FURTHER AFIELD: On the Rocks in South Iceland: Part 2

1. Threatening clouds above a massive glacier at Vatnajökull National Park, seen from the Ring Road.

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Mile after mile, the wild, empty landscape of South Iceland unspooled its magic. Jagged mountains leaned in like formidable eminences grises, fat sheep grazed in tawny fields, ancient blocks of lava reached darkly toward the sea. Spaciousness reigns in Iceland, especially in the South. One feels that the land answers to no one. A volcano erupts and a town shutters. A bridge is built and washes away – again. Sulphur colors the ground in strange hues that jump skyward as rainbows.

You know you’re small here. Life snaps back into proper perspective.

As we headed southwest on Route 1 that September, the weeks Joe and I had spent driving past land that was often barely inhabited were building to a climax. Our rhythm had been to follow the road and natural daylight more than any imposed schedule. We were usually outdoors, in the car, or asleep. Food choices were simple, in fact, all our choices were. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the abundance we have at home. But eliminating 90% of the picking and choosing that occupies so much of our time can be a healthy move.

To untangle the knotted threads of busy lives takes time and openness to change. Largely occupying ourselves with indoor tasks, often on electronic devices, we hanker after rough edges, unfinished textures, the scent of earth. I think this is true for many people but I can only speak for myself. In Iceland, for me the scales were swinging back into balance with every inhalation of sharp, clean air, each step on rock-strewn, boundaryless beaches.

Iceland’s Ring Road, locally known as Route 1, offers a plethora of pleasures, one of which is being in the presence of glaciers. When I saw the first one out the car window, I wanted to get out and fly to the edge of it. What was that long, pale mound of old ice like up close? Such unmistakable grandeur the frozen beast possessed! There was nothing friendly or intimate about it – and nothing manmade, either. It was a landscape to be present for, not one to scroll quickly past on social media.

But before the ice, let’s see a softer and perhaps stranger landscape…

Clouds glowered and lightened by turns. Perhaps it was the work of the Huldufólk, the island’s hidden people, those cunning, supernatural beings inhabiting a parallel universe in Iceland’s unpredictable landscape. We were headed to Reynisfjara, the famous black sand beach, when we noticed peculiar, greenish lumps everywhere, on both sides of the road. Curious, we looked for a place to stop, soon finding a side road leading to a dirt road. The world grew quiet once we shut the engine and got out. There was scarcely any sign of human habitation. What was this place? We’d never seen anything like it, not in books or online. And certainly not in person.

We slowly eased into the terrain, marveling at the moss-shrouded rocks that seemed to reach all the way to a glacier looming on the horizon. It was at once Lilliputian and extravagant. Shiny, black berries glinted on plants draped over mossy blankets. The bulbous shapes, the fine texture of the moss and the little plants huddled in crevices were enchanting. With no thought of time, I lost myself in a strange world.

6. A little Jean Arp in Iceland, perhaps.

7. This mat of moss has enough water for Crowberries (*Empetrum nigrum*), or krækiber, to take root, grow, and fruit. Crowberries are circumpolar and are eaten by birds, animals, and traditionally by indigenous people. They’re still picked in Iceland but aren’t as popular as blueberries or bilberries.

Eventually I learned that those undulating lumps of moss cover an immense old lava field. In the 1780s, multiple eruptions heaved lava across 218 square miles (565 sq km). The historic Laki Craters eruptions spewed poisonous chemicals that wreaked havoc on Iceland’s crops and livestock, resulting in famine. A sulphuric haze reached far south and descended on Great Britain and Western Europe, causing thousands of deaths there. The eruptions may have affected India’s monsoons and caused one of North America’s worst winters ever. It was “one of the most important climatic and socially significant natural events of the last millennium.” (Wikipedia)

Iceland isn’t called the Land of Fire and Ice for nothing!

The eruptions scattered an enormous wasteland of sharp, black lava chunks across South Iceland. Over time, the bizarre landscape that stopped us in our tracks was created, thanks to a plant called Wooly fringe moss (Racomitrium lanuginosum). As a pioneer plant, it can grow and thrive on bare lava rock. Because the moss grows very slowly, a hard step on those plump, inviting pillows can destroy a century’s growth. I instinctively sensed that walking on the moss wasn’t a good idea but I was tempted!

