Wet world

On Sunday, the forecast was for rain all the way into next week. Now it’s looking like we may have a chance for sun on the weekend. But on Sunday the outlook was bleak, and I decided to go for a beauty hunt.

My dissertation director used to teach about the three categories of landscapes: picturesque, beautiful, and sublime. Most of what I see falls into the first two categories. But I’m glad to find it.

I question our certainty when it comes to things like forecasts. In science, I’ve noticed that almost none of our experiments turn out the way they’re supposed to. In math last week, we rolled dice to learn about probability, and there too it didn’t turn out as predicted by the text. There’s a book called The Black Swan that examines such things. (No relation to the movie that’s out.) One of these days, maybe, I’ll read it. (I checked it out of the library once, but got distracted by something else.)

I do find a camera in the hand to be a powerful aid to vision. Yesterday, I photographed a bird in the evergreen out back, thinking it was a chickadee. The picture revealed a black body, white wing bars, and a streaked yellow breast — a magnolia warbler, as I learned after searching through the bird book. I’ve never seen one before. I didn’t know I was seeing one yesterday till the camera captured it for me. Same with a bright red bird that I thought was a cardinal, but that turned out to be a scarlet tanager.

I’ve never thought of raindrops as pretty either, but once photographed they become lovely in my eyes.

I still prefer sun. But I enjoyed finding evidence of color that defies the clouds. And I do enjoy the little surprises the camera helps me see.