Colorado

Although I hadn’t expected a snowstorm in late April, it had its upside after the storm when I wandered around the campground with my camera. What struck me as most interesting weren’t the wide vistas with white fields and tall trees but the branches heavy with snow.

The snow outlined bare branches on this tree, with ice beneath the branches as the snow melted then froze.

And some branches can hold more snow than others! This almost looks like a balancing act, there is so much weight on each of the thin branches.

By Sunday morning, the snow was melting quickly and the green sprouts on the trees were stretching towards the weak sunlight. By Sunday night, most of the snow was gone, and only memories remained.

“The snow itself is lonely or, if you prefer, self-sufficient. There is no other time when the whole world seems composed of one thing and one thing only.”

Joseph Wood Krutch

After the hustle and bustle of Albuquerque and Santa Fe, I booked myself a quiet week at Trinidad Lake because I had some thinking to do about “big things in life” and how I’m doing 8 months after retiring and almost a year after becoming an RV full-timer. I was struggling to articulate my issues all week, until two conversations with two friends, followed by a long walk by the water.

The first breakthrough was in the form of a metaphor from the first friend and conversation. After I retired, I was still on the “working for a living” shore for some months, working through the effects of leaving work. Eventually, though I jumped into the water. I’ve been swimming for a while now, and sometimes it feels like I’m just treading water. But now that I look at it, I have been slowly swimming to another shore. I liked the idea that I’m am simply between shores, rather than wandering aimlessly in the desert of life.

The second conversation was with a friend who had stepped away from the workforce for several years, and who understood exactly where I am, having gone from full-on productivity for decades to “huh, what now?” status as a retired worker-bee. We talked about being too young to retire from life, and what might be next up for me. It was a good talk but I still didn’t have a clear direction.

Later that day, I walked around the lake, taking the photographs that are shown here, and it was there that I realized I have already landed on a shore, I just couldn’t see it until now. I am standing on that new shore as an artist. That’s who I am now.

I am an artist. I am a photographer. Wow, that’s kind of scary to put in writing. Or publish in a blog post. But there it is.

I create images because it’s the way I express myself, from the composition to the colors to the presentation. And yet it feels so audacious to say “I’m an artist” because I always thought artists were super-talented, the chosen ones who had galleries and agents and followings, and someone like me, a high-tech worker-bee, couldn’t ever be one of those people. But here I am.

I don’t know where this choice will lead, but I’m going to find out. And it’s way better than treading water in the cold ocean of uncertainty.

I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart.

Vincent van Gogh