Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase. The image was taken from the side of an RV, parked downtown, in San Antonio, and all I could think?
“It’s the Louisiana Purchase!”
In the last half-dozen years, I’ve covered most of that, with echoes and memories bouncing off the map’s state outlines. While, strictly speaking, it’s not the Louisiana Purchase, when I first snapped the image, I was sure it was. Such is the porous nature of memory.
Turns out, most of the Louisiana Purchase is east of there. From the mighty Mississippi to the Eastern flank of the Rockies, bumping into a bit of Canada – I’m looking at you, Calgary.
Does not stop the flood of memories, old and new, up and down the either side of that Continental Divide, just part of who I’ve been, based on where I’ve been.
The beauty of my kind of work is that it allows me to see the inner workings of the hearts and minds of people, oftentimes, no more than a glimpse, but still, a peek into the average and un-average everyday lives. What sets us all apart, what is common.
While I grabbed that image in the middle of a hot summer month, it didn’t roll over in the picture-a-day exercise slot until late September. I wanted to make sure I had something to say because it was a beat-up and tawdry-looking RV, slightly older model, and the “States Visited” emblem was colored in with pride. Think it was a Texas tag, I don’t recall, now.
It’s that palpable excitement I feel, looking at an image, thinking, having it resonate with something in my soul, then seeing words appear on the screen of my mind, knowing that there is something further to explore.
Probably much like the owners of that RV, much more to explore.
astrofish.net/travel
Here on Sky Friday, I write almost every day. Daily practice. Some good. Some bad. Daily. It is, as the tag line suggests, experimental and experiential, most near every day.
At Bexar County Line, there is a new picture, once every 24 hours. Random image, originally from cheap cameras, but anymore? Just cell phones. New image. Every day.
Daily practices along the Louisiana Purchase. Read, write daily, and make an effort to exercise one other “art” muscle, each day. From whence Bexar County Line originated. That, too, the idea of daily practice? That’s part of what drives Sky Friday.
El Paso then Southern New Mexico, this weekend.
