Finding the Light

A windy day last week had the flags standing almost straight out from their poles. There weren’t many people along the downtown waterfront when I took this shot, so our flags were doing the “elbows up” work on their own. I was happy to see them.

I started writing this piece with the idea of a series of morning photos. At times in my life, I have been a morning person. Not always, but generally. I’m definitely not a night person, as anyone who has seen me fall asleep during a party will attest. I wouldn’t necessarily call myself a morning person anymore, mostly because I no longer have to race through my days. That’s an advantage to ageing. There are many, but that’s another topic.

I have happily grown used to easing into the day, become attached to a slow start. This is a pleasant practice, but it can have a downside. A slow start often means that my pace never picks up as the day goes on. Some days have disappeared entirely and I wasn’t sure where they went. I have realized that at this stage of my life, if want to get anything done, I have to be aware of time passing. To that end, I usually have several projects on the go. If one isn’t working, I move to another one. If the writing isn’t working, I often reach for my camera.

I took the above photo from our balcony a few weeks ago, just before 7 am. The sun was preparing to clear the ridge across the valley and I was getting ready to claim my day. I don’t know who to credit for the phrase “if you win the morning, you win the day.” It’s probably been said by many upbeat energetic morning people. Lately, those words have been bouncing around in my head at about the same time as the sun clears the ridge.

The light-filled shot you see below is from 2023, on an early December morning in Edmonton, with the North Saskatchewan River partially iced up and the sky getting ready to accept the sun’s arrival. I know for sure that there are many Canadian flags flying among the sparkling lights in the background of that shot.

In my quest to organize the chaos in my computer, I’ve been combing through my photo library of over 10,000 photos. I started watching for shots taken in the early morning. It turns out that I have far more photos of the sun going down than of it coming up. So much for my theory of me as a natural morning person.

If I remember to step outside as soon as I get up, I am sometimes rewarded with a photo like this next one. Getting this one was a very satisfying start to a day.

For me, winning the day doesn’t mean conquering anything. For me, winning the day means arriving at the end of the day feeling somewhat satisfied with what I’ve done with those awake hours. These days, as the hefty winds of the outside world induce edginess, anxiety, distraction, and fear, we can’t allow the negative noise to swallow our days.

I took this next one last June, at about 7 am. The summer solstice sun had been up hours longer than me.

During the last month, I turned my attentions back to a novel I started a year and a half ago. In the beginning, it flowed out of me like a mountain stream released by the spring melt. It roared along until I was about a third of the way into a first draft. And then suddenly I couldn’t go any further. Something had gone awry and I couldn’t see what it was.

Last month, the characters started flitting around in my head again, so I picked it up. As I read through it, a light came on and pointed me to what the problem was. I printed the whole thing out, selected a colourful editing pen (pink this time), got cozy on the couch, and started writing all over it. Then I went to my computer and settled in to work.

I’m not an outliner. I don’t plot out the whole story in an outline before I start. I wish I did. I think that process would be more manageable when the going gets tough. But it’s not me. I start a new story as soon as I’ve come up with a situation and a vague idea of where I want it to end. Then I let the characters take me there. When this process is working well, I sleep well and wake up eager to go at it every morning.

When it’s not working well, I go for a walk and take some photos along the way.

Photography, like writing, like living through gusty fraught times, is all about finding the light. Until next time, stay safe. Elbows up!