“If a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it’s as though I’ve neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up.”
— Robert Mapplethorpe

My Squarespace subscription expires this month. If I do nothing it will auto renew and I will commit myself to another year of blogging. If I don’t renew, this space will go away. I couldn’t help but wonder how that might feel, so I practiced a bit.

Instead of heading into my office, as I do most mornings to work on photos or a blog post, I walked past it, experimenting with how I might better spend those first couple hours upon waking. I got laundry going early and got to some kitchen drawers I had been wanting to rearrange. Some days I even got a head start on dinner, putting beans to soak, or making a sauce for pasta from scratch. I left my camera inside when I headed out to the garden to work, only to have to come back inside to get it because something beautiful had caught my eye. But I purposely didn’t take as many photos as I usually did, and I ruthlessly deleted many of those I did take. I also questioned the why of all of this.

I spent time in the past, rereading old posts, nit-picking my words and scrutinizing old photos. And what did I discover?

I discovered that this whole process is so ingrained in me that my equilibrium was off, and my whole day seemed a bit discombobulated. For a few days I even took to watching mindless TV because I had convinced myself I had earned the right to relax! Luckily the TV thing spurred me into action and also made him ask me what was going on. He listened as I tried to explain, but simply told me to renew, because the time among my photos is what I deserve to do.

So here are a few more from our trip up to Blaine, where I carried my camera with me everywhere we went. More birds, because as my friend Donna has taught me, we love what we love, and shooting for the mere pleasure of it because my friend Kate has taught me there doesn’t have to be any rules.