By Mario Quintana
Everything changes when you have children. Your paradigm shifts, and you look at everything around you from a parent’s reference point. The cycles of life clarify, and progressions you never associated with the passing of time take on a different meaning.
So it was when I started taking pictures of Patrick Marsh. I began to see the seasons there differently. I saw them as stages of life, because I was watching my children go through those same stages, and my wife and I, plus my elderly father completed the cycle. 
Spring begins the rollick of early youth. It begins as a gentle sprouting and flowering, with lively yellow greens and pastel flower colors. It signals the beginning of life, and life renewed, with bird eggs and bird songs and gentle winds and warmth heralding a louder stage. The storms and the rains bring more growth. Spring is the very personification of babyhood.
Summer is an explosion of growth and color. It blusters and blows. Greens become intense. Flowers pop up everywhere. Everything comes out and makes noise. Storms grow in intensity. The lake is full. The tall grass almost takes over the trails. It is toddlerhood into adolescence into the teenage years.
Fall brings color and maturity. The grass begins
to wither. Temperatures moderate. There is still plenty of vitality,
but the chaotic ebullience of summer has matured into fall’s reserve. It is a time of procreation for plants – of
the production of seed, and of the sending out of new generation.
It is middle age. It is where I am now.
 Winter is not so much cold, as it is quiet and peaceful. Life sleeps under a blanket. The forest has aged, and is slow and wise, and seeks to rest. It keeps its secrets well hidden, and seldom complains. The marsh has a monochromatic beauty that is no less lovely than the open wildness of summer, or the colorful maturity of fall. I see my father in it. It is what I want to be when I grow old.
My children will grow and change. My father will pass on. In the changing seasons of the Marsh, I see the stages of my life and theirs, and am reminded of the fond times in my life.
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