After a quick trip to Kansas last weekend to partake of the annual autumn Arkalalah Festival and to celebrate an aunt’s milestone birthday, I came back with a cold. I muddled through Monday. I coughed through the work day today.

Still, caught in my constant war to try and figure out how to use a DSLR camera, I decided last evening while driving home from work and seeing bulbs of yellow and brown and orange among the trees by the Rio Grande that I would go to the bosque somewhere after work today, weather willing.

My decision took me south, to the Valle del Oro in the South Valley, where I wondered if I would see birds in the fields there, or colourful cottonwoods by the river.

The colorful trees were still there, though many were browned and losing leaves due to recent cold weather.

The birds were not there, except for a few on the river itself when I got through the trees and shrub to the water. But as the sun dropped behind the horizon, they came, wave after wave of cranes in clumsy chevrons, chatting away at the coming night.

I went to the bosque largely to look for color, and to try and figure out how to take better pictures out of Automatic mode. But I also went to walk. And to think. And to breathe some clean air. And to burn off some restlessness.

This place in life I am in is challenging. I don’t understand it, mostly- why I feel at times marked to be alone. Why I can’t seem to seize onto what it feels like to be an adult. What changes I can and must make to become a better person, a more responsible adult, a happier man.

Some adventurous soul made this craft for river travel. I wonder if it worked, and if it took them very far.

And of course, that question comes up at times still: what does this mean, to be a man. At 51, the question still chides me.

The cold stayed mellow enough to let me hang by the river until the cranes came up for the night. A sliver moon rose in the west. I enjoyed the stillness and glowing trees fading into the gray.

The river and the vivid tree leaves and the squawking birds gave me some peace, so I came home quieted for another night.