Picket

Picket
By John R. Greenwood

This piece is about people not pickets. When I took this photograph early one Saturday morning it was the light that drew my attention. I knew at some point down the road I would be glad I took the time to capture its simplicity. Because blogging has become such a large part of my life I am always looking for interesting scenes or storylines. Mostly they show up on my doorstep. This one was there waiting to be uncovered. What I see in this picture is not a line of pickets but a group of people. They are you and me lined up and waiting for the next stage, the next step. Some of them bask in full sunlight. Some in the back corners wait for the sun (life) to shift and light their faces. In the course of the last several years I have been a picket in some stage of sunlight enjoying ever changing views on the world as it spins around me. In those years I have been through enormous difficulty and extraordinary happiness. Many times it was in the same week; sometimes in the same day, or even hour. That is what Raining Iguanas is about. It's about the sun in your face. It's about the sun on your back. It's about the people around you that spread that sunshine. It's about their stories and their lives as they intertwine with mine. It's about change. Raining Iguanas is a sense of relationships as they affect you. I hope as people read and join in they spread that affect on to others. I have seen it happening over and over already. There is no greater joy than to have someone relate to something you've written. To hear the words, "Your story reminded me of..." is a wonderful experience that gives joy far beyond the accolades of dollars and cents. It can be the rainiest, gloomiest day and I can stumble upon someone writing about how much they enjoyed spending the day in the woods or on a riverbank. The ability to grab sunshine whenever we need it is why I love the cyber-world. Yes, it has it's tragic and horrific side, but we have choices. We can choose to live on that set of tracks or we can change trains. Pickets and people are similar. We gain strength in numbers. From a distance we all look the the same. When you look close or from an angle we begin to change in appearance. We may be starting to peel and weather a little more than our neighbor. We might have a better view of the forrest from where we stand. We might be the pickets chosen to be photographed and sent flying through space to the far reaches of the world via the internet. Whichever picket you are or whatever stage of life you're at stick together with the picket next to you. Stand tall and look straight ahead. You won't have to wait long, the sun comes back every twenty-four hours. Leave the sunglasses home.