Marah, Adin and I went on our usual walk through the suburban woods right across the road from our house. A wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon. I shot a bunch of pictures, Adin doing the same with his compact 35mm camera. The lighting wasn't good along this walk, it never is. There's a lot of shade, and the light filtering through through thick, high branches can be harsh, making for tricky camera settings. I need a tripod to hopefully improve the sharpness. I need time. It's a struggle to capture the real beauty that lives down that path.
When I looked at this image tonight, I saw a very little girl running beneath very large trees on a trail leading off into what could only be more uncivilized nature. I immediately thought of a "babe in the woods." I then thought of my sister who's expecting her third child. She'd spent a lot of time discussing a third - lots of hours spent with her husband. Intense negotiations. They were happy with two. She couldn't explain her desire.
One night, she and I spoke of this innate want of women (and men) to have children - of mankind's continuing wish to procreate. Why do we want children? Considering all that's wrong with this world. All the dangers lurking behind trees, deep in concrete forests, entrenched in hopeless political quagmires. We had no answer. We could only speak of the unspeakable joy, the boundless frustrations, the endlessness of love. So she left it up to God. With limits. If in six months it doesn't happen, then we'll know our answer.
He answered. With a she.
I look at this picture and see a little girl running excitedly forward into lightness, into a real or imaginative world's mysteries and secrets. I think it's a statement of ultimate irony. That indeed, my adult fears are a child's joy. That in truth, the picture is of a wonderful Sunday walk into familiar territory, a reminder that the forest is what we choose to make it, that our life is filled with whatever light we can pull out of the darkness.
What is it? An innate belief in light.