May 9, 2024

Reflection

I woke up feeling rested. After sitting down to have a cup of coffee with me, my wife fed the dogs and got ready for work. This evening, she would stay in Cary and come home on Friday. That meant just one evening apart, and I was looking forward to the weekend, which was approaching quickly.

I sat down to write, waiting for the sun to get closer to the horizon. This morning, I planned to go to the Buckhorn Reservoir to fish for a couple of hours before work began. It was drizzling outside, but the weather report showed the rain stopping and skies clearing during the next hour. Anyway, I never minded fishing in a light rain. That’s what raincoats were for.

Driving to the reservoir was always exciting. The thought of getting out of the house and being on the water always put a smile on my face. What better way to start the day than wreaking havoc on the local fish population?

After parking my car, I hit the button to open the back of my SUV, and when I did, it seemed to activate a torrential downpour. By the time I got to the back of the vehicle to get out my fishing rods, the rain was coming down so hard that I couldn’t see five feet in front of me. I waited in the car for about fifteen minutes to see if the rain would slow. It didn’t. I texted my wife about my predicament, ending the message by telling her that Jesus never let me have any fun.

Even though fishing did not happen, it was nice to be out during the early morning hours. A ten acre property that backed up to the reservoir’s parking lot was for sale. They wanted over a million dollars for it, even though every room had wallpaper hideous enough to disorient a fighter pilot. The farm fields near the lake were all freshly planted in long, neat rows. I admired the sight of the tiny plants growing in the tilled red dirt that occupied every field I drove past.

When I arrived home, I took a shower and got to work. It was a quiet morning, perfect for finishing a report while sipping on a cup of fresh coffee. During my lunch break, I drove into Wilson to pick up food at Panera. I purchased a sandwich for lunch and a salad to eat later for dinner.

Once I finished work, I grabbed my photography equipment and headed into the woods. The clouded sky seemed dark, even though the lighting was brighter than yesterday evening. I toted two wide aperture lenses that shot better in low light conditions. As I made my way through the forest, long gusts of wind approached from afar, getting louder as they neared, until they blew over me strong enough to make me tuck my head down and hold on to my hat. I hoped no dead branches or climbing snakes would fall on me.

The air this evening felt pleasant. Perhaps the heavy morning rain wrung out the sky’s humidity, but it felt cooler, and there were fewer insects like gnats, mosquitoes, and biting flies. This made the time outdoors more relaxing. I stood up on a large boulder that overlooked the northwest corner of the property, where I saw deer regularly. After twenty minutes, I moved down the hill and set up a small folding stool near the creek’s edge, just inside a tree line that concealed me.

The water smelled briny, but the creek was full from the morning’s rain shower. Although no wildlife was in sight, I felt content to sit there waiting, taking in the ambiance. I sat still with my cameras strapped to me, resting in my lap. Birds were singing all around. To my left, I could hear a downy woodpecker thumping on a dead tree. And to my right, I could hear a pileated woodpecker doing the same. The two birds took turns sounding like nature’s own version of the dueling banjos.

I thought about how much nature had taught me. After two years in the woods, I could see so much more than when I arrived at this place. The signs were always there. I just had to stop and learn how to read them. When we relaxed our minds, then we could see everything around us. First, however, seeing required us to get out of the conversation in our head, to silence the inner chatter, and reflect on what was outside of us. Ironically, by turning away from myself, I could see nature, which showed me a precise reflection of myself.

We liked to think that our internal view of ourselves was what was true, but I felt that the looking inward was more of hiding than examining. It was a way we could escape what our environment was telling us about ourselves, an opportunity to control the narrative. When we let go of that lie, the self-deception, then looking outward into nature was not something to be worried about, it was a source of inner peace I was seeking.

As I packed up my things before heading home, I knew I could sit out in nature, taking pictures of her for the rest of my life. This, I realized, made me happy. When I arrived near the house, I sat down just inside the tree line of the pine grove, facing west. The wind blew across the pines, moving north, sounding just like a wave rolling past me in slow motion. Tonight, this wave was backlit by the soft orange light of the setting sun.