“I don’t know if I can keep it up,” I complained when my Publisher suggested a blog would be good for marketing. At the time the whole concept of blogging was foreign. He set up the site for me and the “sight” of its pages took me by surprise. Rich color on a black background—what could be more appealing? My husband’s photographs brightened every entry. My short posts didn’t have to tell the whole story when accompanied by a picture of the nature I wanted to share. Both illuminated the same scene.
If life had continue on its steadily, but slowing pace, I would have gone on to write of the endless natural phenomenon witnessed daily from my long walks down the driveway or around the prairie. He would have delighted to download his images on the computer for us at the end of every shoot. His pictures put a sharper focus on something I had been contemplating. We heard God’s gift of nature singing every day.
The blog stopped abruptly in mid June of 2012 when his mental and physical energy waned, forcing us to realize that his days of communing with the natural world were numbered. The Prairie project that we started together was now thriving on its own with wild flowers gaining abundance every spring and prairie grasses standing tall. I became preoccupied with his needs; the heart went out of my writing about beauty and promise.
Instead I wrote about our relationship and its everyday changes: a memoir unfolding while it happened. My words were not the stuff for a blog. No image could capture reality.
Now my prairie partner is gone from this earth and the land he loved so deeply. I moved to the city to ward off the loneliness of a Michigan winter on snow-covered acres, without him. I just passed the year mark of his parting and desperately want to go on.
I am discovering “urban beauty” from the windows of my condo and on walks down city streets. I inherited his Nikon. With an eye for beauty but not much skill, I do my best to photograph the ordinary and the unusual. So let me also resurrect the Blog. You have been patient; it is my hope you will rejoin me on the journey. Maybe we will even sing a bit.
If life had continue on its steadily, but slowing pace, I would have gone on to write of the endless natural phenomenon witnessed daily from my long walks down the driveway or around the prairie. He would have delighted to download his images on the computer for us at the end of every shoot. His pictures put a sharper focus on something I had been contemplating. We heard God’s gift of nature singing every day.
The blog stopped abruptly in mid June of 2012 when his mental and physical energy waned, forcing us to realize that his days of communing with the natural world were numbered. The Prairie project that we started together was now thriving on its own with wild flowers gaining abundance every spring and prairie grasses standing tall. I became preoccupied with his needs; the heart went out of my writing about beauty and promise.
Instead I wrote about our relationship and its everyday changes: a memoir unfolding while it happened. My words were not the stuff for a blog. No image could capture reality.
Now my prairie partner is gone from this earth and the land he loved so deeply. I moved to the city to ward off the loneliness of a Michigan winter on snow-covered acres, without him. I just passed the year mark of his parting and desperately want to go on.
I am discovering “urban beauty” from the windows of my condo and on walks down city streets. I inherited his Nikon. With an eye for beauty but not much skill, I do my best to photograph the ordinary and the unusual. So let me also resurrect the Blog. You have been patient; it is my hope you will rejoin me on the journey. Maybe we will even sing a bit.
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