Eldhraun – firelava in Icelandic – was a revelation. We hadn’t seen references to Eldhraun when we planned our trip, which meant we were free from preconceptions. That innocence bestowed on us the thrill of discovery, which in turn connected us to the landscape more intimately than if we had known about it. Traveler’s luck!

Guides to South Iceland always reccommend seeing Jökulsárlón, an iceberg-filled glacial lagoon. The parking lot is beside Jökulsárlón’s narrow outlet to the sea. As we approached the area I could see dozens of tourists lining up by the water, competing for the best view. Tangled knots of cars and RV’s strained to enter or exit the parking lot.

This was not our scene.

Luckily, the guidebook I had mentions a smaller glacier lagoon just down the road. Easy decision! Fifteen minutes later the two of us were peacefully sitting on the rocks at Fjallsárlón, watching icebergs float away from an immense glacier called Fjallsjökull (“jökull” means glacier). There were only a few other tourists around the lagoon. We were quietly transported to an icy, otherworldly realm where rakish icebergs rested almost motionless in a mirror-still lake, their sharp angles mimicking the mountains behind them. Across the lagoon the glacier loomed large and glorious.

I squinted at the jagged patterns on its deeply fissured surface: dark, sooty cuts, flanks of tropical turquoise, washes of palest gray – this ice seemed far more alive than a clear cube in a glass. There was a feeling of movement, a march toward the water or a slump down into it. It was some other entity: elemental, ancient, unknowable.

That glacier is an outlet glacier of Iceland’s largest glacier, Vatnajökull, which occupies 8% of the island. Again, Iceland is the land of fire and ice! Underneath this immense cap of ice are volcanos. Imagine what happens when one erupts under all that frozen water – it melts the ice, big time! The floods create lakes under the ice that can burst through, like they did in 1996, when 38 days passed before the water from a major eruption finally broke through the ice. Part of Route 1 was obliterated and the flow was so big that for a few days it was second in size only to the Amazon River.

As the sun sunk lower in the sky that afternoon, massive floods were far from my mind. I was mesmerized by the unlikely turquoise glow inside a huge, triangular hunk of ice resting quietly on the lake’s surface. The icebergs seemed to be full of possibility. Change is inevitable, isn’t it? I wondered how long it takes for the icebergs to melt, to change visibly. How long does it take for one to float into outlet stream and out to the sea? Beside me, tiny, bright yellow Saxifrage plants displayed the last flowers of the season between gray and russet cobbles. Joe and I barely spoke, not wanting to break the spell. Looking at the picture I took of him now, I wonder what was going through his mind.

Iceland rewards the curious. Graced by wonder after wonder, I was captivated. Traveling across a sparsely populated land, meeting warm, honorable people, and experiencing a myriad of uncommon natural wonders was an unforgettable experience. Here’s a slideshow that hopefully offers a taste of the island’s charisma.

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That’s all from Iceland for now. Next up will be a look at late autumn on Fidalgo Island.

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FURTHER AFIELD: On the Rocks in South Iceland: Part 1

1. Stacked like building blocks, columnar basalt forms an extraordinary backdrop to Svartifoss.

Two years ago Joe and I circled Iceland on the Ring Road and immersed ourselves in a unique culture and landscape for three unforgettable weeks. With its raw power and strikingly dramatic features, the landscape alone is reason enough to visit Iceland, but for us, meeting Icelanders made the experience far more meaningful than just visiting attraction after attraction. Over the course of a thousand years of human occupation, a unique culture manifested in Iceland. Life was rigorous in a place where arable land is scarce, winters are long, and the weather is challenging. A strong national identity resulted from years of hardships shared by the relatively small number of people who lived on this isolated island.

Now the post-pandemic spike in tourism threatens all that makes Iceland unique. Realizing how much could be lost, Icelanders are striving to preserve their traditions and protect the island’s extraordinary landscape. We admired the proud, un-pretentious, gracious nature of residents we met. I’m sorry I didn’t photograph more people going about their daily business; most of my photos show the landscape. But there are many ways to get a taste of Icelandic culture. Read some Icelandic sagas or Nordic noir novels, watch Gylfi’s videos, or better yet, go there yourself.

