A single photograph has the power to unlock mysteries of life and human nature in Daydreaming on the Porch

I’m in a no-man’s land state of mind tonight. A bit numb. Peaceful, but sort of lost and indifferent to everything just now. It’s 3:30 am. I’m thinking about a lot of things. For instance, the way time marches on more and more steadily and quickly with each passing week or month, and each year that I get older. I mean this literally.

It’s been five years since I retired from my job. When I turned 70 two years ago, I started noticing and experiencing more clearly than ever the effects of aging and the slow advance of diminished strength and mental acuity that can lead to the infirmity of advanced age that most of us fear, the most awful being Alzheimer’s disease or some of dementia. Horribly and unthinkably, disease robs us of our memories and our sense of who we are — our very selves, and I saw it close up for years as my mother descended slowly down the path of dementia.

What troubles age inflicts on these clay vessels we inhabit, tough and resilient as they are! I remember when my aunt had a bad fall and subsequent hospitalization many years ago. I was very close to her. She had always been like a second mother to me. The experience shocked me and brought me ever closer to the presence of sickness, injury, the helplessness of being in hospitals, and an unwilling confrontation with the fact that life has to end. And because of this, I have to remind myself constantly that I only have each day that is given to me. I can do what I want for that day. But during that day thoughts can intrude about upcoming doctor appointments, cancer screening tests, the rising hospitalizations with a new variant of Covid, and the realization that we can still easily get infected, even being fully vaccinated. All this slaps you upside the head and take away any illusions about what once seemed like an endless life ahead when we were young. No more.

However, even with all the dire bad news today, life goes on everywhere around me. The throbbing, churning, activity-obsessed culture we’re part of, heedless of time, is busy consuming it in big restless, agitated gulps. No place for the aged, sick and infirm on the busy, traffic-filled, streaming urban arteries that carry us along to our destinations. Busy, busy. Places to go. Things to do. Planes to catch. Products to buy. Work to do. One thing after another to stave off the void. We look askance at elderly drivers poking along in this madness, turning off the highway with glacial indifference to the speeding cars heading their way in the other lane, avoiding destruction, just barely. Life goes on. A time capsule shooting through space.

One consequence of my staying up very late each night is that the world has temporarily shut down, and I begin to feel alone in the universe. But this feeling of aloneness is what enables me to block out out all the distractions of daytime so that my mind can escape temporarily the bonds of pure physicality and dream, think deeply, and practice my own unique form of meditation, which no one has to teach me. I think a little bit about what I might do tomorrow, but unless I have an appointment to be somewhere, there’s no need to do anything. I can go sit on the balcony and look at the night sky, or last night sit for a half hour listing to thunder and rain, and see frequent sky-filling flashes of heat lightning that were a startling pinkish-red color that seemed very unusual to me.

When I came in, the peaceful feelings were broken because for some reason that was fateful and purposeful, I started thinking about some of the really bad job interviews I’ve had in the past, one in particular that was 30 years ago. When you’re young, unless you get lucky and find the perfect job and career, it seems like a lot of your time is spent either thinking about a new job and better life, actively looking for a new job, or interviewing. Until I settled down in my final job and career, I had had a lot of job interviews, a number of them quite unpleasant, inexplicably, since generally I do very well in interviews. But thankfully, job hunting is something I’ll never have to do again.

In thinking about that bad experience years ago, I remember once looking at a framed photograph on the wall directly in front of me. I took it in northwest Oregon during the trip back from that bad job interview 30 years ago. It’s a picture of a quiet stream flowing imperceptibly over large and small rocks and boulders through a forest of red alders and firs. The alders are the understory trees and arch over the stream in a most beautiful way.

But, as with all photographs, there is usually much more than meets the eye, for me anyway, within the compositions of the photographs I take. Cameras have always been my second set of eyes, and pictures I’ve taken over the decades for my own personal, artistic creations, as well as in many of my long-ago newspaper jobs, have connected me time and again with my past, and deepened my understanding of myself, and what I value and hold in esteem more than anything else has. In other words, the process of seeing the pictures in my mind’s eye first, and then in the viewfinder, has been indispensable to the way I see and think about the world around me. What photographs tell me are stories that provide a way for me to remember incidents, places, people and things. but can unexpectedly also unexpectedly help redeem or soften the memory of bad experiences long ago.

Thus the photograph taken in Oregon, which I alluded to earlier, has quite an interesting and significant story behind it, more so than most. It’s very special to me. I will relate that story of the photograph and why it’s so special.

