One of My Last Deliveries

I just put my two weeks in. I've been selling lumber for about four and a half, five years, and I've got a new job in marketing starting soon. It's a good move and I know it's the right one, but I've been sitting in a strange headspace about it — reminiscing over everything, feeling pretty melancholic that a whole chapter is closing.

Part of that has been looking at everything a little differently. Places I've driven past a thousand times, I've started picturing in a different set of light.

They had me out driving a few more deliveries before I go. On September 4th I was headed out to Ridgefield, and I'm always scouting when I'm somewhere I don't know well — dropping pins on cool spots to come back to.

The first thing that caught my eye was a red barn, and honestly it was the big yellow school bus parked across the road from it that made me look twice. I remember thinking I had to come back out here. I just needed the right light.

Then I kept driving, and the whole area opened up — farmland everywhere, what I think were grape fields, and these rolling hills that looked almost Italian. It's genuinely beautiful out there. And then I passed a white barn and thought, oh, that one's pretty too. Which is funny, because I basically forgot about the red one after that.

The next day I had a Facebook listing to pick up — batteries for my Sony VHS Handycam — and it happened to be in downtown Ridgefield, which I'd never been to before. On the way out I looked at the sky and realized the conditions were about to be perfect. I was already going to be a couple minutes from that spot, so I timed it: grab the batteries, then get to the barn as golden hour started.

I got out there and struggled to find anywhere to park. I had my Sony DSC-W1 with me — an old camera my sister gave me — and my Insta360 Luna Ultra.

I was a little timid at first. You never really know what people think when someone's standing around outside their property holding a camera; it can look a bit creepy. But it's countryside out there, almost no cars going by, and my confidence built up as I went. If anyone had come out I would've just asked — hey, I'm a photographer, is it alright if I shoot the barn?

I spent a long time at the white barn working out which angles I wanted, partly because I had to kill time until the sun dropped anyway. So I stood there watching the clouds move across the sky, waiting for the moment the light hit the barn just right.

It's so quiet out there. No traffic at all — just birds, bugs flying around, a few bunnies pouncing through the grass. It was a really nice way to get away from everything. There's a lot going on in my life right now: leaving a company I genuinely liked working at but that never gave me a chance to move up, and stepping into something completely different that's still in the same field as my own business. It's been a lot to work through, and finding creative outlets is how I'm getting through it.

On the way home I didn't feel like going all the way back yet, so I stopped downtown and sat at the garden by the fort on Officers Row. I watched the clouds turn pink and purple and orange and red, and stayed until it was done. Then I called it and headed in. It was a good day.