Thanks for beaches
Day Three in Jacksonville and I'm ready for some sand between my toes.
I am not a natural at the game of "meet people and make them fall in love with your film". I am by nature a bit shy. (It's true, I am.) If I had it my way, I'd just meet people one on one, hopefully people I've known a long time who love me even if I say something stupid, and when I trip and almost fall and when there's something stuck on my teeth. After a day of meetings I'm more exhausted than if I'd run a marathon. I need down time.
On Wednesday I wasn't supposed to be anywhere until late in the afternoon. Still, I got up early, ran my 3 miles and hit the email servers like it was a regular day. Why? I'm weird, that's why.
Then at some point, Kat emailed me and said that I should go to the beach.
I found Neptune Beach and slipped off my shoes, rubbed on some sunscreen and walked. The waves lapped up around my legs, tiny fish darted around my ankles, I looked for shells and I looked at the water.
It was quiet, except for the sound of the surf. There were people: lifeguards, a family or two, a jogger or two, and one little girl who sat in a tidepool talking to herself unaware of anyone else. I looked up and saw a bridge in the distance. I decided to walk to the bridge and back. This would give me a goal, a direction, something to move toward.
Wait a minute...
I don't need a goal.
I just walked.
Those little fish started nipping at my toes. I found a place with sand terraces and I jumped from one to the next and almost fell a few times. It was nice and messy and I collected some sand and some of that nice clean salty ocean smell in my hair and my clothes. I found a shell with a hole in it. I believe that rocks and shells with holes in them are lucky.
I thought about firing up my cameras again, especially my old still camera, the one I have so much fun with and took some nice shots with, so people said, until I got busy and put it aside. I thought about how wonderful darkrooms are, but how messy they are and I thought about having a real negative scanner and a true grayscale printer so I can take pictures on film and develop them digitally. I thought about projects I've laid aside. I thought about the copious amounts of time I would have, clock time and thinking time, after Annalise is tucked into college. I thought about all of that and I thought about how lucky I was to be walking on a beach. I haven't been on a beach since Maggie and I took Annalise to the Texas coast when I first moved back to Texas.
We ran along the beach as a storm came in, it was a cold day and the beach was covered in sleet. Another lucky day.
Somehow an hour passed. The sand was hot, so I hop-walked to a shady spot and took this picture of my feet and the lucky shell.
file under: film, life in general
I am not a natural at the game of "meet people and make them fall in love with your film". I am by nature a bit shy. (It's true, I am.) If I had it my way, I'd just meet people one on one, hopefully people I've known a long time who love me even if I say something stupid, and when I trip and almost fall and when there's something stuck on my teeth. After a day of meetings I'm more exhausted than if I'd run a marathon. I need down time.
On Wednesday I wasn't supposed to be anywhere until late in the afternoon. Still, I got up early, ran my 3 miles and hit the email servers like it was a regular day. Why? I'm weird, that's why.
Then at some point, Kat emailed me and said that I should go to the beach.
I found Neptune Beach and slipped off my shoes, rubbed on some sunscreen and walked. The waves lapped up around my legs, tiny fish darted around my ankles, I looked for shells and I looked at the water.
It was quiet, except for the sound of the surf. There were people: lifeguards, a family or two, a jogger or two, and one little girl who sat in a tidepool talking to herself unaware of anyone else. I looked up and saw a bridge in the distance. I decided to walk to the bridge and back. This would give me a goal, a direction, something to move toward.
Wait a minute...
I don't need a goal.
I just walked.
Those little fish started nipping at my toes. I found a place with sand terraces and I jumped from one to the next and almost fell a few times. It was nice and messy and I collected some sand and some of that nice clean salty ocean smell in my hair and my clothes. I found a shell with a hole in it. I believe that rocks and shells with holes in them are lucky.
I thought about firing up my cameras again, especially my old still camera, the one I have so much fun with and took some nice shots with, so people said, until I got busy and put it aside. I thought about how wonderful darkrooms are, but how messy they are and I thought about having a real negative scanner and a true grayscale printer so I can take pictures on film and develop them digitally. I thought about projects I've laid aside. I thought about the copious amounts of time I would have, clock time and thinking time, after Annalise is tucked into college. I thought about all of that and I thought about how lucky I was to be walking on a beach. I haven't been on a beach since Maggie and I took Annalise to the Texas coast when I first moved back to Texas.
We ran along the beach as a storm came in, it was a cold day and the beach was covered in sleet. Another lucky day.Somehow an hour passed. The sand was hot, so I hop-walked to a shady spot and took this picture of my feet and the lucky shell.
file under: film, life in general
Labels: film
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