Nothing precious, nothing perfect
On Wharton Creek
I took this photo one summer day, several years ago, while sitting on the bank of the deep creek that winds through the lower part of our farm. I remember wanting to capture the way it felt to sit there, beneath the bright sky, with the grass dipping and swirling all around.
For many years, I’ve taken photos using a film camera. I am no photographer, and often most of the photos on a roll are blurry, or over-exposed, and so they’ve sat on my computer, hidden away. And yet, every single picture contains a memory that comes back to me in a rush. By contrast, there are hundreds of photos in my iPhone that I don’t remember taking at all.
This project is my personal creative practice–a way of excavating memories and changing my relationship to the work I produce. A photograph, shot on film, a brief essay. Nothing precious, nothing perfect.
Lazy River
We learned the hard way that Wharton Creek was not deep enough to float down. It was difficult to know this in advance, because the creek bank stood 20 feet above the water that summer. From that perspective, the water loses volume–the rocks visible beneath the surface were either one foot deep or ten feet deep. My sister and I each had our suspicions, but neither would admit it. We have a way of generating unfounded optimism when together. We took off our boots and socks, left them by the big maple tree, and slid down the deer path to the water’s edge.
We were hoping for a lazy river experience. A triumphant float through the lower acreage of my farm, where Wharton Creek twists in curves so tight it almost doubles back on itself but ultimately winds back to the road. We expected to finish with a simple walk home. Bare feet on sun-warmed pavement, lemonade waiting in the fridge.
Our vision was so powerful that we stuck with it, even as the inflatable tube, purchased from Dollar General, repeatedly bottomed out on the palm-sized rocks that tiled the creek bed. We soon established a routine: stand to carry the float across the shallows, stumble over rocks that were slick and painful underfoot, plunge into deeper water cold enough to numb, slither back onto the tube, run aground thirty seconds later. We laughed less and less.
Eventually, the tube deflated, either from a puncture wound or exhaustion, and we found ourselves stranded at the halfway point. We climbed the banks, digging fingernails into mud, grabbing for the woody stems of wild honeysuckle bushes. On the banks again, we looked for the house, which appeared no bigger than my thumbnail on its far-away rise. Between us lay a half-mile of grass as tall as our shoulders.
One of us said This was a dumb idea and the other said It sure was.
Neither of us meant a word.