Ailsa’s travel theme this week at Where’s My Backpack? is: peaceful! While there are many out there who think I wouldn’t have an idea of what that meant…that I am a rageitarian and my anger sustains me…the fact is, I like a good, Zen, groovy moment as much as anybody. I’m just spiky on the outside. Inside, I am constantly trying to groom my cosmic bonsai.
Oh, come on, admit it. ”Cosmic Bonsai” is a great name for an art rock jam band.
Anyway, “peaceful”. Here we go!
This first picture was taken this past December in Baltimore, while walking around looking at the zazz-dazzling Christmas lights in Hampden. Up on the main drag the street was teeming with people and lights and street vendors and…lights…and people and noise and cars and more people. Which was great and festive and fun but also an incredibly high-performing way to spend an evening. Just a few blocks over? Silence.
Crowds, schmowds. Just breathe.
The next picture is taken from my back yard. We have a farmlet just behind us and right past that? A creek. Flat land + water are conducive to good fog, and I was incredibly grateful to walk out on my back porch at exactly the right moment. I literally ran into my house, terrifying the cat in the process, lunged for my camera and ran back outside. Because this.
No, that’s not mountains in the background. It’s just trees and clouds and fog.
The next photo was taken in Waltham, Massachusetts, in February 2013. I’m not sure why, but I’m always incredibly put at ease by the image of aqua-friendly birds just hanging out on the ice. The ice isn’t going anywhere, and if it does they can swim. The birds don’t look frantic. Nobody’s boating or swimming and the ice is too thin for skating, so they have this spot all to themselves. Good for them! Enjoy your day, geese!
Geese, doing they thing.
We spent a week at Keuka Lake a few years ago. I’ve written about it before; it was most wet and foggy, and we stayed indoors for much of the trip. Which was fine, because what I really needed for that vacation was total downtime. So here is a picture of George, sitting in the bedroom, looking out onto the lake, as the sun set through the fog and the light turned deep blue. Just looking at this photo makes me breathe a little easier.
George playing the day’s closing theme music.
And finally! I snapped this picture of a massive soybean field a few miles away from me, this past fall. I thought it was pristine and vast and beautiful; it made me want to run through the field and collapse in the middle like the lady in that Andrew Wyeth painting, only without the polio-blasted paralyzed limbs (seriously, it’s kind of a magnificent piece of dark artistic commentary, just take two minutes and read about the painting).
Welcome to central Pennsylvania.
That’s just about it for me. Head on over to Ailsa’s page and see how other people have contributed to this week’s travel theme. And let Otis Redding sing you a song on your way out.
~XOT
