Resilience

Nahma MI., 2007 from 4x5 transparency

Through the old sawmill town of Nahma Mi., Upper Peninsula timber once flowed like a mighty river into Lake Michigan, then was carried to Chicago and points beyond. The timber and the business made from it played out a long time ago. 

What remains of the prosperous but ultimately unsustainable glory days of Nahma is primarily its iconic sawdust burner. The image above is from inside that burner.

I'd been thinking of resistance, but the word for today is resilience.

One of the first things I fell in love with around the Superior Basin is how life grows where you wouldn't believe it could, yet there it is.

Pinguisibi River Ontario, 2012 4x5 transparency 

I've been capturing this sort of thing for decades but like the Swiss images, that work's remained largely unseen because it didn't fit into the greater scheme of the portfolio as it came to be.

Cascade River MN., 2012 120mm transparency

Life's pretty damned hard up 'round Superior. Still, in the most unlikely places under the harshest conditions, life finds a way.

Ontario Canada, 2012 120mm trnasparency

During the cold, dark days especially but also as a general rule, resilience counts more than resistance. It's what you need to stick around long enough to put down roots and grow, then thrive.

Presque Isle River MI., 2010 120mm transparency

Seasons change. Sometimes conditions for life aren't optimal and that's just the way it goes. I thought that after showing you so much wreckage of men's unsustainable hopes and dreams over the years, I should end this year on a note of natural resilience.

If you feel these times of ours are treacherous and uncertain, consider that trees can and do grow from rock.

Presque Isle River MI., 2010 120mm transparency

Or look again at that gleaming tuft of grass in the wreckage of the Nahma sawdust burner. From decades of worn out pulp lying fallow for decades more and with a periodic bit of sunshine, it not merely thrives but brings light to the otherwise permanent dark.

Resistance is a word more appropriate to the growing season. That'll be here soon enough.

For now, it's enough to be resilient. To hunker down and make plans, so that when the world turns again as it must, we'll be ready to flourish once again.

Keweenaw County MI, 2012 120mm transparency

In any event, the very best of this brave new year to us all.

Winter Solstice, 2017

It'll be tough to tell for a while, even for those paying attention. As everyone has their own burdens, most won't notice right way.

But the world has turned yet again. Be certain of it.

From here until the apex of summer, each successive day adds a precious second or two of daylight, until the shortest night is ushered in by riotous cicada song and everyone eats.

So we must now dig in against the brutal cold and face the bitter wind. The world has turned on its tilted (not to say crooked) axis. Better days are coming. The trick is to get there reasonably intact.

Where there's will there's a way, so they say.

I'd prepped a stunning image of an abandoned farmhouse about half buried in snow, surrounded by black skeletal trees under a cold blue sky. Then I found this and figured probably, most of us have seen about enough wreckage for one year.

The best of a dark season to us all.