Island in the Net by Khürt Williams
Technology and Photography Musings. Established circa 2000.
Your sanctuary is your ideal place of relaxation, tranquillity and safety and you can create it exactly as you want it.
Today I retreated to the sofa in my den. No energy for the outdoors today. No energy for sanctuary in the woodlands.
Submitted for the 100DaysToOffload project and the Lens-Artists Weekly Photo Challenge #108: Sanctuary.
You would think that after over two months of living with COVID restrictions on my life, I would have adjusted. That I would find ways to get out of bed with a purpose. But I do not. Some days are "meh", and some days I feel down. I looked at my calendar, and I saw how many of our planned trips and experiences that won't be happening this year. Some are seasonal. May and June were going to be busy months.
The one thing that is bothering me is cancelling the warbler photography field trip and workshop with Ray Hennessey. I had planned that experience with a friend. I could not fathom how the three of us would socially distance in the woods while from a distance, Ray tried his best to help us photograph birds. This week I was feeling angry and bitter. I am sure it showed in the tone of my blog posts. My friend was not interested in doing the workshop anymore, so I cancelled. But I think I want to ask Ray if we can work out a way for just him and myself to do the workshop.
Bhavna has a way of sensing what I need even before I know what I need. Bhavna, Kiran and I went for a walk around the Aunt Molly section of the St. Michael's Farm Preserve Trail in Hopewell Township which is a 15-minute drive from home. The ground was not as wet and muddy as we had expected. Bhavna marvelled at how much the vegetation had grown, changing the look and the experience of the woods. As usual, because my observation and photography slow things down, Kiran walked ahead. Bhavna commented that the air smelled "weird" and I agreed. I think it was the smell of damp decaying vegetation which was becoming compost for the newer growing plants.
I saw many fresh wildflowers but the Jack-in-The-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) was the only one which I recognised. I think this was my first time seeing them. I saw tall-growing stems with white and purple flowers and small delicate spike white flowers lower to the grown growing in between thickets of low growing plants. But I also saw a lot of green.
Update: I think it’s better to update this post to link to the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #204 Doors/Doorways than to repost the same photos to a new post.
Some time ago, after many explorations of the Princeton University campus, I had noticed that many university buildings had doors that would appear at seemingly random and odd places. In many cases, these doors had no "step-up" and appeared to be hanging from the walls. I was always curious to know what lay behind the doors. Were they even real doors or just frames? Or perhaps they were magic portals like the ones in Harry Potter.
Yesterday when I was out walking around Princeton getting some exercise with my wife as well as practicing not going bonkers from living this abnormal life, I started photographing the doors that appeared next to the entrances of the storefronts, and my curiosity returned. I shared my thoughts about the Princeton University doors with my wife, who flattened my fantasies by suggesting that perhaps the doors were entryways for the apartment residents who lived above the storefronts.