Our itinerary began at the capitol city of Reykjavik and took us in the opposite direction from South Iceland. Heading north, we spent four stimulating days on the Snaefellsness peninsula, sleeping at a traditional guesthouse. Our room overlooked the backyard garden of a woman who checked on her chickens in a head-to-toe, pink bunny suit. We visited extraordinary yellow and black sand beaches and chatted with a man from Columbia who ran a small town cafe. That espresso was good! Driving farther north, we stayed in countryside guesthouses and explored Iceland’s second city, Akureyri, a place whose name twisted my tongue. We learned about the trails of very short growing seasons from a gardener at the botanical garden. I waited for a half-hour at a cafe for the coffee beans to be flown in from Reykjavik, and yes, it was worth the wait because I met wonderful people. We took a small ferry to tiny island, hiked hilly trails along the edges of fjords, and inhaled the warm, sulfurous stink of geothermal vents. Then we traveled east and south, tracing a zig-zag route through picturesque fishing towns huddled at the ends of fjords, where ice-cold water slapped the black slopes of forbidding mountains. Any of these regions – west, north, east – would have been more than enough. But on our final push across the south of Iceland and back up to Rekyavik, we encountered the most impressive scenery of our trip.

Every day, my camera clicked away but it was never as busy as my eyes! Whether hiking up and down hills or coursing across rugged landscapes in the car, my eyes were taking in far more than my camera could keep up with. I wanted to write a note each night to narrate the gaps between photographs. I should have written about how good it felt to be in a landscape that humans had hardly altered, how exciting it was to experience patterns writ large – giant blocks of stone, waves wider than I could see. But sleep always called my name too soon. The sensory impressions, spontaneous conversations, and countless surprises weave about like layers of filmy curtains in my mind now. Joe is gone and I can’t rely on his memory to bring the trip’s details back to life. I’m grateful for each picture I took of him in Iceland. I’m glad I published a stack of posts about the trip after we got home, too. Looking at them again, the thrill is rekindled. It’s time to go back and see a little more…

3. Here is another rendition of Svartifoss. “Foss” is Icelandic for waterfall. It has a nice onomatopoeic quality, with the “sss” sound that water makes. “Svart” as German speakers will easily guess, is “black” in Icelandic.

4. Hundafoss is a smaller waterfall that can be seen from the trail to Svartifoss. Learning that “foss” means waterfall and memorizing other Icelandic words like “fjall” for mountain and “kirkja” for church made the trip more rewarding. The effort to separate the syllables in typically long, Icelandic words helped me feel less like a stranger.

***

As we approached Reynisfjara from the east, the landscape popped out of the horizon as if it was just hatched, hinting at the wonders ahead. One of Iceland’s premiere attractions, Reynisfjara is a black sand beach fronted by spectacular basalt formations. Sea stacks just off shore add to the drama. Tourists are greeted by signs printed with bold warnings not to turn your back on the water because unpredictable sneaker waves have swept people out to sea. As you might expect, the signs don’t stop tourists from posing on the rocks for their Instagram feeds.

A giant fan of columnar basalt that looks like a movie set is evidence of Iceland’s “Land of Fire and Ice” reputation. These formations result from hot lava cooling unevenly and cracking into joints that intersect with other joints when tensile energy is released. The variety of forms let loose by long-ago geological events was astounding. Drinking in and delighting in the patterns and shapes, I forgot about the other tourists. I was in a world of my own.

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10. Reynisfjara’s sea stacks interrupt the horizon with fearsome force.

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Part 1 finishes with a slideshow of rock patterns and shapes. Most are from South Iceland and some are from other regions. #7 shows patterns of deposits on the ground next to a geyser. #12 and 13 illustrate a variety of lichens inhabiting rocks.

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Note: I’ve ordered the photographs to tell a story about South Iceland’s landscapes, so they’re not in geographical order. If you traced our actual route from East Iceland to South Iceland, you would visit the Fjallsarlon Glacier Lagoon and Diamond Beach first, then Svartifoss, the Eldhraun Lava Field, and finally Reynesfjara, with its spectacular columnar basalt formations and black beach.

