AN ANGRY SEA MENACED THE EDGE OF THE FUNKY LITTLE VILLAGE AT OCEAN BEACH TODAY. The pier had to be closed because monstrous waves were crashing over it. I rode my bicycle there thinking I'd get my photo-du-jour of a mad sea. Instead I was attracted to the simple cottages above the pier and found my picture there. Above the violent, noisy sea, the quiet dignity of the little house in the first picture seemed a parable.

HARBOR SEAL MATERNITY WARD: The Children's Pool at La Jolla Cove has become a battleground with wildlife conservationists on one side and on the other are local residents who insist that people be put first in urban natural settings. The little cove was long ago taken over by a colony of harbor seals who wanted a good place to rest first and a calm, safe place to give birth to their pups. February is the birthing season, and there is a respite in the battle for the cove. Maternal love seems to have conquered everybody.

The mother in these photos had given birth to her pup probably early in this morning. The umbilical cord hadn't detached completely by midafternoon. The pup was restless and hungry. Mom was tired, but she was focused and attentive. She had time for nuzzling and hugs. They were both working on the task of getting the little guy to nurse.

THE HYUNDAI building is a prominent architectural presence in Mission Valley. I've often wondered what architects think of it. In the first photograph it is reflected in the window of the building next door. In some of the others, I have taken liberties with it using PhotoShop.

YESTERDAY A WOMAN AND HER GROWN-UP SON on a path by the San Diego River encountered each other on such an emotionally destructive level that I couldn't stop myself from focusing my attention and my lens in their direction. She was coming from one direction, and he was walking from the other. I was standing at the Mission Center trolley stop above the river path. I know they were mother and son because he in his despair and she in her rage wore mother-son faces. I snapped two pictures and caught more with my camera than I actually saw. It was what I heard that stunned me.

The mother screamed, "You fucking idiot, John. Where the f--k have you been, you stupid, f---ing bastard?" She yelled in his face, "We f---ing told him we'd be there at f---ing ten, and now he f---ing won't have waited for us. You know you're f---ing useless." And she hit him. She hit him hard. She seemed to have been aiming for his face; but he was taller, so her blows stuck him hard across the shoulder and chest. He simply moved his face away and didn't raise his arm or hand to stop her. He backed away from her and sat in obvious despair on a cement table. She sat on the bench looking away from him and continued to rant. Then she stormed away.

When I downloaded the images from my camera, I saw the emotion in his hands and in his face; and I remembered the old cliche about a picture being worth a thousand words. It is his despair more than her anger that the camera caught... and the seeming response of the trees and shrubs around them. It was as if all of nature was screaming.

CHOICES... I went riding early this morning before the fog burned away and happened on a patch of poppies. The light was just right. Again I had only the small Olympus camera with me, so I felt frustrated not to have the advantage of a bigger lens. The images I got were a reminder that it's not the camera but the world captured selectively out beyond the lens that makes the picture. CHOOSING one from among two dozen images of poppies was difficult. I finally settled on white because I was stunned by the feeling of brilliant, undeniable purity of those flowers, but that still left me with the satisfying dilemma of choosing from several pictures of white ones. I narrowed it down to three and posted them here. The photo-du-jour is the one above. Click on the pictures to see them bigger.

Coming back to this spot among the pilings underneath Crystal Pier in Pacific Beach is always a bit like returning to an ancient Japanese temple. The only sounds are sea gulls and the splash of water hitting wood. Because I was on my bicycle, I had only the little Olympus camera.

Like the people waiting at the UCSD trolley stop, this image seems to me to be sort of eternal... universal.

WAITING
Robert Frost

Afield at Dusk

What things for dream there are when spectre-like,
Moving among tall haycocks lightly piled,
I enter alone upon the stubble field,
From which the laborers’ voices late have died,
And in the antiphony of afterglow
And rising full moon, sit me down
Upon the full moon’s side of the first haycock
And lose myself amid so many alike.

