sight focus

Fullerton Arboretum, Fullerton, CA

I didn’t give myself a full four-hour window of time outdoors. I probably could have, but responsibilities kept pulling at me. Rather than wait until I felt I had enough time, I decided to spend the time I was ready to give without distraction.

I settled on a bench by the pond. I became aware of wanting to take still images with my eyes—to freeze and store moments like photographs in my mind instead of actually looking. Maybe I am conditioned through camera-habit to think that this is what it means to look closely. But when I’m snapping pictures, I’m not necessarily seeing. It’s more a collecting of approximations filtered through choice. This isn’t bad. It’s just not what I’m setting out to do with this project.

Once I let go of the need to collect stills, I began to notice movement standing out, as figure against the ground of stillness. Song birds. Butterflies. Coots paddling across the pond. The movement of air and turtles causing ripples in the water. The ripples caused bunches of pond grasses to multiply in inverted reflections—wriggling, splitting, crossing, weaving.

Behind the rim of trees surrounding the pond, I could see the top of a tree with broad, waxy leaves. In random-seeming clusters, groupings of three to five leaves tick-tocked back and forth as if they were on hinges, almost mechanically pivoting on their stems. The rest of the tree was motionless.

Closer, what at first appeared to be a light gray tree, a ghost tree—dormant, just sticks—became pale arteries reaching up and dispersing into capillaries, thrumming red-ochre toward the tips.

early morning

Walking in the soft floss of morning I saw a tree with branches bowing. On those thin branches, hundreds of young leaves—still tightly wrapped and frilly—were pushing out 

into the open space between their darker, flatter, more uniform relatives.

The fog’s damp rested on spider threads draped across the open spaces. They were invisible, except when I was standing in one specific place 

on the ground, looking up. 

water droplets

eucalyptus leaves

droplets left from the night's rain

touch focus

Long Beach, CA

                                                                                                                      

My second four-hour experience, this time in an urban setting... I felt inner resistance to slowing the momentum of my day. I was tempted to cut the time short. I could say I had stayed outside the whole time and not actually do it. But at what cost?

The sky was washed clean. It was a hair-blowing-around-the-face day. I walked the measured slabs of concrete toward Colorado Lagoon. I picked a stem of rosemary and pressed it between my fingers. 

The wing-like leaf-sprouts of a eucalyptus felt like small feathers, but the bark was crumbling and gritty.

At the lagoon it was low tide. The water’s edge was a carpet of green sea-moss lying close to the sand. Moist, sun-warmed felt, it was springy and alive under my palms—a fabric of thin, curving strands matted close together.

I held my hand up to the folded rays of a fan-shaped palm leaf. I could feel it catch the wind, and push—toward me and away—on its thick stem.

Over at the grove of trees on 7^th Street it was difficult to be aware. In the rush of traffic I lost any sense of breeze or sunlight touching my skin. I put both hands on the trunk of a tree close to the road; it felt as if it was quivering.

As I left the street, my pace slowed and my focus returned. 

I realized I was missing a lot by wearing shoes, so I took them off. More contact—it changed the whole experience. I felt the ground through my feet. The grass was still wet from the night’s rain. With any careless step across pavement a jolt traveled from my heal up to my skull, causing my upper and lower teeth to bump together.

I was vaguely aware of clock time, but could tell by the temperature and the angle of the light that it was a late afternoon. The sun dipped behind a cloud, and it got noticeably cooler. As the sky was darkening I walked back along the green belt. Gravel and sharp stones made my progress slow. I was attempting to feel through my soles, but not to bear too much weight.

far away and right here

The question is not where did the traveler go? What places did he see?...but who was the traveler?...how genuine an experience did he get?    – Henry David Thoreau

I conceived of the Walden Here project when I was craving a long trip to a beautiful, natural place. The circumstances of my life prevented me from going very far. It was an opportunity to notice what was right in front of me.

Thoreau, Henry David, and Jeffrey S Cramer. I to Myself : An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. p. 121.