Twenty Feet Down

It was perfectly still when I took this photograph. The storm had already passed. My camera shutter whispered and I turned to grab my light meter when the camera pitched forward. Tripod and all. The slope dropped sharply in front of my feet. It somersaulted twice and landed hard, coming to rest on a flat spot twenty feet down.

I laughed. It had been a tough week. My oldest daughter had just moved out and I was still grieving her absence. 

I clambered down and fetched it up. When I pulled the tripod legs apart the wooden camera had gravel, snow, and mud impacted everywhere but nothing broken. I drove straight home thinking about the care it would take to get it back to its former self. Once home I set it on my workbench and took a paintbrush with a little soap and water to it, cleaning every part carefully. In an hour it was clean and proud again. I thought about my daughter, a state away.

There are still some tiny specks of mud, all these years later. My Daughter lives closeby again.