Going and getting

“The world is too much with us, late and soon” —- William Wordsworth

When it comes to going somewhere, to getting there, I’ve always been just as interested in the going and getting than in the where and there. I know this is one reason I’m a lousy driver. Over the weekend we drove to Santa Fe, and on I-40 between Grants and Albuquerque, we drove into some low winter clouds, so low they seemed just above the car, and I watched them, a little mesmerized, scud around and above us, and I thought, “This is what flying must be like.” Flying 75 mph. Luckily, we were alone on the highway, and I snapped out of it before I drifted with the clouds right off the road. But I won’t forget what I saw and how I felt, and I’m glad I did it.

St. Patrick’s Day morning threatened rain and snow, and at Mary’s insistence I went out to Canyon Road to walk around —- to go and get —- with my camera. I’d brought just a 35mm lens to force myself to move, to zoom with my feet, as they say. Canyon Road is a deliberately artsy place, but I wanted to find stuff that didn’t scream “art gallery!” So I just moved around, walked, strolled, paused, stopped, all slow enough that my fitness app asked me if I wanted to end my workout. There’s something about that walking that makes me focus my attention, to see what I’d miss if I was bothered more about where and there. I’ve done it in Los Angeles, Istanbul, Washington, DC, Chicago, NYC, Tempe, Paris, even Bury St. Edmunds, where it led me to make a photo of a girl smoking and reading her phone in front of what claimed to be England’s tiniest pub, The Nutshell.

I ended up that day with a couple of images that I like —- the branches with deep red berries creeping against an adobe (What else? It’s Santa Fe.) wall, and a weathered blue garden gate. And I made them only because I was walking around going nowhere and getting not-there on a snow-spitting St. Patrick’s Day in Santa Fe.