Perspective

November 30 , 2005

I slacked this morning.

Didn't set the alarm clock last night and slept right through swimming. I thought about it on the way into school for an exam review, and I also thought about putting my bike in the back of my car to ride after class... but you know where all that thinking gets you without any action?

Zippo, and not like the lighter.

I sat in the sun and studied some, all the while thinking about being out walking.

"Nah, the wind is too strong. It will be freezing, no matter how high you go."

"Whimp, It's sunny. Get off your fat ass and go walk."

So I did.

A couple of entries ago when I was walking in this same place, I leaned my camera against a post marking the edge of the wilderness. That evening I caught the moon.

This evening, braced against that same post, I watched and fired off shot after shot of a red tailed hawk (like the one I shot in my back yard here) soaring on the strong winds.

What was really unique about this sequence of shots was that the hawk basically never moved. With the slightest of movement the hawk was able to stay stationary over for the longest time.

I guess this is one time when you could say he really did have the bird's eye view

I tried to get closer, but by the time I had gotten all the gear ready, the hawk was gone.

Look at him looking straight down, hunting for dinner.

But it's about perspective that I want to write, and the bird's eye view just gives me a nice platform from which to speak.

Unfortunately, for today, it's not about goodness and light and joy, but sorrow, and anguish and what will be, for one in this place, the journey into a really dark night of the soul.

In June of this year I was stunned as I read the words in a diary, "My son (13 year old) is dead.

Then sometime over the summer another writer lost his daugter.

And now the police have gone to the door of another writer that I read on occasion, to give her the news that her son was dead.

Some days the stories you read, and the pictures you find encourage and inspire.

Other days, it's just plain tough.