Just an image and an explanation

Dr Essai’s amanuensis writes:

It’s like this. I was away with my wife on a four-day road trip to western Massachusetts, the Berkshires, one of our favorite places. All was lovely until I started feeling not so good on the drive home. Once we were home, a swab of my nose revealed the reason: I’m sick with covid-19.

So far, it’s not been a big deal, like having a bad cold, but it’s an inconvenience and saps my energy, so The Joggled Mind has been a bit dormant. But posting an image doesn’t require a lot of high cognitive functioning, so here you go.

The picture was made in Churchill, Manitoba. We were there several years ago in the fall, just before Hudson Bay freezes, which is the best time to go out on the tundra to photograph polar bears. They congregate near the shore as they wait for the bay to freeze; only on the ice can they hunt seals, their biggest food source.

I was walking around town one morning when I spotted some colorful playground equipment in an apartment development. Churchill on a grey, cold, snowy day is rather bleak, and I went toward the color with my camera. Walking across the playground, I looked down and found my picture.

I showed it to one of our drivers, who lived year-round in town. She said that was an expensive mistake on somebody's part, because prices are high in the north and that box of crayons probably set someone back about $30 dollars. I’ve always hoped a bereft child got Mom or Dad to go back out there and retrieve the dropped colors, which should have been useable after a bit of warming. The photographer in me was fascinated by how the crayons scattered in a chance spontaneous composition. Out of random forces, order and beauty.