water and rocks and a few people

Happy OCTOBER everyone!

Maybe my friend's shadow is on the closest rock, as we looked at the water from the bridge.

At first I inadvertently captured this young mother carrying her baby...(in the shot I posted before with the comment about the white flat water seen through the hole, HERE.) 

But then I saw the charm in her hat and her infant as she walked over the rocks toward us, then actually passed us on the bridge, with yet another child of about 5.

A view of the steps we would have to climb back up to the parking lot...the very beginning steps that is.

I like how the bridge stops and we have to walk on that big rock. I wonder how long this bridge has been this way...and if it's anchored to the rocks.

My friend, Helen liked staying on the bridge looking at the sights downstream.

Today's quote:

Thomas Merton wrote, “there is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues.” There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end. It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying, I never merited this grace, quite rightly, and then to sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage. 

I won’t have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus.

Go up into the gaps. If you can find them; they shift and vanish too. Stalk the gaps. Squeak into a gap in the soil, turn, and unlock-more than a maple- a universe. This is how you spend this afternoon, and tomorrow morning, and tomorrow afternoon. Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.


—Annie Dillard
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek