2019: Begin Again

Some people pick a word for the year. Mine for 2019 is YES. As is say YES to opportunities, to challenges, to new adventures and the undiscovered country.

Some people make goals; I do intentions. My intentions are few:

• Photograph trees, a year-long photography project from the mind of David Du Chemin. The end result will be 10-12 images that are the essence of “tree” from my year of focusing on them (pun intended). Expect to see trees popping up a lot in my online images. And in my 52 Frames weekly images.
• Soak up history and connect it to the present. From the struggle for civil rights to the westward migration across the plains and into the west, I want to explore these crucial movements and how they have echoed through the decades and centuries since. I don’t expect any easy answers to this quest, but I’m puzzled and disheartened by the dissonance in American society and feel the roots of our recent decline go much deeper than an election cycle or political parties. By learning more, I hope to make connections and understand better how to effect change, at a personal level and perhaps beyond.

Lofty intentions, you might think, and perhaps they are. I have 365 days ahead, and one can do a lot in a year’s time. I believe in setting a course, then steering by it and adjusting as I go through the year, rather than drifting rudderless and finding myself at the end with nothing learned, nothing gained.

drink from the well
of your self
and begin
again.

Charles Bukowski, Mind and Heart