Sunflowers and Death

Winding down a long weekend, a tough work week looming.

Sunday began with the bright promise of an early morning visit to McKee-Beshers Wildlife Refuge in Maryland to photograph in the fields of sunflowers. The weather was cool and clear, lovely for an almost August day. We got in early enough to enjoy long periods of silence with the flowers. We left as the crowds started to arrive with their loud voices and selfie sticks.

A rush home to attend the memorial viewing of a friend's wife. Death's timing is hardly ever good.

This day was bracketed by life and death, and now as it closes I'm lead to try and make sense of it, but I cannot. The bright morning with sunflowers stretching to the sun, and with the evening, time to mark the passing of a life. Light to dark, life to death.

This is a passage all living things must take - still, if I could have a wish it would be to return loved ones to those who miss them, to make broken hearts whole.

Photography & prose by Terry Rowe.

All work can be or is available for sale, visit www.terryrowe.photography. You can also leave me a comment if there is a particular piece of work you are interested in.

I am grateful for all of your comments and views.

Week 16 of 2017 - A Photograph a Day - Project 365

The sixteenth week of 2017, the 365 photograph a day project. This week brought spring rains, much needed, adding the dimension of water to the blossoms of the season.

Dew drop
Day 105 04-16-2017












A white flower grows in the quietness. Let your tongue become that flower. ~Rumi
Peony
Day 106 04-17-2017

Spirea
Day 107 04-18-2017

The Space Between

What's wrong and right
Is where you'll find me hiding, waiting for you
The Space Between
Your heart and mine
Is the space we'll fill with time
~Dave Matthews Band

Day 108 04-19-2017

One Rose

Day 109 04-20-2017

  
If you find me not within you, you will never find me. For I have been with you, from the beginning of me. ~Rumi

Day 110 04-21-2017

I only went out 
for a walk and 
finally concluded to stay out till sundown, 
for going out, 
I found, was really going in. 
~John Muir

Dogwood blossom 
on a rainy day

Day 111 04-22-2017























Photography & prose by Terry Rowe.

All work can be or is available for sale, visit www.terryrowe.photography. You can also leave me a comment if there is a particular piece of work you are interested in.

I am grateful for all of your comments and views.

Idioms and Thoughts

It's a gray, rainy, almost chilly spring day. It is spring so the birds are noisy, there are flowers, and green things are greening. But it is also gray, and all my weekend plans - which involved being outdoors - have been cancelled or altered because of the rain. So the gray rain has started my thoughts down a darker path.

I was thinking of a phrase, "Happy enough" that I heard on the Netflix series, 'Grace and Frankie.' Grace (Jane Fonda) uses it when her husband Robert (Martin Sheen) asks her how she felt about their marriage after he has just asked her for a divorce. Happy enough. I've never wanted happy enough - which is evident by the way my life has evolved. I've wanted happy or not, good not bad, all in or all out.

The next phrase, maybe even a counter-point to 'happy enough' is 'better than nothing.' While I've often rejected 'happy enough' I found myself, yesterday, flipping out the 'better than nothing' phrase. I had planned to send the entire day with a beloved friend, but work and life got in the way and our day turned into a few hours. I said, well a few hours with you is 'better than nothing.' Which actually is not true - nothing is nothing - it's a void that can turn into a sorrowful well.

A few hours with a loved friend can be wonderful, as long as the focus is on present - not on the missing hours or the unknown future.

Better than nothing, far, far better. Because we never know how much time we have to spend with those we love, so even a few hours can be precious.

Photography & prose by Terry Rowe.

All work can be or is available for sale, visit www.terryrowe.photography. You can also leave me a comment if there is a particular piece of work you are interested in.

I am grateful for all of your comments and views.

Week 15 of 2017 - A Photograph a Day - Project 365

The fifteenth week of 2017, the 365 photograph a day project. This week started with a quick explore of an abandoned building, the rest of the week was mostly bound with flowers of spring--so fleeting that it's hard to ignore their brightness.

Her

Day 98 04-09-2017

Wild violets,
sweet spring gift to delight.

Day 99 04-10-2017

Windowsill Angel

Day 100 04-11-2017

Wildflower, Wood Poppy

Day 101 04-12-2017

 Groundcover, Vinca

Day 102 04-13-2017

Peony. Early buds were lost to the late freeze, but the plant bounced back to deliver these blossoms.

Day 103 04-14-2017

 New fern

Day 104 04-15-2017















Photography & prose by Terry Rowe.

All work can be or is available for sale, visit www.terryrowe.photography. You can also leave me a comment if there is a particular piece of work you are interested in.

I am grateful for all of your comments and views.

Week 14 of 2017 - A Photograph a Day - Project 365

The fourteenth week of 2017, the 365 photograph a day project. This week spring well and truly sunk her teeth into the earth and showed her might.

A garden should be natural-seeming, with wild sections, including a large area of bluebells.
~ Diana Wynne Jones

Virginia Bluebell

Day 91 04-02-2017

Cherry blossom dawn

Day 92 04-03-2017

Possum frequently visit my yard, this little girl thought I couldn't see her. She decided to move on when I touched her tail.

Day 93 04-04-2017

Spring flowers,
wild confederate violets

Day 94 04-05-2017

First round of storms,
cherry trees wet with rain.

Day 95 04-06-2017

A white flower
grows in the quietness.
Let your tongue become that flower. ~Rumi

Jonquils

Day 96 04-07-2017

A faded rose sits on the windowsill, an unknown story.

Day 97 04-08-2017

















Photography & prose by Terry Rowe.

All work can be or is available for sale, visit www.terryrowe.photography. You can also leave me a comment if there is a particular piece of work you are interested in.

