Friday Photo Shootout - Doors and Windows

As I suspected, today turned out to be a rush. I remembered - just before 5 p.m. - that I needed to get out-of-province medical insurance before I leave for Washington, and I didn't dare leave that task to tomorrow, lest I forget and find myself uninsured for five days. (I think Murphy was an optimist, so I don't set foot across the border without insurance).

Insurance in hand, I went to the bus station and bought my ticket, so that I don't have to stand in line tomorrow. I'm leaning toward catching the 10:30 a.m. bus after all. I'll just go to the station very early and get into line, book* and knitting at hand.

As for the shootout, I made an executive decision. I photographed only doorways and windows that I have walked (or looked) through. Nanaimo is not known for its spectacular architecture - we depend on nature for local splendour - so I am presenting, instead, places that have fond associations for me.

First of all, there's the ferry. As an islander, I generally rely on the ferry for transportation to the mainland. This is a photo of the recently renovated terminal at Departure Bay. The Departure Bay ferry sails to Horseshoe Bay, just north of Vancouver.

Next, I visited the offices of Shaw Cable, who provide me with both cable television service and, more importantly, internet service. Their facade is very high-tech and glossy.

When I left Shaw Cable, I drove right by one of my favourite doorways. This is the Bailey Theatre, our community theatre.


I hadn't intended to photograph the Bailey, but this caught my eye as I was going by. Cool. The new theatre season is about to start.


The last doorway I will show you is one that I'm afraid I use more often than any other.
There you go. The doors and windows of Nanaimo. This assignment was suggested by Kerri. For more Friday Photo Shootout posts, go here - or click on the camera in my sidebar.

*The book I'll be carrying is How to Read a Poem...and Start a Poetry Circle, by Molly Peacock. I'm loving it. As a matter of fact, I'm going to blog about it - but not tonight.

Interesting times -

Tonight, I'm fighting a severe case of sleepiness. That's unfortunate, because even before the sun went down, when I should have been out walking - and photographing doors and windows for tomorrow's Friday Photo Shootout - I was here. Right here. In my chair. Reading posts. Reading comments. Yawning. The yawning had nothing to do with what I was reading. I'm just kinda toast.

So it will be another of those Friday Photo Shootouts, the last-minute dash across town, the furious clicking of the camera, the impatient uploading of photos to The Turtle. I think I must thrive on stress. I certainly "organize" my life in such a way as to produce it.

Years ago, a university professor of my acquaintance said "Students who say they work best under stress have never tried it any other way." I have tried, from time to time, to take her words to heart, but my efforts at organization are short-lived. I am just about ready to declare this state of dishevelment in which I live to be the essence of me.

Of course, given all of the above, I have arranged to visit friends on the Olympic Peninsula this weekend. On Saturday, I will catch a bus here in Nanaimo, which will leave me in Victoria in time to catch the Coho (ferry) to Port Angeles, whence my friends will pick me up. We will go to their home in Port Townsend, and I will stay there until Wednesday, when they will drop me off at the ferry and I will sail back to Victoria. Robin says he will drive down to Victoria on Wednesday to meet me, so at least I won't have two bus trips to make.

All that may sound well organized, but think about it. I'm going to travel by public transport on Labour Day Weekend. Omigod. I have seen the line-ups at the bus station on long weekends, and this is the weekend before school starts. Prime Time for bus trips. In order to pull this off, I think I'll have to catch the earliest bus to Victoria - before the students have gotten up and trudged down to the depot. So what if I have a few hours to hang around in Victoria? I'll bet there's a consignment shop somewhere downtown, and I know for a fact that there's a lovely rose garden.

Never mind. I have a whole day before I must brave the dreaded bus, and in the meantime there's Friday Photo Shootout to be enjoyed - and I do enjoy it, even though I always rush through it.

Theme Thursday: Beginning

Once upon a time, there was a lady named Liza, who carried her camera wherever she went. Her photographs were a joy to behold. Liza shared her photos with her friends at Theme Thursday. In the fullness of time, the Theme Thursday folks asked her to suggest a theme. Liza spoke right up. "Beginning," she said. "Let's talk about beginning." And there it was - the beginning of this week's assignment.

No matter how hard I try to think of beginning as a verb, it keeps turning into a noun.

I know, I know. "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas."

"I'm beginning as I intend to go on."

Of course beginning can be a verb (or even an adjective). It just feels like a noun, so I'm going to treat it (mostly) as a noun.

The image I've chosen (source here) illustrates one beginning, the beginning of a human life (well, close to the beginning). It's a time of joy and a time of hope, a fresh start - and it's the beginning of something else - a relationship between the child and her parents. This relationship grows from another relationship, that between the child's mother and father. In fact, it's hard to find the beginning of this story, because each life is connected to other lives, and something new, some new relationship, is always beginning. The child relates to her parents, then to siblings, aunts and uncles, grandparents. Then she goes to school and begins her education. She also encounters other children. Some of those encounters will be the beginning of lifelong relationships.

At some point, the child, now beginning her life as an adult, might meet someone with whom she will begin a love relationship, and perhaps she will bear a child. Then the story will begin again, with a new baby, a new complex of relationships, on and on, ad infinitum.

But no. Life isn't just about beginnings. It is about endings, as well. Each beginning carries within it the seed of an ending. I am reminded of something T.S. Eliot wrote in Four Quartets 4: Little Gidding (online source here)
"....

V

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and [sic] end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments...."

When I started thinking about this post, I immediately developed an earworm - Art Garfunkel's "All I Know". It is such a lovely song, I didn't even mind, and it seems like a fitting end to this little post about beginnings - and endings.