Woodbridge, VT ~ 2018
If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere. -Vincent Van Gogh
The day after James and Willy fell through the ice, his boots dried out (thanks to the wood stove), the camera dried out (a little snow wasn’t life-threatening, thankfully) and the temperatures fell even more.
Melody emerged from the chaos of the coat closet with a triumphant smile. “Hey love, I found your old snow pants on the bottom of the closet if you need them.”
“Thanks babe. Yeah I was thinking of going back out today to see what I could see. I think I’ll leave the dog home this time. Maybe one or both of the kids would want to come.” He took the snow pants from her and leaned in to kiss her on the cheek, not only out of affection, but to discharge the inevitable winter static, so he wouldn’t shock her tender lips, which got the next kiss. He moved around to the other cheek to complete the circuit.
“Maybe, but they might get impatient if you’re taking pictures,” she said.
“True, we’re a little passed the stick-fort era, I guess. If they emerge from their beds and/or Minecraft mines any time soon, tell them I’m by the creek if they want to join me out in the real world.” Jess and Josh, the twins, just turned 14 and were still basking in the freedom of Christmas break.
“OK, although that isn’t likely given the temperature right now. Don’t fall in this time.” This time it was his turn to get a peck on the cheek.
“I’ll try, but no guarantees. I’m not exactly the most coordinated person in the world.”
Given the previous day’s spectacular disaster, his expectations for success were sufficiently low. The temperatures had fallen into the single digits overnight, so he was pretty sure the ice had re-formed over the creek where he had fallen in. The air was clear, and in place of the low dome of snow-laden clouds was a bright sky the color of his grandmother’s blue diamond engagement ring, which he admired every Sunday morning. Breathing in through his nose, he judged the temperature to be somewhere between 5 and 10 degrees, because his nostrils didn’t quite freeze up (“booger-freezin weather”).
He made his way to the creek, finding a few more deer tracks along the way. He came to the spot where he tripped over the snow-covered tree root and crashed into the ice the day before. The area was clearly disturbed (which made him wonder what a tracker would have guessed what happened there), but the ice had indeed re-formed.
When he saw how exactly it formed, he was so surprised he quickly inhaled the frigid air, which caused a small coughing fit. He had begun to take a certain pride in noticing the unnoticed. Slowing down and seeing the unseen. Observing the unobserved, which can take time, effort, and practice. It can take a God-given mindset and heartset. But sometimes something is so clear, so beautiful, so stunning, that it might as well have an “Eat at Joe’s”-style neon sign pointing at it.
What he stumbled upon, etched in the ice that day, was impossible to miss, even though it wasn’t large. He later called it “Van Gogh’s Ice” because it seems that God himself, or perhaps an angel or ice-fairy on assignment had just studied The Starry Night. There at the edge of the bank, in the still, shallow water, very small undulating waves of ice had formed on the surface. Alternating edges of soft white lines and transparent ice radiated from the edge, encasing a partially-submerged pine branch. He’d seen this phenomenon in a dirty puddle now and then, but this was something different: like sound waves, or maybe light waves, frozen in ice and time. A resurrection from the previous day’s disaster. An impressionist masterpiece found here in a remote and unknown corner of the world, yet roughly duplicated a million times over in a million other frozen places.
After staring in wonder for some time, he got to work setting up the tripod and shutter remote, so he might bring a view of this beauty and wonder home. He shot it so many times in so many ways (change the shutter speed, change the aperture, change the lens, wait for the light to change, tweak the composition and do it all over again) that he lost track of time, lost most of the light, lost power in the camera battery, and eventually lost most of the feeling in his fingers and toes.
It was getting dark when he stumbled home, once again eager for the wood stove. The dog yapped and danced, the kids looked up from their phones a moment, and Melody was at the door with her coat on. “Where’ve you been? I was just about to come find you, hoping you weren’t encased in ice.”
“I found an ice formation like I’ve never seen before, and I couldn’t stop taking photos, until the battery died, at least.”
“Well let’s see then.”
“I’ve got hundreds of shots, so I’ll sift through them first, but yeah, I can’t wait for you to see it. After dinner. I need to thaw out a bit.”
Later that night he showed Melody and the kids his favorite shots. Josh didn’t have a whole lot to say besides, “Wow, that’s pretty cool,” which counted as high praise from him. But Melody and Jess, two peas in their passionate pod, basically freaked out. “What?! Where did you find that? That looks like a painting! That’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. We’ve got to show people this.” And so it went for quite a while.
“You know, Amy and Ben are finally opening their gallery in an old storefront downtown. You should blow this up big and get it framed. I bet they’d want it for their grand opening show next month,” Melody said.
“Yeah maybe so,” James said, reluctant to believe it was worth that much fuss. But after 20 years, he had learned to trust Melody’s instincts about such things. “I’ll email it to them and see if they’re interested.”
“You really do have an eye for beauty,” she said.
“Thanks love. I’m just glad its my good eye.”
Later that night, sitting at the computer, tweaking the contrast and saturation in Photoshop, he couldn’t help but lose himself in the image. “All art is derivative” kept running through his head. He didn’t make that beautiful ice formation: he was just lucky enough to find it, and lucky enough to have a way to bring it home. He hadn’t taken a “real” photograph in 20 years. Was this just beginner’s luck? Or was his flat view of the world really worth sharing?
He let himself dream a little: what would it be like to ditch the desk job and make a go of something creative like photography? Long ago he let go of the brief dream of playing music for a living. The doubts dominated the dreams: not good enough, not enough experience, too much travel, too many real world responsibilities. He kept playing though, at least in the living room, where it was safe.
He looked over at Willy, curled up on top of the decorative metal case over the radiator. “What if this photography thing could really take off, Willy? Maybe I could keep the desk job while it built up?” Willy lifted his head up, sniffed the air, and resumed his toasty nap. James quietly registered a new website and called it Cyclops Photography.