I am grateful for all of your comments and views.

Week 13 of 2017 - A Photograph a Day - Project 365

The thirteenth week of 2017, the 365 photograph a day project. Started the week off with a day trip to Hoopers Islands in Dorchester County in Maryland, among the sites visited was an abandoned cemetery being reclaimed by the Chesapeake Bay. The rest of the week was split between work & home. This week saw the close of the first quarter of 2017 and the first day of the second quarter.


Gravesite of an 1812 war veteran. Anchor of Hope Cemetery, Hoopers Island, Dorchester Co., MD

Day 85 03-26-2017

Day 86 03-27-2017

A dark, wet, and dreary day brightened by cherry blossoms.

Day 87 03-28-2017

A Washington commuter

Day 88 03-29-2017

Spools of string & ribbon, collection in a ceramic bowl

Day 89 03-30-2017

Every parcel of my being 
is in full bloom. ~ Rumi

Daffodil

Day 89 03-31-2017

Tomatoes on the sideboard.

Day 90 04-01-2017

Spool of velvet ribbon





















Photography & prose by Terry Rowe.

All work can be or is available for sale, visit www.terryrowe.photography. You can also leave me a comment if there is a particular piece of work you are interested in.

I am grateful for all of your comments and views.

Twelfth Week of 2017 - A Photograph a Day - Project 365

March continues to bluster and blow, hot and cold. Fickle with no commitment to winter or spring. Still, hope lives, and spring peeks out where it can.

Day 78 03-19-2017

You must not blame me 
if I do talk to the clouds. 
~Henry David Thoreau

Day 79 03-20-2017

 "...of the fiction"

What is fiction and what is truth for you, in your life?

Day 80 03-21-2017

Tulips, promise that
spring will come

Day 80 03-21-2017

Day 81 03-22-2017

A pre-dawn walk in the park,
there a child's bike,
left behind.

Day 82 03-23-2017

In spite of the cruelty of a late March freeze, some of the cherry blossoms bloom with glory. A promise that even the hardest of times will pass, and
beauty will shine.

Day 83 03-24-2017

A rain-splattered door after a cold, wet start to the day the sunshine beacons. And the dog's reflection shows his wistful desire to be out playing in the mud.

Day 84 03-25-2017

Three pears on the windowsill


















Photography & prose by Terry Rowe.

All work can be or is available for sale, visit www.terryrowe.photography. You can also leave me a comment if there is a particular piece of work you are interested in.

I am grateful for all of your comments and views.

Eleventh Week of 2017 - A Photograph a Day - Project 365

The eleventh week of the year, weather jumps from bitter cold to teasing warmth, the capriciousness of spring. Torn between longing to be out and about, capturing the change that spring brings to the landscape, and the desire to huddle inside, warm, waiting for sunshine and warm breezes.

Day 71 03-12-2017

Whenever sorrow comes, 

be kind to it.
For God has placed a pearl 

in sorrow’s hand.
~ Rumi

 

Day 72 03-13-2017

Snow and bitter cold threaten the blooming daffodils, 
so I cut bouquets to brighten 
the dark night.

Day 72 03-13-2017

Day 73 03-14-2017

Freezing cold temperatures,
freezing rain and snow coat
theblooming cherry blossoms
with ice. Some will survive, many will not - making those that survive all the more precious.

Day 74 03-15-2017

Bitter cold northern winds, sparrows huddle sparrows huddle in the fold of a cement wall for warmth.

Day 75 03-16-2017

Tulips in the snow. 
March is a cruel cruel month.

Day 76 03-17-2017

The only daffodils to survive the freeze were the ones I cut for the house. Bright faces holding back the cold.

Day 76 03-17-2017

Day 77 03-18-2017

Let the journey begin. iphoneography
























Photography & prose by Terry Rowe.

All work can be or is available for sale, visit www.terryrowe.photography. You can also leave me a comment if there is a particular piece of work you are interested in.

The Tenth Week of 2017 Project 365, A Photograph a Day

 Closing out the tenth week of 2017's 365 project. The conclusion of a road trip, setting up for Artomatic installation at the end of the month, a busy week at work. Somehow I feel like I'm falling behind. I need an extra day at the end of the week to get caught up.

Day 64 03-03-2017

Road tripping home, side stops at covered bridges and other intriguing sites. Walter's Mill Covered Bridge, 1859, 

The bridge originally crossed Coxes Creek, four miles south of the town of Somerset.  Major repairs were made in 1909, at which time wooden Burr arches were added to the bridge's original multiple kingpost truss system to accommodate heavier vehicles.  Threatened with destruction, the bridge was moved to the Somerset Historical Center in the early 1960s.

Day 65 03-06-2017

A camelia repeat, they are so beautiful, and the cold of early spring is starting to burnish their petals brown.

Day 66 03-07-2017

iphone photo in black & white

“The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was.” ~Rumi

Day 67 03-08-2017

iphone photo, black and white

Ready for spring, patio dining at The Yards in Washington, DC

Day 68 03-09-2017

Blooming apricot tree. Cruel spring, warm for the last few days teasing us with glory, bitter cold weather is on it's way.















 Friday's cheese board and prosecco with hibiscus blossoms. A lovely repast for a glorious day.

Day 69 03-10-2017

Day 70 03-11-2017

Who shall measure the heat and violence of the poet's heart when caught and tangled in a woman's body? ~Virginia Woolf




Photography, Old Store Lucketts, Lucketts, Virginia 



























Photography & prose by Terry Rowe.

All work can be or is available for sale, visit www.terryrowe.photography. You can also leave me a comment if there is a particular piece of work you are interested in.