Most visitors don’t have time to drive all the way around Iceland. They approach South Iceland from the capitol, Reykjavik. Busloads of tourists leave every day headed for South Iceland, disgorging tourists at several different sites and returning to Reykjavik by nightfall. People who have several weeks usually choose the Ring Road, traveling either clockwise or counterclockwise. Arguments can be made for either choice – we went clockwise and were tired by the time we reached South Iceland. But beginning our trip north of the capitol took us to a quieter region with small villages and striking scenery. It was good to begin with a taste of small town Icelandic life. If we had gone the other direction, we would have seen South Iceland first and would not have spent time in towns. The region has always been sparsely populated because harsher conditions there make farming and getting around very difficult. South Iceland’s economy is very tourist-driven these days. Other regions invite tourism but also depend on fishing and energy-related industries. If I go back – and I would love to – I’d want to see the West Fjords, explore more of East Iceland, and visit the Central Highlands, which are only accessible in the summer using 4WD vehicles. Dream on, Lynn!

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OCTOBER

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October:

The fields white with geese,

the mountain refreshed with new snow,

the car windows silver with dew;

at dawn I stumble outside

to watch the moon

converse with Jupiter,

their bodies bright but blurred

until I run in for my glasses.

It’s perfect either way.

The geese wing from field to field

in wavering strings

like the arced string

we hung on Sunday morning

to celebrate your birthday –

though you were absent.

The string of tiny lights

was set with pictures of you

and on a shelf below it, your

decades-old ticket to see The Who,

your finely carved wooden sculpture,

your hard-won dissertation abstract

and the squat wooden box of sobriety coins

collected over 38 clean years:

precious story-tellers.

The bubbling sea of words and nodding heads

turned quiet as Sharon stood and read

from the last chapter of Primo Levi’s ‘The Periodic Table.’

Do you know it? Levi follows a single carbon atom,

the basis of life that wafts through us,

builds us, and goes on

to shape another life.

You’re always here/there,

alive/not alive, the carbon atoms

of your soil hidden in a canister

on my window sill

and the carbon atoms of

all you touched, scattered wide –

strings of life

in a sea of life.

I was warmed by Sunday’s sea of friends.

Over there, the hikers who explored

Cypress Island with us and there, the

seal sitters we came to know

on beaches to the north and south,

there, your family and mine,

the cafe and bookseller families, too,

intermingling even as they shine alone,

as the sutra goes.

Were you watching?

It doesn’t matter.

I have my memory strings

and anyway, I’ll be transformed

into other life forms too, one day.

For now, it’s October,

the fields are white with geese,

the mountain dusted with snow.

***

In the Fog and in the Clear…

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Whether my mind is muddled with worries or bright with confidence, it seems I keep on going. These strange and troubling times for our world are unusual for me, too. I find myself enjoying a piercingly clear insight but just as often, I’m awash with unintelligible emotions. Losing my dearest companion in life would have been enough to unmoor me but in the midst of that, most of our belongings had to be packed into scores of boxes. Why? To make way for new floors to be installed in every room of the house. The overwhelming task was eased by good friends coming to the rescue. Now most of the books are back on bookshelves that sit on lovely new wood floors.

Unsettled is the password that unlocks my days. Time for walking outdoors has been scarce so when I do get out, I cherish the magic of it all the more.

These photographs are from two outings: a walk at a familiar place in the fog and a meander along a river I don’t know well on a clear afternoon. The foggy day wasn’t surprising – in this part of the world, the advent of fall brings frequent foggy mornings, a welcome change from the parched days of summer’s end. Thick in one place and thin in another, fog comes and goes on its own unfathomable schedule. Billowing upward or hanging low and heavy, it may stick around longer than you expect or burn off in minutes. It often lasts longer near water so on one recent foggy morning I drove over to Bowman Bay.

It felt good to slow down, sink my feet into the sand, and yield to the water-laden air with all my senses. The moisture in the air creates an immersive experience – sounds were muted and silhouettes manifested tentatively. Tiny drops of water hovered right in front of my face in a tantalizing, close-up view of fog’s fragments. I don’t remember ever witnessing fog that way. Moments like that remind me that with all its troubles, it is a privilege to live on this earth, still alive, still turning. All I need to do is notice.

