Reflections of Pain, Wilderness, and Art

Pain

Pain has been a friend this year that I have not generally wanted to hang out with but yet has overstayed its welcome. Sickening pain, crippling pain, mind crushing pain, nagging pain, sharp pain, dull pain, emotional pain, pain pain. They have all been with me this year and here as I sit I get to live with pain for a little while longer.

On Wednesday December 12th I underwent foot surgery. The plan was to remove a piece of cartilage that has fused two bones together within my foot. This unholy union unfortunately prevented proper movement and over a life time of hiking and outdoor activity, has slowly degraded my ankle to the point of no return.

Pain.

So now I sit, with a new pain which will subside in due course and hopefully with it, the other pains in my feet.

Now my feet are a genetic thing which I get from my mother. I remember as a youth my mom mentioning that her feet hurt every day. I couldn't image such a life where I would hurt every day. I can now. In some ways it just becomes a part of life, in others, it is a drag on the soul. But sometimes pain is worth the reward.

Wilderness

For the first time in a very long time I will be separated from the places I love and long to be. Canyons of sand and willow and cottonwood tree. Mere weeks ago I was among the towering walls of Zion photographing in an area I had never been before. Days before that, I was in wilds of the Escalante Canyons trying to explore and photograph a canyon that I had been in only once before. Then a mere week before that I was in Kanarraville photographing a canyon I hadn't been since 2019 after it became Instagram famous.

Canyons are like life blood for me and for the next three months they will be missing from my life. A burning disappointment for someone who has been in a canyon nearly every month of his life for the past 3 years.

The past few years have been supremely disappointing in many aspects of my life. In one dark moment, I received a call that emotionally crushed me. I sat on the floor with rage burning in my heart. Rage towards God, towards schooling, towards everything I had been building up towards for a decade. And in one phone call hopes and dreams came crashing down and rage came spilling out. Soon after that I headed into the canyons. I needed healing from the original temple of God, wilderness.

After parking and getting my gear together I began my journey with my father down the canyon wall of the Escalante. Down we descended and with it came my thoughts of the proceeding weeks. But as the feet turn into yards and the yards turn into miles I find that the stresses of home and work begin to fade. Mostly because in the canyons only one thing begins to matter.

The next step.

It's hard to focus on what's not working in life when the next step is the hardest thing you have to face in the moment. Pain drives acute lucidity as you try to crawl up a sandy embankment. To hell with jobs and career paths, I need to survive the next hour as the sun beats down from above. Be gone the worries of how to support a family, right now I need to figure out how I can complete this planned adventure so I can return home to those little ones.

In canyons I find pain and clarity and freedom. The wilder the better. And in due time I find healing within these walls.

Art

I read an interview once with the lead singer of the band Breaking Benjamin. From what I remember he had liver damage from heavy drinking as a young adult. This damage caused pain. This pain brought him focus and clarity and with that some of his musical edge.

Now I do not feel that... Thank goodness. I would hate to have my craft be honed by pain. That doesn't mean I avoid pain while I seek to create. For me it is apart of the experience. That pain I feel when I take that first step when I get up from a break reminds me to walk a little further. It will pass. There are some things worth hurting for.

The act of creation is generally an exciting experience. I have long moved beyond the point of taking images for image sake and now look for views and compositions that I connect with in some way. Because of this, I think people see me as odd when they photograph with me for the first time. Sometimes I walk while amazing things are occurring, such as dramatic light or the views seem spectacular. I don't even bother to pull the camera out. The proverbial question "Why didn't you photograph that?" usually arises soon after that. And my answer goes something like this.

"Just because something is beautiful doesn't mean it makes a great image."

This is something hard for new photographers to understand. Not everything deserves to be photographed, and not everything beautiful needs to be photographed either. In "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" the famed photographer, Sean O'Connell, gives Walter a bit of advice "Sometimes when I like a moment.... I don't like the distraction of the camera. I just want to stay in it. Yeah. Right there. Right Here."

I think about that when I am out photographing sometimes. I have had moments when I am witnessing true wonder and I stop and don't photograph and I stay right there in the moment. I sit with it and just appreciate it for just a moment. Let the beauty of what is happening take over me and I can just be still. And for those few moments, nature, art, divinity and myself are one.

After that moment I will take the image or I will say I have enough and I will just sit here with this moment and appreciate what I have witnessed. The pain of the journey becomes worth it and my life is all the better.