The Inner Compulsion

 

What compels you? What calls out to you long before the dawn, waking you, calling you to rise and go! Greet the dawn! And how often do we heed this call, or roll over,bemoan and groan? Today, not having need to rise, there I stood, tripod before me in the fog and mosquito haven. The sun was toying behind clouds,making the compulsion seem a mockery. As a watcher, not only was I attempting to align the camera for the best composition, I was seeing the occurrences  taking place around me. I heard that white pickup truck cranking to my left by the farmhouse. Watched it pull into the road and come my way. Saw it pass as I waved. Over to my far right, I saw the Blue Caprice Classic with over sized rims, coast to a stop in the road. The truck, which was about to turn right, reversed and pulled to the left alongside the Caprice. It then  reversed again and continued on. Thinking it time I move on to a different location, my route took me past the Caprice. I slowed and saw the young black man standing beside the car, out of gas. The man in the pickup had no can or compulsion for help. And thus, in my compulsion of another order, I gained a friend, or in the least, the realization that not all white men in white trucks are void of compulsion. And thus we journeyed to the station and back, paying for the gas and lingering until the Caprice fired up and lumbered on. And so the photograph was one of those scheduled for deletion, one of myriads in this digital age. But, not the opportunity. For, as the photographs come and come and come so easily, rarely comes the time where a compulsion of a higher order comes. Today, they met upon a country lane. Thinking back, I could have done more. We always can. Heed the compulsion friends, they may not be grand and earth moving to us, but to another, it could simply be a mean of getting home..