Hive of the Day #1937

I pass this building every day, a veritable science hive with individual cells, specialized compartments for each set of worker-researchers to culture their insight. From the street you can see their equipment, and the colossal science-keepers can peer in to see how everything is moving along. Each lab slides out like a drawer, you see, so that the science-keepers can harvest each batch of knowledge as it’s finished.

It’s very easy to feel small when you think about all the boxes you’re sitting in, and all the other humans skittering around you every moment.

small hands

Stop of the Day #1802

If time and weather fall together just right, I get to see the sky and skyline beautifully decorated on my rides from place to place. You can see the clouds here just starting to ignite, moments from bursting into flame as if moments from bursting into laughter, and Albany Hill is resting satisfied, content to sit and watch the sunset.

I like the look of traffic lights glowing from their silhouettes. It gives a distant, earnest smallness to their lamps, like someone calling out through a snowstorm. I had only a moment to capture this – once the lights turned, I had to get moving again.

So, let’s keep it moving.

you just know

Greenway of the Day #1767

I took only one photo today, a quick snapshot from my bike when the sky and grass and concrete pillars weaved together to strike a chord in me. This is a familiar setting by now; days are busy, and I spend most of my time treading the same paths. It’s not a bad thing – very much preferable to long idle months – but it does make it a little difficult to avoid redundancy in these photos.

Riding this path during summer means long shadows and glowing grass, and I feel a little more luminous just by association with the light here.

the only light we’ll see

Rush of the Day #1711

And to capture that dreamlike gait where you never quite meet the ground, where your legs move too slowly for your pace, find your balance and ride along a quiet street with your hands free. Let the pavement melt and flow like a creek beneath your ankles, and let yourself sway just enough to feel the alien centripetal tug that looms before a fall. Sift through the wind with your fingers, and perhaps pretend to fly.

Riding today my legs were electric, eager to grow weary, eager to be, and I came home tired but lucid. The lingering static charge in my limbs powered the rest of the evening.

It felt like a good day without any special reason, which is one of the best kinds of days.

little boy

Jitter of the Day #1703

I’m sorry to have only another mundane shot here, shaken by my bike trembling over root-torn pavement, but I’m still so hesitant to photograph people before I’ve grown to know them well.

Despite that, today was a rather good day, and for no particular reason I’m going to sleep feeling like things will go well presently.

like a mother’s morning dress

Flavor of the Day #1689

Wherever I’m living, at any given phase in my life, there are a few certain routes that I follow, day by day, and the more I do the deeper they’re carved into my experience of that time and place. Four years ago it was the BART ride from Berkeley to Daly City; following that it was the footpaths around UCSC, hills and trees and dirt paths through the woods that lead me to dinner; the next year it was the bus ride up the hill and the short walk down to the beach. Now I have my ten-minute walk to the campus, the forked path to Jacob’s and Mitch & Leyla’s, and the bike ride to Bridges, which starts with streets crowned with these green canopies.

I do take other paths and see other places, but these are the points of focus in my life, and the roads between them seem to form a frame that outlines everything I do. Many of my photos are taken on these routes, and they flavor my experiences almost as much as the places to which I’m traveling.

I’m rather fond of the trees in Berkeley – I haven’t seen many places with roads as vibrant and verdant as this.

’cause she sees her own reflection