I dream upon the opposing lights of the hour,
Preventing shadow until the moon prevail;
I dream upon the night-hawks peopling heaven,
Each circling each with vague unearthly cry,
Or plunging headlong with fierce twang afar;
And on the bat’s mute antics, who would seem
Dimly to have made out my secret place,
Only to lose it when he pirouettes,
And seek it endlessly with purblind haste;
On the last swallow’s sweep; and on the rasp
In the abyss of odor and rustle at my back,
That, silenced by my advent, finds once more,
After an interval, his instrument,
And tries once—twice—and thrice if I be there;
And on the worn book of old-golden song
I brought not here to read, it seems, but hold
And freshen in this air of withering sweetness;
But on the memory of one absent most,
For whom these lines when they shall greet her eye.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow must have known a boy like Julian Johnson. How else could he have been moved to write about a boy’s will being like the wind’s will?

My own statement about “A boy’s will” is a series of photographs of Julian. He is a whirlwind. When he goes out with me, his mother sends along a bag of small snacks. Like a hummingbird, Julian eats often to have enough energy to stay in motion. Nothing escapes him. He sees every butterfly, hears every airplane and train, confronts every pigeon in his path. Julian is joy.



69. MY LOST YOUTH

 OFTEN I think of the beautiful town  
  That is seated by the sea;  
Often in thought go up and down  
The pleasant streets of that dear old town,  
  And my youth comes back to me.          5
    And a verse of a Lapland song  
    Is haunting my memory still:  
    "A boy's will is the wind's will,  
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."  
  
I can see the shadowy lines of its trees,   10
  And catch, in sudden gleams,  
The sheen of the far-surrounding seas,  
And islands that were the Hesperides  
  Of all my boyish dreams.  
    And the burden of that old song,   15
    It murmurs and whispers still:  
    "A boy's will is the wind's will,  
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."  
  
I remember the black wharves and the slips,  
  And the sea-tides tossing free;   20
And Spanish sailors with bearded lips,  
And the beauty and mystery of the ships,  
  And the magic of the sea.  
    And the voice of that wayward song  
    Is singing and saying still:   25
    "A boy's will is the wind's will,  
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."  
  
I remember the bulwarks by the shore,  
  And the fort upon the hill;  
The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar,   30
The drum-beat repeated o'er and o'er,  
  And the bugle wild and shrill.  
    And the music of that old song  
    Throbs in my memory still:  
    "A boy's will is the wind's will,   35
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."  
  
I remember the sea-fight far away,  
  How it thundered o'er the tide!  
And the dead captains, as they lay  
In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay,   40
    Where they in battle died.  
    And the sound of that mournful song  
    Goes through me with a thrill:  
    "A boy's will is the wind's will,  
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."   45
  
I can see the breezy dome of groves,  
  The shadows of Deering's Woods;  
And the friendships old and the early loves  
Come back with a Sabbath sound, as of doves  
  In quiet neighborhoods.   50
    And the verse of that sweet old song,  
    It flutters and murmurs still:  
    "A boy's will is the wind's will,  
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."  
  
I remember the gleams and glooms that dart   55
  Across the school-boy's brain;  
The song and the silence in the heart,  
That in part are prophecies, and in part  
  Are longings wild and vain.  
    And the voice of that fitful song   60
    Sings on, and is never still:  
    "A boy's will is the wind's will,  
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."  
  
There are things of which I may not speak;  
  There are dreams that cannot die;   65
There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,  
And bring a pallor into the cheek,  
  And a mist before the eye.  
    And the words of that fatal song  
    Come over me like a chill:   70
    "A boy's will is the wind's will,  
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."  
  
Strange to me now are the forms I meet  
  When I visit the dear old town;  
But the native air is pure and sweet,   75
And the trees that o'ershadow each well-known street,  
  As they balance up and down,  
    Are singing the beautiful song,  
    Are sighing and whispering still:  
    "A boy's will is the wind's will,   80
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."  
  
And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair,  
  And with joy that is almost pain  
My heart goes back to wander there,  
And among the dreams of the days that were,   85
  I find my lost youth again.  
    And the strange and beautiful song,  
    The groves are repeating it still:  
    "A boy's will is the wind's will,  
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

---Henry Wadsworth Longfellow