In July 1992 I was living in Washington State. Vestiges of youth still spirited my outlook. I was prepared to cast my fate to the Oregon winds off the Columbia River Gorge, one of my favorite places, and take a journalism teaching job at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon, if it was offered

When I got a call to come down for an interview, I naively assumed that I was among a select few candidates for the job, maybe three finalists. I had my master’s degree in journalism, I had taught college level journalism at a large university, and I had served as editor of a couple of weekly newspapers. I thought I had a pretty good chance at the job. I was asked to prepare a brief teaching lesson on that bane of journalism instructors, the inverted pyramid, which basically is how to structure the opening paragraph of a news or feature story, sometimes simply called “the lead.” Teaching the concept effectively is not as simple as it might seem, I discovered from actual experience.

I had prepared what I thought was a good lesson. I really liked the college and could almost imagine what it would be like living in Salem where it was located. I could indeed see myself there. And best of all, I didn’t need a Ph.D to teach there. Now, with all the benefits of hindsight and decades that have passed, I realize it was all a delusion. But that’s another story.

The day of the presentation when I would meet the faculty and students late in the afternoon, was a beautiful day. I visited some waterfalls nearby and walked around the lovely campus of another local college there in Salem. Finally, I got to the site and went in for my presentation. Mine was obviously the last one for the day, the committee was weary, and they didn’t seem the least bit interested in me. Basically, I was part of a cattle-call, not a serious interview. I was given a perfunctory tour afterwards of the journalism classrooms and the office area and sent on my way. “We’ll let you know,” I was told as I was leaving. I had no idea it would be anything g like this.

It would be difficult to describe the sinking feeling I had, first for being treated like just one o dozen of applicants for the job who came to give presentations, and then leaving with hardly a thank you or a pleasant word from the man who conducted the interview and tour. I was feeling quite dejected and disillusioned by that point because I realized I’d been had once again. Do you think there was any mention of reimbursing me for my night at the motel, or my gas or mileage, or meal expenses? No. Nothing.

The next day I left to head back home, but I was determined to turn my loss into something positive. I decided to explore along some back roads in the far northwest corner of Oregon and then cross over the mouth of the Columbia River and head back to Seattle

About an hour and a half later, I found myself on a winding and nearly deserted road that wound along from the Nehalem River . Maples covered the road in a winding canopy, and the trees were so dense that the sunlight above was obscured. But there was a fine and subtle light, just right for taking pictures. The sunlight in the woodland setting was evenly disbursed and there was no glaring contrast between dark green vegetation and bright sunlight. After I had left in the Nehalem River at one point, I turned off the road and down a rutted lane to a small and unexpected sanctuary.

Since it was late summer, the rivers and streams I passed were barely flowing over the rocks and boulders. To my delight I saw a a little stream, faintly trickling along in between the alder trees above it. I snapped a vertical format picture with a large boulder in the foreground and the S-curve of the stream flowing down into the center of the composition I was framing. Again, the current in the creek was imperceptible, but just enough to scatter some light to the center of the stream’s surface. It was muted light, coming through an opening in the trees. I took several photographs, got back in my car after walking around awhile savoring the peace and quiet, and was soon on my way again.

Many times afterwards I’ve looked at that particular scene in one of the photographs I took, reminding me of Nature’s harmony and order as the little stream slowly made its way toward the Nehalem River and then to the Pacific. I had an enlargement made of that photograph of the sanctuary which made the whole pointless and discouraging job-seeking trip worthwhile in the end. I also learned some important lessons about human nature. And, while the callousness and indifference of the people at the college hurt, it was largely salvaged and redeemed by the experience along that peaceful, alder-shaded creek.

Now here’s the best and most tantalizingly mysterious part of that photograph. A very curious and remarkable thing occurred while I was looking at it that night years ago, perched on my bedroom wall right in front of me where I sat at my computer for hours on end. It was all quite magical and surreal, strangely compelling and fascinating. I kept staring at that scene, so sharp and clear, and looking deep into the grove of alders and I noticed how, as if I had never seen it this way before, the two-dimensional scene was inexplicably transformed into a three-dimensional one.

I could hardly believe my eyes, but I could see into that picture as if it was totally lifelike and real. I felt as if I could have walked right into the scene and listened to the birds and flowing water just as I had when I stood at that spot composing the photograph. The experience only lasted a few minutes. I never forgot the sensations I had then. I was startled and happy.

I hadn’t been imbibing any reality-altering substance — never do — but my mind and senses were definitely creating something special for me to enjoy. It was strangely exciting and gloriously intoxicating for someone so grounded in ordinary reality as myself.

This morning I looked at the photograph again, and it was its normal, two-dimensional self, a beautiful picture, for sure, and one I never tire of looking at, but the magic was gone, for now at least.

The photograph, 30 years later

https://flic.kr/p/2nyQ1a4

Last updated July 17, 2022