Index
September ends tomorrow and with it, this project. Has it been a success? I think so. Will I miss it? Probably. Am I ready for it to be done? Absolutely.
Heading into summer 2022, travel was the word of the day. After two and a half years of pandemic staycations and lockdowns, we were going to be able to get out of our house and see family and friends and actually go places! And then, slowly, that seemed less and less likely until, as we entered July, we knew that we'd be staying at home for yet another summer.
This did not do anything good for my mental health. So I decided I needed an assignment. Something to get me out of my house, away from my computer; I needed to be moving my body and taking in the world around me. And thus this project was born. Or rather, re-purposed.
Back in 2005 or so, I got my first car after moving to Japan in 2000. It was liberating. Suddenly, I was no longer confined to lengthy bus, bike, or train rides to get anywhere. I could just...go. And so when I first thought of bringing this project back to life, it was with the idea that I'd be traveling. When that fell through, I thought I could re-purpose the project from a focus on travel to a focus on a daily taking-stock of where I was both physically and mentally.
So, from all that came a simple idea: one photo a day, taken during a walk of at least 30 minutes, outside my house, for the duration of the summer: 91 Days.
And it worked. Getting out of my house, taking that walk, most often with my dog, Lucy, and taking stock of where I was by getting a photo helped me maintain my equilibrium in an otherwise tepid summer. The project motivated me to, as much as possible, find interesting places to be when I had no other commitments. And on days where I couldn't quite get away from the hustle and grind long enough to really change my surroundings, I tried to see things in a new light, oftentimes from a literal new angle.
So, a successful project, and one that I'm glad I did. But I am ready for it to be done. My teaching semester begins again tomorrow and that means commutes and campuses and emails and lesson plans. And even though I'll still need to get Lucy out for her walks and I should definitely keep getting myself out, I don't think I'll be concentrating as much on getting a new photo. I have other challenges I want to try, other things to pursue and so, it's time to close this project down.
There will be one more letter in this series, the Week 14 bonus letter, where I'll talk about some of the unintended consequences of this project as well as what's next for this site. But that's next week. For now, I'd like to say thank you.
If you've followed along from the start or from any point along the way, I want to thank you for your encouragement and support. It has meant a lot to me; without it, I think I might have given into the temptation to skip a day or two here or there, or to just give up entirely. But we made it. So, again, and always, thank you.
Here are this week's notes:
23 September 2022 - "Fire Hydrant" - I tried a new angle here. I'm not altogether sure that it worked, but it's different. Mainly I just liked the red agains the green of the rice field. I also find it funny that you can be walking along a small road, surrounded by rice fields in rural Japan and come across not just a fire hydrant, but one that has its existence spelled out in English.
24 September 2022 - "Post Rain" - It's been a hell of a year for rain. Even as I write this, there are still floods in Pakistan and the state of Florida is underwater. Here, we had typhoon #14 blow through and bring us 14 straight hours of rain. When it had all cleared up, I went for a walk and you see the results.
25 September 2022 - "Launch" - It's been a minute since I had a good dragonfly pic in this blog, but I think this makes up for it. In terms of photography, I like this one because it's not the usual angle; most pics of dragonflies are either looking from the top down or from their level. Here, I tried to get under the dragonfly's1 plane2 and get its launch pose captured.
26 September 2022 - "Just Another Tree" - In church, a thousand years ago, one of the youth pastors exhorted us to always look up. He meant it to be spiritual advice but it has its practical applications.
27 September 2022 - "Vines" - As always, I love seeing the vines wrapped around the power lines and yet I'm worried about the vines pulling the lines down. Could get real messy real fast should that happen.
28 September 2022 - "Evening Path" - The leaves haven't really started to change yet but as things cool off and as the late summer storms blow through, some of the more unused byways have been getting a tad overblown.
29 September 2022 - "Tired" - I was so pleased with Sunday's photo I tried to get the same angle. This poor dragonfly though...dude seemed a little tired. Wings drooping, tail sagging. We've all been there. But there's always tomorrow.
Petition to hereafter refer to multiple dragonflies as "dragons fly" much as we would say "attorneys general."
I'd apologize but it's hard to rise above a pun that good.
It's been 91 days already! I have loved these. Request to make a downloadable PDF for these