“Take nothing but pictures
Leave nothing but footprints
Kill nothing but time.”
Sometimes I am hesitant even to take pictures.
It’s not because I don’t think I can take a photograph that does the subject of the picture justice. I’m damn near positive that I can’t. But that doesn’t usually stop me trying.
I sometimes feel hesitant to take pictures, because there are some moments, some places, that are too sacred for that.
When I stumble on things that feel unreasonably lovely, I feel like I’ve been let in on a secret. Like I’ve been trusted. And I don’t want to share that, not at first.
It’s the same reason you don’t kiss people before you get to know them. If I took a picture of a place like this, before I knew my way around – it might be an aesthetically pleasing picture, but it’d be an empty picture. I’d have an image of a collection generic trees and earth and sky, but they wouldn’t be those trees, that earth, this sky.
The first few times I went to the swamp, I didn’t take any pictures. Now…
I’d found three or four different pathways from the field edge to the water, through a tangle of dense brambles and slick mud and fallen logs. I’ve noticed twisted vines that look suspiciously like poison ivy, and I’m careful not to touch, but I’ve scored myself some raspberry-cane scratches that are still healing. And I’ve left a mess of footprints.
I know which mushrooms grow on what trees, even if I couldn’t tell you what they’re called. I’ve counted shades of moss and lichen, I’ve noticed bones that are picked clean. I’ve heard the birds singing and sung back to them. I’ve scared a group of deer and they’ve scared me.
I’d stood and leaned against a tree trunk as it started hailing, and I’ve rolled up sleeves and pant legs against the heat on Easter Day.
It hasn’t been an especially long time, but it’s been an exceptionally good time, and for right now I feel okay about taking pictures. I feel like that’d be alright with this place, if I there was some way for me to ask.
I was out of the woods at exactly 8:59 this morning, which was cutting it close. But I did manage to take this back with me:
