Amber Luck

I took this picture a few weeks ago, when the city finally started to reemerge from its thick layers of ice and snow. Eric and I walked around the perimeter of a nearby college campus that sits by the Mississippi River, and I discovered that we live in the worst part of a very nice area. I knew that already, kind of; our street is home to hundreds of college students and businesses whereas the street a block north is defined by the biggest, most architecturally jaw-dropping houses in the city. But I’m not talking about socioeconomic gradients. I’m talking about nature.

For months, I’ve been whining about living in the city because there’s no apparent end to the concrete and brick and people. Tree branches are cut lest they tangle with power lines or pedestrians, and the wildlife has been whittled down to squirrels, sparrows, and rabbits that somehow develop dreadlocks. But on that walk a few weeks ago, a hawk flew just a few feet over my head, and we found large tufts of rabbit fur in the melting snow. We also found a potato on a bus stop bench, and there were still people everywhere, so my desire to live a little farther away from it all remains unchanged. But I’m here now, and if I’m not going to lose my mind over it, I need to get out and explore these relatively quiet, relatively wild places on a regular basis.

To help keep me accountable to this promise I’ve made myself, I’m going to add another regular feature to this blog: a weekly photograph. I’m hoping that by committing myself to photography, I’ll also be committing myself to a search for experiences worth photographing and writing about, and in turn to a purer enjoyment of my life here.