The Process of Healing

Big, Fat Myth: Colds Are Common

Whew! I think I’m back amongst the living now, after a bout with a beastly cold. Why do they make a “cold” sound so “common”, when you feel so UNcommonly miserable with one?

“Blech!” I say.

Of course, said beastly arrived 2 days before I had to fly home from New York. THAT was a helluva long day! Thanks to doTerra essential oils, Mucinex and Ricola Extra Strength lozenges… I got home intact and even stayed self-contained enough that everyone around me should have been protected too. Then I went straight to bed! The one activity that always soothes? Processing photos. It’s the one thing that gets my mind on something it loves whilst my body heals. This was the first one I tackled:

Duality

I had a dual concept in mind when I photographed this.
First, contrast; one disparate element against another. In this case… transition & fluttery motion against irresolute solidity.

The autumn-colored leaves were transition-y all by themselves. In a couple of weeks, they’d be gone – but not before going out with a flash of color and brilliance that shouts “Life Before All!!” like some heroic soldier thrusting a sword heavenward, like a final declaration of his soul’s intent whilst perched on the highest point of the battle ramparts. (anybody else hear strains of the “Les Miserables” score just now?).

And motion… leaves fluttering in the snappy winds of a chilly fall day – whilst the NY City Marathon was being run just a couple of miles away. They were just a few, a mini-bunch, an outreach program all their own, poking out from the trunk of their deep-rooted home.

I wanted to capture that, yes… but something more, too.

The tree itself. Deep, dark, showing the tracks of its time. With perhaps a breath of steampunk. It was, after all, New York… Gotham itself. Trees grow there… but they are a breed apart, surviving and thriving to evolve with a character all their own, unlike anywhere else.

Like each of us, evolving within our worlds. Complex. Duality, at the very least. Light and dark, movement and stillness.

The stuff I think about when I can’t think about anything else!