I have rituals on my daily walk: to take at least one photo to mark my creative process in nature; an interesting, eye-catching, beautiful, curious natural, spontaneous, unposed picture of something I see that moves me on an emotional or spiritual level - and on most days it's more than one, it's many. I must photograph what I see and don't disturb or alter in any way; I find this something wonderful as it is, I leave it as I found it.

Because I am traveling today, I can't help it; I feel impatient in the woods, on the brook, at the river. I have time, but I don't feel as if I do. I can take my time, but I don't, I cut it short. This is a mild travel anxiety, I suppose. Because I will fly today, I've already left the ground. And so I'm not seeing and smelling and feeling and appreciating my surroundings the way I have every other day of this winter walking and gliding over ice.

It's okay. I find a little patch of ice and frame it: a blue explosion of air bubbles in the restless brook. There's no stillness in this photo that caught my eye, like a map of my consciousness, reflecting my mood.

I have felt so grateful for winter this week, not because I'm leaving, but because I have been fed every day this wonderful fresh air and spirit of the cold water, warming, cooling, melting, freezing, the trees and the leaves and the sticks and berries and woodpeckers and owls and the cattails coming undone. Than you Rocky Narrows, Thank you, Charles River. For now, goodbye.

All photos and text copyright Kelly DuMar 2018