Today’s Book of Alchemy post is about seeing something up close, of taking the time to stare at, to investigate, to ponder something in depth and, in doing so, to lose myself in time and space. And as I am examining whatever object, I experience a transformation.

Okay. My summary of the post is awful. But you really should buy the book because it is wonderful and will stretch you as a writer.

Several years ago, I was determined to learn everything I could about photography. I had a wonderful teacher (one of my brothers-in-law) who was patient and understanding as I asked him to explain and re-explain. He beautifully taught me about shadows and placement and lighting and focus and f-stops and apertures and….

I struggled to learn. The language made so much sense but it was backwards. The bigger the number the smaller the aperture and range of focus or something like that. It made sense. It made no sense. I couldn’t remember everything and I had some extenuating circumstances that were so difficult that my brain just didn’t want to focus. But I learned and tried to practice what I learned.

What I truly learned was the art of seeing. Of looking beyond the illusion of the basic or the ordinary to find something beautiful within the ordinary. Moreso, I learned to see how light and darkness bend and strike the planes and angles of an object or a person and to appreciate the finite temporaryness of…well…of everything.

A month ago, I was walking the dogs in the early morning before the sun was high and the summer’s humidity baked the earth. We were walking along a stretch of road infested with kudzu vines and sprays of cornflowers. As cars swept past, the cornflowers ducked their blue heads at the dogs and me and, for a second, I once more saw my brother-in-law showing me the interplay of light and dark.

I walked past, determined that on my way back I would photograph the flowers. Or attempt to. The dogs were most determined to find their favorite spots to bequeath with their gifts to the earth and were certainly not interested in cornflowers, especially as the cornflowers did not taste of corn. So down we went, as the sun continued to rise as well as the heat.

So we went forward and the dogs did their business and I was became increasingly cognizant of the traffic buzzing past us. What would it look like to them to see me, with the dog leashes belted around my waist, staring at tiny flowers growing in the tendrilled shade of kudzu. I kept telling myself that it didn’t matter. That whatever quick thoughts or judgemental questions directed at me would land on the concrete and never touch me.

But I still shriveled at the thought of standing out. Which strikes me as strange given my weird sense of humor and boistrous personality (when I’m in the classroom). But the anxiety was there and shadowed my steps as the dogs and I walked back toward the flowers.

I don’t remember too much about the walk back. I want to write poetically about my hesitating steps. Maybe I walked past and then turned around. That’s what the memory feels like. But I don’t trust it. It feels too cinematic.

What I know is that I did stop. And tried to photograph the flowers. But the lack of reading glasses made everything difficult to see in terms of the image’s sharpness and clarity. The dogs pulled me or tried to pull me but, fortunately, given the leashes were belted around my waist I had a better ability to hold my ground.

The flowers bobbed and I struggled to take a single picture. So I pinched the flower between two fingers and tried to photograph it without having my hand shown. Didn’t work. A bunch of pictures have my plumpish looking fingers framed somewhere toward the bottom.

But I took the pictures and, when I arrived at home and was wearing my reading glasses, I found an image of the sunlight reflecting off the petals, creating silvery strips of light along the periwinkle petals. The stamen in the center glowed with thin, fibrous light. The picture was a bit fuzzy. But I could see the angles, the lines of light. And I knew that with enough patience, with enough trial and error, that I could draw that flower.

I don’t know that I really engaged in a tranformative moment. But throughout the summer, I have returned to that image many times. I bought John Muir Laws’ book about Nature Journaling. And I have taken chances on drawing, using techniques I never tried or would have tried before. The pictures are very amateurish. Unsurprising. I generally refuse to show them to anyone. But I have shown them to my daughter and a dear friend. Because I am choosing to try new things. I am choosing to be vulnerable. I am choosing to be transformed.