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Then there was the clear, sunny afternoon in a moss-draped forest hours away from home. A slow walk by a shallow, stone-filled river with friends yielded lovely mountain vistas that pulled my eyes upward like an aspiration. We found a spotted frog that stayed absolutely still while we photographed it and was in the same position 15 minutes later. Amphibians are having a tough time on this planet so I’m always grateful to find one. The unexpectedly ebullient song of an American dipper rose above the splashing water and caught my attention – yes, birdsong in autumn! Dippers live near cold, rushing mountain streams. The stout little gray birds are a treat to watch, plunging straight into the water no matter how strong the current. They poke their heads under to see what’s there and dive down, actually using their short wings to swim. If that wasn’t enough, our Dipper sang while perched on round river rocks and kept on singing as it swam! A dive, a few notes, another dive, more singing. Hearing a bird’s song in fall is reason enough to rejoice but to see a plain little bird with an urge to sing that’s so strong it keeps singing while it swims? Amazing. A gift.

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RETURNING TO ABSTRACTION, Part 2

I moved to New York City when I was an impressionable 18-year-old and the city was a lot rougher around the edges than it is today. Back then it was also the center for new movements in art. The radical changes that were fomenting aligned perfectly with my intense curiosity about art and philosophy. Conceptual art, performance art, feminist art, land art…each new movement created another sparkling edge of innovation. I had no interest in looking back then, I only wanted to absorb the atmosphere of experimentation in art and living going on around me. It was a heady time and a good time to be young in the city.

My roots were actually more in the prickly texture of green grass than the hard, monochrome surfaces of skyscrapers and pavement. I was lucky to grow up amidst simple pleasures like tulips in bloom and lightning bugs on summer evenings. As much as I reveled in the pleasures of a sophisticated, stimulating city, I never lost this fundamental identification with nature.

I am deeply, deeply in love with the substance of this world we live in, with the pattern of spores on a fern frond, the quickening of a fresh breeze on my face, the whoosh of whale breath floating across the water, and the sweet spring song of a pint-sized wren. It’s enough just to feel the sensations, to notice them. And often enough, I also like to record life’s visual fugues and cantatas with a camera.

Sometimes those art world influences from long ago show up in the images on my computer. A grassy meadow begets an abstraction that barely recalls what caught my eye in the first place. Rock faces, tree branches, plants crushed under a plastic tarp – all are grist for the mill that is my brain, a brain crammed with impressions from a fairly long life.

The earth is growing weary of what humans are doing these days – the climate is wobbling, people are fighting, species are going extinct. This suffering can be hard to face, but we may as well face it: times are very hard for a very large number of beings. This is what has come to pass. Perhaps there’s something you can do, some small act that would honor the pain, though we should probably admit that adding to the pain or ignoring it are often easier. It seems overwhelming, so overwhelming. But small steps may be all we can do now and that may be enough. I’m trying to drop a little beauty into the world, a little beauty that might cause someone to notice the world differently. Paying attention can be revolutionary.

***

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LOCAL WALKS: Winds of Change

Sure, my life has changed,

profoundly –

but life IS change

and reminders of that simple fact

are everywhere.

1. Driftwood laughs at me. If only I could be as sanguine about change as this old piece of wood is.

2. Kelp would not be kelp without changing tides. Watching the sea tugging on the kelp forest below me feels like what I need. These days, water’s ceaseless motion and hidden depths are especially nourishing. Bodies of water like the sea, a wide bay, or a lake have a mix of movement and constancy that reflects my current emotional state of quick eruptions underlain by a feeling of stability.

3. The water draws back like a curtain, revealing shallow tide pools studded with Aggregating anemones, their colors smoothed and intensified by the lens of moving water. I learned recently that these anemones exist in symbiosis with photosynthetic algae. Together, they have evolved a complex, mutually beneficial relationship involving carbon dioxide, oxygen, ultra-violet radiation, and antioxidants. These pretty invertebrates seem to exist peacefully on their rocky substrate, but in fact, Aggregating anemone colonies sometimes attack other colonies of the same species that have a different genetic makeup. Life is not always peaceful…so Lynn, remember: life is change. Don’t ever stop adapting!

4. Another day, another beach. Floating on the shoreline, this fragment of life looks to me like an egg-yolk jellyfish but it’s too broken to be sure. Life as a jellyfish, whatever species it was, is over now. I imagine these cells will keep breaking down, nourishing other beings and morphing into other life forms, as surely as the seasons change.

5. On a weathered branch that hangs over a bay, Lace lichen breathes with the breeze. Sometimes I find a crystalline bit of clarity in my thoughts, like this clearly defined patch of lichen surrounded by fuzzily out of focus fragments of the whole.

