Patience, location and location

There's a saying in real estate: the three most important factors in selling a house are location, location, location.  It holds true for photography, too.  In the more obvious sense -- if I didn't live where I live, I'd never have been able to get this shot.

But -- thanks to the teacher who explained to me that a REAL photographer doesn't TAKE pictures, she MAKES pictures -- there's also the whole issue of where you position yourself when you're taking the shot.  In this case, I saw the eagle from an upstairs window, but I snuck downstairs and crouched behind a canoe.  And this, of course, is one of several shots -- mostly just the eagle, but I watched for that pesky crow to move into position.  So patience is another ingredient...

Which is true for just about everything, isn't it!  "All things come to those who wait," we're told, but who has the patience to wait anymore?  This isn't just a new phenomenon: I remember thinking my mother was the most impatient person I've ever met --  I even wrote a poem about it in college:

I'd always planned to follow her unexample--
Patience, I thought, must be
(if not the greatest)
at least the most attractive virtue:
I steeled myself to wait in lines
I caged my words,
lest they devour your sentences half-spoken.
But now, I find, I am my mother's daughter --
I cannot wait for you to reach for me.
I touch you first, and then draw back,
ashamed.
That tension which leaves you stronger for the going
makes me weak.
If I were truly patient,
I'd never need to make these resolutions...

Apparently even then I could see: the things I find distasteful are so often things I struggle with myself. And looking at this poem now, from the perspective of age and experience, I see that my reluctance to face and accept my own impatience condemned me to stay in what was essentially an abusive relationship far longer than I should have.  Live and learn, I guess!