“It is a cruel, ironical art, photography. The dragging of captured moments into the future; moments that should have been allowed to be evaporate into the past; should exist only in memories, glimpsed through the fog of events that came after. Photographs force us to see people before their future weighed them down….” ― Kate Morton, The House at Riverton
I’ve been walking more, trying to average at least three miles per day. Once the daily horror lessens a bit (if it does) we want to be able to get out, take the Casita on trips – and I will be substituting a lot of hiking for my bike riding. I have enjoyed my walks – sometimes listening to podcasts, sometimes stopping for coffee, sometimes stopping for writing in my journal.
I haven’t been using my DSLR lately; any photographs I take have been done with my phone. I miss the heft, the sound, and, most of all, the versatility of the big camera. But who has time to mess with shit like that?
Today, I figured out how to combine all three. I rode my Giant cargo bike (which is very slow, yet useful during the winter months) about three miles to a parking lot at the trailhead for the Spring Creek Greenbelt in Garland. Then I locked my bike up and went for a walk (only managed a couple miles, but that’s OK) with my camera, looking for photographic opportunities.
I enjoyed it. Looking at the maps, I found another trailhead within biking distance that offers a more extensive trail system. May try that tomorrow, before the nasty weather has a chance to get here.
Manhole Cover, Spring Creek Greenbelt, Garland, Texas
At other times I find pages that I not only don’t remember having written, which in itself doesn’t astonish me, but that I don’t even remember having been capable of writing, which terrifies me.
—-Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
Newspaper taped to a window, Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas
Women Trampled as 26 Manhole Covers Burst
Shoppers Flee Terror-Stricken as Sky is Alight With Flame; Windows Shattered for Blocks
Hubert hated being the intern. Of course, he would be the one that the editor ordered back to the scene of the explosion, after all the excitement had died down, “Get the Hell back there and you count every one of those manholes!” the editor screamed, turning a deep shade of beet red. “I want to know if it was five or five hundred…. and be exact! And no Goddamn Lollygaggin’!”
Everyone in the newroom laughed at Hubert as he hung his head and slumped toward the door.
“Be sure and count them exact! Har! Har!” smirked Simpson from his typewriter. Hubert ignored him but glanced at the copy as he trudged by, “Injured, cut, and bloodstained…” was all he had typed.
What a crappy day – they would all be writing lurid copy while he was out counting manholes… getting them exact.
———–
“Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen….” Hubert counted as he walked along the street. He carried a small notepad and a pencil that he had pulled down from his hat, labelled “Daily Digest” after the paper he interned for.
“Hey, you! Are you a newspaperman?”
The loud, sharp, and unexpected voice broke his concentration, but he was able to scribble down a quick “19” before he forgot and had to start over.
“Not exactly,” Hubert started to reply, “I’m an inter….” Then he looked up to see what he was sure was the most beautiful woman he had seen in his life striding toward him. “Ummm, I’m the head reporter for the Daily Digest,” tapping his hat, “I’m down here to find out what happened today.”
(and at this point I had to go, maybe I’ll write more later)
Bill Chance 