6. Last week I hiked a trail on Lottie Point and came to a spot with a view toward Lighthouse Point, where I usually walk. Three years ago Joe and I hiked Lottie Point and sat right here to eat lunch. I remember feeling glad to be sharing it all with him. Around us under the Madrones and Doug firs, little Flat-spurred Piperias (also called Royal Rein orchids) were flowering.

7. I found this Flat-spurred Piperia *(Platanthera transversa)* blooming in a small, compact clearing in the woods near Heart Lake in July. If the sun shines through the long spur behind the flower you might see tiny drops of nectar there, waiting to be sipped. I think enchantment is always available, as long as we release ourselves into its space.

Last week a box came to me special delivery. Joe was in it. His body had been transformed into soil over the last 6 weeks. There are many different kinds of soil. They’re all sacred, I suppose.

8. This is how I felt last week, buffeted by the winds of change.

9. I took a morning walk at Bowman Bay one day and saw this graceful sweep of eelgrass making music on the sand. My eyes were delighted, my camera helped me record the finding, and now…well now the moment is over. But the moment obviously exists now – just look. In fact, past and future only exist in this moment. As I remember the past, as I imagine the future, it’s all in the now. The everpresent, everchanging now. Remembering that is somehow reassuring.

10. Sometimes it helps to look at things differently.

11. Today Sharon and Richard helped me face the box that came special delivery last week. After opening it, the three of us quietly regarded ten containers of soil, neatly stacked and labeled on the bottom with Joe’s name. They are attractive, medium-sized cylinders covered in a soft green pattern of swirling lines. I carried one with me today as we hiked through the forest. Soon I’ll open it. Maybe.

***

“When I walk alone in nature, I fearlessly entertain the notion that the world is magical and that sensation is the original way to meet it. …When the mind is empty and senses are full, space is made for connection.”

Kevin Lay; My Walking Practice From Deep Times: Vol. 10, Issue 1, March 2025

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SUMMERFALL

Summer’s falling

off the edge

of reason,

the edge where dry becomes arid

and the alder loosens its crinkled leaves

from brittle twigs,

speckling the grass with umber and ochre

a month ahead of schedule.

They say it’s just a “moderate drought” here

but sixty-two percent of our state

is in severe or extreme drought –

and fires rage across Spain.

Our unbalanced world…

Yesterday a pair of bully power-brokers met

in Alaska to play games with the fate of

a small nation.

Almost an inch of rain fell here,

enough to vanquish the aridity

for only a handful of days (how I love

the luxurious feeling of warm rain, the

softness of the air, the dripping tips of leaves

and the windshield wipers whoosh-wooshing

across sparkling glass).

After the hoopla, the photo ops, and the big carbon footprints,

one can only hope the big, blue-suit meeting

won’t further erode the possibility

that children in Kiev

might live without fear.

Yet –

wandering around the yard

and further afield, I photograph

the unbalanced earth,

still

beautiful.

***

Notes on the photos

1) This is a photo of two leaves that fell onto a 3-foot square pane of glass that I placed on the ground where the leaves are prematurely falling from a Red alder tree (Alnus rubra). For the sake of aesthetics, I increased the difference between the color and detail of the two leaves on top versus the everything on the ground underneath.

2) A crop from another photo of the ground under the piece of glass. A frond from a Western Sword fern plant (Polystichum munitum) heavy with spores, was interwoven with alder leaves, like a sweet embrace. I slightly desaturated the color and added grain to the photo.

3) An old apple tree frames a patch of early morning sunlight.

4) I processed this photo of tree branches bending toward the water at the edge of a lake with an infrared effect.

5) This photo was made on the edge of a shallow bay in the Salish Sea. High tides and wind had twisted some strands of eelgrass around a branch of a leaning tree. It could be weeks or months before the tide reaches this branch again. The eelgrass blowing in the wind makes me think of party streamers – I know, the color is dull and they probably don’t smell great, but that’s what I see.

6) Peeling bark on a Pacific Madrone tree (Arbutus menziesii). I never tire of the myriad ways the bark peels on these trees, revealing warm hues and and interesting, often jagged shapes. The world is indeed a beautiful place, even as it falls apart.

