Becoming whole

Ruby-throated hummingbird having a snack

The first seven weeks of my ten-week sojourn in the Eastern time zone is being spent out in the bucolic countryside: it's a chance to do some thinking, create some new work, and rediscover parts of my soul. One of those parts is writing, and I'm finally interested again in doing some, as opposed to everything I've written after, which has been done mostly because I had to, for various and sundry reasons. Blue moon, pink sky

The nice part is that it doesn't feel unnatural to sit down at the keyboard (or, more importantly, with my journal and a pen) and just let the words flow out. I've written two long emails this week, a journal entry, and have enough pictures I'm happy with and stories to tell about them, to fill two blog entries, of which this is the first. My first camera, taken by my newest camera

It's been fun touring around the countryside too. At Lang Pioneer Village, they had a lovely show about the Eaton's catalogue, and how it changed over the years. My favourite piece was this wonderful camera: my parents had one and let me play around with it as a child. The pictures in the family album I have that date from the mid-1950s to the mid/late-1960s were mostly taken with it, and it gave me my first real taste of image-making. Great blue heron and duck friends

And I've been able to visit old friends, share laughter, and look at the world again in different ways. Along with the beauty, and to my utter amazement, I'm starting to find slivers of peace in my existence: the shift has been subtle, but perceptible. A walk in the woods, with art

I have adventured in all four directions, walking on familiar paths and driving on new roads, seeing old friends and making new ones, both animate and inanimate. C to C (2007) Designed by John Shaw-Rimmington and constructed by the students of the 2007 Dry Stone Structures Course, Fleming College, Haliburton School of The Arts. Two intertwined "C" shaped dry stone walls, made with locally quarried granite. My favourite piece at the Sculpture Forest.

The next step is to find a way to integrate what I've been experiencing with who I used to be, who I am now, and who I want to be. That's going to be a challenge, but not an insurmountable one.