New River Trail (10/10.2014)

On the way back from my trip all the way out west I decided to stop in Draper and take a short walk on the New River Trail.  The "short" walk turned out to be an hour and a half long, but it was just what the doctor ordered.  Granted I saw very little of the "Creeper" (see my post of two days ago), but the New River trail is still my favorite.  The Creeper took me 2 miles from downtown Abingdon and back.  So it was a bit of suburbia with some nice pasture land mixed in.  The New River Train from Draper starts in a very rural area, and before you know it you are outside the village in nature.  I am such a strong believer in Nature Deficit Disorder (I previously wrote about that and you can find more in the labels section of my blog).  However, yes it is either nature or sailing where I can clear my mind and think clearly.  Then coming home, I hear that my brother-in-law gave a lecture at Princeton where among other he talked about the philosopher Heidegger needing nature as well to think clearly.  Naturally no comparison here, but yes I need my nature fix.

Fall was gearing up in this area.  Leaves were starting to turn and seeds were ripening.  Birds were all over the seed heads along the trail.  The pictures below show the flowers of a New England Aster, a fall flower that has found a niche flowering this time of the year.  There is a photo of the fruit of a spice bush.  Spice bush is one of my my more favorite plants.  The leaves are very fragrant, and serve as host for many butterflies.  I harvested a few fruits to try to germinate and grow some plants here in my yard.

The bench is something I have done for years now, ever since I got into photography as a 16 or 17 year old.  Back then I represented a certain loneliness that felt after having been transplanted from a tropical island to the Netherlands at the age of 16.  At that time my parents decided to relocate after some 1960s riots on the island.  Here in the peak of puberty, having my first girlfriend, I found myself transplanted in a completely new surrounding.  I became the class clown, in the hope to get accepted and to be noticed in a high school class that had been together for a long time.  I was lonely and depressed back then and started taking pictures of empty park benches (the tears of a clown?).  But, it is something that has stuck with me, and even now (see even my New Kent picture from a while back), I enjoy taking pictures like that; although I do not consider myself lonely or depressed.  I'm happy and content, but it is something that I'll always be interested in.