Walker Road Park is just two minutes away from me and a cool little spot to make any last-minute decisions to shoot at.
In the event of a lightning storm, its openness gives me the chance to shoot in any direction. It allows me to capture sunrises with a decent easterly view. And just occasionally it gives me a view of a sunset.
I say “occasionally” because the west horizon is mostly obscured with closer trees and buildings. So unless there is a smattering of cloud at a certain height above the horizon, I won’t get anything.
It was lightning I was after the other night. I thought I heard some thunder rumbles happening when I was home and was not yet in a shoes-off mode.
But it must have been the cats upstairs, because when I got there, there was absolutely nothing happening in the sky. I guess the kitties have figured out how to get me out of the house.
I had only brought the one lens (the 11 mm super wide one) so I just set the camera up on the tripod and leaned back against the car.
When my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, I could see that there was an abundance of thick clouds overhead to where even if there was lightning, I wasn’t going to see it.
Sometimes clouds really add to a sky and sometimes they mute it too much, The only thinning or gap this time seemed to be right where the sun had gone down.
I checked the local radar and there wasn’t any lightning happening from what I could tell for at least 30 miles.
Then I noticed the first tinge of red on the clouds near the gap and began shooting the pics that ended up in this blog.
A nearby pond gave me some reflections to work with in some of the pics and a distant bat graced one of them too.
All told, I really enjoyed the brief color splashes that went on and I was glad I got the chance to witness it directly.
I had nearly packed up just before the colors started so I was glad that I didn’t.
I hope you enjoy the small selection below. Nothing prize worthy but nonetheless pretty.
When I got home I was thinking about clouds and their role as impediments this evening. And how eventually they became the subject after initially blocking one.
And it made me think about impediments in general.
We all find them periodically and sometime we find more than others.
When we are in a rut, they seem to get in the way of almost everything we try to do. At other times they are merely a nuisance.
Most impediments in life are temporary and persistence or patience eventually wins the day as they eventually dissipate and we can move forward.
Yes there are those that have a more permanent nature and these require us to figure a work-around or even an abandonment of whatever we were trying to do.
We often can’t tell which is temporary in nature and which is permanent and so we need to make several attempts or wait a certain length of time before their true nature appears.
Giving up should always be the last resort. Yes, it is always an option but it is rarely the right one.
Society doesn’t like quitters (or so I am told) but more importantly, repeatedly quitting alters our own character and our resolve and it can become our normal reaction to encountering any difficulty.
So, we therefore owe it to ourselves to hang in there and keep trying for at least a while.
And what do I mean by “a while”?
Well, this entirely depends on how important the end goal is for us and how determined we see the impediment to be.
For example if the impediment is merely a small rain cloud, then wait it out. But if the skies around you are engulfed in thick black carpets of cloud, then find something else to do.
Or if the end goal is life-defining (like a marriage you are in) then show patience and work through whatever is happening. Whereas if the end goal was trivial like listening to a song on the radio, then change the channel and find something else when the ads come on.
All obstacles that we meet in our path require some resolve to get past them. And the greater the obstacle that we have gotten past, the greater the character building that we have just performed.
And character is what makes us the person we are. Or the person we end up as.
Without impediments to our aims, we develop no character.
If you win everything you ever play or achieve everything you ever try, then you learn nothing in the process. Learning comes through loss and loss is a function of the obstacle to our success and how we handled it.
I am not saying we go out and seek path with impediments. Character building should be a by-product of our endeavors not a main goal.
And too many difficulties in life can wear us down. They can change who we are and make us less willing to take on new challenges in the first place.
So, like most things in life, it is about finding a balance. Not always looking for a challenge and not always looking for an easy way out.
But my main message here is that when we do find ourselves confronted with an unexpected obstacle, take the time to assess its size, weigh in the importance of your end goal and make a decision of how best to proceed.
It’s a simple 1-2-3 that can really help in defining who we are.
… just a thought.
