River Walk

In February I began following Leah Piken Kolidas' blog, Creative Every Day, and have been enjoying her monthly “theme” challenges. She chooses a word and then offers a list of suggestions for responding to it creatively. She’ll share some of what she’s doing and open up her blog so followers can, too.

The word for March is “Nest”, and it has really struck a cord—triggering an art project I’m loving and some haiku I’m not. On Friday Leah shared the idea of taking a walk with a camera in hand, saying: “Simply having the camera with me helps me see things in new ways. It reminds me to look up at the sky, to look down at my shadow, and to notice the little moments of beauty that are everywhere.”

I became aware of this exact same thing last summer. When I took my camera to a park, or a friend's house, or on an excursion to a new town, I saw things through a different lens. So today I put it in my pocket when Jim and I went up to Nyack Beach State Park for one of our favorite walks: the path along the Hudson. I was on the lookout for signs of spring, but found so much more: