Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 4 Comments

Leaving Our Mark

Trips to the west side of our island are like travels to a different land.

We live north. Wet, lush, green. Cross west and it’s dry, hot and red.

On this particular excursion – Jeb, the Bohemian and I – we slow down the day in observation mode. Break out of the routine. In our unfamiliar environment, we get fresh perspectives.

We see parachuters spiraling in the sky. Watch 20 skateboarding teenagers take over an entire street with ollies. The Bohemian gives blood.

We just miss the chaos of a store-wide evacuation when a fire breaks out near a local big-box store. (Newspaper reports claim that shoppers were still trying to purchase their merchandise as the flames came within 100 feet of the building).

We discover a used book store with countless stacks to peruse for days. We even drive past a cemetery and see diggers lining the new grave with palm fronds in preparation for a coffin.

We stop by a beach that, long ago, was once a dump site. Red dirt and black sand.  The beach still bears the garbage. Rusting metal and the tiniest shards of glass. Just aross the dirt road is the Japanese cemetery overgrown with weeds.

It’s good to be reminded. These days spiraling out, moment by moment. How do we want to live them? How many moments do we get? How do we want to leave our mark, if we want to leave one at all?

Today I’m thinking tread lightly. Live deeply. Be grateful….And share the Love.

2013-4-17husk

2013-4-17rusted_ocean

2013-04-17tombstone

2013-04-17spiral

2013-04-17tombstone2

2013-04-17footprint

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 7 Comments

Weekly Photo Challenge: Change

Sometimes change is not a pretty picture.

Take Bent Tail, for example. This is one of the handful of geckos that live in our tropical abode. He’s the only one we’ve named, as he’s distinguished by that bent tail. It’s got a story of its own, one we’ll never know.

Geckos can lose a tail and grow back another. Bent Tail seems to have damaged his, but never lost it, still holding his historic reminder.

On this day, he comes close to the kitchen sink. His little gecko toes vertically gripping our window frame. At this proximity, I see that Bent Tail seems to be letting go of something.

Shedding his skin, he looks a mess. Even a little thin and frail, if you ask me. I know little about geckos, but I do know that transformation can be just plain ugly sometimes.

This photo is nothing fetching, either. My hand was poised around drying dinner plates, trying to steady my wrist in a macro shot, close enough to capture, but not so zoomed that I scared him. He was a patient and generous subject in all of his awkward Shift.

We’ve been observing Bent Tail in the rafters for years. He is a strong survivor. Here’s to his Spring breakthrough. An outgrowing of the old.

To all things not so beautiful. The story of the butterfly, the swan.

And with that, Bent Tail and I offer up our submission to the Weekly Photo Challenge: Change.
2013-04-16Bent Tail

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 2 Comments

Talk No, Look Yes

morning
quiet
but for distant
mother cows
calling offspring
teen roosters
learning to crow

let words be sparse

William Carlos Williams
and a red wheelbarrow
so much depends upon
looking closely
seeing
things
without words

2013-04-15_Buddha_tree

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

– William Carlos Williams