The Part Where I Just Showed Up

April twenty-ninth. I did not register. I want to be clear about that. I photographed the handwritten card on the community center bulletin board the Tuesday after climbing, thought about it a couple of times in the abstract way you think about things you photograph without deciding, and then Saturday morning arrived and I was already dressed and I walked to the park.

There were maybe nine or ten people. A naturalist named, I think, Margaret, though I only caught it once and didn't ask again. She had a specific, quiet way of crouching down and pointing at things close to the ground, and the group would bunch up and lean in, and then she'd stand and we'd move on. I was near the back the whole time. That was fine. That was, actually, the right place to be.

I've been thinking about what the Carol post stirred up, about beginning as something you inherit, about the practice rather than the product. And this morning felt continuous with that somehow, though I can't entirely explain the thread. I didn't take many notes. I looked at what she pointed at. At some point I crouched down too, and someone I didn't know crouched beside me, and neither of us said anything.

She said something about the roots. I didn't catch all of it.

The decision was made before I made it, which is the only way I can describe it. The flyer photograph was the decision. Saturday morning was just the follow-through. I don't know if I'll go again, they run them monthly, Margaret said, through October. I didn't write it down. But I took a picture of myself on the path, mostly to prove that I was there, which felt honest.