Doc’s Motor Court, Room No.5

I’ve pressed the shutter on my Canon 5D Mark III over and over and over again. I bought the camera used 5 years ago and I hardly go a day without taking a picture. But lately I’ve noticed the shutter button is very sensitive. Sometimes when I press halfway to focus, the camera just goes ahead and takes the picture as though it has a mind of its own. I’ve done some research and thought about upgrading to the Canon 5D Mark IV and there are some decent arguments for a new camera. But none that seem to justify the hefty price tag—at least not right now. There are practical constraints like the new roof we need. First things first.

For some reason, I hadn’t even considered having my camera repaired. Probably because I’ve never had a problem before, and then to, I figured the cost of repair would be prohibitive. But I was wrong. I submitted a work order to Canon this morning and the cost of repair is estimated at $142. What a sweet surprise! Finally, something I CAN afford. So we’ve boxed my camera up and sent it on its way to the Canon Repair Center in Glendale, California.

I feel a little lost just knowing the camera won’t sit next to me all day long. But I figure these next few weeks will be a good time to practice with my film camera. And I’m working on processing images for a photo-poetic project I’m doing with my friend, Susan Carter Morgan. So I think I’ll have plenty to keep my need for creative work met. And perhaps this will be a time for rejuvenation and self-care.

This isn’t a new photograph. I took the image back in 2016, at a time when I felt like my heart might literally break into pieces.
I’ve never known how to best process the image,
and every time I revisit the picture, I make a different version.

I sometimes sit in the car in my own driveway to read. There is something about this confinement that settles my mind and lets me relax into a good book. Inside the house, there always seems to be something else that needs doing.

The book in my hands these days—Late Migrations by Margaret Renkl.

Renkl, like all artists I think, is in awe of ordinary things. She tells this story, “Let Us Pause to Consider What a Happy Ending Actually Looks Like,” and in the last paragraph, there are these lines that make my heart tremble.

But the shadow side of love is always loss, and grief is only love’s own twin. —Margaret Renkl

I see now that I have my happy ending. It just looks different than I’d imagined.

 
 

I kept seeing these two scenes on every trip down route one. I resisted making the effort at first. Those old-fashioned roses, cascading through the untamed forest, just where Ni River crosses route one . . . there is no shoulder on the road only a concrete culvert. But they are amazing. Wild and vibrant along the side of the road, thriving, as if they had something to prove. It was this morning, soft rain falling, that I finally made the trip. I pulled on my rain boots and old jeans to protect my legs from thorns. I enlisted the help of my husband as driver to drop me off on the side of the road. Nestled among those roses, I discovered joy for this day. Sometimes finding joy feels like too much to ask.

It is the same for the solitary magnolia tree with the hay bale. Every time I drive by I marvel at those perfect hay bales, like big spools of thread. I wonder about Otis Kay and if he’s been getting any phone calls from people with horses to feed.

It’s like magic, seeing these things. Like grace and compassion and comfort for human pain and suffering. I do not take this gift for granted.