The air feels as cold as the water probably is as it crashes over the little falls, mist everywhere, hanging. The sun finally abandons scenes like this, though low light filters through. Following the flow of the creek, I feel like I’m walking on the earth, part of it, like the moving water, the trees,…
It’s a cold day for driving. River Road winds along the Ohio on the Indiana side, through New Albany and on to the Horseshoe Casino, the power plant, the little ranch houses on stilts. The river looks cold and soft, smooth, slow, reluctantly reflecting light. At dusk, the winter world is mesmerizing.
Approaching the bridge into Indiana on a warm winter day, I am again struck by the structure of the thing, the joints and bolts, the idea of building high over the river. I think about the people decades ago sketching and erasing and probably smoking a lot. I think about the Yoko Ono album I’ve…
I feel like I have the whole fair to myself. Nothing’s open or running, but it’s the idea that I love — a little spectacle that moves from place to place on the backs of a few semis, ponies and all. I get to feel out of time here, and out of place.
After a few good days of rain, water flows into the Elkhorn from the eastern hills. The blissfully sedate creek swells up beyond all reason. Brown water surges over the little Great Crossing falls, splashing down into white swirls that give off tall sprays. When the water is high, danger and mystery loom around the…
I sneak in while everyone is still asleep. The midway is small—a few games of chance in the middle with low-lying rides to each side. At the end, though, by the barns, is the prize—the tall and graceful Ferris wheel with colored cages for seats. I walk around it as the sky lightens, looking up…
Backroads of Indiana through New Albany to I-64 through Louisville and on at dusk toward home, the sunset burning on the limestone and gray-green brush—as passenger, I can follow the light anywhere, would follow it . . . westward, somewhere, up into the trees. The road pulls on nights like this, and I let it…
I walk the path through the little forest all the time. The dogs criss-cross, proudly treeing squirrels. Cows graze just over the ridge. I am so close to this place I can change it with my mind, round bends to walnuts and elms lit up with blues from my eyes. Some days, when the wind…
“Get the furniture!” Chris says. The bonfire is wide and tall. Two guys head over to the side of the carriage house and grab the two-seated rocker, rustic, mountain made. It starts to twist apart as they carry it. “You sure?” “Don’t ask her!” The two swing the rocker back and then up over the…
It’s not easy to tell how cloudy it is fifteen minutes before sunrise. “Let’s give it a shot,” I say to Gina, and we’re off in her Element to catch the sun coming up over the pastures at Graham’s, where she keeps Maddie. I watch the sky the whole drive. Even before the top edge…
G Bebs / Photographs 