Winter's Heartbeat

Thanks to everyone for the stars, comments, and favorites on Thursday's Blip. It was indeed an enchanting morning, full of winter's beauties, including some wonderful winter light. Photo opportunities like that come along way too infrequently . . .

Friday was a different sort of day altogether. Gray and overcast, without much sun. I made a few short stops along Spring Creek on my way to work, checking out the ice formations and the reflections on the creek. On this day, it was quite a bit warmer, and no mist was rising.

I was photographing one of my favorite benches on the other side of the creek, and wishing the good light would come, when I noticed that the reflection of the tree to the right of the bench was doing some really cool and funky things on the water.

As the darkness of the tree moved and changed on the surface, in a somewhat regular, but not totally predictable fashion, I thought about the image - so like a tree, but not quite, more like the idea of a tree - as it formed, then unformed, then reformed on the water. And I suddenly realized how much it resembled a heartbeat. Winter's heartbeat, perhaps. A dark reflection on water, on a gray winter's day.

The song: The Partridge Family, I Can Feel Your Heartbeat. Cultural note: The Partridge Family was a TV program that was broadcast in the U.S. from 1970 to 1974. It was one of our family favorites - along with The Brady Bunch, from 1969 to 1974 - when I was little. Of course when I came up with the title for this Blip, this was the very first song that came to mind! Chris Rea does another song with nearly the same title (I Can Hear Your Heartbeat), that is totally different but quite nice, so I'm including a link to that one too.