Walk Your Own Path

With no end in sight to the massive fires still burning in the northern parts of the Sierra Mountains, it seems self-centered to talk about my recent walk just to their south, until I think more deeply on what my project is supposed to represent. Turn on any news and it’s laced with either gossip or the worst parts of our world. It makes it easy to think the world and the humanity in it are collapsing, but there are other parts of our world worth sharing, parts that aren’t on fire or recovering from war. This is the mindset I had when I set off: to disconnect from the constant noise, not to hide from it, but to find beauty in simplicity, to experience something personal and see if what that was is actually something universal.

Early last month, I stood bare along the shore of the bluest lake and felt profound grace, bathed in dusty fatigue. I had come hundreds of miles and experienced something of revelation, a purifying of the soul that only happens beyond the bounds of comfortable living, beyond the confines of schedules, away from the world’s news. What news could be more important than learning the ferocity of an approaching storm, where the next water source lies, the identification of a small gray bird, or the story of you?

The walk I did was simply profound, at times terrifying, and at times enrapturing. Below I share three images I photographed with the panoramic pinhole camera I brought on my walk, each with accompanying narratives, little vignettes of my experience.