DARIN HAYTON

Tag: Fog

  • Gloomy Afternoon

    Gloomy Afternoon

    I was out walking to clear my head, or to find peace, or to have a break from the chaos around me. I had a lot on my mind and, well, as they say solvitur ambulando.

    He was in the hospital. Had been for three weeks. He was not doing well, refusing either to get worse or better. The options for tomorrow were bad and bad. Prioritizing his health denied his freedom and autonomy. Respecting his wishes ensured an agonizing end, for everybody, and put others at risk. There was no good solution, just versions of bad. All made worse by an inversion of traditional roles. I needed to grab my camera and go for a walk. The afternoon made manifest the murkiness of my own thoughts.

    Landscape #241230 is a narrow photo of a tree in heavy fog, the sun a small bright spot to the left of the tree. The hillside cuts across the frame at an angle.
    Landscape #241230.

    I walked for miles that afternoon. By the time I arrived back at the house, I had decided on a way forward. Lurking somewhere in the recesses of my mind, however, was the fear that this would go all wrong. The fog obscured both the landscape that afternoon and the particular contours of my fear. Now four months later, the fog has cleared, revealing my fears.

  • Walk out to Winter

    Walk out to Winter

    Snow still covers the ground, lays piled by the sides of roads, and blocks the sidewalks. Ice covers the pond. This morning the world is still monochrome. But not for long.

    #210227.1

    Fog rises from the melting snow, growing thicker as the morning warms. At first the world seemed to be a circle of visibility moving along with me as I walked, no more than a few hundred yards across. But soon even that contracted. Shapes fading into existence as I approached gained faint color and texture only at the last minute, when I could nearly touch them. They lost both color and texture as they receded behind me before quickly dissolving into the whiteness.

    #210227.2

    A world shrouded in fog is a magical place, full of surprises and unknowns. You can neither see nor hear clearly — the fog seems to dampen noise as much as it obscures sight. The noises that do penetrate unsettle and unnerve because they seem to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. Every now and then, a tree with the remnants of last year’s leaves clinging to its branches emerged from the fog, water dripping from its leaves glowing golden brown against the milky scene.

    #210227.3

    Mornings like this happen rarely around here, once or twice a year. I feel sorry for all the people who missed this one, but am glad they didn’t invade my enjoyment of it.