When I was very young, I had a lot of fun playing – often with my brother or cousins – in a small, trickling creek that ran behind my grandparents’ home in rural Illinois. I have gotten sentimental about this particular spot in the past with my mom and my bro, and they both were quick to correct my reference by saying, “you’re talking about the ditch!”
I prefer creek, thank you very much. There, we caught minnows and crawdads, and began and ended many adventures into the forest above their homestead. Many years later, I returned to Grandma’s one late night, and on a whim, I ventured out to the creek with a cassette recorder, to capture the sound of the water’s flow in that setting. I sat there and recorded for maybe a minute, and afterward, listening to those sounds while sitting in other places as my life moved on, I was really surprised at how I felt drawn into that special time and place, and how that added some interesting new facet to my life that day.
That’s the tale behind an idea I have come up with for a series of video shorts where I will share moments – maybe just 60 seconds – of stillness, with picture and ambient sound, from some of the more adventurous places I visit. I’m calling it “Rare Air,” and I’m presenting the first episode above. As time moves along, I anticipate sharing more of the experiences I’ve captured at the Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Rocky Mountain and Olympic National Parks, among others. I hope you’ll find something inspiring and perhaps somehow educational in these videos, and that some additional aspects of the world may find you through them. For new episodes, you can visit http://vimeo.com/channels/rareair – or stay tuned here.