7) A small Buddha sits on my windowsill. The window is open.

***

FINDING A WAY THROUGH

Like a Primal Mother, she takes me in. All I need to do is follow the path. It might take a little while for my preoccupations to fizzle away but change will come. Life, in all its glorious detail, will take (me) over.

As much as I know that to be true, too many days pass without any time under the trees or by the water. Worries pile up like dust in a corner. I don’t take my own advice, telling myself that there’s just too much to do these days. It’s true there’s a lot to do but I wonder how much this fraught busyness is unconsciously designed to help me avoid the pain. A weekend with no plans looms like a frightening void. But then it’s here and I’m glad for the open space of empty time. Time to let what happens, happen.

A few weeks ago it dawned on me that I had been plagued by the twin towers of work and fear for months without realizing it. I wasn’t getting outside very often and when I did, the motivation wasn’t the same. Getting back into a rhythm of enjoyable walks with the camera will take a little time. This post is a reminder that for me, the way through difficulties is to get outside for an hour or two, a mile or two – that’s all it takes. That’s when the self drops away most easily. And of course it’s that pesky notion of my self (those two words need to back off!) that gets in the way of functioning freely.

Beginning with four photographs from the weeks before Joe moved on and carrying on to recent times, this diary is a record of some of what I saw and felt along the way.

June 17th, 5:44PM. Joe has been in Intensive Care for two days. My world is fractured, broken open. I wander along a familiar trail close to home after a long day and a longer night. I let myself do anything with the camera – results aren’t a priority, just being outside for an hour is.

June 17th, 5:43PM. I look for comfort along the trail but I can’t focus the way I normally do. I swing the camera in tandem with the Madrone tree branches and the gentle waves below them. Later, I throw the point curve in Lightroom into disarray until the new colors suit my mood better. Because nothing feels real.

June 17th, 5:46PM. This time I swing the camera at an angle and aim it toward Lighthouse Point. Natural coloring seems more appropriate here. Not every moment is chaotic; there are tiny breathing spaces. I just need to find them.

June 29, 6:28PM. The days run together. Joe has been transferred to a bigger hospital almost an hour away. At the end of the day, a short walk through an old forest grounds me. Drifts of Ocean Spray dangle overhead: beauty and simplicity. My anxiety disappears for a minute, returns again, disappears, and returns. I’m grateful for a few islands of clarity.

July 13, 5:54PM. I search for a modicum of calm in an upside-down world. Joe was only home for four days before he took his last breath. I thought we would at least have another few months. It’s been one week now and I’m pushing myself to get outside. I’m on the easy trail near home, the one with Madrone trees hanging over the bay. I move the camera around again because, well, perhaps that reflects a world of change. When I get home I find small compositions within the larger whole. The colors feel good and the smooth arc of light seems within reach: a bright spot. It’s always there.

July 17, 10:10AM. Feeling better, I go to Rosario Beach to see Elsie Mae, the Northern elephant seal who should be molting but is taking her time. The tide is coming in strong, bubbling the surface and swaying the kelp beds below the rocks. I feel cleansed just looking at the slick, rubbery fronds twisting and turning in the water, swayed by the currents but firmly anchored to the rocks below.

July 20, 3:59PM. Feeling a little lost and forlorn, I make myself walk a trail in the forest. I remain uninspired until I come across a large gathering of Ghost pipes scattered about the detritus-rich soil. These plants don’t photosynthesize, instead feeding on underground fungal hosts. That just adds to their peculiar charisma. I study this place along the trail and wonder what makes it different enough that it hosts more than 50 of these little oddballs. Grateful for the distraction, I photograph one tight little bunch. Later I darken everything around them. That’s the way this little group felt – spotlighted in my mind.

July 25, 4:59PM. On a sunny, cool day I hike out to a fine, scenic promontory that overlooks the San Juan Islands. I’m happy to find my favorite little orchids, Platanthera transversa, growing by the trail. Then I rest and photograph the expansive view with my phone, something I’ve done many times before. An image I haven’t made very often comes later: fallen leaves caught by tall Horsetail (Equisetum) plants. With a wide-open shutter the image isn’t conventionally pretty, but neither is my life these days. This feels truer than the pretty view.

