nothing lasts forever…

21 Monday May 2018

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I knew if I left writing about our travels until I got home again the writing would not be the same, if it even happened at all. There is always so much catching up to do, even when you are away for only three weeks, as we were. And then there is this thing I have noticed…I am never the same when I return from a trip to another country. I can never quite fit back into the same groove as when I left. Truth be told, I kind of like that. Travel changes me in ways it is difficult to describe. At least I have photos, and a few notes I managed to make along the way.

Debris along Bruce Bay

About a week into the trip, on a grey, overcast and lightly raining day between Franz Josef Glacier and Haast in the northwest of the South Island of New Zealand, we came upon Bruce Bay. We had not heard of it but it came at a time when a break in the driving was welcome and we were curious. When we first got out of the car I noticed an odd pile of smooth, white stones. It was obvious they had been intentionally placed there, but to what purpose? Looking up and down the beach we could see that there must have been some serious weather in recent times. The beach was eroded and large pieces of trees and giant seaweed had been washed up. Don walked off a little way, while I studied the stones. I was curious about the source of the stones and looked over the edge of the small precipice created by the erosion. Down below, maybe 10 feet, I could see smooth stones scattered all over the wet sand. It appeared people had been walking down to the beach and choosing a stone to bring back up to the top. And then, being human, they did a very curious thing. Each stone had been written on with texta (markers). There was either a message or a person’s name. I wondered if the name on the stone was the person who was writing the message, or someone they were missing. While we were there we noticed a couple of other people who arrived just after us, contributing to the pile. We did not. I recently heard, it says more about us, the things that we don’t do, than the things that we do. I wonder. Don said he was amazed how many people were carrying permanent markers! We laughed…and later I realised I had one too, in my drawing kit!

Stones of humanity

The day was monochromatic, ranging from mid-grey to almost, but not quite, black. As I looked up I saw Don standing on the beach, debris strewn on the sand as far as one could see. At my feet were the stones, a kind of monument to the human race, I supposed. Individual, but gathered together as a whole. Most were inscribed in a very considered way, and so neatly done, some faded, some vibrant. I took the photo of Don. And then I took a couple of photos of the stones. I wish now I’d taken more, why, I have no idea.

Some faded markings on beach stones

Later that evening we settled into the least luxurious accommodation of our trip, and logged into the Wifi to check email. The room was cramped and smelled of dampness, which was the prevailing condition in this part of the island. The wifi was good but there was no telephone signal! Haast is in a 244km blackout zone, and was just about to get mobile phone reception for the first time at the end of May 2018. This small, remote community had a nice information centre and several motels large enough to hold a few busloads of tourists. The town also housed the people who serviced it all. Don looked up from his iPad and said, “I’ve just gotten a message from Steve…Dad has died.”

I thought of that solitary silhouette I captured on the beach, and the pile of humanity represented at my feet earlier that day. I wonder how many people have a photo of themselves on the day their last parent has died? Alone, but not yet knowing you are alone. It was all okay, but still. Don had returned from seeing his Father, for what he knew would be the last time, only two weeks before departing for New Zealand.

Such is life. And death. They find us no matter where we are.

Alone.

supporting my habits

25 Wednesday Nov 2015

Posted by Ardys in 365 Photo Challenge, Creativity, Inspiration

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365photochallenge, Better than Before, Change, Gretchen Rubin, Habits, self improvement, Waterlogue app

I’m getting to the pointy end of the 365 Photo Challenge. I have passed day 330. Wow. And yet…and yet…success does not seem guaranteed, but probable. I am feeling the pressure of constraints I have put on myself to try and keep improving my photography, and learn, and to maintain a relatively high quality in the photos I use. No lazy snapshots. This is the University of Life.

Most of my photos have been taken around my immediate environment of Alice Springs but also, of course on our travels. Most, I take on my morning walks. Until a couple of weeks ago when it rained, the extreme dry conditions made everything look tired and dusty, and my inspiration languished a little too. The rain was a relief, but things are already dry again, causing me to have to look carefully to find the moments to capture. But this time, the end is in sight.

Landscape on Alice Springs Golf course edited in Waterlogue

For the first months of this project, I wondered ‘Why is it I have been able to step into this challenge and get so far into it?’ As often happens, a book came into my field of awareness that addresses that very question. A couple of months ago I gave into Better than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives by Gretchen Rubin. Even though I had told myself I was not going to buy any more self improvement books, this one especially piqued my interest. I ‘caved’ and bought it to read on our recent trip. At first I was just curious to discover why it is that at various times in life I have made a decision to do something and then just done it. Other times, not so much. Gretchen is a meticulous researcher and an entertaining, non-fiction writer. She analysed a lot of data about the nature of habits and habit building and presented it in such a way that it could be useful for either building new habits or getting rid of undesirable ones.

I need to add a caveat here. The reason I had decided not to delve into any more self improvement books was that I began to feel ‘flawed’ and needing to be fixed, rather than feeling perfectly imperfect–which was closer to how I wanted to feel about myself. My current mantra is ‘I am enough’. We are exactly as we are supposed to be. And so I read, with curiosity to understand, rather than a purpose filled thirst for changing myself.

Found objects still life

Rubin introduces the ‘Four Tendencies’, her name for categories most of us fall into with regard to our approach to life in general. The Four Tendencies are: Upholder, Questioner, Obliger and Rebel. I will not go into explaining each, but I did find that I am a Questioner. A Questioner evaluates situations and internalises them to decide if they are something of value to them, and if so, they do it. That pretty much summed up my approach to the Photo Challenge, so I already had the answer to one of my questions soon after I started the book. But there was so much more.

The book further elaborates on other qualities and combinations thereof. Are you a ‘Lark’ or an ‘Owl’ with regard to the time of day you work best? Do you like to immerse yourself in a project and work like crazy for a short period of time, or do you like to take baby steps and achieve over a longer period of time? There are other qualities to think about as well; are you an ‘opener’ or a ‘finisher’, an ‘over-buyer’ or an ‘under-buyer’, and so on. Understanding these things about oneself assists in establishing good habits, or breaking bad ones. But I have found the simple awareness of one’s tendencies to be valuable, even if I do nothing to change them.

So in addition to moving through the 365 Photo Challenge, I have now learned how it is I managed to select something which was intuitively based on my natural predilection toward habit creation. I thought about it, and internalised the reasons I would benefit from doing it. And that was true to my character, so, while difficult at times, it has been, on the whole, achievable. When I started the challenge I said I was looking forward to the ‘adventure’. Perhaps you thought I was intending to jump off a cliff or sail the Pacific so that I could document it with photos. But the adventure to which I refer is the inner one a person experiences when trying something new, and a little out of their comfort zone. I have always thought inner adventure was equally interesting to physical adventures, and often, the two combine.

Here are a few photos from the journey that are among my favourites–I have lots of favourites. You’ll notice quite a few photos that I have edited using an app called Waterlogue. As a former watercolour painter, and because I am a Light Chaser and watercolour painting is mostly about the light, I just can’t resist using it. The key to using these apps that modify the photographic image is to be selective. I try to only use them when it actually improves the image, not to cover up mistakes. No amount of editing will make a bad photograph into a good one. And by the by I have learned, no amount of well-intended decisions will become habits if they are not right for you.