Day Thirty-One

New Moon.
Today is the final day. Grey dark day lit only by the glowing yellow of the trees under slate grey skies. Sounds of winds in the trees, rustling leaves, windchimes. Swarms of birds swoop and soar across the sky. There is no way to capture all this. Go outside. Pay attention. Breathe it in. That is the best I can do.

Today's object was some sort of organic matter--a leaf or a corn husk, something of the sort. It fluttered and flapped when I photographed it--a blur of motion and light across the page; it seemed perfect.

Thanks for joining me.

Day Thirty

Tomorrow is the new moon. This project is drawing to a close. Today was a crazy busy day. My walk today was brief and brisk--just the walk to and from the coffeeshop. Found this broken blue marble on the mossy sidewalk on my way home.

Day Twenty-Nine

Monday is new moon. Only two more days after today. Found this card tucked into a chainlink fence: The amount of life and heath you are entitled to is between you and your creator... What is interfering with that is between you and me. not creepy. not creepy at all.

Day Twenty-Eight

Bit of cedar-sprig tucked into the bundle of cables climbing up the side of a telephone pole.

Day Twenty-Seven

Nothing for today. Sometimes daily practice is a hard thing to sustain. Tomorrow. Tomorrow.

Day Twenty-Six

Somehow a strange long day. I went out after dark, walked and walked and I couldn't find anything until I happened upon this. All the posters had been stripped from this telephone pole. All that was left was a small corner of a page. Call.

Day Twenty-Five

Found this leaf trapped beneath the hatch to Portland City Water. I freed it and brought it home.

Day Twenty-Four

Quarter Moon.
Found this plastic spoon stuck into the moss between the stones of a rock wall. Nearby was an ice cream carton full of rainwater.

Day Twenty-Three

There was a brief moment without rain today. Still, the streets were slick, and everything was covered with water. Portland looked like it just emerged from the bottom of a lake. This spiky little creature was under the tree it fell from--amidst fallen leaves and greenery thrown by yesterday's storm.

Day Twenty-Two

As with any practice, there are days that you just don’t make it. It is hard not feel guilty about that, but this is what the world looks like outside my window. Today is a day for staying indoors.

Day Twenty-One

A fallen rose petal in a brief sunbreak on a rainy November day.

Day Twenty

Ginko leaf by night

Day Nineteen

Walked up Thurman today, 4 1/2 miles--2 1/4 up, 2 1/4 back. This pink ribbon tied to a fern was somewhere near mile 1 1/2 from the gate. I'm pretty sure it was signifying that the plant was to be removed, which made me doubly pleased to have found it, and be taking it away with me.

Day Eighteen

Fall seems to be bleeding towards winter now. I found this rainbeaten leaf on the pavement on the Springwater Corridor today, its skeletal structure slowly exposing itself to the elements, its color fading to a softly muted brown.

Day Seventeen

Full Moon
From waxing to waning. Halfway done.
A beautiful sunny day. The time change still has me thrown. I went for what I thought would be a late-afternoon walk, but the shadows were already long and low across the streets and the grass. I caught sight of this little red flag waving beneath the picnic bench from the other side of the park.

Day Sixteen

I've been thinking a lot lately about macro and micro, and the parallels that can be drawn between. I liked how this chunk of bark looked so much the side of a cliff. The textures of the wood where it is broken mimic and reflect the patterns of rock on the side of a mountain.

Day Fifteen

Found this broken lightbulb on the side of the road surrounded by mirrored shards of broken glass.

Day Fourteen

Today brought another late-night walk. I found this branch in the schoolyard down the street from my house.

Day Thirteen

I came home from the beach this morning. It was a long day, and before I knew it, it was dark outside and I had yet to take my walk. So today's walk took place just before midnight. I found this glistening stone lit up by the streetlight, at the base of a telephone pole.

Day Twelve

They've been digging wells at the top of the ridge of reeds at the beach. They bring in their heavy machinery, make a lot of noise, and flatten everything in their path. It is unsettling to say the least. One of them left a roll of electrical tape behind. The yellow pillars in the background are the poles surrounding the well.

Day Eleven

It felt like winter today. I walked at twilight, the shore bathed in silverblue. Everything on the beach today looked like this half sand dollar--foundation eroding beneath it. Rivers of sand flew across the surface of the beach, gapping and converging. All of the driftwood, shells, and seaweed were undercut from the south, as the wind stole the sand from underneath them, grain by grain, and whisked it away down the coastline.

Day Ten

Today it poured and poured and poured rain--a classic Oregon coast day, where the sky feels inches above your head and the level of light never rises above twilight. The clouds parted though--for a moment--around five, and I went out for my walk in the brief window of streaming sunshine. I found this glistening little bug-eaten leaf on the ridge path, laying amidst the bark and dirt and fallen needles.

Day Nine

Half Moon.
Today the wind was fierce and the sky was grey. My walk was long--down to the beach, up the shore, and back again, but I still had trouble deciding on an object; nothing seemed quite right, nothing called the way I was expecting. I wanted to take whole trees, the side of the cliff-face, the patterns of the wind whipping across the sand. I settled on this hollowed half of a pinecone sitting in the grass amongst fallen needles.

Day Eight

A beautiful sunny day at the coast. This feather was all but buried in the sand, but it's little fringe peeked through, waving in the wind.

Day Seven

I rode the bus to the beach last night and woke up early to take a morning walk along the shore. I found this twisted little piece of beachglass nestled between the rocks on the path down to the beach. It looked like a remnant of a bottle that had been tossed into a campfire--a melted and twisted shard--its edges softened by seasons of being tossed on the waves and ground against the sand.

Day Six

A splash of blue across the gravel by the railroad tracks. Yves Klein blue? (I particularly liked the new green shoots of grass next to the grey stone and the electric blue.)

Day Five

This little scene--a circle clinging to the edge of a swath of dirt and moss settled between horizontal bands of pavement--looked so much like a modernist painting that I laughed aloud when I saw it. This one was hard to take from its surroundings, but I stuck to my word and tucked it into my pocket.

Day Four

Today turned to a beautiful autumn day midway through. Late afternoon brought long shadows and a slight chill in the air. This gnarled snarl of root lay unearthed on the sidewalk near the back entrance of Sellwood Park by the little chapel overlooking the river.

Day Three

This little guy stared up at me from the dirt, and I just knew he was my find of the day.

Day Two

I took a short walk today, through the back streets leading toward the view of the city. It was late in the day, and I found this glowing little jewel on a pile of river rock on the side of the road.

Day One

New moon.
It rained all morning. I went for my first walk in the late afternoon, eyes peeled for my find of the day, and happened on this sopping wet curl of bark splayed across the pavement.