serve as a reminder that I’m a better person when I take time to put pen to paper instead of hoard my thoughts in what always becomes a dark corner in an unlit room, dank, full of stank, not even a place Edgar Allan Poe would relish. I forgot that promise. I’m not good at apologizing, especially to myself.

It’s time. I’m sorry.

I spent February looking forward to March, hoping for sunlight and greenery, yellow sun and blue skies. Wishing on things over which I had no control. Hoping change would take care of itself. It doesn’t. I know that. But still, I bang my head against the same wall, do the same thing over and over, hope for different results. The definition of insanity.

March, the world’s longest month, drew life out of me with each snowflake, each shiver, each dark morning. It didn’t happen all at once - that might have been noticeable. This was a slow depletion, and it wasn’t until I was nearly flat that I realized just how deflated I’d become.

The light at end of the Tunnel of March was the South Carolina Sunlight. It took longer to find this year. Blizzard-level snows along I77 in West Virginia perpetuated the nonsense. Finally, we crossed the IOP Connector, and there on the horizon was the glint of ocean, the sparkle of sun, the bluest sky, and for the first time in too long, I rolled the windows down and took a deep breath in like my life depended on it, which it did.

Rebirth ensued. I slept with the window open, drank the sweet smell of honeysuckle, saw the buds of lilacs and magnoias open, saved the life of three starfish, and found two nearly-whole sand dollars. It may be trite to carry on about the healing powers of salt water, but there’s a reason for this hackneyed metaphor - it’s true. Baptized by tears, sweat, and ocean. My spirit is awake.

It was a week unplugged: sunshine, wind, waves, turtles, birds’ songs, long walks, long conversations, long, dramatic card games at a long kitchen table. It was rising early to catch the break of light, and pedaling fast to drink in the sky. It was remembering to look through my lens. It was Langston Hughes, William Carlos Williams, Maya Angelou, and Amanda Gorman through the eyes of 7th graders. It was Charlie Parker, Jack Johnson, the Indigo Girls, and getting closer to fine. It was a text from my Emily who reminded me to write. It was a Holy Thursday with the high-priestess of poetry at whose altar I need to spend more time. It was a Tuesday morning with dano, Aristotle, and Billy Collins.

Lots of people notice the world around them. Poets are the ones who take the time to sit down and put the world around them on paper.

Yes, we are!