My cell-phone buzzed -- it was my wife, calling to say that she'd seen what appeared to be a movie shoot at a cemetery northwest of here. I quickly gathered my photo gear and headed in that direction.
Sure enough, the old graveyard was playing host to a cinema set. The crew, which had been working there since late yesterday afternoon, was wrapping its last pickups -- nothing more for me to see, really, so I wandered among the monuments in the pre-dawn chill, casting about for subjects flattered by the low-angle light.
It wasn't long before fussing with my tripod's ice-cold legs had my hands aching. I packed up and started driving back toward home.On a whim, I decided to swing by a local wildlife refuge, a modest metro park known for the variety of birds attracted to its 1,600 acres of ponds, marshes and woodland. It turned out to be a good call.
As I approached the edge of the main pond, the sun was rising above the treetops and a faint layer of mist hung over the glassy surface. Chevrons of geese passed overhead, honking, a few splooshing gracefully into the water in front of me. Grackles grumbled in a leafless tree nearby. A half-dozen puffed-up robins hopped around my feet.Kneeling there in the frosty marsh grass, I was the only human soul in the park. It was blessedly quiet. If not for contrails crisscrossing the rose-and-blue sky, it would've been easy enough to convince me that I was a hundred miles from nowhere, a hundred years ago.
A few minutes past sunup on a brisk Sunday morning, close to home, I'd found a peaceful place to rest -- if only for a little while.
