The city girl in me is on alert as I climb up the old sidewalk to the Rosey Tree.  To make the pictures I want to see, I need time alone and unobserved.  The Rosey Tree is in an ideal spot for such moments.  And of course, its isolation is what scares me.

Because to find a picture, I might have to get lost.  Correction:  I will have to get lost.  Lost in the tree.  Lost in my eyes.  Lost to most of the world around me.  Lost from the self that is trudging across the grass with a tripod, for chrissake.

No matter where I am, finding a picture requires being vulnerable.  Requires forgetting why I can’t, or shouldn’t, do certain things.  It really doesn’t matter if anyone else is there to see, or not.  It is always a risk.  I am always afraid.

Somedays, I forget more readily than other days.  Somedays,  I leave  unseen pictures hanging heavy from the branches, like the scraps of prayers tied to temple trees in Japan.  All I can do is hope the un-lost moments will carry forward on the breeze to another, braver day when 20 minutes, safely alone in the world, doesn’t seem too much to ask.