July 27, 5:24PM. I’m taking more walks now. Without planning to, I drive up Mt. Erie, the highest place on the island. Below the top there’s a place to pull over and park that most people pass by. Across the road is a short but sweet trail to a viewpoint. Trees have grown up to obscure the view but I don’t care – I like the forest here. It feels old and unmolested, just biding its time, living its life with little visible interference. The quiet settles down over me. I tell myself to come back soon – I need more of this deep, wordless calm.

July 30, 9:36AM. A dense marine layer blankets my end of the island I drive over to Bowman Bay and wander across its two beaches. Very few people are around. Lavender-blue Harebells dangle from the cliff, a study in delicate vs. rough. A young Grebe plies the wetland. This is the place that always calls me back.

August 2, 7:44PM. A Cyclamen plant blooms at home. The last light of the day filters through translucent petals. That pink! It’s different from everything around it. I prowl around the details of the flower with a macro lens, absorbing the beauty, a beauty no one really needs to look for. Just be alert to it. Pay attention.

***

Is there any room…

…between grief and exhilaration?

Between hugging his dear, breathless head tight (after carefully and tenderly

straightening his wrist, bent back on itself where it rested on his lap) –

is there any room

between my desperate screams

and a fleeting sense of freedom? Grief like a dark prison,

then freedom like a window open wide, the bracing air

clearing that stubborn, unrelenting fear lodged in my throat

since winter’s bony chill settled over us

and robbed him of breath, minute by minute.

Grief and release –

the whiplash of emotions deranging my bodymind.

Maybe the only space between despair and relief is confusion,

the disarray of narrow misses on the highway, zucchini going soft

in the fridge, bare silence at home,

no one calling, “Lynnie!” when I open the door.

All thanks to Death, visiting me again.

It took Trevor when he disappeared

underneath my outstretched foot – something to grab hold of, I hoped –

in the murky Delaware River one summer afternoon

forty-odd years ago. It took my mother,

who exhaled one last breath in her bed, feeding tube still tunneled

inside her stomach, the same space

that nourished me seventy-odd years ago.

But this is about death, not birth.

Death and the sadness and strange joy it sometimes brings.

The beautiful death of Muggie laying still for days,

fully engaged in the work of her last task,

her face a mask of deep concentration

as visitors filed in and watched, hushed and reverent.

The violent death of the nameless man I passed on the bridge,

the decisive slam of his body hitting the water

from 180 feet overhead. A spreading splash, then nothing.

The fearful death of the void, the blackness that makes a grown man

ask me to crack open the blinds one night

because “It’s so dark.”

Death, the place we can’t face,

the clearinghouse, the grand disrupter

that frees those left behind from false fantasies,

from oppression, or simply from worn-out routines,

death – opening windows

to liberation.

___

For weeks, I barely looked at the camera.

Before death there was no time for it,

after death, no desire.

If there’s a time for every season, there are times

for making images, or not.

The camera rested.

But in the silver and black boxes are thousands of images

I made over the years. They lit up the screen

and some spoke to me – mostly the abstract ones, the dark ones

with small, wavering slices of light

or the pale-as-moonlight ones.

Twisting and turning, sweeping the field clean,

they threaten or invite me in mutual recognition

across the momentary gap between eyes and screen.

The images fly above or sink below the middle ground

where I crave rest between bouts of black sadness

and exhilarating release. The middle ground,

the calm –

I trust it will push its way in

when I’m ready.

No need to look for it.

___

But now I want to tell you that all of this is wrong.

I’ve changed my mind about how I feel, how to describe it, what to say –

three, four, five times.

No, maybe it’s not wrong, it’s just grief

changing by the day.

The wind blows west, I feel dim, confused. It blows north

and I shudder, cold and sad, east and I see infinite possibilities ahead,

south and I’m warmed by sweet memories of you.

And once in a while there’s

calm.

***

***

***

R.I.P. Joe Madigan

10/12/1952 – 7/6/2025

It came sooner than I thought it would, sooner than anyone thought. There is so much to say and there is nothing to say.

Over the years I’ve taken many photos of Joe. It feels nourishing to scroll through them now. Many of you didn’t know him, some of you knew him well. Either way, with this gallery of photos I’ll paint a picture of the man I knew and loved, the man who spoiled me with attention and whose companionship was as comfortable and vital as the air we breathe. Miss you, man!

***