FTLComm - Birch Hills - February 12, 2000

(The picture on the right is the first one in the series and then the picture above, all others are shown in sequence as they were taken Friday afternoon.) Some days just seem to stream by, and we reach the end of the day wondering what we accomplished, what projects were advanced and are we any further ahead then when the day begun. What this comes down to is that many people are "mission oriented" they visualise themselves functioning as part of some massive production line and feel they have not fulfilled their

mandate if the artificial quota they have set for themselves has not be reached. These individuals live from disappointing day to disappointing day. Attempting to realign their expectations with the precepts of reality. Their's is a difficult existence and even on their days of triumph when all the objectives have been met they are troubled by the consideration that perhaps there were other objectives that they missed or should have considered.

These pictures of the Friday afternoon sunset capture the essence of the scene. Because of low light levels and vibrations from hand, road and window debris they lack clarity but instead convey the over all tone, the wide strokes of the coloured light without the details of the particular elements in the picture.

Actually not a bad way to look at things. Reviewing the day that is now about to become history, it might not be such a bad idea to look at it as though it were a blur. So many details, individual things that may or may not be of over all consequence, as least toward some ultimate objectives. It may be that what we all need is a little more perspective on things and that we need to distance ourselves from the details the twigs that make up the bits of branches on a tree, the trees that make up the forest.

The frozen architecture of what many consider reality is the problem not the progress they are making through that reality. Most things are just gestures, hints at what really lies beyond or glimmers of a the much larger scheme of things. This soup that we se spread out on these pictures that we know to be the air above the surface but with temperatures as low as they are the atmosphere is pretty much empty, water vapour is frozen out of it and all that remains are the almost invisible

molecules that make up the air. The trap and filter the light producing these magical hues that fade from one shade to another. Yet before us air is for all to see completely invisible, we can sense its lack of heat and see our breath and car exhaust suspended in it but it is for the most part a void. Yet these pictures clearly illustrate the presence of the air even in its thinnest form high above the planet and from that we can deduct that is is present and activity involved in all that happens around us.

In the picture below I slipped the window down to briefly point the camera into the arctic air as I hurled along the highway just East of the Muskoday. Without the glass to look through and my hand bouncing along to steady the camera the image is hardly different from those taken through the closed windows.

Are those driving toward me also passing out of the blur that was this day, or are they determined, teeth grinders valuing the day's accomplishments, or gnashing their molars on those things that have to be left to another week or never done at all? With their backs to the beauty of the sunset are they wishing they could stop and watch the sky glow or are they just as happy to turn their attention toward the coming weekend? If I take off my glasses the world I see is pretty much like these pictures. Less then distinct colours and shapes

the whole is there without the details. Though that is good for planning and idealistic discussions it can be very dangerous as those details can mean the difference between life and death. A person wears their glasses because they need them to survive. Perhaps in the same way so many of us need to know what we are aiming for and getting done so that we can measure our performance and set our day to day priorities I fear that those priorities need to be seriously scrutinised because the decisions we make and the focus we have is going to determine how we spent our most precious resource, our time.

It seems fitting to end this discussion with the picture below. After snapping these sunset pictures I arrived at the South side of Prince Albert and the front grassed area of the new A&W was covered with snow machines. I dropped the passenger window reached out my hand attempted to steady the camera in the low light and snapped this image which like the others was less then clear. So as the week ends and the weekend begins these folks are either beginning their snow mobile ride or ending it together. Blurred or not there is a sense of fun and enjoyment in this scene, the riders of all those machines are determined that despite the -25 Celsius temperatures they are going to have some fun.