Just about every day I walk a three-mile loop near our home. Sometimes I mutter to myself along the way. Muttering seems to be an art form that comes with a certain age. When I was thirty I rarely muttered. Now I mutter daily along the daily walk. The scary thing is that I often fail to notice people as they pass. Muttering aloud is hardly accepted social practice in suburbia.

Lately I've been muttering about my boring predictability. "Same walk, every day," I've been known to say to the ducks in the local park. They look to me for food, not conversation. Once they see no stale bread on my person they walk away. Sometimes the females will pose for a picture. The males never do. Some things are universal.

The odd thing about the daily walk is that I always find new things to photograph. The light is always different, the birds come and go. The people are always interesting, often in their own world as they pass by me. Regardless of what I say to myself, it's not the same walk every day. It is the same path but always a different experience.

So, I think I'll try posting an image a day from these walks to see how it might hold together as a work of art. Many of us, I believe, disdain the quotidian nature of our life. We dream of exotic places and people, think of where we might be other than where we are. Maybe everything we want or need is right here at this moment.

I doubt that I'll stop muttering any time soon. So be it. But, I am going to try to change the tone of, "Same walk, every day!" from that of complaining to a way of giving thanks and gratitude. It's all in the way we say things. Even to ourselves.

Posted is today's image, just a simple image of the daily path. The light is still golden from the surrounding fires.

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The Same Path