First Month

Today marks one month with this practice of writing a once daily piece sparked by one thing each day. Each moment I've written about, though, has unraveled other things. I've been tempted to just go to bed without writing (can I do it tomorrow?) but the date stamp on the blog is too honest for that. That's where the five minute pieces come in. And yet some of those pieces are the ones that have the most in them.

This whole exercise reminds me of the nature photographer Jim Brandenburg's project when, for three months, he took only one picture each day and published them. All the pictures were taken in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and all of them were outstanding by themselves. But taken together and knowing that he had only one chance to snap the shutter closed made the pictures hard to believe. The book came out before the advent of digital photography, but even with film the artist usually takes many pictures and selects the one with the right light, framing, texture, and contrast. The art in this book was a commitment to each moment. There was no decision to be made later. Moment, captured, released. It is the releasing that makes art, art. Without letting it go and seeing what happens -- who will notice, will they care, what are they looking for? -- it remains captured. Not even the artist can see it fully until the work has been sent out into the world for someone else to see. Yet that is the hardest part.

We have a Brandenburg photo in our dining room, a gift from two great friends from college. It is the tip of a wooden canoe gliding into a glass lake that reflects the golden leaves on the banks. It is so still there isn't a ripple. Yet we know that the boat went on and went past the trees, maybe even past the lake on a portage trail. But at this moment, there is only stillness. I don't know if it is from his collection of once-a-day photos, but just seeing it reminds me that there is art to be seen, heard, touched, smelled and tasted in the moments of the day. They aren't all meant to be captured and released, by why not let at least one of them?