"The important thing about learning to wait, i feel sure, is to know exactly what it is i am waiting for." -Anna Neagle

It's understandable... right?  I figure if i wait just a bit - inspiration will peek around the corner at me and it'll be:  "of course!  why didn't i think of that before??"  or if i wait until this evening, i'll have time to really put something together and it'll be: "look at this! I'm gonna love this one!" or if i just wait till Monday, it'll be: "Ha!  now i am really happenin' and i never wanna go to bed!" but then Monday becomes next Monday and i'm waiting for that spark and next Monday becomes next month and i'm waiting for genius and next month becomes... *sigh* and still i keep waiting....  and then i look up and suddenly i realize i'm embarrassed by it all... and so i wait to get un-embarrassed...  and that, of course, is useless... if i could just come to an understanding and wait for the right thing... but really it's not even that - the only way for me to stop waiting is to start doing...  sure.... that's what i tell myself....

But what do i know?

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"If you are not too long, i will wait for you all my life." -Oscar Wilde

"Maybe i can afford to wait... maybe for me, there's a tomorrow.  Maybe for me there's one thousand tomorrows, or three thousand, or ten -  so much time i can bathe in it, roll around in it, let it slide like coins through my fingers.  But then again, perhaps for me, there is only today.  And the truth is, I will never really know..." -Lauren Oliver

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Image notes:

i took this image during our annual trek to eastern Washington and visit to Lake Chelan. It was a lazy afternoon and i said that i was going up to the Butte for an hour or so to get some shots with my suit and umbrella (it was 92 degrees and everyone was in little tiny swimsuits with spaghetti straps - i am especially fond of spaghetti straps - and there were even a few speedos in evidence, are they making a come-back? i have mixed feelings about that - but i digress...) They looked up and smiled with an 'off-you-go-then' wave and said:

"So, I guess I'll see you in about four hours..." (am i so predictable?)

The road from our posh lake resort to Chelan Butte is a wonderfully dusty and rutted single-lane dirt track that winds and climbs up ravines and along dry grass and sage-covered ridges - the views of the lake and the surrounding mountains are well-worth the dirty car, scratched paint, and jittery nerves this primitive pathway always seems to demand. Today, not quite to roads' end, i turn off into the sage and stop, allowing the trailing dust cloud to catch up, add its small dose of grime, and then run ahead looking for a place to settle. From the back seat, i don my suit, my hat, and clutching umbrella, fake briefcase, and camera and tripod i step out into the heat and quiet and begin my walk. This year has been a bit wetter than usual and the grass seems higher and the grasshoppers more lively than times before (later, when i finally call it quits and remove my suit back at the resort, i find one of these little guys in the cuff of my trousers and another in the pocket of my suit coat - i have to admit the one in my pocket gave me quite a start when i reached in to retrieve my glasses - eek). But that's later, now i mostly hear the clicking and rattling as they make good their escape from my easy footsteps. As I sit and type, it is that sound and the smell of the sage that stands in my mind (when i'm out there, i can't walk past a sage bush without crushing a few of the leaves and breathing its fragrance on my fingers - sweet and earthy and i just can't get enough).

You know i got this thing about this damn suit and hat and umbrella and briefcase, right? It's fun to dress-up, it's fun to be places that seem at odds with this get-up, it makes me smile. Except this time, it is hot. The only thing that saves me as i climb up and down the little canyons of this lone mountain is the breeze and my umbrella - i now understand that the joys of parasols in the blazing sun are not to be trivialized. That little bit of shade hanging beneath my dear umbrella combined with the bit of wind swirling around this prominence is an unexpected relief. i was ready to be hot and sweaty and miserable but instead i am a bit warm and a bit sweaty but it is all very tolerable. So i set up the camera on my tripod and exercise the 10-second delay and run up and down the grassy hills crushing leaves and smelling my fingers (man oh man, if this is the true me - maybe i should be a hermit) and look at the result and smile and say "cool" or grimace and say "shit" and then repeat the whole thing as often as necessary. At the time, I didn't really have a concept in mind - i was just there to take in the place and to take some pictures and to have some fun (as well as some olfactory memories) to take back.  

It wasn't until i started processing the images and looking at what i had that ideas started to form. Then it was off to find bus stops with water taxi signs (we have this wonderful water taxi that crosses Elliot Bay between West Seattle and downtown (takes about 15 minutes or so) and is part of our metro transit system) and then getting the right light and finally just a bit of PS work - except now i have to get my sage from our spice cabinet (it just isn't quite the same) and i have to be very careful about who sees me smelling my fingers....   :)