Three Beautiful Things 10/20/16: Lilies In Bloom, Unexpected Conversation, Photographs and Fiction

1. I hopped in the Sube and rambled down the Baltimore-Washington Parkway to the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens to meander around and see what the ponds and the dying lotus leaves look like in mid-October and to see if any waterfowl or turtles might be basking in the sun. I didn't see any animals, although I heard several turtle splashes and I was actually astonished by one pond, the only pond, with lilies still blooming. Scroll down if you'd like to see pictures.

2. As I was leaving, Hoang, who works at the visitor center, was sitting on the porch and asked if she could see my pictures and I showed her my shots and then we talked for at least an hour about writing -- I read an excerpt of a book Hoang is working on and told her a bit about this blog. We also talked about a variety of other things ranging from international travel to Bob Dylan to Shakespeare and many points around and in between.

3.  Separate from each other, Dan and Nini wrote emails to me about the bike picture I took in color in Savannah and I wrote back to them about how I didn't know what the factual truth of that picture is, but I enjoyed that the one in color, and another one of the same subject in black and white, told so many possible stories, primarily centered around the bike and the sketch of the woman attached to the bike.  The power of the pictures really has little to do with the facts -- that's the power of fiction -- and my guess is that we experience photographs much more as fiction, in the best possible sense of the word, than we do as fact, as we create stories in our minds about what's happening in a picture.

Here are the bicycle pictures. When I took them, I thought they were portraits of the woman in the pictures and it's been fun to have these email conversations about the bicycle and the sketch.

After the bike pictures, I'll post some pictures from the aquatic gardens.

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